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Tuesday, October 13, 2009

"A Challenge from Roger Olson for Calvinists"

As I read Mark Talbot's chapter on God and suffering in Suffering and the Sovereignty of God (edited by John Piper and Justin Taylor) a thought occurred to me:

Since most Calvinists are harshly critical of the novel The Shack (which takes a similar approach to theodicy as Greg Boyd in Is God to Blame?) because of its alleged undermining of God's glory and sovereignty, why don't they (or one of them) write a similar novel in which God explains to Mack (or someone like him) why his daughter was kidnapped, raped and murdered--and avoid language about God permitting or allowing it (which is really Arminian language)? I challenge a consistent "high Calvinist" such as Piper or Talbot to produce such a novel. I would like to see what the popular Christian reaction would be to what God would have to say about such atrocities in such a novel. Talbot pulls no punches; he says that God foreordains such events and is their ultimate cause; they are willed by God and not merely allowed or permitted by God (although even he occasionally uses such language--as do all Calvinists in my experience). At crucial points he pulls back a little and uses language such as God "governs" such events, but the context makes clear he means God renders them certain because they fit into his plan and purpose and are necessary for the full accomplishment of his will.

I look forward to the publication of such a novel; I think it would go far toward turning people away from Calvinism.

Roger Olson


http://evangelicalarminians.org/a-challenge-from-Roger-Olson-for-calvinists

Olson’s challenge raises a number of important issues, not only for Calvinism, but equally so for Olson’s alternative.

1.It’s true that learning more about something can be a major turn-off for certain people. For example, there were some erstwhile disciples of Jesus who, the more they heard, the less they liked what they were hearing. Put another way, the less they knew about Jesus, the more they admired him. But when they found out what he really stood for, they stopped following him (Jn 6). He wasn’t what they thought he was. He wasn’t their kind of Messiah.

Likewise, some churchgoers have never read the Bible from cover-to-cover. All they know are the inspirational tidbits which make it into the lectionary. The greatest hits.

If they ever read the Bible from cover-to-cover, they’d be so shocked and appalled by what they found that they’d resign their church membership in disgust and never look back.

Indeed, there are apostates who tell us that reading the Bible for the first time destroyed their nominal faith in Christianity. They were coasting along just fine until the fateful day when they decided to sit down and read the Bible all the way through from Genesis to Revelation. They never recovered.

2.Then there’s an important truth of practical and pastoral theology. Sometimes the right explanation is the wrong explanation. It may be correct. It may be orthodox. But some people just aren’t ready to hear it.

That’s one of the lessons we can derive from the book of Job. Some of what his friends told him was unobjectionable in its own right. But it was tactless to say those things to a grief-stricken man.

Sometimes the truth doesn’t help. Sometimes it’s futile to explain things to an individual. And that doesn’t mean there’s anything wrong with the explanation, as such.

Suppose, for example, a soldier died in a friendly fire incident. You were there. You were his comrade. You know what went down.

However, his parents are under the mistaken impression that their son died from enemy fire. And they take comfort in that mistaken belief. They take pride in that mistaken belief.

To them, it’s more honorable to die from enemy fire than friendly fire. To their way of thinking, if he died in a friendly fire incident, then he died in vain.

Now, that’s irrational. Either way, their son died serving his country. Had he not volunteered for combat, he’d still be alive. So, however he died, they should be proud of their son.

But they don’t see it that way. And no amount of patient reasoning will ever make them see it differently.

Now, you’re in a position to correct their misimpression. And you could also explain to them that that’s nothing to be ashamed of.

But what’s the point? If you know your words would be hurtful, then why contribute to their loss?

Take another example: suppose an absent-minded teenager forgets to lock the house on his way out the door. As a result, an intruder gains easy entry, and murders the teenager’s 3-year-old brother, who’s playing by himself in the bedroom. And older sister is also in the house, but she’s easily overpowerd by the intruder.

The homicide detective is aware of the fact that the intruder didn’t have to force his way into the house. But he withholds that information from the grieving teenager because, if the boy knew how it happened, he’d unfairly blame himself for the rest of his life. So the detective spares his feelings.

Olson makes it sound as though Calvinists are dishonest and hypocritical. We lowball what Calvinism really represents.

