Exodus 21:28 states:
When an ox gores a man or a woman to death, the ox shall be stoned, and its flesh shall not be eaten, but the owner of the ox shall not be liable.Now an ox is an animal, and as such it as a rudimentary will. It is not an inanimate object, in other words, and it will often do things that the owner does not wish for it to do. Anyone who has ever owned livestock—or even pets, for that matter—knows of the frustration of wanting an animal to do something and the animal not doing it.
What is clear from this verse is that the owner of the ox is not held responsible for the actions of the ox. Presumably, this would be due to the fact that the ox’s will is not the owner’s will, and that is why the owner is not liable. The owner did not wish for the ox to kill anyone, the owner did not plan for this, therefore the owner is not culpable.
Thus far, it looks like this would be evidence for the position that if God permits something evil to occur He is not culpable for that. However, the very next verse reads:
But if the ox has been accustomed to gore in the past, and its owner has been warned but has not kept it in, and it kills a man or a woman, the ox shall be stoned, and its owner also shall be put to death.And here we see that the escape to “permission” cannot remove culpability from God. For we see that it is still the case that the owner of the ox does not will that the ox gore anyone, and we still see that the owner does not plan this event to happen, yet nevertheless the owner is held responsible with the same penalty imposed as if he had murdered the man himself. Why is the owner culpable? Because he did not take measures needed to reign in an ox “accustomed to gore.” He is negligent for not stopping that which he knew was dangerous, and therefore he receives the same penalty as if he had personally acted instead of the ox.
It seems to me that this verse neutralizes not only all Arminian arguments designed to exculpate God, but it even neutralizes Open Theist arguments. For the Arminian is now in the unenviable position of acknowledging that God has exhaustive foreknowledge and knows not only which ox will gore which person, but also which person will murder another. And if the owner of an ox is culpable when he knows full well that he has a dangerous ox, then God surely must likewise be culpable if He knows full well that a created being He put on Earth is a danger to others. Likewise, the Open Theist is not let off the hook because even if God did not know at first the human beings were going to commit evil, once they did and He did not take measures to restrain that evil, then this verse would show God is just as guilty as if He Himself did the evil. So clearly, the argument that “permission” exculpates is invalidated by the Law itself.
Now for the record, and because I know that some will misread what I write here, I am not saying that it really is the case that God is culpable for evil and that Arminians will just need to learn to deal with it like we icky determinists do. Rather, I am only saying that one cannot escape to “permission” to get God “off the hook” given the typical starting point of morality that most Arminians (and not only Arminians, mind you) have. Since I am a Divine Command Theorist, then my own position doesn’t start where theirs does. Indeed, I don’t have to use “permission” to get God “off the hook” because God is never on the hook to begin with under DCT.
Permissive Peter Pike, please permit pious posters posting perennial platitudes pledging peace.
ReplyDeleteTruth, thou touts tenuous tautologies that terrify thick-headed troglodytes, thinking they teach tainted theology to the tacitly tolerated temperments thought too tough to temper.
ReplyDeletePlease Peter Piker Pumpkin plunking Poo-poo plinking Pee-pee product place promotion price pea-brain permits partying punks placating property pooh-bahs pilfering phantom parrot porsches Pittsburgh Pirates playing puck penises plastering purple people-eaters plaguing polite Philadelphia police.
ReplyDelete"...Pittsburgh Pirates playing puck penises plastering purple people-eaters..."
ReplyDeletehe he he he
er...I'm pretty sure you're not supposed to SMOKE your breakfast cereal! :)
ReplyDeleteGood post! Very thought-provoking. In one blog post that I wrote, I outlined how, Biblically, the cause of a sin is culpable for that sin. You write here, outlining how Biblically, a person also can be culpable for neglecting to prevent his animal from killing a person, given that he knew that was a distinct possibility.
ReplyDeleteNow, this does prove to me, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that some permissive activity would be downright culpable - such as in the case of an animal owner not locking up the beast.
