Below is a lightly edited transcript of a discussion I’ve been having with an email correspondent over Christian meta-ethics.
ADEODATUS: On your theory of ethics, I assume you are an absolutist. Now, are you a graded absolutist like a Geisler or a Murray?
In ethical dilemmas, therefore, we should do the greater of two goods (or, stated another way, the lesser of two evils). if you're not GA, where/what is the best critique of it that you know of.
STEVE: In discussions like this, "evil" is a term of art. "Evil" isn't synonymous with evildoing or wrongdoing.
So, in choosing between the lesser of two evils, we're not necessarily choosing one wrong over another wrong.
We never have the right to do wrong, but "evil" and "wrong" are not interchangeable in this context.
For example, if a man can't breathe, and the only way to restore his breathing is to puncture his esophagus and insert a straw, that's a necessary evil, but it's not a wrong (i.e. immoral). Indeed, it's the right thing to do.
All obligations are not coequal. Some duties are higher than others. When a higher duty conflicts with a lower duty, the higher duty suspends the lower duty.
This is in part because some duties have an mean-ends relation. Yes, I believe in moral absolutes, but some duties are instrumental goods rather than intrinsic goods.
In addition, we have concentric social obligations. We have a general obligation to the welfare of children, but I don't have the same (degree of) obligation for your children as I have for my own.
Up to a point, I also think that we make choices based on what options God, in his providence, has made available to us. That doesn't override all other considerations—but it is a consideration.
I could say more about all this, but that's a start.
ADEODATUS: I appreciate the "evil" and "wrongdoing" distinction.
If "we never have the right to do wrong," then are you not a graded absolutist?
And, yes, there are weightier issues, but we should obey them, *as well as* the lighter matters, right? For example, it seems to me that when Geisler (defending hierarchicalism, or, GA) says that we may break the 9th commandment and lie to Nazis looking to find and kill Jews we are hiding, he assuming that the 9th commandment says we can never ever deceive anyone in any circumstance.
But in this instance I don't think it would be a violation of the 9th commandment. It seems to me that GA allows one to *sin* if he "breaks God's law," then does it matter that he had a "tough choice to make?" And, btw, I like a lot of your ethical thinking, what/who have you read and/or profited the most from in this area?
STEVE: I read Geisler's book many years ago, so I'm fuzzy on the details. But it seems to me that the terminology of graded absolutism is confusing or confused.
1. By definition, we never have the right to defy a moral absolute.
2. Belief in moral absolutes doesn't mean that all duties are moral absolutes. Some duties are instrumental to a higher end.
3. Apropos (2), I do not regard truth-telling a moral absolute. Rather, it's an instrumental good.
3. Teleology is consistent with moral absolutes, because the absolute is the higher end to which certain means are adapted.
BTW, I don't regard teleological ethics as a freestanding ethical system. But it's a necessary element in moral valuation.
4. Unfortunately, Joseph Fletcher co-opted the word "situation" in situation ethics, which is associated with moral relativism.
This means, by invidious association, that any position which appeals to varying circumstances in moral valuation is tarred with relativism. But that's a serious overstatement.
Relativism doesn't mean that my obligation may differ in a different situation. Rather, relativism means that I could do the opposite in the very same situation.
If something is a duty in one situation, then it's a duty in an analogous situation. That doesn't mean it's also a duty in a disanalogous situation. Maybe yes, maybe no. Depends.
5. In a fallen world, it's possible for a sinner to maneuver himself into a situation where he can't discharge all of his responsibilities. Suppose a man has four kids by one marriage. Suppose he has an affair, and leaves his wife for another woman. Suppose he has another four kids by the second marriage.
He doesn't have the financial wherewithal to adequately provide for the financial needs of all his kids.
Suppose he becomes a Christian. That, of itself, doesn't change his financial situation. That doesn't turn back the clock. He boxed himself in, and there's no way out of the box.
6. Frame has done a lot of good writing on ethics and meta-ethics.
Although he's Roman Catholic, Peter Geach wrote an insightful book entitled _The Virtues_.
I don't always agree with Frame, and I agree with Geach less often than I agree with Frame. But one can learn some moves from both men.
ADEODATUS: I know some graded absolutists appeal to places like Mt. 12: He answered, "Haven't you read what David did when he and his companions were hungry? 4He entered the house of God, and he and his companions ate the consecrated bread—which was not lawful for them to do, but only for the priests. 5Or haven't you read in the Law that on the Sabbath the priests in the temple desecrate the day and yet are innocent? 6I tell you that one greater than the temple is here. 7If you had known what these words mean, 'I desire mercy, not sacrifice,' you would not have condemned the innocent. 8For the Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath.”
They say this proves that you can violate moral absolutes for higher absolutes. If I understand you, would your take be that they didn't violate an absolute, but a moral law that was a means to an end. They were in a situation where a more important obligation - possibly even a moral absolute - took precedence over the other moral law.
STEVE: The appeal to Mt 12 as a prooftext for graded absolutism assumes that all the OT laws exemplify the moral law, and therefore are moral absolutes.
Not all OT laws are moral absolutes. Ceremonial laws aren't moral absolutes.
Moreover, a particular law may be a concrete instance of the moral law, yet it's an instance that's adapted to the socioeconomic and political conditions of the day.
The underlying principle is unconditional, but the concrete way the principle is applied may sometimes be conditioned by the timebound circumstances of that time and place.
For example, male headship is an enduring principle, but there are various ways in which that can be exemplified or implemented, and the details vary according to the cultural perceptions and historical contingencies of the immediate situation.
Furthermore, the idea of one moral absolute overruling another moral absolute is incoherent, for that's a concealed way of saying that one absolute is relative to another. So they first classify an obligation as a moral absolute, then proceed to relativize it. This is ad hoc and incoherent. They need to scrap the framework and devise something more principled and internally consistent.
ADEODATUS: So on your scheme, how do you handle moral dilemmas? Let’s take two examples:
A trolley is coming down a track, and it’s going to run over and kill five people if it continues. A person standing next to the track can flip a switch and turn the trolley onto a side track where it will kill one but save the five.
Most people think that’s morally permissible to harm one person when five are saved.
Another case is when a nurse comes up to a doctor and says, “Doctor, we’ve got five patients in critical care; each one needs an organ to survive. We do not have time to send out for organs, but a healthy person just
walked into the hospital—we can take his organs and save the five.”
Is that OK? No one says yes to that one.
Now, in both cases your action can save five while harming one, so they’re identical in that sense. So why the flip-flop? People of different ages, people of different religious backgrounds, people even with different educations
typically cannot explain why they think those cases differ." This can obviously be answered, but is there a general program, or do you take dilemmas on a case-by-case basis?
STEVE: It depends on how you define a moral dilemma. We can find ourselves in a situation where we don't know the right thing to do. We're confronted with conflicting moral intuitions.
We also need to distinguish between what is “right” in the sense of morally right, and what is “right” in the sense of correct or prudent or best.
In addition, there's also a difference between what's morally permissible and what's morally prescriptive. Take the trolley thought-experiment. Is it morally permissible to sacrifice one life in order to save five others? I'd say, yes—in this scenario.
Is it morally mandatory to do so? What if someone doesn't want to have that death weigh on his conscience? What if he doesn't feel he has the right to do that? Is it wrong for him not to intervene?
I wouldn't go so far as to say someone is obligated to take a life in that situation. After all, he's not responsible for the situation itself. He didn't create the situation. So these are forced options. He didn't choose these choices. And so I can see someone saying, in good conscience, “the outcome isn't my responsibility.”
In moral dilemmas, there may be no obligation to act one way or another. More than one course of action may be licit, without any course of action being obligatory.
I've already mentioned the distinction between ends and means as one way of harmonizing otherwise conflicting duties consistent with moral absolutism.
And I’d also invoke my prior remarks regarding the concentric character of our obligations. I have a higher obligation to God than I have to man; I have a higher obligation to my father/mother; wife/brother; son/daughter than I have to your father/mother; wife/brother; son/daughter.
Suppose my son and your son were trapped in a burning building. Suppose you can't save both of them. It would be right for you to rescue your son rather than mine. Indeed, it might even be incumbent on you to rescue your son rather than mine.
You have an obligation to try and save both if you can, but in case of conflict, the concentric nature of our social obligations supplies another harmonistic principle consistent with moral absolutes.
In principle, it ought to be possible to apply general norms to every situation. Even when we judge on a case-by-case basis, we are bringing certain general principles to bear.
However, the general and the specific cross-pollinate. For specific instances are a stimulus to moral intuition. It's hard for us to reason purely in the abstract. We need concrete examples to refine our intuitions. It isn’t all worked out in our head, in advance of the fact.
The danger is to overgeneralize. A position may seem to be intuitively compelling until someone comes up with a counterexample that didn’t occur to us.
ADEODATUS: Do you know Frame's (and Bahnsen's) breakdown of a someone doing a good act as having the right motive, goal, and standard? If someone doesn't have the right motive, say, then is that act he did, say, saving a drowning victim, not qualified as good? Was he immoral in doing it? Should people do immoral acts? Should he not have saved the life then? Does Frame take these as necessary and sufficient conditions? Is there a problem not separating acts from intentions?
STEVE: It's better to do the right thing for the wrong reason than refrain from doing the right thing.
Indeed, we have a standing obligation to do the right thing (or refrain from doing the wrong thing) whether we feel like it or not.
Something can be objectively right (according to the standard), but subjectively wrong (according to the motive).
However, the standard trumps the motive because the standard is a divine standard, whereas the motive is a human motive. There is a standing obligation to comply with a divine prescription or proscription.
If I do the right thing for the wrong reason (wrong motive or goal), then that says something bad about the subject of the action (the agent), but it doesn't say anything bad about the object of the action (the law of God).
There's a difference between a virtuous law and a virtuous agent. The law of God is good irrespective of the agent, and the law is normative regardless of the agent's incentive. Objective right takes precedence over personal righteousness. Ideally, the subjective and objective aspects of a deed ought to dovetail, but law is prior to motive or goal.
Put another way, there are actually two sets of intentions:
i) The intention of the human agent in doing or refraining from doing something;
ii) The intention of God in obliging the human agent to do something or refrain from doing something.
The law of God is objectively right according to God's standard, motive, and goal.
The human agent may be unrighteous in his intentions, but that doesn't relativize a moral absolute. He ought to do the right thing for the right reason, but absent that, he should still do the right thing, even if he does it for the wrong reason.
ADEODATUS: How do you determine which morals are absolute, and which are means/end? You said truth telling was "means end." What makes you say that? Is there are rule that can be applied that says all x's are absolutes and all y type things are means/end? Do they change? Can means/end also be absolutes in different situations, and vice versa?
STEVE: I don't think there's any rule of thumb. But we do have a revelation. That gives us some examples from which we can extrapolate. It gives us some examples of divinely sanctioned deception—as well as divinely sanctioned Sabbath-breaking. In both instances, the lying and Sabbath-breaking were sanctioned in cases where human wellbeing was a stake.
So truth-telling and Sabbath-keeping would be a means to that end—human well-being. And in situations where they actually frustrate that end, the obligation is temporarily suspended.
This is why the Puritans exempt duties of mercy and necessity (WCF 21:8; cf. Isa 58:13-14; Lk 4:16; Mt 12:1-13; Mk 3:1-5).
Frame has a good discussion of deception:
http://www.frame-poythress.org/frame_articles/2005Must.htm
Tuesday, October 09, 2007
The Wisdom of Youth
“Reason is the greatest enemy that faith has; it never comes to the aid of spiritual things, but - more frequently than not - struggles against the divine Word, treating with contempt all that emanates from God."I'd expect this from someone in their 30's or above - but "the greater part of my life?" Friend, you are all of 17 years of age.
