For ease of formatting, and to bypass the word-limit, I'm going to lift this out of the combox and address it in a separate post:
CR:
i.) I remain convinced by Scripture and conscience that lying is always sinful, and thus is always impermissible for Christians.
ii.) Scripture does not approve of lying.
iii.) Christ didn't lie, and Christians are called to imitate Him.
iv.) Christ never broke any of God's commands, and since He was "in every respect tempted as we are, yet without sin", it's not possible for Heb. 4:15 to be true if Christians will face situations where they are forced to disobey one of God's commands (a "lesser" command) in order to obey another (a "greater" command), or else Jesus would have been faced with such a situation too.
Multiple problems:
i) A biting irony of the "absolutist" position is that absolutists are forced to concoct hairsplitting distinctions between the permissibility of deception and the impermissibility of lying. They draw makeshift distinctions between lying and deception, or between verbal and nonverbal deception. They allow for military deception. They allow for half-truths, equivocations, &c. They allow for deceptive communication so long as that's not technically "lying."
And this, of course, depends on their stimulative definition of "lying." The Bible doesn't define lying. It never draws those finespun distinctions. Absolutists impose that on the text.
ii) As I pointed out before, which CR ignores, Scripture sometimes presents God as a deceiver (of unbelievers). We see this in both Testaments. If Jesus is divine, then he sometimes engages in divine deception.
iii) CR is rehashing some objections that I already addressed in response to another commenter. For instance:
a) If I were Jesus, I wouldn't box myself into that predicament in the first place. If I can predestine history, I won't put myself in a bind.
But since I'm not God or God Incarnate, I must play the hand I was dealt. I'm not the dealer. I didn't shuffle the deck.
b) Likewise, if I had the miraculous powers of Jesus, there'd always be alternatives to lying since I'd be able to supernaturally override the circumstances.
But since I'm not God or God Incarnate, I must play the hand I was dealt. I'm not the dealer. I didn't shuffle the deck.
b) Likewise, if I had the miraculous powers of Jesus, there'd always be alternatives to lying since I'd be able to supernaturally override the circumstances.
c) In large part, God can be trusted to keep his promises because God has the unilateral ability to ensure their realization. Nothing and no one has the power to prevent him from doing what he said he'd do.
In addition, God is never in a position where he must choose between protecting the innocent and telling the truth.
The same, however, can't be said for feeble creatures in a fallen world.
In addition, God is never in a position where he must choose between protecting the innocent and telling the truth.
The same, however, can't be said for feeble creatures in a fallen world.
iv) My argument was never that there are situations where we must commit a lesser wrong to avoid a greater wrong.
v) The implication of CR's position is that it would be sinful for God Incarnate to disobey any of God's laws. Likewise, he puts lesser commands and greater commands in scare quotes, as if that distinction has no basis in fact.
By that logic, it would be sinful for God Incarnate to disregard any of the ceremonial laws, even though these are not moral laws, but symbolic illustrations of holiness and unholiness.
vi) By that logic, the new covenant entices Christians to commit sin inasmuch as the new covenant abrogates many of the Mosaic laws, viz. the Mosaic cultus (priesthood and sacrifice), purity codes.
vii) To assert that it's always sinful to break a law of God begs the question. To assert that Christ never broke a law of God begs the question.
Moreover, it's demonstrable that Jesus sometimes violated the purity codes by fraternizing with ritually impure persons.
viii) But let's focus on the Sabbath. In Jn 5:17-18, Jesus admits that he works on the Sabbath, in direct contravention to what the Mosaic law prohibits. He justifies that on the grounds that God works on the Sabbath–and by implication–that he is divine. A spine-tingling comparison for a Jewish audience.
