The Mulberry bush

Perry Robinson has done a detailed post in reply to something I wrote. He has also done a shorter post on John Piper. For now I’ll comment on his Piper post since that’s let’s time-consuming to respond to:

http://energeticprocession.wordpress.com/2009/08/22/round-and-round-the-mulberry-bush/

Before we delve into the details, I’ll make a preliminary observation. Piper is a preacher and Bible scholar, not a philosopher or philosophical theologian. It’s possible that Piper is conflating two distinct ideas. That he’s not quite sorted these out in his own mind.

(I don’t say that for a fact. But when we interpret his statement, we should take that into consideration.)

And, in that vein, it’s possible to conflate two distinct ideas, one of which may be acceptable while the other may be unacceptable. Take the following ideas:

i) God is incomplete without the world. He needs the world.

ii) The existence of evil is necessary to manifest all of God’s attributes to and for the elect.

An objection to (i) doesn’t count as an objection to (ii).

While (i) is unacceptable, (ii) is perfectly acceptable. It’s clear that Piper affirms (ii), but unclear if he affirms (i).

Now to the specifics:

“I suppose the appropriate set of questions for Piper would be the following. Is creation necessary in order for God to be Lord?”

Depends on how you define your terms. If you define “Lordship” as an economic role involving a relationship between a superior and a subordinate, then it would be necessary for God to make creatures for that relation to obtain. That doesn’t imply some metaphysical deficiency in God. It’s just a logical precondition. You can’t have the relation without the relata.

“Is the Son subodinate in essence in order for the Father to be Father and Lord over someone, lest God’s attribute of being Lord go unrealized? “

Where is that implicit in the passage he quoted from Piper?

“Is it any wonder that modern Arianism (Unitarianism) came out of theology like this?”
That prejudges the answer to the question he just posed.

“It doesn’t seem to dawn on Piper that he is now advocating a kind of daulism with the good dependent on the evil.”

There are some obvious ways in which good can be dependent on evil. Take second-order goods. A devoted daughter who cares for her bedridden mother. Her mother’s diminished condition is an evil which occasions a type of goodness that presupposes that evil.

“What relation has God with the devil?”

Well, God created Lucifer. Created him knowing that he would fall. Presumably, God had a reason for creating Lucifer despite that foreseeable outcome.

How do Perry’s facile potshots represents a serious engagement of the issues?

“Piper seems to think plenty.”

Maybe Piper has read the Book of Job.

“He has fully imbibed it seems the Hellenistic view that morality is dialetically conditioned, good has an opposite. (And people charge that Orthodoxy is baptized Platonism!”

This is classic Perry-speak. Use something your opponent says as a pretext to attack something your opponent never said–which gives you an excuse to change the subject and segue into what you really want to debate.

“Where Mr. Piper is this stuff stated in Scripture? So much for Sola Scriptura! ).”

Scripture has quite a lot to say about the utilitarian value of evil in the overruling providence of God (e.g. Ps 130:4; Lk 7:47; Jn 9:3,39; Rom 9:22-23; 11:32; Gal 3:22; Rev 11:13).

“I suppose the devil must be eternal now in order for God to be God too?!”

Once again, does Perry think these snide little comments represent a serious engagement of the issues?

“This is the best world when God could have achieved the same result without sin? Really? Why not create everyone predestined to perfection without sin?”

Several issues:

i) A Reformed theodicy doesn’t turn on the identification of this world as the best world. It’s sufficient that different possible worlds exemplify incommensurable goods.

ii) He couldn’t achieve the same result apart from sin. An experience of God’s deliverance is unobtainable apart from a prior experience of bondage.

Yes, he could predestine everyone to perfection apart from sin–and, in fact, he’s exemplified that possibility in the case of the elect angels. But that’s a different experience. Good, but different. And, from a Biblical perspective, it is a greater thing to be a forgiven sinner than be a sinless creature.

iii) From Perry’s standpoint, why did God create sinners at all? Why not confine his creative deed to the subset of human beings who freely choose the good?

“His statements still seem to indicate that apart from sin, God’s righteousness and hatred of sin wouldn’t be capable of being manifested.”

How else would it be manifested? CGI?

“The highest happiness of the creature doesn’t require sin as a contrast since the good is incomparable in the first place.”

“Incomparable” to what?

“And second is just what it is evil or no evil.”

Goodness is not simply an object we admire from afar. Something outside of us. There is the personal experience of good and evil.