Martin Luther could scarcely have worded it better. For the greater part of my life, I held a faith that I believed was unified with reason. I was a devout Christian in every sense of the word, living a life for Christ and striving to place him (or at least my perception of him) at the center of all my endeavors. I was a regular Apostle Paul in regards to my fiery defense of the Word, taking every opportunity to engage in debate with the skeptic and show him the error of his ways
By the way, you have no idea what Luther was talking about, do you?
It would help your case if you wouldn't rest quotes out of context.
HT: James Swan who does a good job responding, so I need not go any further.
Monday, October 08, 2007
Who would Jesus kill?
A year ago, Ben Witherington weighed in on the Amish massacre:
http://benwitherington.blogspot.com/2006/10/lessons-from-amish-power-of-pacifism.html
I’m afraid Witherington reminds me of the parties which the Bernsteins used to throw for the Black Panthers—immortalized by Tom Wolfe’s satirical prose.
“This friends is real Christianity. Christians do not retaliate. They do not seek revenge, for the Bible says that vengeance should be left in the hands of the Lord. In fact they do quite the opposite. They offer forgiveness even to their tormentors.”
i) Here he fails to draw a basic distinction between vengeance and self-defense. Self-defense isn’t vengeful.
ii) And is this “real Christianity”? Is it really Christian for fathers and husbands to lay down their arms so that violent men can rape and murder their wives and children with impunity?
How is this any truer to Christianity than Jehovah’s Witnesses who refuse blood transfusions to a family member in critical condition, or Hillbillies who die of snakebite in a church service?
No doubt it’s sincere. All three groups are being true to their convictions. Yet that doesn’t make their actions true to Scripture—but only to their distorted understanding of Scripture.
“So I stand with the Amish and I stand with Jesus.”
How does he stand with the Amish? Does he milk cows for a living?
“Not all the armies who ever marched have had the power or effect on history of that one single and solitary life, the life and death and resurrection of Jesus, on all of humankind going on now for over 2,000 years.”
i) Well, that’s true, but that’s’ because you and I aren’t Jesus. I hope Witherington doesn’t suffer from a Messiah-complex.
ii) In addition, it overlooks the fact that a number of wars were fought in the last 2,000 years to preserve Christian freedom of expression. If we never fought back, the knowledge of the gospel would be eradicated from the earth.
“Long ago Jesus said to me and to us all "take up your cross, and follow me". The Amish understand that that is an invitation to lay down your weapons and be prepared to die rather than fight for what you believe. They understand that love and forgiveness are stronger forces than death and destruction. They understand that forgiveness breaks the hideous cycle of violence.”
i) Does it? Is that what God told OT Jews as they entered the Promised Land? Just forgive the Canaanites and that will break the hideous cycle of violence? Would the Canaanites and Assyrians and Babylonians unilaterally lay down their arms and plant daisies if only unconditional forgiveness were extended to one and all?
ii) Of course, there is a sense in which pacifism breaks the cycle of violence. If one side doesn’t defend itself, it will be annihilated. And that will put an end to the violence—since there is no one left to kill.
“That's what a real Christian life can and will do. And yes friends, it takes a lot of courage to stick by these principles in the age and culture and world we live in.”
How much courage does it take to be Amish in the America?
“Make no mistake. Revenge and retaliation come natural to fallen human beings.”
True, but what about justice?
“Some years ago, Mother Teresa was crossing the Allenby Bridge into the Holy Land from Jordan. She was stopped of course by Israeli border guards, who troubled to search this diminuitive little nun. They asked her ‘have you any weapons?’ --a ridiculous thing to ask a nun. ‘Oh yes’ she said boldly. ‘I have my prayerbooks.’ And she held them up.”
Well, that’s real sweet. What does Witherington think would happen if Israel unilaterally disarmed? How would Hamas and Hezbollah and Al-Qaida and Iran react?
How many days or weeks would it take for Israel’s enemies to kill every Jewish man, woman, and child?
“The Amish have said this week that they have felt uplifted by the prayers of millions who have been told about this story. Prayer--- now there's a dangerous weapon that can change the landscape of the world.”
i) Well, that’s true up to a point. But if prayer could bring peace to the world, why hasn’t it done so by now?
ii) Indeed, doesn’t Witherington believe in libertarian freewill? So, from Witherington’s perspective, God couldn’t answer that prayer even if he wanted to. So if human freedom renders many human beings impervious to persuasion, then the only way to stop them is to shoot them.
“This I know for sure. This world is run by a God who answers prayer, not by a God who calls us to other sorts of arms.”
Really? Didn’t God order the Israelites to execute the Canaanites?
“This world is run by a God who died for me on the cross and shouted out with his dying breath about those who were tormenting and killing him ‘Father forgive them, they know not what they do’."
Did Jesus actually say that? This is quite deceptive on Witherington’s part. As a NT scholar, he knows perfectly well that the textual authenticity of Lk 23:34 is suspect.
“My point is this. We desperately need the voice of peacemakers in the choir of our country.”
I’m all for peacemakers. But I don’t see any peacemakers. Instead, I hear a lot of peacetalkers. Talking about peace and actually making peace are two very different things.
“Had I been there on that day, I would have done the following things (I hope); 1) I would have gotten in the man's way and would not have left the room as many did. 2) I would have screamed bloody murder and told the girls to run for their lives. Its much harder to hit a moving target, and he can't hit them all at once any way.”
Isn’t this just precious? He would have raised his voice. Followed by his last ditch appeal: “It’s much harder to hit a moving target.”
I have a better idea—trying hitting a stationary target: to wit, shooting the assailant before he gets off the first round.
“I have no problems with tackling the man and trying to subdue him. But if I kill him in cold blood I am no better than many another murderer. Perhaps you have forgotten that the ten commandments do in fact say 'no murder'. I take it that Moses was deadly serious about that (pardon the pun).”
Unfortunately, this is another mark of his slide into mendacity. Surely Witherington knows the Mosaic law did not equate self-defense with murder.
“Now as for the forgiveness question I quite agree that forgiveness offered is not the same as forgiveness received, but it the obligation of the Christian to offer it, and not just to those who have repented. Notice that Jesus asked God to forgive the tormentors and they were doing the opposite of repenting at the time. So you are wrong--- Jesus actually forgave them. Whether they received it or not does not change that he forgave them--- period. Their reception of that forgiveness is a separate matter. ‘While we were yet sinners, Christ died for the unrighteous.....’ That friends is already forgiveness enacted, not merely offered.”
So why does anyone go to hell? Isn’t hell punitive? Doesn’t the Bible treat damnation as a form of retributive punishment? But if everyone is already forgiven, what is there to punish?
“Jesus said the Mosaic divorce laws were due to the hardness of our hearts. There were plenty of other OT rules like that as well. God requires more under grace than he does under law, and his perfect will is more perfectly revealed in Christ. It is not a question of God changing-- the issue is that we are different now in Christ, empowered by the Spirit.”
Does Witherington take the position that OT Jews were graceless and unregenerate?
“But lets just grant for a moment that killing this person is the lesser of the two evils. Even if this is true, the deliberate killing of the assailant is a sin that still needs to be repented of.”
How is the deliberate killing of an assailant a sin? Where’s the argument?
In the OT, God ordered his people to kill other people. Was he ordering them to commit sin?
For the moment, I’m not debating whether OT ethics apply to Christians. Let’s assume, for the sake of argument, that that don’t. Even so, was it sinful for OT Jews to comply with God’s command to execute the Canaanites? Should they repent because they obeyed the word of the Lord?
“It may be the lesser of the two sins in this situation, but for sure it is a sin. And I for one am not about to build my Christian ethic on the basis of sin. Neither did Jesus or Paul.”
Here he’s confusing “sin” with “evil.” But in ethics and theodicy, “evil” is a term of art. For example, we may call a natural disaster a natural evil, but there’s nothing sinful about a flood or hurricane or tidal wave.
The lesser of two “evils” is not synonymous with the lesser of two “sins.” In this context, choosing the lesser of two evils is not the same thing as choosing to do wrong—albeit a lesser wrong. To equate these things simply begs the question.
For example, a field medic must choose between amputating a gangrenous limb or letting the patient die of gangrene. He chooses the lesser of two evils—amputating the limb.
He isn’t sinning. To the contrary, it would be wrong be to let the patient die.
On a related thread by a different pacifist:
“Can you picture Jesus dropping a bomb? Shooting an Iraqi?”
http://www.boarsheadtavern.com/page/253/
Several issues:
i) He’s probably assuming that it was wrong to drop the bomb on Japan. If so, then Jesus wouldn’t commit a wrong. But that begs the question.
ii) As to shooting an Iraqi, I suppose that depends on what mental picture forms in your mind. What about a suicide bomber who’s about to massacre a marketplace full of woman and children and old men?
iii) Didn’t Jesus threaten to kill the disciples of Jezebel? Cf. Rev 2:23.
iv) On a more general note, since Jesus is God, I can picture Jesus doing whatever God does. Didn’t God send the flood? Didn’t he rain down fire and brimstone on Sodom and Gomorrah? Didn’t he send the Egyptian plagues? Didn’t he slaughter the armies of Egypt and Assyria?
One could multiply examples. So, yes, I can picture Jesus executing evildoers in large numbers. Indeed, he’s done so in the past.
http://benwitherington.blogspot.com/2006/10/lessons-from-amish-power-of-pacifism.html
I’m afraid Witherington reminds me of the parties which the Bernsteins used to throw for the Black Panthers—immortalized by Tom Wolfe’s satirical prose.
“This friends is real Christianity. Christians do not retaliate. They do not seek revenge, for the Bible says that vengeance should be left in the hands of the Lord. In fact they do quite the opposite. They offer forgiveness even to their tormentors.”
i) Here he fails to draw a basic distinction between vengeance and self-defense. Self-defense isn’t vengeful.
ii) And is this “real Christianity”? Is it really Christian for fathers and husbands to lay down their arms so that violent men can rape and murder their wives and children with impunity?
How is this any truer to Christianity than Jehovah’s Witnesses who refuse blood transfusions to a family member in critical condition, or Hillbillies who die of snakebite in a church service?
No doubt it’s sincere. All three groups are being true to their convictions. Yet that doesn’t make their actions true to Scripture—but only to their distorted understanding of Scripture.
“So I stand with the Amish and I stand with Jesus.”
How does he stand with the Amish? Does he milk cows for a living?
“Not all the armies who ever marched have had the power or effect on history of that one single and solitary life, the life and death and resurrection of Jesus, on all of humankind going on now for over 2,000 years.”
i) Well, that’s true, but that’s’ because you and I aren’t Jesus. I hope Witherington doesn’t suffer from a Messiah-complex.
ii) In addition, it overlooks the fact that a number of wars were fought in the last 2,000 years to preserve Christian freedom of expression. If we never fought back, the knowledge of the gospel would be eradicated from the earth.
“Long ago Jesus said to me and to us all "take up your cross, and follow me". The Amish understand that that is an invitation to lay down your weapons and be prepared to die rather than fight for what you believe. They understand that love and forgiveness are stronger forces than death and destruction. They understand that forgiveness breaks the hideous cycle of violence.”
i) Does it? Is that what God told OT Jews as they entered the Promised Land? Just forgive the Canaanites and that will break the hideous cycle of violence? Would the Canaanites and Assyrians and Babylonians unilaterally lay down their arms and plant daisies if only unconditional forgiveness were extended to one and all?
ii) Of course, there is a sense in which pacifism breaks the cycle of violence. If one side doesn’t defend itself, it will be annihilated. And that will put an end to the violence—since there is no one left to kill.