According to Jn 5:17-18, Jesus breaks the Sabbath all the time. Not just in exceptional circumstances, but in his divine capacity (e.g. ordinary providence). Jn 9 is another Johannine healing on the Sabbath.
ix) In the synoptic Gospels (Mt 12: 1-14; Mk 2:23-28; 3:1-6; Lk 6:1-11; 13:10-17; 14:1-6), the argument isn't predicated on the necessary assumption that Jesus and his disciples actually are Sabbath-breakers. Rather, the argument is that even if they were Sabbath-breakers, their infraction would be justifiable under the circumstances.
x) Jesus doesn't accuse the Pharisees of misinterpreting the Sabbath prohibition. He doesn't deny their allegation that he was working on the Sabbath or breaking the command. Jesus pleads no contest. He grants the allegation for the sake of argument. Whether or not he was guilty as charged misses the point.
Rather, he accuses them of failing to distinguish between lesser and greater obligations. Even if he was guilty as charged, his behavior was justified by a higher duty.
Jesus doesn't correct their interpretation of the Sabbath command. Rather, he corrects their flat view of legal and moral obligations. All obligations aren't equally obligatory. For instance, ethical obligations outrank ritual obligations.
xi) He deploys a fortiori arguments. For instance, he says David's soldiers broke the Levitical law by consuming the showbread, which was reserved for priests. Yet he says that was warranted under the circumstances.
By analogy, his disciples are at liberty to glean the fields on the Sabbath. Although gleaning the fields was permissible on most days, doing so on the Sabbath would conflict with the prohibition against Sabbath labor.
Keep in mind that the disciples weren't starving to death. They were simply hungry. But this wasn't a work of "necessity." They could forgo food for a day.
xii) Moreover, he cites Hos 6:6 to underscore the principle that higher obligations override lower obligations in case of conflict.
xiii) Furthermore, he appeals to his divine authority as Lord of the Sabbath to suspend that command–in another hair-raising claim for a Jewish audience.
xiv) Likewise, he reasons, a fortiori, that if the temple (tabernacle) is greater than the Sabbath, then he is greater than the temple (tabernacle). If it was permissible for priests to work on the Sabbath, in violation of the general prohibition, it's permissible for him to work on the Sabbath–inasmuch as he is greater than the temple and the Sabbath alike.
xv) In another a fortiori argument, he says that if it's permissible to aid livestock on the Sabbath, it is all the more permissible to aid the sick. In case of conflict, higher obligations supersede lower obligations.
This is despite the fact that the sick could wait another day. It isn't necessary to heal them on the Sabbath. Many were sick for years. One more day wouldn't be a big deal.
The livestock weren't in mortal danger. The patients weren't in mortal danger. But mercy takes precedence.
Exactly! That's why Jesus referred to the "weightier matters of the law" (Matt. 23:23). Implying there are ligher (or less weighty) matters. Some laws take precedence over others. For example, the law of circumcision takes precedence over the Sabbath prohibition against work (John 7:22-23). Also, New Covenant laws and principles supersede Old Covenant laws and principles when they conflict. For example, the fellowship and peace between Jewish and Gentile believers supersedes the Old Covenant kosher laws and the principle of consecration/separation/distance from unclean Gentiles which they were symbolic of [Acts 10:15; and the entire book of Galatians].
ReplyDeleteSo, If a wife asks her husband whether he loves a dress she's wearing as much as she does and he doesn't or is merely indifferent, it's probably permissible to just say "yes" if it'll mean she's happier and it preserves the peace. It's just not as important as other subjects where honesty will make a big difference.
Regarding sabbath breaking and Jesus' divinity, I argued something similar in one of my blogs.
There's an incident in the Old Testament that's analogous to hiding Jews from the Nazis, 1 Samuel 19:11-17. It involves deception AND verbal propositional lies by Michal (David's wife) both at the beginning and ending of the incident. I'd like to see how the people holding differing views on lying interpret it.
