Is the church being obedient?

Some comments on these two posts:

http://theologicalsushi.blogspot.com/2020/04/stop-conspiracy-theories-about-covid-19.html

http://theologicalsushi.blogspot.com/2020/04/is-church-being-most-obedient-it-can-be.html

i) Regarding the first, I'm not sure what Hodge is alluding to with respect to conspiracy theories. Does he mean the suspicion that COVID-19 is a hoax? Or does he mean the suspicion that the gov't response is cover to suppress Christianity? 

ii) To begin with, some Democrat officials have made it clear that they are using the crisis as a pretext to target and discriminate against Christians. So that, in itself, isn't paranoid.

iii) There is, though, the question of how far we can generalize from those examples. It's not so much that the intention of the containment policies is to single out Christians. Because the containment policies are general, they have the effect of shutting down public worship because they restrict social gatherings generally, of which church services are a subset. 

iv) When, however, public officials distinguish between essential and nonessential goods and services, and when they demote public worship to a nonessential good and service, that exposes their irreligious bias. They think Christianity is, at best, something to be tolerated. 

Then there's Hodge's statement that:

The truth is that if you do not have all of the information that the government does and have expertise in the right disciplines of medical research in order to assess that information correctly so that you would come to a correct conclusion of what is going on, then wisdom dictates that you zip your lip about it, not go off spouting whatever theory "might" be true.

i) To begin with, while medical expertise should be one source of information in formulating a public policy to deal with the pandemic, that's not the only relevant sphere of expertise. The risk assessment must not only take the projected harm of the pandemic into account, but the unintended consequences of a containment policy with regard to economic collapse. 

ii) And the idea that we should just trust public officials because we don't have all the information the government has is woefully gullible. During this crisis, many public officials have shown themselves to be reactionary, shortsighted fools who have no idea what the solution is, but just want to be seen as saviors. 

i) Regarding the second post, what I've seen is the opposite of  what Hodge has seen. Evangelical leaders stampeding to agree with public health officials, with very little pushback. 

ii) Regarding the risk of public worship, I don't have anything new to say. Hodge's objection is one-sided. It's a stock objection. I've responded in detail to that objection. Hodge hasn't engaged my arguments.

I'm not suggesting that he has any obligation to interact with my arguments, and his post was not specifically directed at anything I've written. My point is simply that I don't find his objection persuasive because I've dealt with that stock objection, and since he offers no counterargument, it's unconvincing. To be persuasive, he'd need to refute my counterargument.

Again, it's fine with me if his objective was never to engage my side of the argument. But it leaves my side of the argument untouched. 

iii) Hodge's principal argument is that physical fellowship was more necessary for 1C Christians (and even back then it wasn't absolute) than it is for 21C, hitech Christians who can achieve the same goals through technology. 

There's certainly a grain of truth to what Hodge says. To some degree the activities of the church as described in the NT reflect what was possible in the 1C. When we apply these principles to the 21C, we can adapt and update them to our own situation. We don't have the same limitations. And part of fidelity is to take advantage of resources which were not available to 1C Christians. 

iv) The question, though, is whether physical fellowship is just a timebound convention that can be replaced by the electronic church–or something essential to the communal dimension of Christianity. 

To take a comparison, artificial insemination can take the place of conjugal relations, and there are situations where artificial insemination is justifiable, but the mere fact that we have that alternative doesn't mean artificial insemination should replace conjugal relations in marital life. The normative practice is sex between husband and wife. Artificial insemination is an exception due to extenuating circumstances.

v) Hodge himself doesn't seem to think the electronic church ought to be a permanent substitute for public worship, but instead a necessary yet temporary compromise during the pandemic. And I myself am not adverse to reasonable compromises during the pandemic. 

But that pushes the question back to what is a reasonable compromise? How temporary is temporary? Hodge's analysis suffers from the myopic fixation on risk factors, as if that's the only salient consideration, as if nothing happens in public worship to offset and compensate for risk factors, as if there are no blessings distinctive to public worship which will be sacrificed by suspending public worship. Why have public worship at all unless God assigns some distinctive supernatural blessings to public worship? 

vi) As far as I can tell, Hodge has a very authoritarian view of church eldership. Ironically, he absolutizes 1C church eldership while relativizing 1C church fellowship. So he's quite selective about updating his theological principles. But surely it could be argued that 21C Christian laymen are in a very different situation in relation to church elders than 1C Christian laymen. In the 1C, illiteracy was widespread. Private copies of the Bible were rare. To some degree Christians could rely on living memory of the ministry of Christ. Many 1C elders were either eyewitnesses to the public ministry of Christ or disciples of the apostles. But that situation can't be replicated in the 21C.

By contrast, literacy is almost universal among 21C Christians in the West. Many are colleges graduates. Every layman can own a Bible. Every layman can read Bible commentaries and systematic theologies. They can read whatever the pastor can read. An elder doesn't have a unique source of theological information. Elders and laymen are in the same boat. So why is Hodge's view of the lay/elder dynamic frozen in the circumstances of the 1C when he's so flexible about public worship? 

A priori inerrancy

Lydia McGrew continues to do presentations and interviews on her recent book The Mirror or the Mask:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OMdIENUFTGM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LmAjVeGCG78

In the webinar, Lydia draws a distinction between two different approaches to inerrancy: a priori and inductive (1:41-42 min.)