“That's what a real Christian life can and will do. And yes friends, it takes a lot of courage to stick by these principles in the age and culture and world we live in.”
How much courage does it take to be Amish in the America?
“Make no mistake. Revenge and retaliation come natural to fallen human beings.”
True, but what about justice?
“Some years ago, Mother Teresa was crossing the Allenby Bridge into the Holy Land from Jordan. She was stopped of course by Israeli border guards, who troubled to search this diminuitive little nun. They asked her ‘have you any weapons?’ --a ridiculous thing to ask a nun. ‘Oh yes’ she said boldly. ‘I have my prayerbooks.’ And she held them up.”
Well, that’s real sweet. What does Witherington think would happen if Israel unilaterally disarmed? How would Hamas and Hezbollah and Al-Qaida and Iran react?
How many days or weeks would it take for Israel’s enemies to kill every Jewish man, woman, and child?
“The Amish have said this week that they have felt uplifted by the prayers of millions who have been told about this story. Prayer--- now there's a dangerous weapon that can change the landscape of the world.”
i) Well, that’s true up to a point. But if prayer could bring peace to the world, why hasn’t it done so by now?
ii) Indeed, doesn’t Witherington believe in libertarian freewill? So, from Witherington’s perspective, God couldn’t answer that prayer even if he wanted to. So if human freedom renders many human beings impervious to persuasion, then the only way to stop them is to shoot them.
“This I know for sure. This world is run by a God who answers prayer, not by a God who calls us to other sorts of arms.”
Really? Didn’t God order the Israelites to execute the Canaanites?
“This world is run by a God who died for me on the cross and shouted out with his dying breath about those who were tormenting and killing him ‘Father forgive them, they know not what they do’."
Did Jesus actually say that? This is quite deceptive on Witherington’s part. As a NT scholar, he knows perfectly well that the textual authenticity of Lk 23:34 is suspect.
“My point is this. We desperately need the voice of peacemakers in the choir of our country.”
I’m all for peacemakers. But I don’t see any peacemakers. Instead, I hear a lot of peacetalkers. Talking about peace and actually making peace are two very different things.
“Had I been there on that day, I would have done the following things (I hope); 1) I would have gotten in the man's way and would not have left the room as many did. 2) I would have screamed bloody murder and told the girls to run for their lives. Its much harder to hit a moving target, and he can't hit them all at once any way.”
Isn’t this just precious? He would have raised his voice. Followed by his last ditch appeal: “It’s much harder to hit a moving target.”
I have a better idea—trying hitting a stationary target: to wit, shooting the assailant before he gets off the first round.
“I have no problems with tackling the man and trying to subdue him. But if I kill him in cold blood I am no better than many another murderer. Perhaps you have forgotten that the ten commandments do in fact say 'no murder'. I take it that Moses was deadly serious about that (pardon the pun).”
Unfortunately, this is another mark of his slide into mendacity. Surely Witherington knows the Mosaic law did not equate self-defense with murder.
“Now as for the forgiveness question I quite agree that forgiveness offered is not the same as forgiveness received, but it the obligation of the Christian to offer it, and not just to those who have repented. Notice that Jesus asked God to forgive the tormentors and they were doing the opposite of repenting at the time. So you are wrong--- Jesus actually forgave them. Whether they received it or not does not change that he forgave them--- period. Their reception of that forgiveness is a separate matter. ‘While we were yet sinners, Christ died for the unrighteous.....’ That friends is already forgiveness enacted, not merely offered.”
So why does anyone go to hell? Isn’t hell punitive? Doesn’t the Bible treat damnation as a form of retributive punishment? But if everyone is already forgiven, what is there to punish?
“Jesus said the Mosaic divorce laws were due to the hardness of our hearts. There were plenty of other OT rules like that as well. God requires more under grace than he does under law, and his perfect will is more perfectly revealed in Christ. It is not a question of God changing-- the issue is that we are different now in Christ, empowered by the Spirit.”
Does Witherington take the position that OT Jews were graceless and unregenerate?
“But lets just grant for a moment that killing this person is the lesser of the two evils. Even if this is true, the deliberate killing of the assailant is a sin that still needs to be repented of.”
How is the deliberate killing of an assailant a sin? Where’s the argument?
In the OT, God ordered his people to kill other people. Was he ordering them to commit sin?
For the moment, I’m not debating whether OT ethics apply to Christians. Let’s assume, for the sake of argument, that that don’t. Even so, was it sinful for OT Jews to comply with God’s command to execute the Canaanites? Should they repent because they obeyed the word of the Lord?
“It may be the lesser of the two sins in this situation, but for sure it is a sin. And I for one am not about to build my Christian ethic on the basis of sin. Neither did Jesus or Paul.”
Here he’s confusing “sin” with “evil.” But in ethics and theodicy, “evil” is a term of art. For example, we may call a natural disaster a natural evil, but there’s nothing sinful about a flood or hurricane or tidal wave.
The lesser of two “evils” is not synonymous with the lesser of two “sins.” In this context, choosing the lesser of two evils is not the same thing as choosing to do wrong—albeit a lesser wrong. To equate these things simply begs the question.
For example, a field medic must choose between amputating a gangrenous limb or letting the patient die of gangrene. He chooses the lesser of two evils—amputating the limb.
He isn’t sinning. To the contrary, it would be wrong be to let the patient die.
On a related thread by a different pacifist:
“Can you picture Jesus dropping a bomb? Shooting an Iraqi?”
http://www.boarsheadtavern.com/page/253/
Several issues:
i) He’s probably assuming that it was wrong to drop the bomb on Japan. If so, then Jesus wouldn’t commit a wrong. But that begs the question.
ii) As to shooting an Iraqi, I suppose that depends on what mental picture forms in your mind. What about a suicide bomber who’s about to massacre a marketplace full of woman and children and old men?
iii) Didn’t Jesus threaten to kill the disciples of Jezebel? Cf. Rev 2:23.
iv) On a more general note, since Jesus is God, I can picture Jesus doing whatever God does. Didn’t God send the flood? Didn’t he rain down fire and brimstone on Sodom and Gomorrah? Didn’t he send the Egyptian plagues? Didn’t he slaughter the armies of Egypt and Assyria?
One could multiply examples. So, yes, I can picture Jesus executing evildoers in large numbers. Indeed, he’s done so in the past.
Incompetence on Stilts
Robert has finally decided to reply.
1. God has "libertarian freedom" insofar as He is not constrained to do whatever He chooses, and He can choose between any number of goods. None of His choices are "determined" by outside forces - but one of your persistent problems is that you define "determinism" with reference to external constraints alone - but libertarian action theory goes beyond that (see further below).
2. I do not deny this, but if libertarianism, as properly defined, is true, then God must be able to do both good and evil. God cannot even desire an unholy act, nor can He lie, for He would no longer be God if He did. In fact His choices are so wrapped up in His nature and essence that He could not do otherwise.
God’s freedom is the real freedom defined by the Bible -- a freedom from sin, not a freedom to do otherwise. God is free in the compatibilist sense in that He always acts according to His nature, never against it. God does not have ‘freedom’ to do what is contrary to His nature, so He is not free in the libertarian sense (in fact no one is).
3. But this isn't what you stated. You actually said:
So, you accord to man something you do not accord to God and you give no supporting argument for it.
4. The rest of your argument discusses the way Jesus acted in order to demonstrate your position. But choosing between options (like how to do something) is irrelevant. The question is "What lies behind that choice?"
Another ad hoc restriction for which you give no supporting argument. Your arguments defeat themselves. You give libertarian freedom and then restrict it after they receive Christ. You give men libertarian freedom and then you restrict when they enter the intermediate and final states.
By the way, we're still waiting for your exegetical argument for libertarianism. Oh, you have none.
1. Again, you have not made an exegetical case for libertarian freedom, and yet you've smuggled a definition of it into your assertion above.
2. Of course, the grounds on which I'm arguing against libertarianism besides the purely exegetical are causal grounds, not whether or not choices were "sinful" before or after the fall or people have "multiple options," for having "multiple options" is an insufficient warrant to conclude people of libertarian freedom, since libertarianism addresses what lies behind the choices they make.
3. You are conflating the concept of "choice" with "libertarian freedom."
4. There is a vast literature on the Libertas Adami. You'd think you would be familiar with it. All that we need to establish to show that Adam's freedom was not libertarian is to supply a reason sufficient to himself for the Fall - and this is true for any man's sins - but you, since you affirm libertarian freedom cannot do so, for libertarian choices are, by definition, uncaused.
You appeal to Plantinga:
I've emphasized the relevant portion for you, since it apparently went over your head.
Let's compare this with Scripture, shall we?
Scripture is very consistent in attributing the choices of men to antecedent causes. Proverbs 16 attributes several to God. James 2 is very clear that men are led astray "by their own evil desires."
Any appeal to an inner motive in man directly undercuts libertarian freedom, for libertarianism, by definition, cuts the causal nerve - and, when Scripture speaks on these matters it speaks of God's overruling, indeed outright directing, the minds and hearts and actions of men, and it attributes our decisions, actions, etc. to our motives as well.
The heart of man plans his course, but the Lord determines his steps. (Prov. 16:9, cf. 16:1, 19:21)
"the Lord caused the men throughout the camp to turn on each other with their swords." (Jdgs 7:22).
"the filled (Israel) w/joy by changing the attitude of the king of Assyria" (Ezra 6:22)
The Lord foreordained that the robe of the Lord Jesus was not turn but lots were cast for it (Jn 19:24, quoting Ps. 22:18, cf. Jn 19:31 - 37).
Then we have the passages on divine hardening of Pharaoh and Sihon; God sending an evil spirit to torment Saul, and another instance of Him sending evil spirits to cause the false prophets to lie, in order to lead Ahab to his death (I Kings 22:20 - 23).
Isaiah 10 tells us that God raised of Assyria/Babylon to judge Israel and yet held them accountable for their sins in doing so.
Isa. 6 (and John 12) speak of divine hardening. The latter is an instance parallel to the former. Isa. 63 says that God makes us (Israel) wander from your (His) ways and hardens our hearts so we do not revere him (vs. 17).
Ps. 33:15 says the Lord fashions, eg. directs the heart not only of kings (Proverbs 21:1) but of all people.
Out of the overflow of the heart, the mouth speaks (Luke 6;45; Mt. 7:15 - 20, 12:33- 35).
John 8:44 You are of your father the devil, and you want to do the desires of your father He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth because there is no truth in him Whenever he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own nature, for he is a liar and the father of lies. ...8: 47"He who is of God hears the words of God; for this reason you do not hear them, because you are not of God. By nature, they were not of God. There nature determined their desires.
Simply put, there is no passage of Scripture that can be construed to mean that the human will is independent of God's plan and of the rest of the human personality/psyche. Your "adductive argument" is an abject failure.
This is true, but you're confused since according to the very definition you cited:
False. This is unintentionally comical. The definition to which you appealed states:
But, just in case you don't believe me, let's try this:
Walls and Dongell, Why I'm Not A Calvinist:
Clark Pinnock, a well-known defender of this position, asserted that only the kind of freedom, which has the ability to choose the contrary, is genuine freedom. He says,
From an atheist perspective Oppy writes:
Steve talked about him here:
http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2006/11/oppy-on-atheism.html
Note that even Oppy realizes where libertarianism cashes out at the level of causality - there are no causes to our behavior.