However, it is a logical leap to go from there to saying that God would be culpable for allowing people to harm one another. That would rely on the reasoning that God is responsible for our behavior *IN THE SAME WAY* as we are responsible for the behavior of our animals, which have no moral capacity.
For me to agree with your final conclusion that God would be culpable by Arminian logic, you would need to first show me that God's relationship to man is the same as man's relationship to an owned ox.
Hi Skarlet,
ReplyDeleteActually, that inadvertently gives the game away :-) See, if you're left with saying that there is a difference between the relationship between God and man and the relationship between an animal owner and his animals--and we can further extend this, since we have other Biblical examples (such as Ezekiel's Watchmen) to saying there is a difference in the relationship between God and man and between man and other men, then that alone is sufficient to neutralize any objections to the problem of evil that would necessitate the "permissive" argument in the first place. Now I realize that was a long and unwieldy sentence, so I'll break it down.
The reason the "permission" argument is brought forth is to exculpate God from sin that occurs when He has the power to stop it. But if we begin by saying that there is a difference between what God is required to do and with what man is required to do, then we do not need the "permission" argument. But of course that means that the Arminian claim that God is culpable under Calvinistic principals would immediately become a failed argument too, for the Calvinist claims nothing more than what the Arminian is here forced to claim: there is a difference between what God is culpable for and what man is culpable for.
The "permission" argument attempts to circumvent this by showing Calvinists still have a culpable God whereas Arminians do not, yet when we boil down the "permission" argument we see that it rests on the exact same foundation the Calvinist uses.
So the Arminian concept of morality that brings about a culpable Calvinistic God is at odds with the same Arminian concept of morality that exculpates the Arminian God: an internal contradiction.
Peter,
ReplyDeleteThanks for your explanation of your logic, and what point you were trying to get at with this post. Obviously, you don't think that God would be culpable for allowing evil to happen, since you don't even think that He would be culpable if He caused it. Your basic point here is that Arminians make two logically inconsistent claims.
Now, from a Calvinist point of view, God is not culpable for allowing evil, while man would be culpable for allowing his aggressive ox to kill someone, simply because God is held to a different standard. I'll comment on this later.
Now, let's compare the two Arminian claims, and see if it actually is inconsistent or contradictory:
Claim 1: Man is culpable if he allows his animal (owned, non-moral, forseeably dangerous) to kill someone, because he intentionally neglected to lock it up.
Claim 2: God is not culpable if He allows His creation (not owned in the same way, morally responsible, and forseeably dangerous) to kill someone.
To me, this does not seem like a double standard, because in this case, God and man are not held to different standards. (IE it's immoral to allow a non-moral beast to hurt people when you have responsibility and dominion over it.) If man lets man kill man, that may not be immoral, because a man does not own another man, and a man is a moral agent. So far, we are holding God and man to the same moral standard. If Jesus had an ox who was known to be dangerous, I think that Jesus would have locked him up!
(continued)
ReplyDeleteNow, moving on to your next point, that “ there is a difference in the relationship between God and man and between man and other men,” I agree! I could not disagree with you less. There is a difference! He is God, and you are man, so let your words be few. So far, so good. But then you move on to say that the logical implication of this is that “there is a difference between what God is culpable for and what man is culpable for.” This is true, but only as it applies to role. For example – God takes the role of judge over the earth – we do not. However, while God does not take that role – as in, when He came to take the role of a mere man – He operated by the same moral principles that are always a part of his nature. The most fundamental part of God's nature is love. As we are told: God is love. Even the two most important commandments for us reflect this: Love the Lord your God, and Love your neighbor as yourself. You'll notice that these are not two distinct and separate moral standards. No. Rather, in learning to love and obey God (He who loves Christ will keep Christ's commandments that we should love), we become conformed to HIS image – which is love. You may notice a repeating theme here. So, even though our relationship to each other is not the same as God's relationship to us, we can count on the fact that He is always more holy, and not less. If He calls us to love, it's because He loves more. And if He calls us to demonstrate justice, it's because He reigns justly over the entire universe. We are to imitate Him. This is only possible because of the moral standard that He holds Himself to, and expects us to hold ourselves to, in an ever-increasing way. We are never going to take His role – even in heaven – but we will be conformed to the moral standard of perfection, in the likeness of His Son, who took on our submissive role.
