Of god and Men

Recently Reppert pointed out that he wouldn't make a good Calvinist. I suspect that if he reads the Old Testament he'd find that he wouldn't have made a good Israelite either. I can just image Reppert plugging his ears shouting "lalalalalalala" while running out of temple after the priest read that part about singing and cheering the destruction of enemies, as well as happiness resulting from smashing little ones against the rocks.

Though Reppert showed he couldn't hit Calvinism with his pea shooter--due to his odd belief that Calvinists think we will tour hell and gaze at the hellions as one would gaze at animals on a zoo tour, perhaps even taking pictures--he did show that he doesn't like much of the OT. In fact, God doesn't seem very "wuving" in the OT. Indeed, if that word has any faint meaning at all (I speak as a Reppertian now), then what God did and said to do in the Old Testament makes a mockery of that word. Thus, Reppert's argument from "language" commits him to presuppositional tension, or, more consistently, a denial of inerrancy.

But he still has to put on airs. He has yet to come clean and deny inerrancy, omniscience, and hell. Those beliefs just cause him so much trouble for his made-over god, though. It's doggone hard to do PR for the God of traditional Christianity. However, give God a make-over, and it will be possible to get a few people to give in and admit that god's not that bad of a guy after all; what, after you remove all things that offend us humans. Sartre couldn't bear the thought of an omniscient God. So to make God more palatable to Sartre, apologize up and down about those "fundies" who claimed God was omniscient. Then perhaps Sartre will throw god a nod. And that will make god happy. And god just wants to be happy. He's okay, I'm okay, we're all okay.

As an example of the trouble Reppert gets into by not coming clean and showing people where you have to go to really beat Calvinism, let's look at some of his beliefs on hell along with some conjunctions.

Hell, for Reppert, is embarrassing. However, when putting on airs, you have to make do with what you've got. So, hell is rehabilitative for Reppert. It has that good purpose. God still desires those "poor unfortunate souls" to come to him. He engages in an action to a specific end. His action of putting people in hell is a means to an end: their rehabilitation. He hopes the fires of hell will set them aright and that they will just admit that god's way is better, then we'll have at-one-ment. Both parties will be . . . happy. Unfortunately, some may never come. But it's their own choice. Hell is locked from the inside, you see. God is willing, at any moment, to receive the residents of hell into his loving arms. They only need to answer, "You", to the question, "Who's yer daddy." Then we can have a hugfest. It all brings a tear to the eye and warms the cockles of the heart; heck, perhaps even the subcockles.

Now, Reppert also puts on airs about traditional omniscience. So, we have a God who knows the future libertarian free actions of his creatures. This means he knows those sinners who will never repent in hell.

Now, let's briefly look at means-end rationality. This applies to actions. One does an action that he thinks, or has reason to believe, will achieve a certain end. Saving money for retirement is means-end rational. Doing leg squats and injecting steroids into your quads so that you can do a standing broad jump to the moon, is not. You know it will never happen. It's an end you can't achieve. One can't do a means-end rational action when he believes, let alone knows, his actions will not meet that end.

So, putting this all together, Reppert gives us a god who is means-end irrational. His belief in a hell that is rehabilitative, together with omniscience and plausible assumptions about means-end rationality, produces a god who is means-end irrational. He's engaged in an action that he knows his means won't achieve his ends. But hey, at least he's nice. So was Lenny from Of Mice and Men. "Tell meh about hell, George. Tell meh about how I's get to tend dem sinners so we all kin live off da fatta the lan. Tell meh, George. I wanna pet 'em and hug 'em and wuv 'em."

Or, a more nefarious conclusion might be, Reppert's conception of god would make god an insane being. Some definitions of insanity say that insainity is doing the same thing over and over again yet expecting different results. The up-shot is that if this god is not insane then he does expects different results. The downside that remains is that if this god is omniscient, then he's means end irrational.