Libertarianism is an abstract generalization of the principle that "ability limits responsibility," such that, if our decisions (choices) are afflicted by any kind of inability, then they are not truly free and we are not truly responsible (eg. blameworthy) for them. Freedom is contracausal. Put another way, at the level of causality, choices are uncaused, but not unassisted.
And if that doesn't work, Robert, do a Google search for libertarian action theory and uncaused choices or causeless choices and have a good read.
One of your persistent problems is that you're defining "determine/d/ism" in a unidirectional fashion, in reference God and not man. Libertarianism is a theory of agent causation. It means that a person's choices are not determined by both external means (like God's decrees, direct actions, or broad "circumstances") AND internal means (eg. within the agent acting - man), like "sufficient reasons, desires, etc." Therefore, every time you appeal to reasons, you're appealing to sufficient causes, desires, etc. that are internal to the agent performing the action. That, Robert is NOT a libertarian argument, by definition.
And if you say that those reasons are present but insufficient, you've done away with
(a) your own argument for "free will" and
(b) the basis for moral responsibility, for if motives - which are reasons - are not sufficient reasons for blame, then you have no basis to declare a person's motives blameworthy or attribute their evil actions to their evil desires - which is what Scripture does.
Also, this is one reason why, to take one example, Molinism is problematic. In Molinism, God instantiates a particular possible world (this one) and no other from any number of possible worlds and so orders that world to ensure particular results infallibly occur. The problem should be obvious -as soon as external factors - we'll call them generalized "circumstances" - ensure a particular result, then that's an automatic defeater for libertarian freedom, and Molinism is designed from beginning to end to defend libertarian freedom.
1. Once again, compatibilism is not the heart of Calvinism. We do not begin with compatibilism and then work from there.
2. We invoke it only to answer the libertarian on his own grounds.
3. The argument for the Calvinist view of freedom is exegetical first, philosophical second - and the latter is an ancillary argument.
4. Thank you for this frank admission. Note that when the chips are down and Robert has to lay his cards on the table, he has to admit that he has no exegetical argument for libertarian freedom. He castigates John Owen for allegedly laying out philosophical arguments in lieu of exegetical arguments
Of course, Robert continues to trade in an equivocation between a decree and a means to the execution of the decree. He's confusing causality (providence) with certainty. Ends and means. He's been corrected numerous times and refuses correct. This is either dishonest or incompetent.
Except, of course, Carson is a Calvinist and denies general atonement, and I specifically stated that you cannot derive general atonement from John 3:16, and, of course, your quotation does not touch my objection. You continue to equate a qualitative distinction with a quantitative one without a supporting argument.
I'll just quote this bit, since as usual you use too many words to admit to something simple: You believe in election based on foreseen faith. Go ahead and say it. Henry admitted that no passage of Scripture teaches this and it had to be deduced from Scripture. Will you?
Of course, the obvious problem with your view is that you're conflating ontology and teleology. Calvinism does not deny that God knows/sees everything "now."
This is muddled in several respects. For starters, God does have a concept of cause and effect in that logic is an attribute of God's mind. He does understand that in order for x to occur as a concrete instance of what is in his mind, y must come to pass. It's an ends-means relation. We understand cause and effect and the antecedence of x to y; ergo God does too, or else we have no ground for the logical process. God also grounds the passage of time in His creation. His own Word recognizes that we were chosen in Christ before the foundation of the world. The very terms "in the beginning" and "before the foundaton of the world," are about a cause-effect relation and a temporal relation. God does exist outside of time, but that also means He orders and grounds time. Likewise, you're conflating ontology and teleology. The timeless of God does not mean there is no teleological order to His attributes or the working of His mind. Ontologically, God is unaffected by relational sequence as to His person, but He is conscious of sequential duration, because sequential duration is a part of the ordering of his decree. We know this because we have a sense of past, present, and future that, because it exists and will exist, is grounded by His mind. For God, all of these are internally intuited and not arrived at chronologically through a process, but the concept or idea of durational sequence or succession is a distinct epistemological, not ontological category. God knows all our thoughts and actions in the past, present, and future,and at the same time knows His own thoughts and actions in relation to each other and to our own and in what order. Thus, He can inspire Paul to say, "He chose before He created." He knows that He created the sea and dry land before He created birds and fish and animals and man.
The problem here is libertarian freedom, not the conception of God. In libertarian freedom, the future free acts of men are not knowable, even by God, because if they are known by God they are part of His mind, but that would not be libertarianism, that would be compatibilism, which is not a libertarian argument. The problem for the libertarian is not what causes event x from the standpoint of God and man, but what causes x from the standpoint of man. Why does one person choose x and not y? A consistent libertarian has to cut the causal nerve in his own mind. If he appeals to any motives whatsoever, he is abandoning his libertarianism for compatibilism. Thus, by eschewing causality, libertarianism lacks explanatory power. And in the absence of explanatory power, it is irrational to the core. It cannot explain why agents act or refrain from acting.
So, as always Robert, we're back to asking you this:
If election is based on some sort of "foreseen faith" (however derived in God's mind) then you must still answer: why does one man believe and not another? You keep making a vague appeal to "reasons" but that's a defeater for libertarianism. So, if you believe in "reasons," what sort of reasons might those be?
You could say that ‘one understood and one did not’ … but where did such understanding come from to begin with? Was this understanding itself derived from nature or from grace?
In the libertarian scheme did God grant this understanding so that one believed? We are forced to conclude that He did not, for if He did this for everyone, then both persons would have the same understanding. So we must conclude that, to the libertarian, such spiritual understanding is entirely self-generated, apart from any work of God’s grace in us. Whatever differences there were between the two men, these differences were not derived from grace. Ultimately, it is a reliance on some innate ability in one man, which the other did not have. So we must ask, then, according to libertarianism, was it chance that generated this difference in natural wisdom between the two? Was it random? Or was one man naturally just smarter or wiser than the other? The only two alternatives left to us here are either that one person just happened to understand (‘just because’) by chance, or that one was already better equipped than the other (in his natural self) to respond positively to the gospel command. Neither of these possibilities is aligned with the teaching or intent of the gospel, which is by grace through and through. As soon as you answer, you'll have to admit that God elects people who are smarter, more afraid, more spiritual - something - and that, Robert, is election by merit.
Built into your entire line of argumentation is the assumption that grace is quantitative, not qualitative - a lot of grace and a little libertarian freedom. The big problem is the latter part.
Of course, Scripture says precisely the opposite in 1 John, where the causal relation is spelled out clearly several times - and one of those things the new birth is said to cause is faith in Christ. One can't help but notice you've substituted a logical argument for an exegetical argument.
I never said you affirm that faith is the (efficient) cause of regeneration. I merely stated that, in your view, none of the things that you stated can occur apart from the agent's exercise of saving faith.
The argument that regeneration precedes faith is not that it precedes it temporally, but logically. Causal relationships depend on their logical / temporal order. Exegesis determines this order for all of these and whether there is a causal relationship.
No one who is born of God practices sin, because His seed abides in him, and he cannot since, because he is born of God.
The point, which you have utterly missed, is that, by your own admission, in your view is that saving faith itself is not a product of the atonement. It is not a product of regeneration. It arises from the person's libertarian free will, which, according to your own appeal means it has no antecedent conditions or causally determinative factors - but Scripture directly and explicitly contradicts you.
Robert, as usual, ignores a number of things here:
1. The Arminian has an order of decrees too, including the permission of the fall.
2. And the Calvinist and Arminian are agreed that the fall was "decreed" and that it was "permitted." The difference is over whether that permission was "bare" or "efficient."
3. And the Calvinist does not say that God predetermines everything and then places evil in men's hearts. Rather, Calvinism has a doctrine of secondary causality.
4. But let's play with Robert's own objection. Does God determine when a person will be born in history? Does He determine their parents? Environment? Etc.
5. Are a person's desires sufficient for moral blame?
6. And since, according to Robert, a person's saving faith is infallible foreknown, then it is certain.
7. If Robert was consistent, he'd be an Open Theist. No wonder he defends them.
A universalist can make the same argument against your own position. So, if you want to frame the debate ethically, you'll impeach your own position.
And the rest of the text says,
Calvinism affirms this too. I personally have affirmed this many times when writing about the doctrines of grace.
Calvinism affirms this too - see the work of John Piper.
This particular passage, in context, is referring to all kinds of people, that is without respect to ethnicity (Jew or Gentile). But since you brought up the passage, it includes a nifty reference:
False. You've confused the determination of an END with the MEANS to the end. You've done this multiple times in this thread and in others.
Steve at least twice pointed out and I have pointed out myself three or four times myself as well, decrees are not the same thing as "causality," for decrees don't do anything by themselves. They act as a blueprint for certainty. Blueprints don't build buildings. That requires means - materials, machines, people. In Scripture, the decrees (God's counsels) are worked out by providence. Decrees are not interchangeable with "causality." In Scripture, providence, which is usually by second causes, works out the plan. Steve put it his way:
I'd add that this seems to be regular feature of libertarians' objections to Calvinism's view of providence.
Are you so intellectually or ethically challenged that you keep ignoring the opposing position? Incompetence on stilts, I say.
You wrote:
And since the standard confessions, which are several centuries old now hold the position I have outlined and quoted for you a number of times, as do our standard theology texts, I have not "backed off" of anything. It is you, Robert, the chronic liar, who cannot and willfully refuses to accurately represent the opposing position and has done so for weeks.
There are acts in which God directly intervenes: miracles, creation, regeneration, and conversion and acts in which He allows natural processes to work out His will.
The Westminster Confession and London Baptist Confession are clear. God’s determination of men’s acts in this regard comes through decreeing they come about through “the efficacy of second causes.” Individuals still have the freedom to act out any number of possible goods or evils as dictated by their natures and circumstances.
God can choose goods. . Each and every act need not be “predestined” by God’s direct intervening action or from any number of possible direct actions of God, for much of what happens is predestined by virtue of God controlling the boundings and directings of our choices while giving us freedom to act within the constraints of our natures, intervening directly as He pleases, constraining us and permitting us as He so chooses. Nothing happens apart from the grounding, sovereign decree of God, but certain acts and choices and circumstances come about by God ‘s direct effort (what Charles Hodge calls His “potentia absoluta’) This are: miracles, creation, regeneration, conversion, the events of the eschaton, and specific acts of judgment.
What God decrees for His glory, men do with their own motives. For example, God hardened Pharaoh’s heart in order to judge Egypt’s gods. Pharaoh’s will was not violated, in that God allowed Pharaoh’s love of evil, which was his natural state, to increase, keeping Israel from leaving. Pharaoh did not keep them from leaving in order to glorify God and worship Him. He did it because he hated God, Moses, Aaron, and the slaves. What God did for a righteous motive, Pharaoh did out of hatred for God. The motive behind an act, therefore, determines whether or not it is truly sinful. In theory, if Pharaoh had done what he did to glorify and worship God, he would not have been condemned, however, a man that does such a thing is, in reality acting in faith and love for God and would have to be regenerate. Such a man would not hold Israel back; he would have released Israel and taken down Egypt’s gods. That was not God’s purpose for Pharaoh. For the Scripture says to Pharaoh, "FOR THIS VERY PURPOSE I RAISED YOU UP, TO DEMONSTRATE MY POWER IN YOU, AND THAT MY NAME MIGHT BE PROCLAIMED THROUGHOUT THE WHOLE EARTH." So then He has mercy on whom He desires, and He hardens whom He desires.