So, to reiterate my points here, I do not think that the Arminian position is contradictory. There is a reason why God is not culpable for allowing us to sin, while we would be culpable for allowing our animals to go around killing people – animals are non-moral agents, and if we “own” them, we are accepting responsibility for them in a different way than we accept responsibility for other people, and different then any way God takes responsibility for our actions. Secondly, I agree with you that God does relate to man differently than man relates to man, but I do not see how this logically points to the idea that God does not conform to the same standard of moral perfection that He strives to mold us into – in fact, the Bible states specifically that He wants to conform us into His own moral image: The image of His Son – who took a different role during that time, a submissive role that we can and should identify with.
Hi Skarlet,
ReplyDeleteFirst off, I find it highly ironic that the Word Verification I have for this comment is "evill".
Anyway, you said:
---
Now, let's compare the two Arminian claims, and see if it actually is inconsistent or contradictory
---
Actually, the claims you referenced aren't precisely the claims where the contradiction is. The inconsistency (leading to the contradiction) comes between what the Arminian allows for his/her own position and what s/he allows for the Calvinist. There's a double standard there.
In other words, if a Calvinist says that God is not culpable for the sins of a person even though He foreordained that the sins would occur, the Arminian claim is that we are held culpable if we force others to sin, so God would be too. (Note that I'm not even getting into the fact that God doesn't force anyone to do sin here.) The Calvinist then says, "God's relationship to man is not the same as man's relationship to other men, therefore He is not culpable."
On the other hand, the Arminian (in addressing the problem of evil) states: God is not culpable for the sins of a person even though He allowed those sins to occur, and the atheist says if we allowed those things to occur to other people we would be held culpable. The Arminian then responds: "God's relationship to man is not the same as man's relationship to other men, therefore He is not culpable."
As you can see, that's the exact argument the Calvinist uses. Yet the Arminian will not allow the Calvinist to use this defense, while simultaneously deploying it for himself. That is the contradiction.
One other point. You said:
---
If man lets man kill man, that may not be immoral, because a man does not own another man, and a man is a moral agent.
---
However, we see in the case of Ezekiel's watchman, for instance that if he does not attempt to save others by warning them, he is held responsible for their deaths. Furthermore, we know the principal that sins of inaction are still sins.
Put it this way. You quoted the Great Commandment, which includes loving our neighbor as ourselves. If we allow someone to be harmed when it is in our power to stop that harm, is that loving him as we love ourselves? Obviously it is not; and therefore, to do so is to break the Great Commandment.
[Naturally, I'm not talking about those instances when there is nothing you can do (e.g., you're in America and someone in Kenya is being attacked), nor those instances where it is right and proper for you to avoid interfering (e.g., a justly performed capital punishment, or during a just war).]
Peter,
ReplyDeleteYay for irony! I wonder if evil spelled with two “l”s is more or less evil than evil spelled with only one... hmmmm.
Anyway, I think I understand your argument even better than before. From my understanding, you seem to think that the internal contradiction is that Arminians seem to hold to these two contradictory positions:
God's relationship to man is different from man's relationship to man - therefore, He is not culpable for permitting sin, when we might be.
God's relationship to man is not different from man's relationship to man - therefore, He could be culpable for causing men to sin, because we would be help culpable for causing others to sin.