But even if Calvinists are sometimes hesitant to state what their position implies when dealing, let us say, with the victim of some horrendous tragedy, that, of itself, is not an act of dissimulation.

There are many situations in life where discretion is a virtue. Where it’s best to hold your tongue and say less than you know. There are times when we need to take people’s feelings into account. To make allowance for the effect of our words, and let some things pass without comment. To pull our punches.

This isn’t limited to Calvinism. And it in no way impugns the truth of Calvinism.

3.Before we take up Olson’s challenge, let’s discuss his own position. This is how Olson has framed the alternatives. On the one hand, there is the Arminian position, according to which God merely “permits or allows” some atrocity to happen.

On the other hand, there is the Reformed position, according to which “God renders them certain because they fit into his plan and purpose and are necessary for the full accomplishment of his will.” That stands in contrast to the Arminian position.

Well, that comparison raises a number of questions:

i) Assuming, for the sake of argument, that God merely allows it to happen, I should think a novel written from that perspective would also go far toward turning people away from Arminianism.

After all, when folks blame God for some tragedy, what’s the first question they ask? Don’t they ask, “Why did God allow it?”

They don’t regard divine permission as a solution to the problem of evil. Rather, they regard divine permission as the source of the problem. That’s how they state the problem of evil in the first place–in terms of permission. “Why did God allow it?”

That’s why they are angry with God. Because he allowed it to happen.

So how in the world does Olson think that’s a promising theodicy?

ii) By the way he’s chosen to contrast Calvinism with Arminianism, Olson doesn’t think that God renders an evil certain because it fits into his plan and purpose, as a necessary means to accomplish of his will. So Olson’s alternative would break down as follows:

a) The occurrence of an evil event is uncertain.
b) The occurrence of an evil event is unnecessary.
c) Evil events don’t fit into God’s plan. God has no purpose in allowing them.

iii) Assuming, for the sake of argument, that this is an accurate description of what Arminian theology represents, how is that a plausible theodicy?

How does it exonerate God to say that God has no purpose for allowing evil? That evil events are gratuitously evil. That they don’t fit into his plan for the world?

Doesn’t that make God blameworthy rather than blameless? Shouldn’t God have a purpose for allowing evil? Shouldn’t evil fit into his plan?

Olson makes God sound like an absentee landlord whose apartment complex is a firetrap. If it goes up in flames due to faulty wiring, and dozens of tenants die in the fire, can the landlord plea innocent on the grounds that he allowed it to happen? Can he plead innocent on the grounds that the fire was a gratuitous hazard?

Can he plead innocent on the grounds that it was uncertain to occur? As long as there was a possibility that the firetrap might not catch fire, then that lets him off the hook?

Isn’t the landlord’s negligence the very thing which makes him culpable?

You have to wonder what intellectual cocoon Roger Olson inhabits to seriously imagine that his alternative is any solution to the problem of evil.

iv) But we also have to question the accuracy of his depiction. If he thinks (as he must) that God foreknew the outcome; if he thinks (as he must) that God was free to prevent the outcome, but went right ahead and made a world with that foreseeable outcome, then didn’t God intend that to happen? Indeed, didn’t God foreintend that to happen?

And how can the outcome still be uncertain if God makes a world in which that foreseeable outcome occurs? If God knowingly makes a world containing that foreseeable outcome, then, at that point, how can the outcome still go either way? If it went another way, then that wouldn’t be the same world which God foresaw.

v) Finally, how should a Calvinist respond to Olson’s challenge? Let’s take a concrete example. The case of Tamar (Gen 38). This is one of those tawdry incidents in the OT which offends the easily offended.

The story is rife with evil. Tamar was probably a Canaanite (Cf. Dictionary of the Old Testament: Pentateuch, 827). The life of a Canaanite woman would have been pretty grim–even in the best of circumstances. It’s not as if women were valued in heathen civilizations. No code of chivalry back then.

In addition, Tamar was wronged by two different men: her brother-in-law and her father-in-law.

In the ANE, the situation of a childless widow is pretty desperate. As a result, Tamar resorted to the desperate measures that women are prone to when driven to desperation–in this case, incestuous prostitution.