God is the author of evil, in the sense that He is first cause of all things. This simply goes with pay grade. His decrees, through either action or inaction render events necessary, but, evil is the result of permission, not His direct causation, or a result of His judicial hardening of sinners, an act of justice Scripture supports repeatedly, as in the above text and in Romans 1. Nothing happens that compels a man or demon to act in a way it does not wish to act or against its nature. He may withhold constraining grace, as in the fall, in order to render a thing certain, but the agent of the evil, in this case Adam simply acts in accordance with his nature as a second cause, for reasons and motives sufficient for himself and arising from his own nature. Men thus do what God decrees, but for motives all their own. In so doing, they may incur judgment. In this way men act as infallibly as if they had no liberty, yet as freely as if there was no decree rendering their acts certain. See, for example, the predestination of Judas betrayal and Jesus crucifixion. These men did, with evil desires, what God desired and planned to happen since before creation, for Jesus is the Lamb slain before the foundation of the world itself.
Another Scholastic distinction I alluded to above even though we admit is has been discussed to death and fraught with difficulties since the Middle Ages, is the distinction between God's absolute power (Potentia Absoluta) and ordinary power (Potentia Ordinata). Whatever the difficulties of those distinctions in the older theologies (See Richard Muller's discussions in Post-Reformation Reformed Dogmatics - it's too long to enter for my purposes here), I think they are useful, at their root, insofar as they help accurately describe the way God uses means. With respect to things like creation ex nihilio, miracles, the Incarnation, regeneration, etc. God's absolute and direct control is very involved. In all other things, the decrees fall out according to the nature of second causes "either necessarily, freely, or contingently."
Notice that even in the creation narrative, we have an implication of second causes. There are commands that say, "Let there be..." and others that say ,"Let the earth bring forth..." In the Incarnation, we have a direct miracle @ conception, but it isn't as if Jesus just appears full formed as a 30 year old man like some sort of animus springing from Mary's womb. Rather, there is a normal pregnancy; He grows through childhood into adulthood, etc. We speak of regeneration in two senses: the wider and the narrower. In the narrower, we mean the direct act of God raising the soul dead in sin to life, but we are comfortable pointing out that "means" are the ordinary mode of that occurrence. As Dr. Sproul has said, the Spirit and the Word of God (preaching, studying, reading, etc) are working together.
What I would like to particularly point out for the purposes of this posting is that what Robert has provided us with is his own use of one of his Libertarian objections to Calvinism where it suits him:
Notice how quickly the libertarian's "all means all" argumentation quickly turns into, "all means some." "God works all things after the counsel of His will" (in Greek, literally "all, all things)" is reduced, without benefit of argument, to "some things."
Here's Robert's schizophrenic logic: he'll take the "pantos" passages of Scripture regarding the atonement or God's desires (1 Tim 2:4 for example) to mean "everyone without exception" and then reduce "all things" to "some." All the while, he finds the doctrine of particular atonement odious, because we're turning "all" and "world" into "some."
Robert believes that God only predetermines *some things* but when we look at Scripture, we find that the list is quite exhaustive (indeed the above list can be multiplied greatly) and Robert, while accusing us of emphasizing the particular over the general and claiming, I suppose, that "all means all," quickly reduces "all," as in Ephesians 1 to "some."
And, by the way, Robert, you're just repeating yourself and moving me to do so (since I devoted an entire thread awhile back to this and you didn't respond) - that, and some personal health reasons that prohibit me coming back to reply to you again this week, is the reason comments here are cut off. I'm simply not willing to engage in protracted discussion with you given your behavior. The only reason I'm posting this here, aside from its usefulness for the readers, is because the parent topic is 81 posts long now.
Blogger is a free service. This is not a discussion board. If you're going to repeat yourself with that level of frequency over multiple topics, you need to get your own blogger account and use it. You're approaching the level of "Orthodox" who we banned awhile back in this regard.
1. If that is so, then the atonement has no intrinsic efficacy, which proves my earlier statement to that effect.
2. Robert affirms general, not Amyraldian atonement, yet he is employing an Amyraldian concept while saying elsewhere that Amyraldians are incorrect.
2. And if that is so, then God is playing a game of double jeopardy, holding men to account for sins for which Christ has already atoned. It isn't without reason the majority of Arminians these days prefer the moral government theory of atonement, Robert, and this is it.
Gene you present some real lack of awareness concerning libertarian conceptions of free will in your post. You said:
”Really, so God can do evil.
God having "libertarian" freedom does not mean He can do good and evil.
Libertarian freedom in humans, by definition, requires they can do both good and evil.”
God can do whatever He wants to do. He does not do evil however, He may have various choices available to Himself, all of which are good choices, He then chooses the one that He wants.This, of course, is just an ad hoc restriction on libertarian freedom for you, Robert. You're the one that doesn't understand libertarian freedom here, as we shall see.
1. God has "libertarian freedom" insofar as He is not constrained to do whatever He chooses, and He can choose between any number of goods. None of His choices are "determined" by outside forces - but one of your persistent problems is that you define "determinism" with reference to external constraints alone - but libertarian action theory goes beyond that (see further below).
2. I do not deny this, but if libertarianism, as properly defined, is true, then God must be able to do both good and evil. God cannot even desire an unholy act, nor can He lie, for He would no longer be God if He did. In fact His choices are so wrapped up in His nature and essence that He could not do otherwise.
God’s freedom is the real freedom defined by the Bible -- a freedom from sin, not a freedom to do otherwise. God is free in the compatibilist sense in that He always acts according to His nature, never against it. God does not have ‘freedom’ to do what is contrary to His nature, so He is not free in the libertarian sense (in fact no one is).
3. But this isn't what you stated. You actually said:
both God and man have libertarian free will.It was to this that I replied. So, you're analogized from God to man by placing them in parallel, and man having libertarian freedom means that his freedom is, by definition, contracausal, by your own admission. Man can do both good and evil, and his will is free from all constraints. We've been over this ground with you before, and I believe pointed you to several standard works on the subject.
So, you accord to man something you do not accord to God and you give no supporting argument for it.
4. The rest of your argument discusses the way Jesus acted in order to demonstrate your position. But choosing between options (like how to do something) is irrelevant. The question is "What lies behind that choice?"
Libertarian freedom in humans does not require that we must be able to do both good and evil in **every instance** to have free will. In heaven we will have libertarian freedom and will not be capable of sin (but we will be capable of choices). So we will have multiple choices all of which are good.
Another ad hoc restriction for which you give no supporting argument. Your arguments defeat themselves. You give libertarian freedom and then restrict it after they receive Christ. You give men libertarian freedom and then you restrict when they enter the intermediate and final states.
By the way, we're still waiting for your exegetical argument for libertarianism. Oh, you have none.
You will have to answer No to this question. But if you answer No, then you’ve got a real life historical situation in which a human person had multiple choices before him all of which were good and he could do as he pleased without doing evil. And that is all that is required for free will to exist, that he had multiple options he could choose from and the choices were up to him (note especially the word “freely” in Gen. 2:17)
1. Again, you have not made an exegetical case for libertarian freedom, and yet you've smuggled a definition of it into your assertion above.
2. Of course, the grounds on which I'm arguing against libertarianism besides the purely exegetical are causal grounds, not whether or not choices were "sinful" before or after the fall or people have "multiple options," for having "multiple options" is an insufficient warrant to conclude people of libertarian freedom, since libertarianism addresses what lies behind the choices they make.
3. You are conflating the concept of "choice" with "libertarian freedom."
4. There is a vast literature on the Libertas Adami. You'd think you would be familiar with it. All that we need to establish to show that Adam's freedom was not libertarian is to supply a reason sufficient to himself for the Fall - and this is true for any man's sins - but you, since you affirm libertarian freedom cannot do so, for libertarian choices are, by definition, uncaused.
You appeal to Plantinga:
“If a person is free with respect to a given action, then he is free to perform that action and free to refrain from performing it; no antecedent conditions and/or causal laws determine that he will perform the action, or that he won’t.” (God, Freedom, and Evil, p. 29)
I've emphasized the relevant portion for you, since it apparently went over your head.
Let's compare this with Scripture, shall we?
Scripture is very consistent in attributing the choices of men to antecedent causes. Proverbs 16 attributes several to God. James 2 is very clear that men are led astray "by their own evil desires."
Any appeal to an inner motive in man directly undercuts libertarian freedom, for libertarianism, by definition, cuts the causal nerve - and, when Scripture speaks on these matters it speaks of God's overruling, indeed outright directing, the minds and hearts and actions of men, and it attributes our decisions, actions, etc. to our motives as well.
The heart of man plans his course, but the Lord determines his steps. (Prov. 16:9, cf. 16:1, 19:21)
"the Lord caused the men throughout the camp to turn on each other with their swords." (Jdgs 7:22).
"the filled (Israel) w/joy by changing the attitude of the king of Assyria" (Ezra 6:22)
The Lord foreordained that the robe of the Lord Jesus was not turn but lots were cast for it (Jn 19:24, quoting Ps. 22:18, cf. Jn 19:31 - 37).
Then we have the passages on divine hardening of Pharaoh and Sihon; God sending an evil spirit to torment Saul, and another instance of Him sending evil spirits to cause the false prophets to lie, in order to lead Ahab to his death (I Kings 22:20 - 23).
Isaiah 10 tells us that God raised of Assyria/Babylon to judge Israel and yet held them accountable for their sins in doing so.
Isa. 6 (and John 12) speak of divine hardening. The latter is an instance parallel to the former. Isa. 63 says that God makes us (Israel) wander from your (His) ways and hardens our hearts so we do not revere him (vs. 17).
Ps. 33:15 says the Lord fashions, eg. directs the heart not only of kings (Proverbs 21:1) but of all people.
Out of the overflow of the heart, the mouth speaks (Luke 6;45; Mt. 7:15 - 20, 12:33- 35).
John 8:44 You are of your father the devil, and you want to do the desires of your father He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth because there is no truth in him Whenever he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own nature, for he is a liar and the father of lies. ...8: 47"He who is of God hears the words of God; for this reason you do not hear them, because you are not of God. By nature, they were not of God. There nature determined their desires.
Simply put, there is no passage of Scripture that can be construed to mean that the human will is independent of God's plan and of the rest of the human personality/psyche. Your "adductive argument" is an abject failure.
People do different things for different reasons. It should also be duly noted that if a person does something for a reason, then his/her choice is not “without cause”.
This is true, but you're confused since according to the very definition you cited:
no antecedent conditions and/or causal laws determine that he will perform the action, or that he won’t.”So, your own statements defeat your own definitions. One is inclined to wonder if you understand the definitions you offer. I am inclined to believe that to be the case.
You repeatedly claim that libertarians believe in actions done “without cause”, another misrepresentation that you repeatedly indulge in.
False. This is unintentionally comical. The definition to which you appealed states:
“If a person is free with respect to a given action, then he is free to perform that action and free to refrain from performing it; no antecedent conditions and/or causal laws determine that he will perform the action, or that he won’t.”
But, just in case you don't believe me, let's try this:
Walls and Dongell, Why I'm Not A Calvinist:
“The essence of this view is that a free action is one that does not have a sufficient condition or cause prior to its occurrence…the common experience of deliberation assumes that our choices are undetermined.”
