“VR: I hope that we can avoid interpreting the Bible as saying something that absurd.”
http://dangerousidea.blogspot.com/2009/08/victor-reppert-said.html
So, according to Reppert, we don’t actually need to exegete the Bible. To employ the grammatico-historical method.
Instead, our interpretation is dictated by what we think is absurd or not.
Notice that Reppert isn’t asking whether a given interpretation is absurd to the author. He isn’t asking if this interpretation is absurd from Paul’s point of view.
No. For Reppert, all that counts is what is absurd or not to a reader. Absurd from Reppert’s viewpoint.
How is it possible to even have a rational dialogue with someone who has such a childish outlook on hermeneutics?
If that’s his standard, then how is his interpretation of Scripture any better than Mary Baker Eddy’s? Or Sun Myung Moon’s?
“Are we being told that Almighty God, in dealing with those who have voluntarily submitted their wills to Him, has to have damned souls in existence so that the blessed can appreciate the graciousness of their salvation?”
Why not? To take a mundane example, you have somebody who takes life for granted. One day he’s running late to catch a plane. Because he’s late, he misses his flight. Then, as he’s walking back to the parking garage, he sees the plane burst into flames in mid-air.
In light of this narrow escape, he reevaluates his life. He suddenly comes to appreciate the preciousness of every day on earth.
“If such a claim were biblical, it would be a case against inerrancy.”
When you reject the inerrancy of Scripture, it’s not as if that move merely undercuts Calvinism. It also undercuts any theological tradition which claims to derive its theology from divine revelation.
Absent divine revelation, what basis is there for Reppert to believe in a loving God? What basis is there for Reppert to believe in universalism?
"You were like a firebrand snatched from the flames" (Amos 4:11).
Hello Steve,
ReplyDelete...we don’t actually need to exegete the Bible. To employ the grammatico-historical method.
It would be exemplary if Calvinists did this consequently in their exegetical works themselves. I'm not Victor Reppert's advocate here, but the doctrines of grace are not derived by these sound methods either, which you say are so important.
As an example I recall the reformed gymnastics that discover 3 of the doctrines of grace in the John 6,37-44 passage! I guess that establishes the record of finding things in a text that just aren't there. (In fact, I challenge anyone to debate the reformed interpretation of that passage!)
Instead, our interpretation is dictated by what we think is absurd or not.
"Come let us reason together says the Lord" in Isaiah 1,18. Hermeneutics is the art of rightly dividing the word. And reason is not an obstacle to hermeneutics, but its basis. But you're right if you say one might personally deem something absurd due to personal opinion. However, this doesn't outweigh the severe distortions of the holy scriptures originating in the reformed camp -- equal standards for all, please!
-a helmet
I think if I debated myself it would be a more worthwhile debate than debating a helmet.
ReplyDeleteSteve: You just don't get it. You just don't get it. What I presented was an *argument* against the claim that the argument from appreciation explains why God reprobates some people. A reductio ad absurdum as it were. I elaborated the argument in a comment in response to Bnonn, but let we spell it out here.
ReplyDelete1) If Calvinism is true, then God can, by his sovereign will, determine whether there will be reprobates or whether universalism is true. (I don't have to believe that this is sovereignly up to God, but you do).
2) God has selected that there be millions of reprobates.
3) You say Scripture teaches that this choice of a reprobate world is explained by the fact that in a reprobate world the blessed in heaven will appreciate the graciousness of their salvation to a greater extent than in a non-reprobate world.
My claim is that this would not be an explanation. The blessed in heaven have received God's gift of salvation through Christ. They are as open to God's teaching as they can be. God can produce in them all the appreciation he wants to of the graciousness of their salvation without damning anybody. God can show movies of fictitious persons in hell if he wants to, but even that doesn't seem necessary. God, after all, is supposed to be absolutely sovereign. So it stands to reason that God could use a little of that sovereignty to produce whatever appreciation the blessed he might need, even if universalism is true. It is absurd, therefore, to suppose that this "explanation" explains anything. We might, paradoxically, ask the Calvinist "What part of sovereign don't you understand?"