Her ruse resulted in the birth of male twins (Perez, Zerah), fathered by the chieftain. And that, in turn, immediately lifted and secured her social standing.

Yet good things came of this. Good consequences of evil antecedents.

Tamar had a very hard life. But she had a life. Apart from the Fall, she wouldn’t exist. She was the sinful issue of sinful parents. No sin, no such parents, no such offspring.

She also married into a Jewish clan, which gave her the opportunity to come to a saving knowledge of God–something denied to most of her heathen forebears and contemporaries.

And her twin boys were beneficiaries of this evil transaction. It wasn’t evil for them. To the contrary, it was good for them. It gave them life. And, what is more, life among the Chosen People. Both the gift of life and a gifted life. A life gifted by God.

It also served a larger purpose in God’s redemptive plan. As a result, the tribe of Judah became the line of promise (cf. Ps 78:59-72; 1 Chron 5:1-2). And, for her part, Tamar became a link in the chain leading all the way up to Christ (Mt 1:3).

Of course, that’s with the benefit of hindsight. We know how the story ends. We know how things turn out. But from within the story, from Tamar’s timebound perspective, it may seem utterly bleak.

And, of course, future Christians are to us what we are to Tamar. The past makes more sense to those living in the present. Our present is someone else’s past. Our future is someone else’s present.

As timebound creatures, we all find ourselves in inexplicable situations. What was bad at the time may be a future good. What was bad for one man may be good for another.

And that’s how God often operates. Making the best of the worst. This isn’t just an afterthought, either. Rather, it’s a divine strategy which underlies much of human history.

If that’s too much for you to stomach, then you might as well become an atheist. You can sit there on your pink cloud, with your can of air freshener, and rue the terrible things you see below–or else you can agree with God’s way of doing things, and learn to see the hidden wisdom of his ways.

32 comments:

  1. "But even if Calvinists are sometimes hesitant to state what their position implies when dealing, let us say, with the victim of some horrendous tragedy, that, of itself, is not an act of dissimulation."

    Somewhat similarly: Biblical, Spirit-filled wisdom does not always imply, "Quote Romans 8:28 to someone dealing with a tragedy." (There may be times when it's what someone needs to hear--but sometimes, we should just sit and weep with those who are weeping.)

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  2. Also--is it even true that "permit/allow" is exclusively Arminian language?

    Calvinists say more than "permit/allow", and Arminians won't. But "permit/allow" can still be part of the Calvinist understanding of what God does.

    It depends on how Calvinists articulate how God's decrees work. It depends on the relationship between God's decrees and secondary causes. So...

    1.) Dr. Olson has a point: Calvinists need to be careful that we don't dissimulate. In other words, we shouldn't white-wash what we believe by carefully selecting words that conceal what we really think. (Though there's a place for discretion, as you pointed out, Steve.)

    2.) If Dr. Olson doesn't understand that some Calvinists do think "permit/allow" can legitimately apply to the way God works, then he's disappointingly unfamiliar with the other side.

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  3. I'd add that most Calvinists aren't philosophers, so we wouldn't expect them to draw all sorts of technical distinctions when discussing the problem of evil.

    Moreover, even if they had such terminology at their disposal, that's not the language of mourning.

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  4. Heh, I almost hate to point this out, but I'm not sure the landlord with the firetrap apartment is the best analogy. If the absentee landlord is the God of Arminianism, then wouldn't that make the God of Calvinism some kind of arsonist?

    On the other hand, this does give me some ideas for NaNoWriMo 2009. It remains to be seen whether I'll have time for it this year, but I never like to back down from a challenge from an Arminian...

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  5. Actually, that would make the tenants of the building arsonists....

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  6. Dominic,

    The immediate point at issue is that Arminians act as though God is only culpable for evil in case God is too complicit in evil, and if you just stuff enough insulation in-between God and evil, then that is exclupatory.

    But, of course, "allowing" evil can also be culpable.

    Yes, Calvinism has to address the charge that predestination makes God too complicit in evil. And there are various ways of fielding that charge.

    But libertarianism raises its own set of theodicean issues. Avoiding determinism doesn't avoid the problem of evil. It just reintroduces the problem of evil in a different respect.