Clark Pinnock, a well-known defender of this position, asserted that only the kind of freedom, which has the ability to choose the contrary, is genuine freedom. He says,
“It views a free action as one in which a person is free to perform an action or refrain from performing it and is not completely determined in the matter by prior forces---nature, nurture or even God. Libertarian freedom recognizes the power of contrary choice. One acts freely in a situation if, and only if, one could have done otherwise.” (Most Moved Mover pg. 127)In other words, within libertarianism, we could acceptably choose to receive Christ apart from a desire to receive Him.
From an atheist perspective Oppy writes:
On the libertarian conception of freedom, one acts freely only if, in the very circumstances in which one acted, it was within one's power to do otherwise--which is incompatible with efficient causation of action. But as I see it, the only alternative to efficient causation is absence of causation; and, if one's actions are only 'free' because they have no causes, then this is not a kind of 'freedom' worth wanting.
Steve talked about him here:
http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2006/11/oppy-on-atheism.html
Note that even Oppy realizes where libertarianism cashes out at the level of causality - there are no causes to our behavior.
Libertarianism is an abstract generalization of the principle that "ability limits responsibility," such that, if our decisions (choices) are afflicted by any kind of inability, then they are not truly free and we are not truly responsible (eg. blameworthy) for them. Freedom is contracausal. Put another way, at the level of causality, choices are uncaused, but not unassisted.
And if that doesn't work, Robert, do a Google search for libertarian action theory and uncaused choices or causeless choices and have a good read.
One of your persistent problems is that you're defining "determine/d/ism" in a unidirectional fashion, in reference God and not man. Libertarianism is a theory of agent causation. It means that a person's choices are not determined by both external means (like God's decrees, direct actions, or broad "circumstances") AND internal means (eg. within the agent acting - man), like "sufficient reasons, desires, etc." Therefore, every time you appeal to reasons, you're appealing to sufficient causes, desires, etc. that are internal to the agent performing the action. That, Robert is NOT a libertarian argument, by definition.
And if you say that those reasons are present but insufficient, you've done away with
(a) your own argument for "free will" and
(b) the basis for moral responsibility, for if motives - which are reasons - are not sufficient reasons for blame, then you have no basis to declare a person's motives blameworthy or attribute their evil actions to their evil desires - which is what Scripture does.
Also, this is one reason why, to take one example, Molinism is problematic. In Molinism, God instantiates a particular possible world (this one) and no other from any number of possible worlds and so orders that world to ensure particular results infallibly occur. The problem should be obvious -as soon as external factors - we'll call them generalized "circumstances" - ensure a particular result, then that's an automatic defeater for libertarian freedom, and Molinism is designed from beginning to end to defend libertarian freedom.
Technically speaking the bible never defines “free will” for us. What it comes down to is an abductive argument for one conception over another. What it comes down to is an abductive argument for one conception over another. By abductive I mean that we have competing theories each claiming to be the best explanation of the given data (in this case the data is the bible verses that we have). Libertarians believe that the libertarian conception best explains the data, while Compatibilists believe their conception best explains the data.
1. Once again, compatibilism is not the heart of Calvinism. We do not begin with compatibilism and then work from there.
2. We invoke it only to answer the libertarian on his own grounds.
3. The argument for the Calvinist view of freedom is exegetical first, philosophical second - and the latter is an ancillary argument.
4. Thank you for this frank admission. Note that when the chips are down and Robert has to lay his cards on the table, he has to admit that he has no exegetical argument for libertarian freedom. He castigates John Owen for allegedly laying out philosophical arguments in lieu of exegetical arguments
You prove my point, you can argue for it, but you do not have the verses to show it to be true. Since you do not have the texts, you like Owen, must construct logical arguments to substitute for biblical texts.and then proceeds to do exactly the same thing for his own conception of libertarian freedom.
The calvinist compatibilist view however, presupposes that all events are predetermined, there can never be any libertarian freedom under any circumstance (not even before the fall of Adam so he was not “mutable” he was predetermined to sin; nor did Jesus during the incarnation have free will).
Of course, Robert continues to trade in an equivocation between a decree and a means to the execution of the decree. He's confusing causality (providence) with certainty. Ends and means. He's been corrected numerous times and refuses correct. This is either dishonest or incompetent.
D.A. Carson is a much better exegete than you are, and he sees no “category error” in my interpretation. I say he has got it right, which means that you are wrong
Except, of course, Carson is a Calvinist and denies general atonement, and I specifically stated that you cannot derive general atonement from John 3:16, and, of course, your quotation does not touch my objection. You continue to equate a qualitative distinction with a quantitative one without a supporting argument.
Rather he sees “now” and He sees **everything** now.
I'll just quote this bit, since as usual you use too many words to admit to something simple: You believe in election based on foreseen faith. Go ahead and say it. Henry admitted that no passage of Scripture teaches this and it had to be deduced from Scripture. Will you?
Of course, the obvious problem with your view is that you're conflating ontology and teleology. Calvinism does not deny that God knows/sees everything "now."
This is muddled in several respects. For starters, God does have a concept of cause and effect in that logic is an attribute of God's mind. He does understand that in order for x to occur as a concrete instance of what is in his mind, y must come to pass. It's an ends-means relation. We understand cause and effect and the antecedence of x to y; ergo God does too, or else we have no ground for the logical process. God also grounds the passage of time in His creation. His own Word recognizes that we were chosen in Christ before the foundation of the world. The very terms "in the beginning" and "before the foundaton of the world," are about a cause-effect relation and a temporal relation. God does exist outside of time, but that also means He orders and grounds time. Likewise, you're conflating ontology and teleology. The timeless of God does not mean there is no teleological order to His attributes or the working of His mind. Ontologically, God is unaffected by relational sequence as to His person, but He is conscious of sequential duration, because sequential duration is a part of the ordering of his decree. We know this because we have a sense of past, present, and future that, because it exists and will exist, is grounded by His mind. For God, all of these are internally intuited and not arrived at chronologically through a process, but the concept or idea of durational sequence or succession is a distinct epistemological, not ontological category. God knows all our thoughts and actions in the past, present, and future,and at the same time knows His own thoughts and actions in relation to each other and to our own and in what order. Thus, He can inspire Paul to say, "He chose before He created." He knows that He created the sea and dry land before He created birds and fish and animals and man.
The problem here is libertarian freedom, not the conception of God. In libertarian freedom, the future free acts of men are not knowable, even by God, because if they are known by God they are part of His mind, but that would not be libertarianism, that would be compatibilism, which is not a libertarian argument. The problem for the libertarian is not what causes event x from the standpoint of God and man, but what causes x from the standpoint of man. Why does one person choose x and not y? A consistent libertarian has to cut the causal nerve in his own mind. If he appeals to any motives whatsoever, he is abandoning his libertarianism for compatibilism. Thus, by eschewing causality, libertarianism lacks explanatory power. And in the absence of explanatory power, it is irrational to the core. It cannot explain why agents act or refrain from acting.
So, as always Robert, we're back to asking you this:
If election is based on some sort of "foreseen faith" (however derived in God's mind) then you must still answer: why does one man believe and not another? You keep making a vague appeal to "reasons" but that's a defeater for libertarianism. So, if you believe in "reasons," what sort of reasons might those be?
You could say that ‘one understood and one did not’ … but where did such understanding come from to begin with? Was this understanding itself derived from nature or from grace?
In the libertarian scheme did God grant this understanding so that one believed? We are forced to conclude that He did not, for if He did this for everyone, then both persons would have the same understanding. So we must conclude that, to the libertarian, such spiritual understanding is entirely self-generated, apart from any work of God’s grace in us. Whatever differences there were between the two men, these differences were not derived from grace. Ultimately, it is a reliance on some innate ability in one man, which the other did not have. So we must ask, then, according to libertarianism, was it chance that generated this difference in natural wisdom between the two? Was it random? Or was one man naturally just smarter or wiser than the other? The only two alternatives left to us here are either that one person just happened to understand (‘just because’) by chance, or that one was already better equipped than the other (in his natural self) to respond positively to the gospel command. Neither of these possibilities is aligned with the teaching or intent of the gospel, which is by grace through and through. As soon as you answer, you'll have to admit that God elects people who are smarter, more afraid, more spiritual - something - and that, Robert, is election by merit.
Built into your entire line of argumentation is the assumption that grace is quantitative, not qualitative - a lot of grace and a little libertarian freedom. The big problem is the latter part.
Gene you seem to be incapable of seeing my point. Calvinist inability perhaps? :-) Yes, these things that God does will be done in connection with someone who has saving faith. But that faith is not what causes these things to occur; only God alone does these things and they are all sovereign acts of God. Didn’t you ever learn in logic that just because something follows something else in time, does not mean that the first thing caused the second thing to occur? You just cannot seem to get past that: if these things listed follow after someone has faith, then the faith that the person has **must** be causing these other things to occur (according to you). In your mind there are only two possibilities: either regeneration precedes faith, or faith produces/causes regeneration. That is a false dilemma. The truth which is a third possibility has been left out of your thinking completely.
You like to present yourself as something of a logician with your frequent references to fallacies, “post hoc ergo propter hoc”, after this, therefore because of this (or post hoc fallacy) is the one which you are committing here. You also seem to believe that if I believe that faith does not follow regeneration in time,that that must mean that faith is the cause of, or produces regeneration (which I do not believe). Regeneration is a miraculous action by God that human persons cannot do. So it is impossible for our faith to cause or produce regeneration.
But that faith is not what causes these things to occur; only God alone does these things and they are all sovereign acts of God. Didn’t you ever learn in logic that just because something follows something else in time, does not mean that the first thing caused the second thing to occur?
Of course, Scripture says precisely the opposite in 1 John, where the causal relation is spelled out clearly several times - and one of those things the new birth is said to cause is faith in Christ. One can't help but notice you've substituted a logical argument for an exegetical argument.
I never said you affirm that faith is the (efficient) cause of regeneration. I merely stated that, in your view, none of the things that you stated can occur apart from the agent's exercise of saving faith.
The argument that regeneration precedes faith is not that it precedes it temporally, but logically. Causal relationships depend on their logical / temporal order. Exegesis determines this order for all of these and whether there is a causal relationship.
8:47 He who is of God hears the words of God; for this reason you do not hear them, because you are not of God.
1 John 2:29, 4:7, and 5:1 also are this same construction:
He who is of God hears the words of God.
They hear because they are "of God."
You do not hear them because you are not of God
They do not hear because they are not of God
Everyone who practices righteousness is born of Him.
They practice righteousness because they are born again.
Everyone who loves is born of God and knows God.
They love because they are born again and know God.
Whoever believes that Jesus is the Christ is born of God.
They believe because they are born again.
No one who is born of God practices sin, because His seed abides in him, and he cannot since, because he is born of God.
The point, which you have utterly missed, is that, by your own admission, in your view is that saving faith itself is not a product of the atonement. It is not a product of regeneration. It arises from the person's libertarian free will, which, according to your own appeal means it has no antecedent conditions or causally determinative factors - but Scripture directly and explicitly contradicts you.
And since you want to believe that God predetermines EVERYTHING Gene. Then who predetermines “what their hearts’desires” will be”?
Robert, as usual, ignores a number of things here:
1. The Arminian has an order of decrees too, including the permission of the fall.
2. And the Calvinist and Arminian are agreed that the fall was "decreed" and that it was "permitted." The difference is over whether that permission was "bare" or "efficient."
3. And the Calvinist does not say that God predetermines everything and then places evil in men's hearts. Rather, Calvinism has a doctrine of secondary causality.
4. But let's play with Robert's own objection. Does God determine when a person will be born in history? Does He determine their parents? Environment? Etc.