That would be an internal contradiction, if we actually believed it in exactly that light. However, Pike fails to take into account a few factors here. Firstly, God's relationship to man may be different from man's relationship to man, but His MORAL CHARACTER is the same as that which He seeks to conform us to - namely, love. God's relationship to man is different from man's relationship to man, and certainly different from man's relationship to an ox. [In fact, it would be immoral if we treated other people like owned oxen.] Now what level of permitting sin is moral, and what level of permitting sin is related more to relationship than morals? I'll cover those two questions in a moment.
Also, we do not believe that God would be culpable for causing sin because His relationship to man is not different from man's relationship to man. He would be culpable for two reasons. Reason 1) It would go against His Holy and Perfect character. He does not even look on sin. He disavows even thinking up specific sins (Jer. 32:35). There is no shadow of turning in Him. Why then, would He with one hand abhor sin, and with the other hand cause it? Reason 2) In the Bible, God specifically that anyone or anything that causes sin commits sin. For Him to cause sin, by His own standard, would mean that He would be committing sin. (See http://christiancompletely.blogspot.com/2010/04/assigning-responsibility-for-sin.html)
Going back to the question of culpability and permissiveness, I think that there are two factors to be considered: Position or relationship of responsibility, and Moral character.
ReplyDeleteMoral character: It's all about the motive here. If we let our animals go around killing people, and we don't warn people of an attack, it's probably become we are not pursuing righteousness or love. We would rather sleep at home than warn people of impending danger, and if my animals hurts you – well tough for you. Is that loving? No. However, if we permit something for a good moral reason (IE it would be illegal to do otherwise, we are dedicating our time to a different cause that God has put on our hearts, we know that we need to allow our children the freedom to make mistakes rather than just locking them up, etc), then it can be fine. God's moral character is always pure and holy, and so if He allows something, you can bet your life that it is with morally pure, righteous, and loving intent. This goes back to what you said about the commandments.
Position or relationship of responsibility: If I own an oxen, I am in a position of authority and responsibility over a non-moral being. If I allow it to hurt people, I am abusing my position. If I am a watchman, and I don't warn people, I am neglecting my duty. But what if I don't own the ox? What if I'm not a watchman? Then I have no responsibility in those cases (except for the moral responsibility of motive) If you let your ox kill someone, shame on you. On the other hand, if my little sister goes and slugs some guy at school, I am not culpable for that, even if I know that my little sister has violent tendencies. Why? I am not in a position of authority or responsibility over my little sister in the same way I would be over an ox. For this reason also, God is not culpable for allowing sin, since He does not take responsibility, as an owner of a non-moral being, nor signed up to be a “watchman.” He did not take those positions, and therefore is not culpable for not fulfilling the responsibilities that go along with them.
To me, this all seems not only internally consistent, but also exactly in line with everything that the Scripture teaches.
Hi Skarlet,
ReplyDeleteI want to make sure I'm understanding you right.
1.) Are you actually saying that God is not responsible for His own creation? I'm thinking that can't possibly be what you meant, but can't see any other way to read that second-to-last paragraph.
2.) Permit me to re-ask: If we allow someone to be harmed when it is in our power to stop that harm, is that loving him as we love ourselves?
As for concerning morality, remember that I am a Divine Command Theorist. Perhaps you are merely showing what you believe as an Arminian to try to show you're consistent? But I obviously don't hold to that position, and of course would contest that portion.
In any case, you said:
---
God's moral character is always pure and holy, and so if He allows something, you can bet your life that it is with morally pure, righteous, and loving intent.
---
And of course I would just change "allows" to "determines" and ask why you would contest that?
Of course, we'd have to get even deeper here. Is God holy because holiness is a standard that God must follow; or is God holy because whatever He does is by definition holy? I maintain the second, as there is no morality apart from God, and thus there is no standard of behavior He has to follow external to Himself. Which means that it is true that if God determines x, it is impossible for God's determining of x to be a sin, even if He declares that x is itself a sin.