I had been arguing that there is no explanation available to us for God's choice of a reprobate world over a universalist world.
I said nothing about not using the grammatico-historical method. I just said I hoped we could avoid interpretations of Scripture that commit biblical authors to absurd statements. And I gave an argument for why such an explanation would be absurd.
As you rightly point out with the missed plane story, seeing others killed in a plane accident is one way that someone might appreciate their earthly life. But a sovereign God has other ways to of producing in the blessed an appreciation for the graciousness of their salvation, so as an explanation for why God reprobates, it is completely worthless.
Now in fact, you really have to stretch the interpretation of the Romans passage you cite to get an actual teaching of this doctrine. After all, the passage begins with the phrase "What if," and is loaded with figurative language. If any other possible interpretation of the passage can be offered on the basis of exegesis, then that explanation would have to be preferred to this one. In fact, it would be preferable to say that we do not understand the passage than to give it this kind of an interpretation.
Is there a consensus amongst competent exegetes on this passage? Thought not.
I've never seen so much eisegesis of my statements in all my life.
By the way, I am not arguing that God couldn't possibly have a reason for reprobating people. What I am saying is that the position requires a mystery maneuver at this point, and that mystery maneuvers are invariable epistemically expensive. If there is a mystery, why not it be in our understanding of the passage (notice I don't even need to break with inerrancy here) rather than in the character of God.
ReplyDeleteIf Calvinism is true, then God can, by his sovereign will, determine whether there will be reprobates or whether universalism is true. (I don't have to believe that this is sovereignly up to God, but you do).
ReplyDeleteIf you're finally coming out of the closet as an open theist, then you're right. Otherwise, yes you do have to believe this is sovereignly up to God, since God is the one who chose to instantiate the world in which millions of people freely chose hell, instead of instantiating the world in which everyone freely chose heaven.
My claim is that this would not be an explanation. The blessed in heaven have received God's gift of salvation through Christ. They are as open to God's teaching as they can be. God can produce in them all the appreciation he wants to of the graciousness of their salvation without damning anybody. God can show movies of fictitious persons in hell if he wants to, but even that doesn't seem necessary. God, after all, is supposed to be absolutely sovereign. So it stands to reason that God could use a little of that sovereignty to produce whatever appreciation the blessed he might need, even if universalism is true.
No doubt God could produce within all the elect a spontaneous appreciation of their salvation, sans any commensurate natural means. But why would he do that? You're just asserting that he would, in lieu of any argument. Given that we know that God typically operates according to an established order, using natural means to produce the effects he desires, this assertion appears to merely be wishful thinking. God doesn't produce natural effects—such as attitudes in our minds—without employing natural causes—such as witnessing something which will produce those attitudes. And movies of fictitious persons in hell are manifestly not going to produce the same effect as witnessing real people in hell. Your suggestion is so jejune it's hard to countenance. Witnessing fiction on a screen does not inspire the same reaction as witnessing fact in real life. Do you think that watching a war movie gives you the same appreciation for war as being a soldier? What is wrong with you?
I had been arguing that there is no explanation available to us for God's choice of a reprobate world over a universalist world. I said nothing about not using the grammatico-historical method.
And therein lies the problem. Since interpreting the Bible using the grammatico-historical method does, in fact, produce an explanation for God's choice of a reprobate world over a universalist world, your "argument" is simply nonsense. As Steve correctly pointed out, you are a priori excluding certain explanations because you consider them "absurd", regardless of what the Bible itself actually says.
Reppert said:
ReplyDelete---
God, after all, is supposed to be absolutely sovereign. So it stands to reason that God could use a little of that sovereignty to produce whatever appreciation the blessed he might need, even if universalism is true.
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Isn't that a bit like saying "God is sovereign, therefore He could lie to everyone"?
Another question that comes to mind: Isn't real salvation better than hypothetical salvation?