5. Are a person's desires sufficient for moral blame?
6. And since, according to Robert, a person's saving faith is infallible foreknown, then it is certain.
7. If Robert was consistent, he'd be an Open Theist. No wonder he defends them.
Really? You said:
My concern is not that “ability limits their responsibility”. My concern is that a good person would not predetermine for most people to go to hell after predetermining their every thought and action so that they must sin and live a life of disobedience to God.
If yes, then how are they held responsible for something that was not something that they had to/or could do?That, Robert, means you are ultimately concerned about ability limiting responsibility.
A good and loving and merciful person would not do that.Ah, I see, an ethical argument in lieu of an exegetical one! Goody!
A universalist can make the same argument against your own position. So, if you want to frame the debate ethically, you'll impeach your own position.
God presents himself in scripture as having a love for the “world” (Jn. 3:16),
And the rest of the text says,
"so that all the believing ones may have eternal life."So, God "loves the world" with a purpose - for the believing ones to have eternal life. That could be a nifty prooftext for supralapsarianism, Robert, and, since you think so highly of Plantinga, we'll have to wonder if you agree to his supralapsarian theodicy.
not taking pleasure in the eternal death of the wicked (Eze. 18),
Calvinism affirms this too. I personally have affirmed this many times when writing about the doctrines of grace.
of desiring for all to be saved (1 Tim. 2:4-6),
Calvinism affirms this too - see the work of John Piper.
of desiring to have mercy on all people (Rom. 11:32),
This particular passage, in context, is referring to all kinds of people, that is without respect to ethnicity (Jew or Gentile). But since you brought up the passage, it includes a nifty reference:
"God has bound all over to disobedience."Robert quotes the last part without reference to the first.
False, "theological determinism" draws a distinction between ends and means to an end and has for centuries.To claim that something arises from man and not God, or to claim that God permits or allows something is to “borrow” from noncalvinism and depart from theological determinism.
And your line that: “man's sin itself arises from his love of evil and not God”, is false according to your determinism. If I predetermine every event including the thought, intentions, actions, sins of people, then their sin directly arises out of my will, what I wanted to happen.
False. You've confused the determination of an END with the MEANS to the end. You've done this multiple times in this thread and in others.
Steve at least twice pointed out and I have pointed out myself three or four times myself as well, decrees are not the same thing as "causality," for decrees don't do anything by themselves. They act as a blueprint for certainty. Blueprints don't build buildings. That requires means - materials, machines, people. In Scripture, the decrees (God's counsels) are worked out by providence. Decrees are not interchangeable with "causality." In Scripture, providence, which is usually by second causes, works out the plan. Steve put it his way:
Robert is confusing *causality* with *certainty*.
I'd add that this seems to be regular feature of libertarians' objections to Calvinism's view of providence.
LBCF2 5. Paragraph 2. Although in relation to the foreknowledge and decree of God, the first cause, all things come to pass immutably and infallibly; so that there is not anything befalls any by chance, or without His providence; yet by the same providence He ordered them to fall out according to the nature of second causes, either necessarily, freely, or contingently.
Are you so intellectually or ethically challenged that you keep ignoring the opposing position? Incompetence on stilts, I say.
You wrote:
But then when it is pointed out to you that this would make God the author of sin, the cause of sin, then you want to back off and appeal to “secondary causes” or “it’s not like that”, “it’s different than that”.
And since the standard confessions, which are several centuries old now hold the position I have outlined and quoted for you a number of times, as do our standard theology texts, I have not "backed off" of anything. It is you, Robert, the chronic liar, who cannot and willfully refuses to accurately represent the opposing position and has done so for weeks.
There are acts in which God directly intervenes: miracles, creation, regeneration, and conversion and acts in which He allows natural processes to work out His will.
The Westminster Confession and London Baptist Confession are clear. God’s determination of men’s acts in this regard comes through decreeing they come about through “the efficacy of second causes.” Individuals still have the freedom to act out any number of possible goods or evils as dictated by their natures and circumstances.
God can choose goods. . Each and every act need not be “predestined” by God’s direct intervening action or from any number of possible direct actions of God, for much of what happens is predestined by virtue of God controlling the boundings and directings of our choices while giving us freedom to act within the constraints of our natures, intervening directly as He pleases, constraining us and permitting us as He so chooses. Nothing happens apart from the grounding, sovereign decree of God, but certain acts and choices and circumstances come about by God ‘s direct effort (what Charles Hodge calls His “potentia absoluta’) This are: miracles, creation, regeneration, conversion, the events of the eschaton, and specific acts of judgment.
What God decrees for His glory, men do with their own motives. For example, God hardened Pharaoh’s heart in order to judge Egypt’s gods. Pharaoh’s will was not violated, in that God allowed Pharaoh’s love of evil, which was his natural state, to increase, keeping Israel from leaving. Pharaoh did not keep them from leaving in order to glorify God and worship Him. He did it because he hated God, Moses, Aaron, and the slaves. What God did for a righteous motive, Pharaoh did out of hatred for God. The motive behind an act, therefore, determines whether or not it is truly sinful. In theory, if Pharaoh had done what he did to glorify and worship God, he would not have been condemned, however, a man that does such a thing is, in reality acting in faith and love for God and would have to be regenerate. Such a man would not hold Israel back; he would have released Israel and taken down Egypt’s gods. That was not God’s purpose for Pharaoh. For the Scripture says to Pharaoh, "FOR THIS VERY PURPOSE I RAISED YOU UP, TO DEMONSTRATE MY POWER IN YOU, AND THAT MY NAME MIGHT BE PROCLAIMED THROUGHOUT THE WHOLE EARTH." So then He has mercy on whom He desires, and He hardens whom He desires.
God is the author of evil, in the sense that He is first cause of all things. This simply goes with pay grade. His decrees, through either action or inaction render events necessary, but, evil is the result of permission, not His direct causation, or a result of His judicial hardening of sinners, an act of justice Scripture supports repeatedly, as in the above text and in Romans 1. Nothing happens that compels a man or demon to act in a way it does not wish to act or against its nature. He may withhold constraining grace, as in the fall, in order to render a thing certain, but the agent of the evil, in this case Adam simply acts in accordance with his nature as a second cause, for reasons and motives sufficient for himself and arising from his own nature. Men thus do what God decrees, but for motives all their own. In so doing, they may incur judgment. In this way men act as infallibly as if they had no liberty, yet as freely as if there was no decree rendering their acts certain. See, for example, the predestination of Judas betrayal and Jesus crucifixion. These men did, with evil desires, what God desired and planned to happen since before creation, for Jesus is the Lamb slain before the foundation of the world itself.
Another Scholastic distinction I alluded to above even though we admit is has been discussed to death and fraught with difficulties since the Middle Ages, is the distinction between God's absolute power (Potentia Absoluta) and ordinary power (Potentia Ordinata). Whatever the difficulties of those distinctions in the older theologies (See Richard Muller's discussions in Post-Reformation Reformed Dogmatics - it's too long to enter for my purposes here), I think they are useful, at their root, insofar as they help accurately describe the way God uses means. With respect to things like creation ex nihilio, miracles, the Incarnation, regeneration, etc. God's absolute and direct control is very involved. In all other things, the decrees fall out according to the nature of second causes "either necessarily, freely, or contingently."
Notice that even in the creation narrative, we have an implication of second causes. There are commands that say, "Let there be..." and others that say ,"Let the earth bring forth..." In the Incarnation, we have a direct miracle @ conception, but it isn't as if Jesus just appears full formed as a 30 year old man like some sort of animus springing from Mary's womb. Rather, there is a normal pregnancy; He grows through childhood into adulthood, etc. We speak of regeneration in two senses: the wider and the narrower. In the narrower, we mean the direct act of God raising the soul dead in sin to life, but we are comfortable pointing out that "means" are the ordinary mode of that occurrence. As Dr. Sproul has said, the Spirit and the Word of God (preaching, studying, reading, etc) are working together.
What I would like to particularly point out for the purposes of this posting is that what Robert has provided us with is his own use of one of his Libertarian objections to Calvinism where it suits him:
Scripture is clear that He does predetermine some events, most notably the crucifixion of Jesus Acts 2:23, 4:25-28), but not all events.
Notice how quickly the libertarian's "all means all" argumentation quickly turns into, "all means some." "God works all things after the counsel of His will" (in Greek, literally "all, all things)" is reduced, without benefit of argument, to "some things."
Here's Robert's schizophrenic logic: he'll take the "pantos" passages of Scripture regarding the atonement or God's desires (1 Tim 2:4 for example) to mean "everyone without exception" and then reduce "all things" to "some." All the while, he finds the doctrine of particular atonement odious, because we're turning "all" and "world" into "some."
Robert believes that God only predetermines *some things* but when we look at Scripture, we find that the list is quite exhaustive (indeed the above list can be multiplied greatly) and Robert, while accusing us of emphasizing the particular over the general and claiming, I suppose, that "all means all," quickly reduces "all," as in Ephesians 1 to "some."
And, by the way, Robert, you're just repeating yourself and moving me to do so (since I devoted an entire thread awhile back to this and you didn't respond) - that, and some personal health reasons that prohibit me coming back to reply to you again this week, is the reason comments here are cut off. I'm simply not willing to engage in protracted discussion with you given your behavior. The only reason I'm posting this here, aside from its usefulness for the readers, is because the parent topic is 81 posts long now.
Blogger is a free service. This is not a discussion board. If you're going to repeat yourself with that level of frequency over multiple topics, you need to get your own blogger account and use it. You're approaching the level of "Orthodox" who we banned awhile back in this regard.
All sins are covered in the atonement which is applied only to believers. For believers their every sin is covered. For unbelievers who reject the provision of Christ for their salvation, none of their sins is covered.
1. If that is so, then the atonement has no intrinsic efficacy, which proves my earlier statement to that effect.
2. Robert affirms general, not Amyraldian atonement, yet he is employing an Amyraldian concept while saying elsewhere that Amyraldians are incorrect.
2. And if that is so, then God is playing a game of double jeopardy, holding men to account for sins for which Christ has already atoned. It isn't without reason the majority of Arminians these days prefer the moral government theory of atonement, Robert, and this is it.
Center of the Universe: The Great White Throne
Center of the Universe: The Great White Throne
BY RICH RICHARDSON
Associated Press
In a stunning astronomical discovery, the Hubble telescope has taken pictures of the Great White Throne. In a series of telephone interviews, Drs. Robert and David Gentry said the universe has a nearby center that can be identified with the location of the Great White Throne, God's dwelling place in the heavens described in the book of Revelation.
They even go so far as to suggest that this discovery may have apocalyptic implications: Did the Creator long ago plan for this sign in the heavens to be discovered as a signal that the present age is nearing its close and will soon end with the second coming of Christ in power and glory?*
Art historian Tom Chippendale, of the Tate Museum, said the throne was in the French provincial style, while Harvard zoologist Edward O. Wilson identified the animals to either side of the throne as belonging to the genus Capra and Ovis respectively. Unfortunately, the low resolution of the photographs did not permit a more precise taxonomical classification.
William Lane Craig hailed the finding as a splendid addition to the cosmological argument, while William Dembski cited this discovery as a paradigm-case of specified complexity and intelligent design.
However, Richard Dawkins dismissed the “Goddidit” inference as a massive “cop-out” and “science-stopper.” “It wouldn’t be the first time that our smart genes played a dirty trick on their robotic, blindly programmed replicators,” he explained.
Attorneys for the ACLU petitioned Judge Jones to place a gag order on Observatories within the Continental United States and Hawaii.