By the way, your quotation of Jeremiah 32:35 is incorrect, when you imply that God cannot think on sin. What "didn't enter God's mind" was that they ought to engage in this behavior. It's the moral imperative that God didn't consider.
After all, it is quite obvious that God does look upon sin many times in Scripture (even if we take that metaphor literally, which is likewise problematic). For example:
Genesis 6:5
---
The LORD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.
---
Psalm 14:2-3
---
The LORD looks down from heaven on the children of man, to see if there are any who understand, who seek after God. They have all turned aside; together they have become corrupt; there is none who does good, not even one.
---
Proverbs 15:3
---
The eyes of the LORD are in every place, keeping watch on the evil and the good.
---
2 Samuel 22:28
---
You save a humble people, but your eyes are on the haughty to bring them down.
---
I could continue, of course, but the point is made.
Finally, God can restrict men from doing things that He Himself does, and He can command men to do things that He Himself does not do. Therefore, it is not proof simply because God commands *US* not to cause someone to sin (I assume you're referring to Matthew 18:6, Mark 9:42, Luke 17:2) that He cannot determine it Himself.
“Are you actually saying that God is not responsible for His own creation?”
ReplyDeleteGod is responsible for His choice to create. He is responsible for His choice to create moral beings who could then choose to sin. He is not responsible for what those moral beings choose to do. [From an Arminian perspective in which those moral beings cause themselves to do things. If one assumes that God causes all the actions of the beings, then yes He would be responsible for any good or evil that they carry out, at His decree] He is responsible for His actions, and not ours. We will be held responsible and culpable for our actions, except in the case where God choose to take our punishment on the cross, and we trusted in Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior, in which case our culpability was put on Him.
“If we allow someone to be harmed when it is in our power to stop that harm, is that loving him as we love ourselves?”
It depends on our position, and our motives. If we are the person's bodyguard (a position), and we allow them to be harmed, that would be unethical and wrong. If we allow that person to be harmed out of a lack of love, then that would be unloving. There are, however, other cases in which we may allow people to be harmed, in which we do no wrong. I allow people to be harmed everyday, when I have the power to stop that harm, because I choose to go to work at an office job instead of being a detective or police or military or Social Services worker. I do not permit harm because I am not loving. I permit harm because I do not feel called to go and prevent that particular harm. People permit harm to those on death row (namely, death) – this, also, is not unloving. I could go on and on, but my point is this: Whether permitting someone to hurt someone else is right or wrong depends on your position(and thereby responsibility) and motives.
“As for concerning morality, remember that I am a Divine Command Theorist. Perhaps you are merely showing what you believe as an Arminian to try to show you're consistent? But I obviously don't hold to that position, and of course would contest that portion.”
Could you explain what you mean by that? You don't believe that God is intrinsically moral? He isn't love? Or He doesn't seek to conform us into the image of His Son (by making us more and more loving – ie the top two commandments)
“And of course I would just change "allows" to "determines" and ask why you would contest that?”
Well, let me suggest the usage of the word “causally-determines,” because some people use “determine” to mean “allow,” and that could lead to a lot of confusion. Anyway, let's change that, and see what happens:
– God's moral character is always pure and holy, and so if He causally-determines something, you can bet your life that it is with morally pure, righteous, and loving intent. –
Well, I have to say: I can't disagree with that – I can't contest that. But how this is supposed to persuade me of anything, I don't know. Calvinism claims that every time an 8-year-old girl is raped, God causally-determined that. Let's compare those two claims:
God's moral character is always pure and holy, and so if He causally-determines something, you can bet your life that it is with morally pure, righteous, and loving intent.
God causally-determines the rape of an 8-year-old girl.