She rejects both, but she's more sympathetic to the inductive approach. That's consistent with her evidentialist epistemology. I think it's safe to say that if she was an inerrantist, she'd be an inductive inerrantist rather than an a prior inerrantist. She draws a similar distinction in The Mirror and the Mask:

Most of the time the term "inerrancy" refers to an a priori approach in which one assumes for theological reasons related to the doctrine of inspiration that the biblical documents are inerrant (in their original MSS). That certainly doesn't describe me. I think we have to see whether or not there are errors by investigation (52). 

What's striking, though, is that she's not opposed to a priori inerrancy in principle. In her interview with Phil Fernandes, she says

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hrek9fQnx1w

I don't think Jesus was mistaken about anything. Jesus was God, so I never say Jesus just made a mistake (1:15-16 min).

So here she takes the position that Jesus is inerrant by virtue of his deity. But that's a priori inerrancy, which assumes for theological reasons related to Christology that the teaching of Christ is inerrant. 

Yet that raises the question of why a priori inerrancy is consistent with evidentialist epistemology when indexed to the person of Christ but inconsistent when indexed to Scripture. Why does the deity of Christ entail or warrant a priori inerrancy but divine inspiration does not? 

It's true, of course, that God uses human agents in the process of inspiration, but by the same token, God uses human agency in the Incarnation. In both cases there's a human medium, as well as divine agency behind the human medium, operating through the human medium. 

Grudem on divorce

1. Wayne Grudem has broadened his position on grounds for divorce:

https://www.christianitytoday.com/news/2019/november/complementarian-wayne-grudem-ets-divorce-after-abuse.html

Since his new position contradicts the staged position in his recently published magnum opus on ethics, I wonder if he will issue a revised edition. 

2. Grudem has a linguistic argument for his new position. I don't have a considered opinion on his linguistic argument. 

3. I agree with Grudem, but for methodological reasons rather than narrow linguistic reasons. Sometimes Christian ethicists are walking a tightrope. That's because Jesus condemned the religious establishment for two opposite errors. On the one hand he condemned the establishment for inventing loopholes to evade God's law. 

On the other hand, he condemned the establishment for mechanically obeying God's law without regard to the purpose of some laws. Paradoxically, obeying God's law is sometimes diametrically opposed to the intent of God's law. Divine commands and prohibitions have an implied context. There are situations in which obedience to God's law is counterproductive to the purpose. 

So Christian ethicists must labor to avoid repeating the two opposite extremes that incurred the condemnation of Jesus when he reprimanded the religious establishment. We can't just play it safe by mechanically obeying commands and prohibitions, because Jesus already warned us that that's not good enough. We must think harder.

To take an illustration, the OT condemns lying trial witnesses. But what's the implied context? The implied context is witnesses who falsely accuse the defendant of wrongdoing. They lie to incriminate an innocent defendant. That's the normal motivation.

But suppose we change the context to a show trial or kangaroo court in which a witness has an opportunity to lie to exonerate an innocent witness. The defendant has been unjustly indicted. Unjustly prosecuted. Suppose a witness can provide an alibi for the defendant? The alibi is a lie, but it's a lie that gets the innocent defendant acquitted. A lie that rectifies the injustice. A lie that unrigs the system.

The OT prohibition doesn't envision that situation. Indeed, that's the polar opposite situation of what the prohibition has in mind. Instead of lying to get an innocent defendant convicted, a character witness lies to get an innocent defendant acquitted. To offset a system that's stacked against him. 

Now you may disagree with my illustration. You may still think lying is prohibited under any and all circumstances. But even so, the example illustrates the moral complexities when we change the implied context. You can't change the implied context but assume that the command or prohibition remains unchanged. Divine laws and prohibitions have a rationale. Altering the situation may sometimes moot or thwart the rationale. 

Some actions are intrinsically right or wrong. Circumstances are irrelevant. But in other cases, circumstances are morally relevant considerations.

Back to the question of divorce. It's antecedently unreasonable to presume that what Jesus said was designed to address every conceivable contingency. Jesus is giving specific answers to specific questions or challenges. In addition, there's a general moral framework which both sides take for granted.

It isn't feasible to have a divine law code for every possible situation. Law codes are finite. 

What if a wife unwittingly marries a cannibal. He plans to eat her on their honeymoon. If, at the last minute, she founds out he's a cannibal, does she have a right to divorce him? 

The Bible doesn't answer questions like that. So sometimes we have to use our own intelligence. Sometimes we have to take other biblical principles into account. Sometimes those override specific commands or prohibitions in case of conflict. In extreme or exceptional situations. 

That, however, opens the door to abuse the principle. To invent loopholes. To rationalize sin. Not only does it create that potential, but the principle will in face be abused by some denominations that are spoling for an excuse. 

So that's the knife-edge. You can fall into error on either side, just like the Jewish establishment in Jesus' day. 

I'd just make two additional points:

i) Since this is a predicament God has put us in, since we don't always have clear-cut, ready-made answers, I don't think God is going to whack us if we're mistaken so long as we make conscientious decisions. So long as we're motivated by fidelity to God. So long as these are honest mistakes.

ii) Conversely, if some denominations use the principle as a pretext to game the system and flout their religious duties, they will pay the price. God is not mocked. They may get away with it in this life, but divine justice will catch up with them. You can't play God for the fool. 

Finally, this isn't an appeal to "what God is telling the church today". This is not an invocation of where the Spirit is said to be leading the church. 

That's a blasphemous way to invoke God's name for the illusion of divine guidance when denominations are simply following the Zeitgeist. That appeal should be no part of the discussion.

