The pitchfork revolution

JC [John Curry]: When this statement was offered by Samuel to Saul it wasn't a book of the bible at all. It was presumably spoken first, then written perhaps years later.

SH [Steve Hays]: This flawlessly illustrates the problem of acontextual exegesis.

i) The explanation in 1 Sam 15:2 would be unintelligible apart from a historical knowledge of the event alluded to.

The record of that event, as well as the oracle of judgment, is to be found in the Pentateuch.

So the statement cannot be understood apart from its canonical context.

That includes the Pentateuch.

But between the Pentateuch and 1-2 Samuel (originally one book) are other historical books of the Bible narrating a continuous history up to that point.

ii) The prophet Samuel’s statement is recorded in a book. The book operates at two levels. There’s the historical level of the original events and speeches. And there’s also the narrative level of the authorial viewpoint, after the fact.

The author of 1-2 Samuel is writing with a target audience in mind.

JC: This is the tack taken by Christians. You offer reasons for the executions. None appear anything like the reason actually offered in Scripture. Why do you want to invent other reasons beyond what is in the text? Is it because you can see that the reason offered is evil? I think you can see that this is evil. Because it is wrong to kill someone because of the sins of his long dead ancestors. Do you agree?

SH: It’s not a question of what I’m adding, but what your brother left out.

i) I’m framing my response the way he framed the original challenge. This is how your brother put it:

“Samuel claims that God wants the Israelites to kill every man, woman, child, infant, cattle, etc. That in itself may not be wrong, however note the motive that Samuel attributes to God. This attack is punishment for crimes committed over 300 year prior. The sentence is carried out on infants and nursing mothers who cannot have taken part in the act that caused the judgment.”

ii) I’ve drawn attention to the intervening history, as well as the subsequent history, because your brother was the one who left out the intervening history and subsequent history.

All I’ve done is to rectify his omission. I responded to him on his own level.

iii) Your brother is acting as if Samuel’s statement was made in a historical vacuum. If that were the case, it would be unintelligible.

How does your brother know that this verse is alluding to an event which occurred 300 years earlier? Can he find that information in the verse itself? No.

You see, in order for you and your brother to make a case, both of you must also “go beyond what is in the text.” Your brother’s chronology is not based on 1 Sam 15:2 alone, but on the relation between 1 Samuel and the Pentateuch.

iv) This illustrates the illusion of presuppositionless exegesis. You and your brother imagine that you two are sticking to the words of the text while Gene and I are adding to the text.

No, both sides are construing the text in its canonical context.

The only difference is that Gene and I are not as artificially selective as you and your brother are.

v) I could limit myself to the rationale given in 1 Sam 15:2. I accept the principle of corporate responsibility.

The reason I didn’t limit myself to that rationale is because your brother framed the issue is a misleading way, and so I corrected his deceptive framework.

JC: Saul is not reading. He's listening.

SH: This misses the point in several respects:

i) Even Saul would be unable to grasp the historical allusion without a historical knowledge of the event in question.

This is both a historical allusion and a literary allusion. The source of the historical information is the literary record of the Pentateuch.

ii) 1-2 Samuel are addressed to a Jewish audience. They would bring a cultural preunderstanding to the text.

iii) You and your brother are also assuming the role of readers.

JC: What do you mean by this?

SH: I already discussed the conditionality of oracles of judgment. Cf. Jer 18:7-10.

God could exact judgment without announcing judgment beforehand. The point of an oracle of judgment is give the offending party a forewarning of judgment to come, which, in turn, gives the offending party an opportunity to repent and avert the impending judgment.

That’s a presupposition underlying oracles of judgment.

JC: That is apparent. But I think Samuel is a wicked individual.

SH: Now that you’ve offered your personal opinion, how would you propose to justify your value-judgment?