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  7. DOMINIC BNONN TENNANT SAID:

    "On the other hand, this does give me some ideas for NaNoWriMo 2009."

    Well, you could write about an absentee landlord who hires an arsonist to burn down the apartment complex to collect the insurance.

    On the other hand, if you write a story with villains, that would make you the author of their sins–and we all know where that leads to.

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  8. Olson: "I challenge a consistent "high Calvinist" such as Piper or Talbot to produce such a novel."

    Why not just inform Olson that the challenge has been met already. All he needs to do is re-read the 66 books of the Bible.

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  9. It is the the most comforting truth in the world to know that God controls all things. Olson's alternative would be to conclude that tragedy is really outside his control. What confort does this bring? If, as Olson seems to insist, God could not control evil coming into the world, then how do we know He will prevail in the end?

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  10. Well, Olsen does have a point, though it may not be the one he was going for.
    Before accepting his theological challenge, we've got to recognize our failure at his artistic one. Calvinists are notoriously bad at artistic "stuff" in general (when was the last time we saw a good Calvinist movie?). Before we can even think about writing a doctrinally correct response to the Shack in novel form, we've got to get our act together and get some decent writers reading Kuyper's Fifth Stone Lecture. Then maybe we can respond theologically to the challenge...

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  11. Good apologetic Steve!

    Blessings,

    Stephen

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  12. hey mate

    i enjoyed your response,

    but about pt 2.. there is no excuse for lying, these examples are outright deceit..

    does God say let us do evil that good might result?

    that is what is being said in those examples..

    'deceit is ok, if it has good results'

    'evil is ok, if it has good results'

    I want to be wise and compassionate in what i say, and how i say it, but i never want to compromise the truth. and that means not compromising God's sovereignty or his love in christ jesus when talking with people who are suffering.. or when i am.

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  13. sola then:::>

    Pro 26:1 Like snow in summer or rain in harvest, so honor is not fitting for a fool.
    Pro 26:2 Like a sparrow in its flitting, like a swallow in its flying, a curse that is causeless does not alight.

    Hmmmmm:::>

    Gal 3:11 Now it is evident that no one is justified before God by the law, for "The righteous shall live by faith."
    Gal 3:12 But the law is not of faith, rather "The one who does them shall live by them."
    Gal 3:13 Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us--for it is written, "Cursed is everyone who is hanged on a tree"--
    Gal 3:14 so that in Christ Jesus the blessing of Abraham might come to the Gentiles, so that we might receive the promised Spirit through faith.

    And prudence does govern:::>

    Pro 25:1 These also are proverbs of Solomon which the men of Hezekiah king of Judah copied.
    Pro 25:2 It is the glory of God to conceal things, but the glory of kings is to search things out.
    Pro 25:3 As the heavens for height, and the earth for depth, so the heart of kings is unsearchable.
    Pro 25:4 Take away the dross from the silver, and the smith has material for a vessel;
    Pro 25:5 take away the wicked from the presence of the king, and his throne will be established in righteousness.

    Now, granted and concurring, there are reasons for concealing the matter, but wickedness is not one of them!

    You can't hide the Hand of God:::>

    Psa 146:9 The LORD watches over the sojourners; he upholds the widow and the fatherless, but the way of the wicked he brings to ruin.
    Psa 146:10 The LORD will reign forever, your God, O Zion, to all generations. Praise the LORD!

    Who, with the Mind of Christ, then, would say Tamar's sin was tawdry? That girl had guts!

    "....v) Finally, how should a Calvinist respond to Olson’s challenge? Let’s take a concrete example. The case of Tamar (Gen 38). This is one of those tawdry incidents in the OT which offends the easily offended."

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  14. JAMES SAID:

    “There is no excuse for lying, these examples are outright deceit..”

    i) There’s nothing deceptive here. In these examples, the individual who withholds information didn’t create the ignorance or misimpression in the first place. And while there are times when silence can be deceptive, that’s hardly the case in every situation.

    ii) Moreover, withholding information is not the same thing as lying. And if you equate the two, then God is a liar–since God knows every so many things which he keeps to himself.

    iii) Furthermore, there are occasions in which outright lying is justifiable or even obligatory:

    http://www.frame-poythress.org/frame_articles/2005Must.htm

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  15. JAMES SAID:

    'evil is ok, if it has good results'

    That caricature grossly oversimplifies the issue. You need to slow down.