Divorce and remarriage

My answer to a question on Facebook:

A valid divorce means the spouse is no longer married. They are single again. So valid divorce implies the legitimacy of remarriage. The only obstacle to remarriage is if one is already married. That would be adulterous. If, however, one is no longer married in the eyes of God, then there's no impediment to remarriage. It's a fresh start, like getting married the first time since divorce resets your marital status to single.

By valid divorce, I mean cases where there are biblical grounds for divorce (e.g. desertion, infidelity). The effect of a valid divorce is to cause the divorcé/divorcée to revert to their premarital status. They revert to the condition they were in before they got married in the first place.

This is partly an issue of theological method. Do we expect the Bible to spell out all the implications. Do we just act on what the Bible says, and if it doesn't say certain things, we don't act on that? Jesus makes some pithy statements about divorce. There's a lot he leaves unstated. Are we supposed to stop with what he explicitly teaches, or consider the logical implications? Do we expect a trail of bread crumbs? Jesus frequently criticizes the religious leaders for failing to consider the rationale for certain biblical laws. By robotically obeying the law, they sometime subvert the original purpose of the law. So we do need to think about the logical implications of Biblical ethics. Likewise, the commands and prohibitions of Scripture usually deal with typical situations, not extreme or exceptional situations. They don't address every conceivable circumstance.

"Hints" of the Trinity

Part of Dale Tuggy's stump speech is that he objects to Christians finding "hints" of the Trinity in the OT. He thinks that's special pleading. They begin with their dogma, then cast about for prooftexts. 

I'd simply point out that Christians aren't doing anything exceptional when it come to the Trinity. Christians have always taken the position that OT theology is less developed than NT theology. That's a given. Although there's continuity between OT theology and NT theology, in many cases you won't find full-orbed NT theology in the OT. Rather, you'll find adumbrations of NT theology in the OT.

That's because, unlike Buddhism, Christianity is a religion of events as well as ideas, and God didn't do everything at once. Biblical revelation is progressive in large part because theology runs in tandem with redemptive events. Doctrine provides a theological interpretation of redemptive events.

So it's not as if Christians use one basic methodology for relating OT theology to NT theology in general, but switch to something completely different when it comes to the Trinity and the Incarnation. Rather, it's the same methodology throughout. 

From Last Supper to Lord's Supper

1. From what I've read, the fundamental objection to female priests is that a priest assumes the role of alter Christus at Mass. When celebrating the eucharist, the priest is a stand-in for Jesus. Therefore, a priest must be male.

Since I repudiate the whole sacerdotal paradigm, I reject female priests for the same reason I reject male priests. My objection lies further upstream. I reject a key presupposition that underlies that understanding of communion. 

I'm not fighting over a word. If Anglicans wish to call their clergymen priests, I don't care. 

2. However, the issue doesn't stop there. With the possible exception of the Plymouth Brethren, in nearly all Protestant denominations of my acquaintance, elders officiate at communion. From what I can tell, that's a relic of the Catholic paradigm. 

So this is a Christian custom rather than a divine mandate. I don't object to Christian customs, per se. I've always attended churches where the clergy officiate at communion. I do think that's a somewhat pernicious tradition because it fosters bad subliminal theological conditioning. However, I never felt called to start a whole new denomination over this one issue. 

It's one of those things where I sometimes have private mental reservations when I attend a church service. My own theology is so developed that I don't expect any denomination to be the mirror-image of my theology. 

3. This does raise a live issue in theological method. How does the Lord's Supper correspond to the Last Supper? Is the Lord's Supper a theatrical historical reenactment of the Last Supper, where participants resume the same roles as the Last Supper? A sacred play in which the original parts are represented? Or does the Last Supper provide general guidelines for how the Lord's Supper should be celebrated?

4. There's no presumption that the way in which a practice is inaugurated furnishes the template for how it's subsequently observed. For instance, festivals like Yom Kippur, Tabernacles, Firstfruits, and the Feast of Weeks were inaugurated by a thunderstorm theophany and angelophany at Mt. Sinai, but that doesn't mean the initial conditions are repeated every time the festivals were celebrated. Indeed, the initial conditions were unrepeatable.

Likewise, the new covenant community was inaugurated at Pentecost with a fire theophany and xenoglossy, but that doesn't' mean every time the lost are evangelized or a new church is planted, the initial conditions are repeated. Indeed, the fire theophany is unrepeatable while xenoglossy is rare. 

5. For instance, the Last Supper was a Passover Seder meal. As such, roast lamb was on the menu. But when we celebrate communion we don't repeat that detail as a historical reenactment of the Last Supper. 

Needless to say, few denominations practice foot-washing whenever communion is celebrated. Jesus led the disciples in singing a Hallel Psalm at the Last Supper (Mt 26:30; Mk 14:26). But that's not a fixture of most communion liturgies I'm aware of. 

6. The fact that we follow the instructions in the institution of the Lord's Supper doesn't entail we reprise the role of Jesus. That's a non sequitur. We repeat the instructions, not the instructor. If a physician prescribes a medication, that doesn't mean someone must reprise the physician's role every time the patient takes the medication. 

The fact that Jesus presided at the Last Supper doesn't carry over to the Lord's Supper because the Last Supper is a one-time event with some unique circumstances–the foremost being Jesus himself. The instructions for the Lord's Supper don't include instructions for somebody to take his place when we celebrate communion. That confuses the descriptive level of the narrative with the prescriptive level. 