ReplyDelete11 Saul sent messengers to David's house to watch him, that he might kill him in the morning. But Michal, David's wife, told him, "If you do not escape with your life tonight, tomorrow you will be killed."12 So Michal let David down through the window, and he fled away and escaped.13 Michal took an image and laid it on the bed and put a pillow of goats' hair at its head and covered it with the clothes.14 And when Saul sent messengers to take David, she said, "He is sick."15 Then Saul sent the messengers to see David, saying, "Bring him up to me in the bed, that I may kill him."16 And when the messengers came in, behold, the image was in the bed, with the pillow of goats' hair at its head.17 Saul said to Michal, "Why have you deceived me thus and let my enemy go, so that he has escaped?" And Michal answered Saul, "He said to me, 'Let me go. Why should I kill you?'"
At the beginning Michal verbally lied by saying David was sick and then at the end she protected herself by lying to her father about how David threatened her if she didn't help him. When in fact she willingly initiated helping David. Non-verbal Deception was involved in making it look like David was under the bed covers.
Lots of good thoughts here, thanks for the continued interaction, steve. I didn't ignore your argument about Jesus divinely not "boxing himself in" to certain ethical/moral dilemmas, it just seems that the text of Heb. 4:15 puts believers and Christ in the same box regarding temptations to sin, emphasis on His sympathy for His people and His ability to emphasize with their struggles, and the statement seems pretty all encompassing.
ReplyDeleteBut you seem to have advanced the scope of the discussion beyond lying to sin in general. What is sin?
I'm no Bible or NT let alone Hebrews scholar so I'm sure others can correct me if I'm wrong:
DeleteMy understanding is, first off, Heb. 4:15 is meant to stand in contrast to Heb. 4:14 inasmuch as v. 14 might cause believers to think Christ our high priest is so far removed from us ("passed through the heavens") he can no longer sympathize with us. Hence v. 15 lets believers know even though Christ has ascended into heaven he is still able to sympathize with us. This is on a background of contrasting the old covenant with the new covenant, and how exceedingly superior the new is to the old, especially in terms of Christ our high priest who is far greater than all.
Second, in the context of the epistle, the Hebrew believers were at risk of apostatizing and returning back to Judaism. So what's primarily in view here seems to be Christ's sympathy with respect to apostasy. Heb. 5. continues this to say Christ is able to "deal gently with the ignorant and wayward" - i.e. those at risk of apostasy.
Given this, I'm not quite sure if it's necessarily meant to be taken as an "all encompassing" promise with regard to any and every sort of temptation.
i) You keep framing the issue in terms of sin, as if the question at issue is whether Christians are ever justified in sinning, or if Christians ever find themselves in a moral dilemma where there's no sinless alternative.
DeleteThat's predicated on your tendentious assumption that lying is always sinful. Although you're entitled to your opinion, that fails to engage my argument, since my position doesn't assume a moral dilemma in that sense. You're attempting to derive a conclusion from a framework I reject.
I don't consider a "temptation" to lie ipso facto equivalent to a temptation to sin. Once again, that's the very issue in dispute. So your argument is circular.
ii) Your comparison is equivocal. If I were omnipotent like Jesus, I wouldn't lie to the Gestapo to protect Jews either. As an omnipotent being, I'd have so many other options at my disposal. I could vaporize them, or blind them, or paralyze them. I could make them naked or lose bladder control. I could teleport them to Devil's Island or the moon. I could turn their Lugers into sticks of butter.
I could make them go to the wrong address. Make them storm the house of a Nazi collaborator, guns ablazin'.
It's like those SF scenarios about telepathic aliens. Never pick a fight with a telepathic alien. It's no match, since the telepath can make you imagine anything.
iii) I didn't change the scope of the discussion. I was responding to you on your own grounds. You said Jesus never broke God's law. I cited a series of counterexamples, mostly concerning the permissibility of Sabbath-breaking.
I suppose I'm framing the issue of lying in terms of sin because I believe lying is sinful, so there's internal logic at least, although you think it circular, yet with God's Word as my ultimate authority circularity is unavoidable. Ultimate authorities are funny like that.