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  16. For God has consigned all to disobedience, that he may have mercy on all. Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways!
    "For who has known the mind of the Lord, or who has been his counselor?""Or who has given a gift to him that he might be repaid?" For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever. Amen. Romans 11:32-36

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  17. Steve, thank you for taking the time to refute illogical arguments and challenges such as these. Keep being used by God to preach the Gospel truth

    God bless :)

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  18. Piper did do something along the lines of Olson's challenege but not in a novel. He did it a few years back during an interview on NPR regarding the tsunami that hit Southeast Asia. NPR inteviewed a number of religious people to untangle the question of theodicy the storm posed. The woman who interviewed Piper did not appear to be a believer at all and yet she found Piper's response utterly thought-provoking, riveting and worthy of serious consideration. When people ask me how to respond to tradegy, calamity and evil I direct them to listen to this 35 minute interview called "God and Tsunamis." It does not flinch from the hard questions and remains very pastoral at the same time. I beleieve it can be found on DGM's website.

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  19. I totally second the recommendation of the NPR Tsunami interview, it is such a skillful crafting by Piper, surely this is the perfect response to Olson, here is the link:

    http://www.desiringgod.org/ResourceLibrary/Interviews/1678_The_NPR_Tsunami_Interview/

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  20. To echo what one here said so well: the Bible meets the challenge and the book of Job especially addresses this very topic. The Shack was a waste of ink and can only lead to even more confusion and even heresy than what already exists in the broad evangelical church.

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  21. "If they ever read the Bible from cover-to-cover, they’d be so shocked and appalled by what they found that they’d resign their church membership in disgust and never look back."

    Is there anything the Bible could possibly state within its pages that would allow someone to
    validly reject it as NOT the word of the living God?

    It seems that many Christians feel that one must go into the reading of Scripture assuming that it is the Word of God and that one should not attempt to apply known (though admittedly imperfect) standards of good and evil when attempting to discern whether it's truthful or not.

    If we discount the methods by which people determine whether Scripture is really of God or not (such as intuition, experience, cultural mores, etc.), what methods (if any) would you suggest they use?

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  22. John said...

    "Is there anything the Bible could possibly state within its pages that would allow someone to validly reject it as NOT the word of the living God?"

    No.

    "It seems that many Christians feel that one must go into the reading of Scripture assuming that it is the Word of God and that one should not attempt to apply known (though admittedly imperfect) standards of good and evil when attempting to discern whether it's truthful or not."

    What are the known standards of good and evil? Where are they found? To whom are they known?

    "If we discount the methods by which people determine whether Scripture is really of God or not (such as intuition, experience, cultural mores, etc.), what methods (if any) would you suggest they use?"

    Of course, ancient Jews and 1C Christians also had intuition, experience, and cultural mores.

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  23. "No".

    This is an interesting statement.

    (I'm not trying to be combative: I'm simply working these ideas out)

    If we are completely unable to trust our own ideas of what is good and moral, we must rely completely on the validity of some other source (whatever that may be). "I do not know what is good or not: I must be told".

    However, if our judgment is truly that impaired, how can I then trust my judgment to inform me that the Bible is a better source for that moral clarity than the Koran, or Mein Kampf, for that matter?

    "What are the known standards of good and evil?"

    If there were no divinely-inspired texts in existence, what would we use? That's hard, because they account for many, if not most, of our ideas of what is good and what is not. Even if there were none, we humans seem to rely on our own hopes and ideas of the transcendent to inform of us what is noble. I guess any sense of self-awareness will foster empathy, from which flows some form of moral structure.

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  24. JOHNNIVLAK SAID:

    "If we are completely unable to trust our own ideas of what is good and moral, we must rely completely on the validity of some other source (whatever that may be). 'I do not know what is good or not: I must be told'."

    If God didn't exist, there'd be no reason to trust our moral intuitions. In that event, our moral intuitions would be the byproduct of amoral forces like evolutionary conditioning, or the result of arbitrary conventions like social conditioning.