Blinded to see

John Murray was known for his emphasis on exegetical theology rather than historical theology. For him, Calvinism had to be justified from Scripture. He wasn't someone who paid lip-service to sola scripture but in reality defaulted to tradition. Of course, like everyone, he was still conditioned by his background, but he made a good-faith effort to derive Calvinism from Scripture. 

In that regard I wonder if it's coincidental that Murray was blind in one eye. He lost one eye in WWI. I imagine it's harder to read with one eye than two eyes. So his visual impairment meant he couldn't be as prolific a reader as B. B. Warfield or E. J. Young. If you can't read as much, then that forces you to be more selective about what you read. The fact that he was blind in one eye may have enhanced his concentration on Scripture. If a Christian suffers from visual impairment, then constant Bible reading may be a priority. 

I'm reminded of something Virgil Thompson said about Toscanini:

…poor eyesight [is] probably responsible for the Toscanini style. When one cannot depend on reading a score in public, one must memorize everything. And when one memorizes everything, one acquires a great awareness of music's run-through. One runs it through the mind constantly; and one finds in that way a streamlined rendering…

If Murray's experience was analogous, to be steeped in the text of Scripture might facilitate his grasp for the flow of argument, narrative arc, and connections within or between books of the Bible. If you carry so much around in your head, then there's a constant process of mental comparison. So it may be that God providentially used–indeed, arranged–Murray's disability to make him excel at exegetical theology.  

Were OT Jews indwelt by the Spirit?

This is a hard question to answer. Different theological traditions give different answers. It raises trickily questions of theological method. Why is it hard to answer? 

1. There's the issue of how the jargon of systematic theology maps back onto biblical usage. In systematic theology, the designations are technical terms with a uniform meaning whereas biblical usage isn't standardized.

2. Scripture often uses metaphors to depict the work of the Spirit, viz. filling, indwelling, falling upon, new birth, new creation. In order to know what that means, we must be able to translate the metaphor into a literal concept. 

3. There's also the question of whether the Bible sometimes uses different picturesque metaphors to describe the same experience. 

4. Regeneration is an essentially Johannine category. 1 Pet 1:23 and James 1:18 are apparently exceptions, but not really. In those passages, the word of God is instrumental to rebirth whereas in Johannine usage, the Spirit is instrumental in rebirth. Likewise, in Titus 3:5, rebirth is connected with the metaphor of water. 

John speaks of "purification" (1:9; cf. 3:3), but in context, that seems to be about the remission of sin rather than spiritual renewal. 

5. Conversely, sanctification is more of a Pauline category (in NT theology). In addition, Paul uses related metaphors (new creation, new man/Adam) for spiritual renewal (2 Cor 5:17; Eph 2:5,10; 4:24; Col 2:13).

Although John uses "sanctification" terminology (Jn 17:17, 19), in context it denotes something like consecration rather than sanctification in the sense of spiritual renewal. 

So this raises the question of how to collate Johannine regeneration with Pauline sanctification.  If they were both Johannine categories or Pauline categories, they might represent distinct stages, so that we could arrange them sequentially, where regeneration precedes sanctification, but since regeneration is John's preferred category for spiritual renewal while sanctification is Paul's preferred category, they may be overlapping categories. Two different metaphors that coincide or cover much of the same ground. 

6. In OT usage, "sanctity" typically denotes cultic holiness or ritual purity rather than spiritual renewal. And that carries over into the usage of Hebrews. 

7. However, the OT also refers to circumcision of the heart (Deut 30:6; Jer 6:10), which seems to be a metaphor for spiritual renewal, equivalent to Johannine regeneration and Pauline sanctification. 

8. We need to distinguish between OT Jews generally and the remnant in particular.

9. In the OT, the action of the Spirit in relation to human agents usually concerns supernatural enablement. Conferring supernatural foresight, insight, skill, or even physical strength–rather than spiritual rebirth. 

And that's paralleled in Acts, where the agency of the Spirit has reference to the charismata (e.g. revelatory dreams and visions, xenoglossy, exorcism, miraculous healing or hexing) rather than spiritual rebirth. The main difference between that kind of empowerment and OT counterparts is that it's more widely experienced among Christians than OT Jews. 

10 Finally, there's the argument from analogy. If, in the NT, certain virtues are the fruit of the Spirit (Gal 5:22-23), and OT saints exhibit the same virtues, then by parity of argument, the same effect implies the same cause. The Spirit is the source or agent of both. That seems to be equivalent to "circumcision of the heart". 

Turning to Catholicism–1

I plan to do a running commentary on Faith and Reason: Philosophers Explain Their Turn to Catholicism (Ignatius Press 2019), Brian Besong, ed. I'll begin with Bryan Cross's chapter. This will be a lengthy post in part because I'm quoting Bryan, then responding to him. The actual analysis is much shorter than the post overall. A few general observations before I engage the text directly:

i) One way to interpret Bryan's strategy is that he's using a process of elimination argument, where each phase in his theological evolution falsifies the prior stage. The Reformed paradigm falsified the Pentecostal paradigm, the Anglican paradigm falsified the Reformed paradigm, while the Catholic paradigm falsified Anglican theology. Put another way, he using each phase as the standard of comparison to assess the deficiencies of the prior phase. 

A problem with that strategy, if that's his argument, is lack of continuity. He can't use the Anglican paradigm to measure the Reformed paradigm if he regards the Anglican paradigm as the wrong yardstick, and he can't use the Reformed paradigm to measure the Pentecostal paradigm if he regards the Reformed paradigm as the wrong yardstick. Ultimately he regards the Catholic paradigm as the right yardstick. Protestant alternatives fail to measure up by that yardstick, and not because they fail to measure up to different Protestant yardsticks. So the process of elimination argument fails unless there's some element of truth that carries through the Reformed and Anglican stages. 