I agree with the first claim, which is WHY I disagree with the second claim. I agree with the first claim, because it is backed by Scripture, which is part of why I do not believe the Calvinist claim. Let's go back to that quote one more time: “God's moral character is always pure and holy, and so if He causally-determines something, you can bet your life that it is with morally pure, righteous, and loving intent.” If God causally-determined everything on earth, it would be pure and righteous, beautiful and loving. The world would not be the wicked, twisted, nauseating place that it is.
“I maintain the second, as there is no morality apart from God, and thus there is no standard of behavior He has to follow external to Himself. Which means that it is true that if God determines x, it is impossible for God's determining of x to be a sin, even if He declares that x is itself a sin.”
ReplyDeleteYes – very deep topic. I agree with you that there is no force outside of God that God is accountable to. God is the highest moral law in the universe. This is one point that you and I agree one. However, going one step further, we disagree again. I believe in Divine Essentialism, and not Volunteerism. Volunteerism is the position that maintains, basically, that God's will is above His nature. What God chooses is righteous. If God suddenly commanded us all to torture each other, it would be a sin to disobey! I do not hold to this point of view. I believe in Divine Essentialism – God is always true to His essence. His will and His nature are always perfectly in sync. It is impossible for God to choose to something that His nature finds abhorrent. And yes – God does record in the Scripture that He finds sin abhorrent. (see Amos 6:8) God is the great “I am.” He is unchangeable. There is no deceit in Him. There is no shadow of turning with Him.
“By the way, your quotation of Jeremiah 32:35 is incorrect, when you imply that God cannot think on sin. What 'didn't enter God's mind' was that they ought to engage in this behavior. It's the moral imperative that God didn't consider.”
Fascinating interpretation! (What will they think of next...?) I'll reply more in a moment, but let me first address your next point. “After all, it is quite obvious that God does look upon sin many times in Scripture.” I am not an open theist, and believe that God knows everything. Just as a side note, all the verses that you quote refer to God looking at men or mens' hearts. (haughty, the evil, the children of men, wickedness of man/intent of heart) The verse I was quoting was this:
Habakkuk 1:13-14
“You who are of purer eyes than to see evil, and cannot look at wrong”
So, I'm not saying that I know exactly what that verse really means, but it does refer to God not looking on evil. Now, back to your commentary on Jeremiah 32:35. You expect me to believe that God causally-determined Israel to offer up sons and daughters to Molech, and then turn around and say, with an air of indignant innocence: “I did not command them, nor did it enter into my mind, that they should do this abomination...” A lawyer could say “Yes, yes – you see? He did not command it. It wasn't something they should, by His revealed will, have done. God never says that He didn't make it happen.” But I think that's missing the whole point. I think that God's commentary could be more likened to this: “You think this was my idea??? It wasn't. I didn't mastermind this! This is sickening – an abomination! Abhorrent to my soul!” At face value, that seems a lot more like what God is saying. I mean, just look at it for a moment, without bias if you can:
Quote: “I did not command them, nor did it enter into my mind, that they should do this abomination...”
Interpretation 1: “I didn't command this in my revealed will! I caused it, sure, but they shouldn't have done it! They are going to pay.”
Interpretation 2: “You think this was my idea??? It wasn't. I didn't mastermind this! This is sickening – an abomination! Abhorrent to my soul!”
I could continue, of course, but the point is made. ;)
“Therefore, it is not proof simply because God commands *US* not to cause someone to sin.”
ReplyDeleteI half agree with that, and I'll explain what I mean. God puts commands on us that He does not put on Himself only when it comes to Role. When God takes the same Role as us (submissive), then as Jesus, He also lives by all the moral commands that He gives. Morally, He holds Himself to the same standard that He holds us to. The only difference is when it comes to Role difference – IE He is judge of the world, and we are not. Even when we are perfect in heaven, morally perfect, we will not take His role. If God's commands are designed to mold us into the image of His Son, then His commands must reflect His essence.
I will repeat, because this is important and bears repeating: If God's commands are designed to mold us into the image of His Son, then His commands must reflect His essence.