    "However, if our judgment is truly that impaired, how can I then trust my judgment to inform me that the Bible is a better source for that moral clarity than the Koran, or Mein Kampf, for that matter?"

    Moral intuition is not the only reason to believe the Bible, or the only reason to disbelieve the Koran or Mein Kampf.

    And, indeed, what about the moral judgment of the Nazis? Absent some transcendent moral norm, what makes your moral judgment superior to theirs?

    "If there were no divinely-inspired texts in existence, what would we use? That's hard, because they account for many, if not most, of our ideas of what is good and what is not. Even if there were none, we humans seem to rely on our own hopes and ideas of the transcendent to inform of us what is noble. I guess any sense of self-awareness will foster empathy, from which flows some form of moral structure."

    Really? Yet you just cited Mein Kampf as a counterexample. Okay. Weren't Hitler and the Nazis self-aware? If that's a sufficient condition for a moral structure, then you've just validated Nazi ethics.

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  25. This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

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  26. A HELMET SAID:

    "Isn't that exactly what the greater good defense claims? You see, you'd better abandon the greater good defense!"

    As I've repeatedly claimed, that's far from "exactly" what the greater good defense claims. Something can be evil in its own right, but facilitate something good.

    The motives of the perpetrator may be blameworthy, but the motives of God in decreeing the event are praiseworthy. Different agents, different motives.

    Don't continue to post comments which deliberately misrepresent the position when it's been explained to you and others.

    When I state a carefully qualified position, don't ignore the qualifications. That is not a credit to your moral character.

    Posting comments here is a privilege which you are abusing far too often. If you can't bring yourself to honestly represent the position you oppose, then I'll make you go away. I have better things to do with my time than repeatedly correct your willful and malicious distortions.

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  27. I am no High Brow or well known Reformed person, just a working pastor, but a novel as a response to Olsen's challenge is underway!

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  28. Would Olsen count "Gilead", by Marilynne Robinson? She engages the issues from a lightly-neoorthodox perspective, but nothing in there that Calvinists would shout down too much, and it's certainly a decent book, having won the Pulitzer and all (which does still have some meaning, unlike certain other prestigious awards one might mention...).

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  29. >Well, Olsen does have a point, though it may not be the one he was going for.
    Before accepting his theological challenge, we've got to recognize our failure at his artistic one. Calvinists are notoriously bad at artistic "stuff" in general (when was the last time we saw a good Calvinist movie?). Before we can even think about writing a doctrinally correct response to the Shack in novel form, we've got to get our act together and get some decent writers reading Kuyper's Fifth Stone Lecture. Then maybe we can respond theologically to the challenge...

    Arguably the artistic output of Elizabethan England is Calvinist. Arguably, the best of American literature is Calvinist since it grows from Calvinist soil. But the bigger point is this: truly universal and inspired art is more in the realm of general revelation and is tainted when it is mixed with special revelation (which is not the same as visual artists painting biblical scenes or Bach setting parts of Scripture to music). Palestrina, Bach, and even an atheist, or quasi-atheist like Beethoven all drew from the same source for inspiration, despite themselves in the case of the atheist or quasi-atheist.

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  30. "Arguably the artistic output of Elizabethan England is Calvinist..."
    "Arguably" probably being the key word there ;)
    You're right of course- all truth is ultimately God's truth, and any skill that Shakespeare or Bach or whoever had is a gift from God and reflects something true about Him. But, that's a long ways from saying "Shakespeare is a Calvinist."
    And anyway, Olson's challenge wasn't for someone to write a good book discussing the problem of tragedy in general (basically any Dostoevsky novel would work for that), but to write one specifically Calvinist in its foundations. I just suggest that before we can answer the challenge, we need Calvinists who write good books.

    Maybe Marilynne Robinson's Gilead might be a useful book to suggest. It's lightly neoorthodox, but not so much that we would dismiss it outright. And it does engage questions of loss in the face of a good God...

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  31. I can hardly believe that adults in the 21st century can be arguing about such drivel

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  32. "A Challenge from Roger Olson for Calvinists"

    Professor Olson might find it helpful to read Dr. Peter Leithart's review titled "The Literary Calvinism of Marilynne Robinson."

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