The process doesn't lead up to and culminate in Catholicism if each Protestant alternative is a blind alley. At best, he's eliminating the Protestant competition separately, on a case-by-case basis. Yet the way he structures the presentation makes it seem like a cumulative case where these are logically interconnected stages. Where each stage builds on the previous stage. Although he denies that you can use one paradigm as the benchmark to assess another paradigm, that's precisely how he structures his presentation. 

ii) Suppose I agree with him that the traditional Protestant formulation regarding the sufficiency of Scripture is deficient. Suppose I agree with him that he raises objections which demonstrate how the sufficiency of Scripture, traditionally formulated, can't be held to consistently. Assuming that's the case, is that a reason to abandon the Protestant paradigm for the Catholic paradigm–or is that a reason to modify the Protestant paradigm? 

Suppose there are multiple reasons for me to think the Catholic paradigm is fatally flawed. Then that's not a viable fallback option. So the alternative is not the Catholic paradigm, but modifying the Protestant paradigm. There's a sense in which the Protestant paradigm can be modified in a way that the Catholic paradigm cannot. Although Catholicism can and does change, that has to receive official approval by the magisterium. By contrast, an individual Protestant is at liberty to propose a modification to the traditional Protestant paradigm. That may or may not win wider approval by fellow Protestants, but it's consistent with the individual Protestant's understanding of sufficiency. 

iii) Of course, it shouldn't be an ad hoc modification. And it can't be such a radical modification that it ceases to be recognizably faithful to Protestant essentials. 

But to take a comparison, in the history of philosophy, various positions undergo refinement in light of criticism. It's not necessarily ad hoc for philosophical positions to become increasingly sophisticated as they adapt to objections. 

God of life and truth

The ultimate reality of which Moses was the shadow, the archetype of which Moses was the ectype, now appeared. The true light (John 1:9), the true grace were now manifested.’ It is in this sense that we are to understand our Lord when he said, ‘I am the way, the truth, and the life’...He is the God of truth and all truth derives its sanctity from him. This is why all untruth or falsehood is wrong; it is a contradiction of that which God is... The necessity of truthfulness in us rests upon God’s truthfulness. As we are to be holy because God is holy, so we are to be truthful because God is truthful. The glory of God is that he is the God of truth; the glory of man is that he is the image of God and therefore ‘of the truth’ (cf John 18:37). It is not without significance that the arch-enemy of God and his kingdom is the father of lies; ‘he does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own, because he is a liar and the father of it’ (John 8:44).

https://www.the-highway.com/truth_Murray.html

There are some problem with this inference:

i) Not only is God the exemplar of truth, but as Murray mentions, the exemplar of life. Conversely, Satan is not only the archetypal liar, but the archetypal murderer. 

Likewise, humans are life-givers, through the power of procreation. In that respect, we emulate God–at a finite, derivative level. 

But where does our duty lie if we can save innocent life through an altruistic falsehood? Which of God's exemplary attributes provides moral guidance in that situation: the God of life or the God of truth? Is our primary obligation in that situation to safeguard truth or to safeguard life? Does the preservation of truth take precedence over the preservation of life? So Murray is arbitrarily selective in his appeal to God's nature. 

ii) I don't think we can automatically extrapolate from what's right for God to what's right for us. God is not exposed to the vulnerabilities that lead human agents to lie, to get out of the situation. Of course, that doesn't justify lying in general. But we can find ourselves in dangerous or unjust situations through no fault of our own, where a lie may be the only escape. God is never in that desperate position or predicament. So it's not analogous. God is not in every respect our role model. In some respects he's a radically different kind of being, with some unique prerogatives. 

God and physics

1. There is often thought to be a point of tension between exegetical theology and philosophical theology. And the Protestant faith exacerbates that tension because, in Protestant epistemology and theological method, Biblical revelation takes precedence over philosophy. In traditional Catholic theology, the tension was suppressed, but nowadays there's a stark dichotomy between, say, Thomistic hermeneutics and grammatico-historical hermeneutics. Say, the way Ed Feser interprets the Bible and a Catholic Bible scholar.

There is, for instance, a prima facie tension between classical theism and narrative theology. Open theism represents one extreme, taking its cue from narrative theology. 

I think there are cases where there's a genuine contradiction. For instance, it's really hard to square the Thomistic theory of the soul with the intermediate state. Likewise, I think it's really hard to square Thomistic simplicity with divine freedom, the Trinity, and theologically crucial distinctions between, say, justice and mercy. 

To take another example: the argument from evil is routinely cast in terms of perfect being theology rather than biblical theism. The argument from evil would dissolve if you plug Yahweh into the formulation because Yahweh coexists with evil. There's no contradiction in narrative theology between Yahweh's existence and the existence of evil. Those exist side-by-side. 

2. However, it doesn't follow that there's necessarily a dichotomy between exegetical theology and philosophical theology, although some modifications are required (see above). 

To take a comparison, there's often thought to be a point of tension between physics and common sense. What the world is really like is different from how we perceive it. Physics gives us an "objective" description of the world which falsifies common sense. How we experience time, color, and "solid" objects is said to be something of a psychological illusion. 

Now, there may be a grain of truth to that, but the alleged bifurcation between what the physical world is really like, independent of human perception, and how it appears to us is often misleading. For one thing, there are competing theories of time and color. 