With that said, I know that it isn't proof simply because God commands us not to cause sin. I take it that you haven't read my blog... I quote many different passages of Scripture that say clearly that ANYTHING or ANY BEING that is a cause of sin is sinning, is wrong and we should distance ourselves from it or them.
Hi Skarlet,
ReplyDeleteLet me start with those areas where you are inactive leading to harm for others. The unfortunate fact is that none of the excuses that you could use to mitigate against culpability are applicable to God.
See, it doesn't matter that you are located in one place and have limited power and aren't in a specific assigned role. God isn't similarly bound by space or power, and I would also include role (more on that later, as it's tangential). So let me just use your own illustration here:
Suppose that you were there when the eight-year-old girl was being raped. You have the power to stop the rapist, and not only that but it's trivially easy for you to stop him. And not only THAT, but you know that no harm could possibly come to you. And not only THAT, but you know in advance of the events exactly what will happen and you have at your means whatever methods you could possibly imagine to stop that event from occurring.
Are you loving the eight-year-old when you do nothing, when you just stand by and permit the rapist to have his way with her? Is that defined as a loving action (or rather, a loving inaction) to her?
Let me now look at the concept of the roles we have too. God's first role is that of creator. He made us. He made you, He made me. But not only that, He made the eight-year-old girl, He made the rapist, He made the planet where the eight-year-old would run into the rapist. Not only that, but He still upholds each of those things, for none of us would continue to exist without God's power ("for in Him we...have our being," etc.). How is He loving on Arminian grounds to allow this to happen?
See, your position has a lot of drawbacks that you're not even aware of. Consider the following facts.
1. Existence is not owed to any creature. We do not have to be here. If God caused us to cease to exist, that would not be immoral of God. He created us, He can uncreate us. We are not necessary beings so it violates no standard.
2. The penalty for sin is death, so even if God doesn't uncreate us He does not have to let us live. He can kill us at any time and in any way He sees fit and it is not immoral. He will have done no wrong, because life is not owed to us.
3. Everyone who is old enough to rape someone is likewise old enough to have been convicted of sin already, even if we make allowances for the concept of the age of accountability (which needs to be argued for too). Therefore, the rapist is already guilty of sin before the attack on the eight-year-old girl and he already deserves death so there would be no injustice for God in making the rapist die of a heart attack before he can attack the girl.
4. Even if God didn't want to do that, He is omnipotent. Even if He is not the proper authority here, there is nothing to stop Him from phoning the police Himself and sending them to rescue the girl. For an omnipotent God, that takes no effort at all. Literally.
So, with those facts in mind, if you saw an eight-year-old girl being raped, wouldn't you at the very least call the cops or someone in authority to help, even were you to do nothing else? Wouldn't you at least do that much? And if you knew in advance that it would happen, wouldn't you do what you could in advance to save her from the situation? And furthermore, wouldn't you condemn those who, in this situation, refused to act--just as those who watched Kitty Genovese get brutally murdered without calling the cops are condemned? Would you call those who did not act loving people? And would you accept their excuse, "I am still loving since I only didn't intervene because I wasn't responsible or in a role where I was required to help"?
Hi Peter Pike, et al,
ReplyDeleteThis is off-topic, but I thought you might enjoy this book review of Roger Olson titled Arminian Theology by Roger Olson.
BTW, Peter Pike is the best at writing sentences where all the words start with the same letter.
But I like to try and do my best. ;-)
Peter,
ReplyDeleteI don't have time to respond to your most recent comment tonight, but I will try to respond when I have the chance.
But, I just wanted to let you know that I found this whole conversation so though-provoking and rich that I reposted some of this conversation on my blog.
Now, I can't bring myself to repost conversations the way that most people do. I had to sort all the information.
That's okay, I'm thinking of doing a new post on it myself, especially as this traverses it's way further down the page and into blog purgatory.