DeleteIn your opinion how is sin objectively identifiable as opposed to being subjective and relative? How do you define sin?
Hello CR,
DeleteWhat of the case of David eating the bread in Matthew 12, which is specifically stated to be unlawful, or the priests whom Jesus literally says *profane* the Sabbath, yet all of them are called "guiltless"?
Do you believe that not all lawbreaking is sinful, and that's why they are guiltless? Or do you believe instead that not all sins incur guilt?
As to your other question:
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In your opinion how is sin objectively identifiable as opposed to being subjective and relative?
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As I stated from the very beginning, the greatest commandment must be obeyed. If one is not loving God with all one's heart, soul, and strength, and if one is not loving his neighbor as himself, then one is sinning even if one is not breaking any other law. Conversely, if one *IS* loving God with all one's heart, soul, and strength, and one *IS* loving his neighbor as himself, then that one is not sinning even if in order to obey the greater commandment he occasionally has to disobey one of the lesser commandments. This provides the objectively identifiable rule that is invariable and not relative.
By the way, I am also fully cognizant that people are evil hypocrites who might claim to be obeying the great commandment, and perhaps even believing that they are, when they are actually motivated by sin. As I've also said from the beginning, I do not believe the situations where one is forced to break a lesser commandment to obey the great commandment happens with any sort of frequency.
DeleteCR:
Delete"I suppose I'm framing the issue of lying in terms of sin because I believe lying is sinful, so there's internal logic at least, although you think it circular, yet with God's Word as my ultimate authority circularity is unavoidable. Ultimate authorities are funny like that."
That's confused. The question at issue isn't the circularity of your authority source but circular argumentation.
Since your aim is to critique my position, if you wish to actually engage my argument, then you can't simply assume what you need to prove, as. You can't impute your interpretation to me, as if that's a given, then conclude that my position is wrong. I don't grant your interpretation. That's the very question at issue. You need to give supporting reasons for your interpretation, and you need to address the rebuttals. That's your burden of proof. The ball is currently in your court. I returned your serve.
"In your opinion how is sin objectively identifiable as opposed to being subjective and relative? How do you define sin?"
That's a red herring. You made a claim, and I reponded with numerous counterexamples. You need to deal with the specifics of the counterargument.
We have the testimony of Jesus in Matt. 5:17 that He didn't come to overturn the Law, but to fulfill it. Whatever Jesus did or did not do in His humiliation would have been in perfect obedience to, and in harmony with the Father's (and Spirit's) will, so He certainly didn't sin.
DeleteAs for the Sabbath breaking, I don't see in Scripture that He violated any of God's laws, although He frequently and flagrantly ignored and exposed the vain traditions of men, so my view is that He kept God's law perfectly, since the law is an expression of God's moral character and Christ as God Incarnate was the perfectly obedient, holy and moral man.
Not sure why He didn't bother to clarify what He meant to the Jews, but He often refused to explain Himself, and it does seem logical that as the Second Person of the Triune God, if the universe kept on existing then Christ must have been upholding it by the word of His power, yet obviously this didn't violate God's law.
In the context it seems the larger point is His divine self-disclosure.
As for the showbread/gleaning, it seems He was simply highlighting the Pharisees inconsistency since gleaning was not a Sabbath violation.
I don't think Jesus was a "legalist", but it appears that He perfectly kept God's law. And I think He always told the truth.
By the way, isn't it arguable writing behind a pseudonym (e.g. CR) is in a sense a "lie" or "deceptive"?
DeleteAs for enticing Christians to violate ceremonial laws, Christ was ushering in the Messianic eschaton of fulfillment, so that's New Covenant inauguration.
DeleteHi rwh, I don't know. Those are my initials, and correspond to my email address, so I'm not sure.
Delete@CR
Delete"Hi rwh, I don't know. Those are my initials, and correspond to my email address, so I'm not sure."