JC: You are not interacting with the point I've made. Obviously the text doesn't say that it is wrong to kill nursing babies because of the sins of their long dead ancestors. What Bill does is he reads the text in context and talks about the reasons for the execution given by God via Samuel.

SH: So you go beyond the immediate text to construe the text in light of the larger context.

Welcome to the club. That’s what Gene and I are doing as well.

JC: His appeal to J.P. Moreland then demonstrates that the motives that attach to an action determine whether it is moral or immoral, and further that this particular motive attributed to God would make the action immoral.

SH: That’s an inadequate basis for moral valuation. Motives are a necessary, but insufficient, condition of moral valuation. Other considerations are equally germane.

For example, the guilt or innocence of the recipient of the action is also germane to the justice or injustice of the action.

JC: As he explained he knows it through particularism.

SH: Beyond the above-stated inadequacy:

i) This also assumes that particularism is sufficient for the knowledge of right and wrong even after the truth-conditions of moral realism have been withdrawn.

You can’t answer the epistemic question in the affirmative until you address the metaphysical question of whether there is a right or wrong to be known in the first place.

What makes something right or wrong? What metaphysical conditions must be met for moral truths to exist?

ii) And that’s just the first step. Even if you came up with a well-founded system of secular ethics, the next step would be to show that human beings, as defined by secular science, are property-bearers of right and wrong attitudes and actions.

In other words, even if, from a secular standpoint, there’s such a thing as right and wrong, this doesn’t mean that human beings have rights or can be wronged.

A secular ethicist not only needs to establish a system of secular ethics, but he must also establish that his secular value system is applicable to human beings as human nature is also defined by secularism.

Secular ethics and the secular anthropology nature must coincide.

For example, Peter Singer regards infanticide as licit rather than illicit.

So, if we were to judge 1 Sam 15:2 by the yardstick of a secular ethicist like Singer, then it would not be an evil action.

JC: Moreland is not assuming theism in his argument.

SH: He may not be assuming theism at that stage of his argument, but according to your bother’s summary of the lecture, Moreland “goes on to make the case that a ‘Divine Law Giver’ makes the most sense of morality and moral knowledge.”

So Moreland’s lecture is an exercise in natural law theorizing, which is a subdivision of natural theology.

You unbelievers keep showing up at the battlefield in your underwear. You act as if you can wing it and learn on the job.

But if you’re going to go up against Christianity, then you need to be conversant with exegetical theology, historical theology, moral theology, natural theology, philosophical theology, polemical theology, and systematic theology, as well as working out you own worldview on such elementary issues as metaethics, metaphysics, metascience, and epistemology.

As it stands, you keep getting slaughtered because you don’t know either side of the debate. It takes more than pitchforks and attitude to get the job done.

When the gunfire begins, you unbelievers reach for your holsters and find them empty. You slap your forehead and exclaim: “Guns! We forgot the guns!”

The surviving half of your battalion skedaddle back to base, and return well-armed.

But when you pull the trigger, nothing happens. You slap your forehead and exclaim: “Bullets! We forgot the bullets!”

The surviving quarter of your battalion skedaddle back to base and return with ammo.

But as you’re loading your guns, your comrades are dropping like flies. You slap your forehead and exclaim: “Helmets! Flack-jackets! We forgot our armor!”

The surviving eighth of your battalion skedaddle back to base and return well-armored.

When you come under aerial bombardment, and look for cover, you slap your forehead and exclaim: “Maps! We forgot the maps!”

The surviving one-sixteenth of your battalion…

I’m sorry, John, but debating with the Debunkers is too much like a turkey shoot to feel very sporting.

If time and again you’re caught up short, then your negative assessment of Christianity was intellectually premature in the extreme.

If every time I debate one of the Debunkers I’m having to tutor the Debunker on both sides of the argument, then the Debunker is in no position to render an informed judgment against the Christian faith.

You guys need to step back several paces, take a deep breath, and seriously reconsider the miniscule data-base on which you decided to jettison the faith.