ReplyDeletePeter,
ReplyDeleteIn response to your previous comment - I can understand where you are coming from here. The idea that protecting people is loving people, and most of the time, not protecting people when you have the opportunity would not be loving. I understand this more than you know. I once protected someone from being punched, only to have the attacker turn around and pull a knife on me. Even in my dreams, I try to protect everyone. The only time I remember dying in a dream was when I was protecting someone else from being shot by taking the bullet myself.
So if a person is walking by, in an ordinary circumstance, and has the chance to protect someone at no danger to themselves, 95% of the time that would be for an unloving motive. If a person can protect someone else, but it will endanger them, then it would depend on whether they felt giving their life in that one situation would actually save the other person, or whether they feel that it would be better to keep their life to protect large numbers of other people (such as the President not protecting his bodyguard).
But I think that you are over-simplifying it when it comes to God. “See, your position has a lot of drawbacks that you're not even aware of.” Well – I was previously aware of all the arguments that you brought up. I mean, don't think that I haven't pondered all this. Don't think I haven't seen people cut themselves in reaction to the horror of their past. I've been there. I've seen it. I've been in the position where I realized that as much as I try to protect everyone, I can't protect everyone. That was a hard lesson learned – Thursday night all night I watched over this person, and Saturday night I watched over this person, but Friday night I slept and took that time for myself – that night, someone broke into my friend's house and raped her. So yes – I know the drawbacks of my position. But what of your position? God CAUSED that? He, in His love and holiness, decreed and causally determined that event?
So, why would a perfectly loving and omnipotent God allow these sort of things to happen? I would strongly recommend that you read C.S. Lewis' book: The Problem of Pain. It explains well exactly what I believe, but in much better words that I could ever hope to use. http://www.scribd.com/doc/20513125/C-S-Lewis-The-Problem-of-Pain
(continued)
ReplyDeleteFor sake of reference, I will quote part of it here:
“We can, perhaps, conceive of a world in which God corrected the results of this abuse of free will by His crea- tures at every moment: so that a wooden beam became soft as grass when it was used as a weapon, and the air refused to obey me if I attempted to set up in it the sound- waves that carry lies or insults. But such a world would be one in which wrong actions were impossible, and in which, therefore, freedom of the will would be void; nay, if the principle were carried out to its logical conclusion, evil thoughts would be impossible, for the cerebral matter which we use in thinking would refuse its task when we attempted to frame them. All matter in the neighbourhood of a wicked man would be liable to undergo unpredictable alterations.
That God can and does, on occasions, modify the behaviour of matter and produce what we call miracles, is part of Christian faith; but the very conception of a common, and therefore stable, world, demands that these occasions should be extremely rare. In a game of chess you can make certain arbitrary concessions to your opponent, which stand to the ordinary rules of the game as miracles stand to the laws of nature. You can deprive yourself of a castle, or allow the other man some- times to take back a move made inadvertently. But if you conceded everything that at any moment happened to suit him—if all his moves were revocable and if all your pieces disappeared whenever their position on the board was not to his liking—then you could not have a game at all. So it is with the life of souls in a world: fixed laws, consequences unfolding by causal necessity, the whole natural order, are at once limits within which their common life is confined and also the sole condition under which any such life is possible. Try to exclude the possibility of suffering which the order of nature and the existence of free wills involve, and you find that you have excluded life itself.”
Hi Peter Pike and Skarlet,
ReplyDeleteYou might like to read the following blog posts:
(1) Filthy Calvinists and the people who love to hate them by Frank Turk.
(2) My Distaste for Calvinism Made Public by Adam Omelianchuk.
"Try to exclude the possibility of suffering which the order of nature and the existence of free wills involve, and you find that you have excluded life itself."
ReplyDeleteAll of which is immediately refuted by the fact that we will spend eternity in heaven, a place where there will be no suffering of any kind whatsoever. So unless you think eternal life exludes life itself, then Lewis is wrong.