Commenting on my post:
Dale Tuggy said:
Fun fact: Jesus disapproves of this post. Matthew 5:22The sort of contempt he [Hays] expresses here is exactly the sort of thing Jesus has in mind.
Here's the passage in question:
But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother will be liable to judgment; whoever insults his brother will be liable to the council; and whoever says, ‘You fool!’ will be liable to the hell of fire (Mt 5:22).
i) When it comes to blogging, I'm pretty emotionally detached. Anger wasn't in play.
ii) The statement is not about anger in general, but anger directed at one's "brother". In Matthean usage, "brother" is a synonym for "Christian".
Rauser has views of Scripture and Christology that would get him excommunicated from any 1C church overseen by the apostles. Rauser has views of Scripture which parallel the views of Christopher Hitchens, Richard Dawkins et al. Rauser is not a Christian by NT standards. He couldn't be a church member in good standing by NT standards. So he's not my "brother".
For his part, Tuggy denies the Incarnation. Tuggy is a Socinian rather than a Christian. So he's not my "brother".
Summing up (i)-(ii), I wasn't angry, but even if I was angry, I wasn't angry at a Christian brother.
iii) Jesus himself, in the very same Gospel, refers to certain kinds of people as "fools" (7:26; 23:17; 25:2-3,8), and Christians are expected to view them the same way their Lord does. So unless Tuggy thinks that Jesus is hopelessly contradictory, Mt 5:22 can't be a universal condemnation of calling people "fools".
iv) I wasn't insulting Rauser. Rather, I was making a considered value-judgment about his inept, patronizing, contemptuous dismissal of young-earth creationism. I'm not even committed to young-earth creationism, but it deserves a lot better than Rauser's smarmy tweet.
v) Rauser promotes a kenotic Christology. He regards Jesus as a fallible teacher. A child of his times. So even if, for argument's sake, we agreed with Tuggy's interpretation of Mt 5:22, Rauser doesn't view the teaching of Jesus as authoritative.
vi) For that matter, Tuggy thinks Jesus is just a human being. So is Jesus still infallible from Tuggy's viewpoint? Is Mt 5:22 inerrant from Tuggy's unitarian viewpoint?
vii) In addition, both Rauser and Tuggy reject the inerrancy of Scripture. So do they even think the Gospels preserve an accurate record of what Jesus said on this and other occasions? BTW, do either of them think the Gospel of Matthew was written by an eyewitness?
"For his part, Tuggy denies the Incarnation. Tuggy is a Socinian rather than a Christian. So he's not my "brother"."
ReplyDeleteUm...OUCH!!!
"In addition, both Rauser and Tuggy reject the inerrancy of Scripture."
Which in my opinion would be the end to a theological conversation. If you're one of those types, why even care what the Bible says at all?
"I wasn't insulting Rauser." Steve, if you actually believe this right now, you're deceiving yourself. Your meaning was plain to any reader.
ReplyDeleteInteresting interpretation - insults are fine for non-Christians. I think that seizing on the word "brother" misses Jesus's point - he's talking about the righteousness that surpasses that of the scribes and the Pharisees. (Matthew 5:20) If you regard Rauser and me as your enemies, then you can consult v. 44.
Let me summarize this embarrassing post: "I can insult whenever I want, when it is non-Christians who are the recipients. But I wasn't insulting anyway."
Never mind your super-sectarian judgments about who is and who isn't a Christian. In any case, this is not the way of Jesus, and if you're really his disciple, you will at length think the better of it, and will delete this and the previous post.
"Interesting interpretation - insults are fine for non-Christians"
DeleteYou're the one, not me, who construes my characterization of Rauser as an insult.
"I think that seizing on the word 'brother' misses Jesus's point"
If that misses his point, why did he restrict his comment to "brothers"? Why are "brothers" a synonym for Christians in Matthew's Gospel?
I'm exegeting your prooftext. The wording matters. You're taking an explicitly qualified statement and changing it into an unconditional statement.
"If you regard Rauser and me as your enemies, then you can consult v. 44."
Don't flatter yourself. You and Rauser pose no threat to me. So no, you're not *my* enemies. You are, however, enemies to many other people.
"Let me summarize this embarrassing post: 'I can insult whenever I want, when it is non-Christians who are the recipients.'"
For a former philosophy prof., logic isn't your forte.
I didn't say or imply that Christians have carte blanche to insult non-Christians. Mt 5:22 is silent on how to treat outsiders. The verse is specifically about a code of conduct among members of the Christian community. It doesn't speak to the question Christian discourse in regard to outsiders one way or the other.
In NT ethics, there's a degree of overlap vis-a-vis the code of condition within the Christian community and the code of conduct between Christians and unbelievers. But there are also differences (e.g. 1 Tim 5:8). It's not one identical standard or two entirely different standards.
There are certain universals in treating human beings generally. But there are also many cases in which different circumstances require differential treatment.
Dale
Delete"Never mind your super-sectarian judgments about who is and who isn't a Christian."
Dale, you don't think Jesus is God but just a human being, you reject the Incarnation, you're a unitarian, you reject biblical inerrancy. If these are true, then how are these "super-sectarian judgments"? They would be positions that disagree with fundamental tenets of Christianity.
You multiply irrelevant words, Steve, but your disobedience remains.
ReplyDeleteIt's revealing how you refuse to engage the actual argument.
DeleteOnly a fool argues about what is obvious.
DeleteIn other words, that would be foolish *for me* to do. Your problem is not being a fool, but rather, you are justifying your disobedience to the one you confess as Lord.
DeleteOnce again, Dale, it's revealing how unphilosophical you are. Whether I'm disobedient isn't something you're entitled to stipulate, as though that's a given. You keep begging the question. I presented counterarguments to your appeal to Mt 5:22. You're not refuting what I said. Didn't take you long to bottom out.
DeleteDale, you're making an unsubstantiated accusation against Steve, and you expect him to just accept it? That's like a woman making an allegation of sexual abuse against a man without any evidence and expecting him to agree he's guilty.
DeleteWhat's more, you simply assert and declare your interpretation of Mt 5:22 is "obvious" when others disagree. If it's so obvious, then you shouldn't have much difficulty exegeting the verse(s) in question.
I don't think Steve was being disobedient at all. I think he6dealt fairly with the actual text and Dale is just offering his opinion. Since he doesn't believe in inerrancy, he really doesn't have more than personal opinion. Thus, absent compelling exegesis of the text, what more is there to discuss? I think Steve can live with violating Dale's opinion of a fallible text.
ReplyDeleteTo be clear, in Dale's view, a fallible text.
ReplyDelete