Thanks for your response, CR. But wouldn't a partial truth still be "deceptive" at least to some degree? If so, and if you're an absolutist on lying and deception, then I would think this could have important ramifications for you. Not trying to start a flame war or anything, but just gently pushing you to consider the reasoning if I may.
CR:
Delete"We have the testimony of Jesus in Matt. 5:17 that He didn't come to overturn the Law, but to fulfill it."
That begs the question of whether breaking the Sabbath to heal the sick or exorcise demoniacs is equivalent to "overturning the law."
Your tactic is to appeal a general principle to bypass the details of specific texts to the contrary. Moreover, you haven't even shown, on exegetical grounds, that your appeal carries that implication.
"Whatever Jesus did or did not do in His humiliation would have been in perfect obedience to, and in harmony with the Father's (and Spirit's) will, so He certainly didn't sin."
You're doing absolutely nothing to advance the argument. There are two ways you can try to attack my position:
i) You can attempt to attack my position on its own grounds. You're not doing that.
ii) You can attempt to attack my position on your own grounds, provided that you can justify the standard by which you attack my position. However, you're failing in that regard, because I've consistently countered your appeals, and your only response is to simply repeat your original claims. That's not a counterargument.
"As for the Sabbath breaking, I don't see in Scripture that He violated any of God's laws, although He frequently and flagrantly ignored and exposed the vain traditions of men."
i) That's not the argument which Jesus uses in response to his accusers vis-a-vis the Sabbath. Once again, you're resorting to a generic appeal to bypass the details of specific texts in question.
ii) Jesus found it physically exhausting to heal multitudes hour after hour, day after day. That was a laborious activity.
"since the law is an expression of God's moral character"
That's a gross overgeneralization. Many of the Mosaic laws were temporary and typological.
"Not sure why He didn't bother to clarify what He meant to the Jews…"
You assert that what he meant in Jn 5:17-18 is unclear. That's special pleading.
"…yet obviously this didn't violate God's law."
You assert that in the teeth of a text that says the polar opposite. In that passage, Jesus explicitly says he's working on the Sabbath. Indeed, that he never takes a day off. He is always working on the Sabbath.
"In the context it seems the larger point is His divine self-disclosure."
Self-disclosure concerning his continuous agency in ordinary providence.
"As for the showbread/gleaning, it seems He was simply highlighting the Pharisees inconsistency since gleaning was not a Sabbath violation."
I already anticipated that evasive maneuver. The general permissibility of gleaning the fields doesn't mean gleaning the fields on the Sabbath is permissible.
Conversely, if gleaning the fields on the Sabbath is permissible, then sowing on the Sabbath would be permissible. Gleaning the fields is hard work.
CR- I am curious about how you understand Jesus' words in Mark 7:18
DeleteDo you not see that whatever goes into a person from outside cannot defile him, 19 since it enters not his heart but his stomach, and is expelled?” (Thus he declared all foods clean.)
When did all foods become clean? At that moment, or after His death, burial and resurrection?
"It's like those SF scenarios about telepathic aliens. Never pick a fight with a telepathic alien. It's no match, since the telepath can make you imagine anything." -
ReplyDeleteROFL!!!!!
@Steve: don't forget Jael's deception, which won her praise. After loving God, the next greatest commandment is loving neighbor as self. These are our highest duties,which a Dudley Doright approach to the question of lying prevents us from doing.
ReplyDeleteAs for the Sabbath issue, doesn't the change of covenant and priesthood affect the situation of Sabbath- and cerrmonial lawkeeping? The definition of work is also important, God's definition of melakha differing from that of the Pharisees. I'd appreciate your opinion.
No need for ad hominem, you might not realize it - or care - but a significant number of God-fearing Christian thinkers throughout church history have held the position you seem to disparage.
DeleteIt also unclear how a high view of truth telling prevents Christians from loving God and our neighbors. Not sure how that necessarily follows.