More to the point, a scientific explanation doesn't necessarily undermine common sense, but provides a more complex and complete picture, including how what stands in back of common sense generates our common sense perception. The impression that some objects are solid to the touch isn't by any means an arbitrary postulate or tactile illusion. Rather, physical objects have relative density, so that two objects of similar density are solid in relation to each other. A door is solid to me because my body and the door have similar density, compared to my body and a swimming pool. Particle physics is consistent with the world of touch. 

Likewise, color is a relation between the composition of a physical object, the quality of light, and how the eyes of an organism are tuned to sample certain wavelengths. Although there's a percipient-relative element to color perception, insofar as our visual processing system makes a contribution to the total effect, that's not a sheer projection. When human observers with normal color vision see a stop light, the top light is consistently reddish, the middle light is consistently yellowish, while the bottom light is consistently greenish. It's not as if some drivers see the top light as yellow or green while other drivers see the bottom light as red or yellow. No, there's constancy in how drivers with normal vision perceive what shade colored objects are. And that's because there's something about the composition of the object that makes it one color rather than another. That can't be switched around. While a common sense theory of color is simplistic, it has an element of truth. Although a scientific explanation will be far more intricate, it will supplement and account for the common sense impression rather than disprove it.  

3. By the same token, there are ways of modeling how a God who exists beyond time and space is compatible with narrative theology or the Incarnation. If the model is successful, philosophical theology doesn't correct narrative theology and narrative theology doesn't correct philosophical theology. Rather, philosophical theology can sometimes provide a deeper explanation for what lies behind events, and how that causes events. 

By way of illustration, suppose we were artificially intelligent virtual characters in a video game. Initially, we don't know that there's any larger reality. Suppose we then discover that we're virtual characters. Reality extends beyond the game. Indeed, an external reality produces the game. That doesn't mean our experience is false. The virtual characters really exist. There really is a video game. That's not an illusion. But our experience within the game is an incomplete sample of reality as a whole. 

Christian Ethics: An Introduction to Biblical Moral Reasoning

http://themelios.thegospelcoalition.org/review/christian-ethics-an-introduction-to-biblical-moral-reasoning

Divine Condescension and the Attributes of God

WTS theology/systematics prof. Scott Oliphint is facing a heresy trial:

https://www.theaquilareport.com/a-charge-brought-against-dr-scott-oliphint-professor-of-apologetics-at-westminster-seminary/

A few brief observations:

i) I lack in-depth knowledge of Oliphint's theology. It's one of those situations where you read enough of somebody to make a preliminary judgment about whether it's worthwhile to read more of their stuff. From what I've read of him, Oliphint doesn't strike me as a high-level thinker, so I haven't bothered to deepen and broaden my familiarity with his writings. It's my impression, from what I've read, that he's out of his depth. So my knowledge of his theology is admittedly cursory. Life is short, so we make investment decisions about where to put our time. He has a son (Jared Oliphint) who strikes me as having a sharper mind than his old man. 

ii) Ironically, WTS has made it very impractical to have a detailed knowledge of Oliphint's position by withdrawing his controversial book from circulation, which makes remaining copies prohibitively expensive. Not that I don't buy expensive books, but for the price of that one book I could buy several different books that actually interest me. 

Parenthetically, I question the ethics of WTS buying the rights to the book from the publisher, like a product recall. Is that an appropriate use of seminary funds? Likewise, is it appropriate to conceal his position from public view and scrutiny by making the evidence inaccessible? 

iii) Here's an excerpt from his controversial book:

When Scripture says that God changes his mind, or that he is moved, or angered by our behavior, we should see that as literal. It refers us to God and to his dealings with us. It is as literal or as real as God being the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Scott Oliphiint, God with Us: Divine Condescension and the Attributes of God (Crossway 2011), 123-24.

In a way this seems to be readjudicating the Clark controversy. To judge by the excerpt, Oliphint is adopting Murray's position, but taking it to a logical extreme. It becomes similar to open theist hermeneutics. Assuming that's a representative sample, he's staking out a position more characteristic of freewill theism than Calvinism. Calvinism and freewill theism are competing theological paradigms. A position that rejects divine aseity, immutability, and impassibility is on the opposing side of the spectrum.  

Now Oliphint tries to nuance that, but the question is whether he's attempting to have it both ways. Can you have it both ways? I don't think so. 

iv) In fairness to Oliphint, this goes back to perennial debates about the relationship between exegetical theology and philosophical theology. The role of anthropomorphism and all that. Certainly there's a danger, and not just a hypothetical danger, of filtering biblical theism through an extraneous interpretive grid. Take debates over divine simplicity, or the way Aquinas glosses Exod 3:14. 

v) This becomes, in part, an issue of theological method. Do we interpret narrative theology in terms of what Scripture says about the divine attributes in more didactic genres? If there are passages which teach divine aseity, omnipotence, omniscience, and impassibility, then those are logically and literally irreconcilable with narrative or poetic passages that depict God as shortsighted, short-tempered, blindsided, reactionary, &c. Take passages about absolute predestination. Well, that can't be true if God is surprised by the turn of events or angered by the outcome.    

By the same token, the OT indictment of pagan polytheism loses most of its force if Yahweh is typical of the high gods in the pagan pantheon, the primary difference being that there's just one deity of that kind rather than many–who happens to be the God of Israel. 

To be the absolute Creator, God had to exist apart from time and space if time and space are modes of creation. If everything unfolds according to a master plan, then there's an asymmetrical relation between God and creation, where the world has no effect on God. The influence goes one way. That's not philosophical theology. Rather, that's exegetical theology. That's biblical creation, predestination, and providence. Of course, freewill theists demur, but that illustrates the competition between two incompatible approaches. Different reading strategies, divergent theological paradigms. 

