1. In Christian theology, there's a sense in which human beings are born lost. By that I mean, absent God's gracious intervention, we're already lost the moment we step into existence.
Now God can intervene at any stage in our existence, so God can intervene between conception and birth. When I say born lost I don't mean that maybe we lost our way at some point during gestation. I don't mean we became lost in the womb. It's just concrete way of expressing the fact that we don't have to do anything to be in a lost condition. We don't become lost. Rather, we find ourselves in that condition.
2. This is a doctrine that Christians accept on authority. One question is whether it's something we can explain, defend, or understand by reason.
Intuition is paradoxical in the sense that on the one hand we depend on intuition for many things, but on the other hand, intuition isn't consistently reliable. It can lead us astray. Sometimes the problem is due to overgeneralizing from certain examples or illustrations. Or sometimes what we call intuition is just our social conditioning, and what's intuitive or counterintuitive is culturally variable.
We need to make allowance of the live possibility that there are things we're just not smart enough to figure out, like the necessary conditions for moral responsibility or blame.
3. Wesleyan Aminianism tries to relieve the tension by positing universal sufficient/prevenient grace. Sounds nice, but is it true? Or is it just an ad hoc solution to wish it away? Universalism is another way to evade the issue.
4. In theory there are three different ways we might view the human condition:
i) We find ourselves born on a road. The road isn't going in the right direction or the wrong direction. But there's a fork in the road up ahead. That's the point at which we can lose our way, by taking the wrong turn.
ii) We are born beyond the fork in the road. We are going in the right direction. But the road splits up further down the line. Depending one which turn we take at the second fork in the road, we will continue going in the right direction or else we will become lost.
iii) We are born beyond the fork in the road. We are going in the wrong direction. But the road splits up further down the line. Depending one which turn we take at the second fork in the road, we will continue going in the wrong direction or else we will escape and finally get on the right path.
(iii) represents the biblical view of the human plight.
5. However, that raises the question of whether it's fair to be born lost. Let's consider another illustration. Suppose a rich man squanders his fortune in gambling debts. When he was rich he had a very luxurious lifestyle. But his children were born after he lost his fortune.
Although they suffer the consequences of their father's compulsive gambling, it's not unfair that they weren't born rich. It wasn't their money to begin with. They didn't make a fortune, then lose it. It was never theirs to lose. They weren't entitled to be born rich.
6. An objection or limitation to that comparison is that the situation of his kids isn't punitive. Not to be born rich isn't punishment for their dad's gambling debts. But damnation is punitive.
Here I'd introduce another consideration. The metaphor of lostness is, in itself, morally neutral. Indeed, we're apt to think of it as a kind of innocent, hapless misfortune. Mind you, it's possible to lose your way through reckless disregard of warning signs.
But there's a glaring sense in which the lost condition of humanity isn't innocuous. Take the capacity for wanton human cruelty. And this manifests itself at a very early age. It's startling to see how cruel kids can be to each other. So something already went wrong. And not just because some kids are neglected or emotionally abused. Kids with loving parents can be gratuitously cruel to each other.
7. In addition, while this is a doctrine which Christians accept on authority, it's also the case that human beings really do act like they're in a lost condition. We see that all the time. So it's not something we just take on faith, appearances to the contrary notwithstanding.
8. There's also the nature of salvation and damnation. What are human beings entitled to? How much good are they entitled to? How much deprivation do they have a right to be spared? The children of the man who lost is fortune don't deserved to be tortured for his behavior. But they don't deserve to be rewarded, either.
Do human beings deserve not to be lost? What does it mean to be lost forever? Does it mean to miss out on certain opportunities and certain goods? If so, is that unfair? Is that wrong?
There's something tragic about that, but an element of tragedy makes life weightier. We don't take the good for granted.
Of course, we're used to thinking of hell in much worse terms, but that's in large part because the wicked behave in much worse terms.
9. A very popular storyline is a story about how somebody or some group got rescued. One variation is rescuing somebody who is lost. A lost child. A lost hiker. A lost sailor. Or a castaway who's stranded and forgotten on a desert island. But in stories like that, you must be lost before you can be rescued.
Much of the appeal of the Gospel lies in the two-sided character of salvation. Salvation is only meaningful and thrilling because sinners are lost apart from salvation. That's why they have to be rescued.
And there are different ways to be lost and rescued. You can be rescued from the bondage of a self-destructive addiction. You can be rescued from depression and self-loathing.
10. In my view, human beings originate as divine ideas, like fictional characters in the mind of a storyteller. We initially exist in God's imagination. And God's imagination has alternate plots for every human life. In God's imagination, there's no one thing we were going to do or not do. Rather, there are endless plot variations. At this stage they're all just possibilities. Coequal possibilities. There is no one right plot. Each storyline will have unique points of interest and insight.
When God creates us, he takes one of these plots and makes it real. In this case, he chooses a plot in which I'm born lost. He could choose a different plot. But it's not as if there's one way the story was supposed to begin or end. Because there's no one story to choose from. There are many different storylines. Did God wrong a human being by selecting one plot rather than another?
Regarding being conceived in the womb in a lost and thus damnable status: i never understood or sympathized with the point of view: "these conceived beings aren't entitled to mercy, they didn't earn it, they don’t deserve to be spared".
ReplyDeleteWhen I think of this outlook, I try conceive what kind of callousness of heart can accept such a notion with indifference. I can see how a sinful being can be callous, but how can God be?
Isn't it the natural intuitive/instictive point of view of the vast majority of humanity (I'm almost certain its even surely the knee jerk reaction of even those born and bred into federal headship cultures where ancestor's behaviour dictates the position you find yourself in) to sympathize with such a state of affairs?