The alternative is to say that Scripture is inconsistent. But if we affirm inerrancy, then it's necessary to make allowance for anthropomorphism. And if, indeed, the God of classical theism is approximately correct, then we'd expect God to relate to us on our level. That's not special pleading. Admittedly, appeals to anthropomorphism can be too facile and reflexive. We need to be circumspect about that principle. But it's not imported from philosophical theology. 

vi) That said, the resurgence of Reformed Thomism and Nicene subordination is animated by tribal loyalties and crowd psychology rather than fidelity to the witness of Scripture. Perfunctory profession of sola Scriptura while chauvinistic tradition carries the day. There's blame to go around in this controversy. It's not one-sided. 

Sneak attack

As a progressive theologian, Randal Rauser is in a bit of a bind. That's because there's not much of a constituency for his brand of theology. It's still too religious for atheists but too secular for Christians. Christians don't take it seriously and atheists don't take it seriously. Both sides view progressive theology as specie pleading. 

He worms himself into the good graces of certain atheists, as their favorite theologian, because he's a useful tool. They both attack Biblical theism. They both attack biblical morality. But they don't take his alternative seriously. He schmoozes with heretics like Dale Tuggy. He ingratiates himself with enemies of the faith, because he has nowhere else to go. 

Rauser is like the cheerleader's swishy gay male friend. He's amusing company. He's safe. A limp, non-threatening figure. But she doesn't mistake him for a real man. As soon as they graduate, she will leave him in the dust. He's just a toy. Okay for temporary entertainment, but not to be confused with manhood material. 

Because it's hard for Rauser to find a niche, his modus operandi is hypothetical dilemmas, which he uses as a wedge tactic. He postulates impossible dilemmas for conservative Christians. Choose between these two intolerable options. If you balk, that creates room for his third option, his progressive alternative.

But it only works if you play his game by his rules. Anyone can dream up hypothetical dilemmas for which there's no good answer. That's what makes thought-experiments so convenient: because they're artificial, you can stipulate anything you wish. You delimit the parameters. 

And there's nothing intrinsically wrong with thought-experiments. Indeed, they can be very useful.

But there's something wrong when they are used to subvert divine revelation. The solution is not to step into the trap. The fact that Rauser tries to control the terms of the debate creates no obligation to submit to his false dilemmas.  

The Gospel According to Yoda

Orthodox Lutheran

Maybe the real unelect were the reason-worshipping Calvinists we met along the way. 

#muhDoublePredestination

#muhClayQuestioningThePotterVerseMeansWeCanGetAwayWithMakingGodOutToBeEvil

Hays 

To my knowledge, classical Lutheranism affirms unconditional election. That entails reprobation. Lutherans arbitrarily reject the logical of their own commitments.

Lutheran Memes 

Calvinists love to cry "strawman" then turn around and do the same thing. We have never and will never confess the deplorable, unbiblical, and utterly unchristian doctrine of election unto damnation.

Hays 

I didn't cry strawman and you didn't refute the implication.

Lutheran Memes 

We don't "reject the logic of our own commitments" we actually openly and publicly confess the paradox. Unlike those who try to compress God into a finite box they can comprehend, thereby requiring them to twist and distort Scripture so that its mysteries make sense to their puny human minds, we actually admit the God is a being beyond human comprehension and is allowed to work beyond the limits of our reason.

Scripture says that salvation is by unconditional election. We affirm that.

Scripture says that damnation is the result of our own sin, and God does not desire the death of the wicked but desires that all be saved and come to a knowledge of the truth.

How can both of these things be true? We have no idea. But we believe they are both true because God said so, and who are we to imagine we know better than God?

Hays 

In which case you forfeit the ability to argue for Lutheranism or argue against Calvinism.

Lutheran Memes 

Ah, yes. So, because we believe what the Bible teaches, we forfeit the ability to argue for sound doctrine or against heresy?

Hays 

If you ditch logic, then the Bible is consistent with anything.

Lutheran Memes 

The Bible is consistent with itself. Remember the warning of Chrysostom, a comprehended god is no god. Let God be true and every man a liar. So what if your pathetic human brain can't fathom the paradoxes of Scripture. Scripture is true whether or not we can understand how. Stop pitting Scripture against Scripture and believe all of it. Stop shoe-horning your man-made doctrines onto God's Word.

Hays 

By rejecting logic, you can't distinguish heresy from paradox.

Lutheran Memes 

Nobody is rejecting logic. We're refusing to subject Scripture (written by eastern minds) to modern western thought processes. Letting Scripture interpret Scripture is exactly how we distinguish heresy from orthodoxy. Shoe-horning Aristotelianism onto an eastern text is the surest way to screw it up.

Hays 

So Aristotelian logic is modern (2500 years old) while the letters of Paul, written in Greek to Greek churches, are eastern.

Are law and Gospel the same or different? Why not both/and? It's paradoxical, you know. Don't let that newfangled Aristotelian logic turn law and Gospel into opposites. That's binary modern western thinking. Away with the law/Gospel dichotomy. Embrace Buddhist both/and.

Lutheran Memes 

Yes, your modern application of Aristotelianism is modern. And yes, Paul's letters are eastern. He was a Hebrew. His epistles are littered with eastern style. Neither the Old nor New Testaments are works of western thought or literature.