It doesn't seem intuitive to look at a child born with debilitating birth defects and immediately think "well, they didn't deserve anything different, we do no wrong not having mercy on them, that's just the way it is d/t the universal effects of previous sin."
It seems an almost universal human response to have mercy on those who are saddled with disabilities-to help them up.
If it isn't almost universal, say, if this response is only common to those regenerated or unregenerate but given the common grace ability to at least empathize with another's predicament, where does this empathy come from?
We see in Scripture God has mercy on whom He chooses. With our finite minds, many of us, myself especially, struggle with how God can switch mercy off and on at will, and detach Himself so to speak with the plight of those conceived in sin.
Finally I have to admit, Steve, I don’t quite follow your line of thought where you describe how we don’t do anything we wouldn’t have done otherwise because this timeline is the one God instantiates among other conceivable timelines. I don’t grasp how this helps explain where desire “comes from” just because we start from the instantiated being vs backing up and considering “possible” beings.
In application to this conversation: why ask “why should they get mercy?” Instead of “why shouldn’t they”, especially if it’s a conceivable storyline that God COULD instantiate?
"Regarding being conceived in the womb in a lost and thus damnable status: i never understood or sympathized with the point of view: 'these conceived beings aren't entitled to mercy, they didn't earn it, they don’t deserve to be spared'. When I think of this outlook, I try conceive what kind of callousness of heart can accept such a notion with indifference. I can see how a sinful being can be callous, but how can God be?"
DeleteThat's a caricature of what I wrote. It strips away the careful qualifications I built into the specific examples I used to illustrate my points under #'s 5-6, and reduces what I said to something entirely generic. That oversimplifies my explanation.
"It doesn't seem intuitive to look at a child born with debilitating birth defects and immediately think 'well, they didn't deserve anything different, we do no wrong not having mercy on them, that's just the way it is d/t the universal effects of previous sin.'"
But that's your example, not mine. You're swapping out my examples, swapping in you own example, then attacking the example you substituted for mine.
Your example posits an analogy, but the question is whether the comparison is relevantly analogous.
There are other points in my post that you don't try to engage. That's your prerogative. But you've responded to a highly simplified version of what I actually wrote.
"I don’t grasp how this helps explain where desire “comes from” just because we start from the instantiated being vs backing up and considering “possible” beings."
Because my post wasn't intended to answer that question. But it's rather like asking what makes a fictional character a villain. At one level he's a villain because that's how the screenwriter wrote the character. And when the teleplay is filmed, he will be a villain because that's how his character exists. It only exists as written. The film version will correspond to teleplay. That's from outside the world of the story. The creator of the character.
But it's also possible for the screenwriter to include a precipitating event in the life of the character where he goes bad. A turning-point where he becomes a villain. That's from inside the world of the story.
You’re probably right Steve I probably caricatured to some degree what you posted. No bones about it, I struggle to accurately reflect information I absorb. Maybe it’s partly due to, and not trying to flatter you, but you are able to analyze and communicate at a much higher level than I think I ever could. Much of what you write goes over my head but what I do understand of it I enjoy. You probably notice the only issue I tend to comment on on the blog relate to origin of sinful desire and the justice of inherited lostness.
ReplyDeleteI think it was Wesley who, I have heard but cannot source, commenting on predestination, said something to the effect,(hope not to caricature here :) : “whatever scripture seems to teach on predestination, it surely cannot mean THAT.” The THAT he had in mind was the Calvinist predestination.
And some have said that Molinas attempt at trying to make predestination more palatable, came up with a middle ground theology to avoid making God the callous being he thought Calvinistic predestination made Him out to be.
I’m trying my best in my walk to love this God that saves me from the pit, while at the same time realizing He doesn’t want everyone out of the pit they were thrown into by Adam, and who now have no desire to get out of this pit because of the wicked heart they were conceived in the womb with.
Please pray for this brother for comfort with this tension.
From what I can tell, your primary objection isn't to Calvinism but exclusivism. You object to the idea that everyone is born lost but not everyone has an opportunity to be saved. Yet that's just standard issue exclusivism. Historically, it's the standard Protestant position. It's the traditional basis for Protestant missionary work in denominations that subscribe to freewill theism as well as Calvinism.
DeleteI can only play the hand I was dealt. It's not the hand I'd deal myself, from my sublunary standpoint. My position may come across as rather hard-nosed, but the Bible is often pretty hard-nosed, and we inhabit a pretty hard-nosed world, all of which suggests that God is, in some respects, rather hard-nosed. So I'm just being realistic.
There are alternatives to Christianity, but they're not serious contenders for the truth. And they don't make the world a nicer place.
Yes hard-nosed is it. And you’ve nailed it-exclusivism chafes me. I just hope this fact isn’t a sign of being reprobate.
ReplyDeleteI find there’s a fine line between being realistic, given the hard-nosedness of this world, and being jaded. I think I’m jaded. Hard to have hope.
I find amongst reformed folk, the tendency is to be quite stoic in outlook. Keep the emotions to a minimum, keep it cerebral. I tend to be cerebral so gravitate and subscribe toward reformed theology as well. I don’t bring it up often amongst brethren I fellowship with as it causes discomfort, but I, and I believe most (I don’t have proof-maybe I’m just trans-ferring my own inner world), ardent reformed folk struggle to conceive of an affectionate Father, not just to be a character written in a story, an information bit in a computer program. I’ll stop there cause I don’t suppose extensive sentimentality will find traction on a hard-nosed blog :).