As for your second comment, I don't even know where you're trying to go now. You're so wrapped up in your attempt to shoe-horn God into an Aristotelian box that you've stopped making sense.

Hays 

Aristotle antedates Paul by about 500 years. In addition, you're completely overlooking Hellenistic Judaism.

The Eucharist is both the True Body and Blood of Christ and not the True Body and Blood of Christ. It's a paradox. Don't try to shoehorn the antinomy into your finite puny-brained logic box.

Can God lie?

In my experience, Calvinists typically contend that while God can and sometimes does deceive certain people through secondary means (e.g.1 Kgs 20:23), God cannot lie directly. He can deceive through the instrumentality of others (e.g. Ezk 14:9-10) but he can't personally lie. 

On the face of it, that's a makeshift distinction, but in fairness, they simply attempting to adhere to biblical distinctions. And freewill theists are in the same boat. Take stock prooftexts that God cannot lie:

God is not man, that he should lie, or a son of man, that he should change his mind. Has he said, and will he not do it? Or has he spoken, and will he not fulfill it? (Numbers 23:19).

The Glory of Israel will not lie (1 Samuel 15:29).

in the hope of eternal life, which God, who does not lie, promised before the beginning of time (Tit 1:2).

God did this so that, by two unchangeable things in which it is impossible for God to lie (Heb 6:18).

I'll revisit these momentarily, but let's consider a different passage:

Then God said, Take your son, your only son, whom you love—Isaac—and go to the region of Moriah. Sacrifice him there as a burnt offering on a mountain I will show you (Gen 22:2).

1. On the face of it, didn't God lie to Abraham? No point getting bent out of shape by my asking the question. This is not a minor passage. It's from a famous, major incident in Scripture. And it's just as inspired as the contrary prooftexts. 

2. Perhaps someone will object that it's not a lie because it's just a command, whereas a lie must be a declarative sentence. Commands can't be lies because they don't assert or deny anything. Only propositions can be lies. But there are problems with that deflection:

3. It's a hairsplitting distinction that appeals to modern philosophy of language, but why assume Bible writers were operating with that dichotomy? Why assume they confined lies to propositions rather than other kinds of verbal deception? (Or even nonverbal deception?) We can't just impose that stipulation on Scripture.  

4. For that matter, the concept or definition of lying didn't fall from the sky. Even from a philosophical standpoint, it's not a given that lying must be propositional. For instance:

Against the statement condition of L1 it has been objected that the making of a statement is not necessary for lying. Lying to others may be defined as “any form of behavior the function of which is to provide others with false information or to deprive them of true information” (Smith 2004, 14), or as “a successful or unsuccessful deliberate attempt, without forewarning, to create in another a belief which the communicator considers to be untrue” (Vrij 2000, 6). Importantly, this entails that lying can consist of simply withholding information with the intent to deceive, without making any statement at all (Ekman 1985, 28; Scott 2006, 4). Those who make this objection would make lying the same as intentionally deceiving (Ekman 1985, 26).

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/lying-definition/#ObjTraDefLyi

1. According to Gen 22:2, God issued a command that's verbally deceptive. On a related note, Scripture contains divine predictions of judgment, yet God sometimes relents. Did he keep his word or go back on his word? 

2. This is, in part, an issue about theological method. Assuming inerrancy, when we have apparently discrepant statements in Scripture, what statements function as the benchmark in relation to which we harmonize the other statements? Is Gen 22:2 paradigmatic–or Num 23:19? 

3. One principle is that when Scripture has passages of the same kind, where some are qualified while others are unqualified, we treat the unqualified passages as implicitly qualified by the qualified passages. So, for instance, some oracles of doom are formally unconditional while others are contingent on contrition, so we treat unqualified oracles of doom that don't come to pass, not as false prophecies or failed predictions, but implicitly conditional threats. And that's something to keep in mind when it comes to passages about divine veracity and deception. 

4. A problem with simply quoting 1 Sam 15:29 to settle the issue is that 1 Sam 15:11 says the opposite:

I regret that I have made Saul king, because he has turned away from me and has not carried out my instructions (1 Sam 15:11).

If we take both statements at face value, that generates a contradiction. The standard orthodox explanation is that 1 Sam 15:11 is anthropomorphic. And I agree with that. 

5. Heb 6:18, as formulated, is not an absolute statement, but a specific claim about two unchangeable things: God's promise and oath. That's consistent with either of two positions:

i) It's intrinsically impossible for God to lie, and these two examples are special cases of that general principle. 

ii) It's impossible for God to lie about these two kinds of things, but the statement doesn't address the larger issue of whether God cannot lie under any circumstance whatsoever. 

6. When you look at the prooftexts, there's a common theme. God cannot lie about certain kinds of promises. God cannot lie about his commitment to the ultimate welfare of his people. Here's another example:

What if some were unfaithful? Does their faithlessness nullify the faithfulness of God? By no means! Let God be true though every one were a liar, as it is written,

“That you may be justified in your words,

    and prevail when you are judged.”

(Rom 3:3-4)

That unpacks lying in terms of infidelity. For God to lie, in this context, would mean God was unfaithful to his covenantal obligations. 

Minimally, what the biblical data indicates is that God can't be deceptive about promises of salvation (or damnation). Paradoxically, even in the paradigmatic case of Gen 22, the deceptive command facilitates the covenant with Abraham and other parties to the covenant (future Jews and Gentiles). So the verbal deception is benevolent rather than malevolent. That's like the proverbial white lie, which has a beneficial aim or intent. Telling a necessary lie to do someone good.