*http://www.halos.com/videos/index.htm#cou
BY RICH RICHARDSON
Associated Press
In a stunning astronomical discovery, the Hubble telescope has taken pictures of the Great White Throne. In a series of telephone interviews, Drs. Robert and David Gentry said the universe has a nearby center that can be identified with the location of the Great White Throne, God's dwelling place in the heavens described in the book of Revelation.
They even go so far as to suggest that this discovery may have apocalyptic implications: Did the Creator long ago plan for this sign in the heavens to be discovered as a signal that the present age is nearing its close and will soon end with the second coming of Christ in power and glory?*
Art historian Tom Chippendale, of the Tate Museum, said the throne was in the French provincial style, while Harvard zoologist Edward O. Wilson identified the animals to either side of the throne as belonging to the genus Capra and Ovis respectively. Unfortunately, the low resolution of the photographs did not permit a more precise taxonomical classification.
William Lane Craig hailed the finding as a splendid addition to the cosmological argument, while William Dembski cited this discovery as a paradigm-case of specified complexity and intelligent design.
However, Richard Dawkins dismissed the “Goddidit” inference as a massive “cop-out” and “science-stopper.” “It wouldn’t be the first time that our smart genes played a dirty trick on their robotic, blindly programmed replicators,” he explained.
Attorneys for the ACLU petitioned Judge Jones to place a gag order on Observatories within the Continental United States and Hawaii.
*http://www.halos.com/videos/index.htm#cou
Sunday, October 07, 2007
Please Pray For Rain
I know we don't often broadcast prayer requests publicly here, but since the news media seems more concerned with Brittney Spears and the new television season than the severe to exceptional drought that has gripped the Southeast United States for months (note this subject is utterly absent from the major news networks on an ongoing basis), I feel it necessary to call folks attention to this subject. Please pray for rain and lots of it, and pray for the people living in this area. While those in the West have been flooded this year, we have been without.
1. The Southeastern US is terribly, terribly dry. My part of NC is in extreme drought. However, the county next to me and to the East is under exceptional conditions. That's as bad as it gets. The far western part of NC has been hit just as badly. Fortunately, I live in the Yadkin River basin, which is quite large, and we get our water from the river, which is probably, of the rivers in NC, the one in best condition. Those on the Catawba are having a harder time. Many cities, particularly Greensboro and Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill get their water from lakes, not rivers; and the lakes are desperately dry. There are also folks along, I believe, Lake Norman who, for whatever reason, don't seem to understand that their water consumption affects those downstream from that reservoir. The state, however, has no laws to mandate their townships restrict water use. Pray the Lord will bend the hearts of these people to do the right thing.
2. Rather than dusty conditions, the ground is hard like brick, since the soil here is composed of red clay. It has baked, literally, in the sun such that rain we do get washes away. We are in dire need of many days of steady rain, or, in the winter, snow and ice that will cover the ground and work its way into it.
3. Needless to say, the crops have been drastically affected. The local fair for NW NC this year showcased no Red Delicious apples.
4. Much of the produce that was feature was malformed.
5. This will, of course, affect the price of food and vegetables, meat in particular, at least locally.
6. In Athens, GA, they are talking about the possibility of rationing water. I've heard talk of water being shipped around some parts of the South. Athens is, of course, north of Atlanta, and Atlanta is being greatly affected too.
And to You the vow will be performed.
2O You who hear prayer,
To You all men come.
3Iniquities prevail against me;
As for our transgressions, You forgive them.
4How blessed is the one whom You choose and bring near to You
To dwell in Your courts
We will be satisfied with the goodness of Your house,
Your holy temple.
5By awesome deeds You answer us in righteousness, O God of our salvation,
You who are the trust of all the ends of the earth and of the farthest sea;
6Who establishes the mountains by His strength,
Being girded with might;
7Who stills the roaring of the seas,
The roaring of their waves,
And the tumult of the peoples.
8They who dwell in the ends of the earth stand in awe of Your signs;
You make the dawn and the sunset shout for joy.
9You visit the earth and cause it to overflow;
You greatly enrich it;
The stream of God is full of water;
You prepare their grain, for thus You prepare the earth.
10You water its furrows abundantly,
You settle its ridges,
You soften it with showers,
You bless its growth.
11You have crowned the year with Your bounty,
And Your paths drip with fatness.
12The pastures of the wilderness drip,
And the hills gird themselves with rejoicing.
13The meadows are clothed with flocks
And the valleys are covered with grain;
They shout for joy, yes, they sing.
1. The Southeastern US is terribly, terribly dry. My part of NC is in extreme drought. However, the county next to me and to the East is under exceptional conditions. That's as bad as it gets. The far western part of NC has been hit just as badly. Fortunately, I live in the Yadkin River basin, which is quite large, and we get our water from the river, which is probably, of the rivers in NC, the one in best condition. Those on the Catawba are having a harder time. Many cities, particularly Greensboro and Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill get their water from lakes, not rivers; and the lakes are desperately dry. There are also folks along, I believe, Lake Norman who, for whatever reason, don't seem to understand that their water consumption affects those downstream from that reservoir. The state, however, has no laws to mandate their townships restrict water use. Pray the Lord will bend the hearts of these people to do the right thing.
2. Rather than dusty conditions, the ground is hard like brick, since the soil here is composed of red clay. It has baked, literally, in the sun such that rain we do get washes away. We are in dire need of many days of steady rain, or, in the winter, snow and ice that will cover the ground and work its way into it.
3. Needless to say, the crops have been drastically affected. The local fair for NW NC this year showcased no Red Delicious apples.
4. Much of the produce that was feature was malformed.
5. This will, of course, affect the price of food and vegetables, meat in particular, at least locally.
6. In Athens, GA, they are talking about the possibility of rationing water. I've heard talk of water being shipped around some parts of the South. Athens is, of course, north of Atlanta, and Atlanta is being greatly affected too.
Psalm 65
God's Abundant Favor to Earth and Man.
For the choir director. A Psalm of David. A Song.
1There will be silence before You, and praise in Zion, O God,And to You the vow will be performed.
2O You who hear prayer,
To You all men come.
3Iniquities prevail against me;
As for our transgressions, You forgive them.
4How blessed is the one whom You choose and bring near to You
To dwell in Your courts
We will be satisfied with the goodness of Your house,
Your holy temple.
5By awesome deeds You answer us in righteousness, O God of our salvation,
You who are the trust of all the ends of the earth and of the farthest sea;
6Who establishes the mountains by His strength,
Being girded with might;
7Who stills the roaring of the seas,
The roaring of their waves,
And the tumult of the peoples.
8They who dwell in the ends of the earth stand in awe of Your signs;
You make the dawn and the sunset shout for joy.
9You visit the earth and cause it to overflow;
You greatly enrich it;
The stream of God is full of water;
You prepare their grain, for thus You prepare the earth.
10You water its furrows abundantly,
You settle its ridges,
You soften it with showers,
You bless its growth.
11You have crowned the year with Your bounty,
And Your paths drip with fatness.
12The pastures of the wilderness drip,
And the hills gird themselves with rejoicing.
13The meadows are clothed with flocks
And the valleys are covered with grain;
They shout for joy, yes, they sing.
Historic Baptist Polity
I have also noted a number of questions from Roman Catholics regarding ecclesiastical polity. Most are directed toward Presbyterianism, but by way of reply from a Baptist perspective:
1. Presbyterians and "plural elder" Baptists differ over the distinction between "ruling" and "teaching" elders. In Baptist plural elder churches, all elders teach. That's the main difference at that level.
2. Baptists themselves who employ this model function on either an "elder rule" model or with "a shared responsibility with the congregation" (as Mark Dever's) model. I would add that Baptist single pastor/elder model churches use a board of deacons that does not really functionally differ from this model. It's really @ the deacon level that the differences play out. There are those who opt for a corporation-like model, usually in the largest churches. I have strong problems with this latter model, which, at this time, I'll waive discussing.
3. When it all cashes out, Presbyterian and Baptist polity really don't differ much internally. It's at the external level that we differ. Presbyterians operate with sessions, presbyteries, and assemblies so that the elders of one local church wind up having authority over and in another local church. Baptists are either independent altogether or function in associations. Conventions are slightly different structures, but they cash out as big associations.
4. The local church is independent and autonomous of the association, and, in conventioning churches, the churches, associations, state and national conventions are all independent.
i. However, these days if you don't give money to the state, you can't be seated @ the convention (either one).
ii. Churches must join the association in most cases to join the state convention (eg. to join one is to join the other), but they need not contribute to the association's activity, but it's not a good idea not to do so without good reason.
5. Baptists are somewhat divided over the role of the association. If you ask me this is a a weak point in Baptist ecclesiology. We need a clear theology of the association. I'd like to see a book devoted to this subject.
The Sandy Creek Association, according to G.W. Paschal, was quite high handed. The Charleston Association's Book of Discipline was less so. P. H. Mell's view was, if you ask me, even looser. The SBC has chosen to follow Mell's thinking in this regard. As a result local church autonomy has been abused far too much. This is unacceptable. I've written on this before.
6. Founders.org contains a repository of information collected by Mark Dever that many have forgotten. If they have questions, I'd refer them there. In addition, see John L. Dagg's work.
1. Presbyterians and "plural elder" Baptists differ over the distinction between "ruling" and "teaching" elders. In Baptist plural elder churches, all elders teach. That's the main difference at that level.
2. Baptists themselves who employ this model function on either an "elder rule" model or with "a shared responsibility with the congregation" (as Mark Dever's) model. I would add that Baptist single pastor/elder model churches use a board of deacons that does not really functionally differ from this model. It's really @ the deacon level that the differences play out. There are those who opt for a corporation-like model, usually in the largest churches. I have strong problems with this latter model, which, at this time, I'll waive discussing.
3. When it all cashes out, Presbyterian and Baptist polity really don't differ much internally. It's at the external level that we differ. Presbyterians operate with sessions, presbyteries, and assemblies so that the elders of one local church wind up having authority over and in another local church. Baptists are either independent altogether or function in associations. Conventions are slightly different structures, but they cash out as big associations.
4. The local church is independent and autonomous of the association, and, in conventioning churches, the churches, associations, state and national conventions are all independent.
i. However, these days if you don't give money to the state, you can't be seated @ the convention (either one).
ii. Churches must join the association in most cases to join the state convention (eg. to join one is to join the other), but they need not contribute to the association's activity, but it's not a good idea not to do so without good reason.
5. Baptists are somewhat divided over the role of the association. If you ask me this is a a weak point in Baptist ecclesiology. We need a clear theology of the association. I'd like to see a book devoted to this subject.
The Sandy Creek Association, according to G.W. Paschal, was quite high handed. The Charleston Association's Book of Discipline was less so. P. H. Mell's view was, if you ask me, even looser. The SBC has chosen to follow Mell's thinking in this regard. As a result local church autonomy has been abused far too much. This is unacceptable. I've written on this before.
6. Founders.org contains a repository of information collected by Mark Dever that many have forgotten. If they have questions, I'd refer them there. In addition, see John L. Dagg's work.
The Old Covenant and Infallibility
It seems that Saint and Sinner's Roman Catholic opponents, for whatever reason, simply don't get the Protestant argument from the Old Testament/Old Covenant against Sola Ecclesia and Papal infallibility.
The argument goes thusly: Since God Himself did not find it necessary to institute an infallible teaching authority under the Old Covenant, the Roman Catholic argument is thereby highly suspect unless it has exegetical support. Put another way:
The typical Roman Catholic reply is rather too often something like this:
Apparently, the argument has gone over Dave's head, so it appears we'll have to break it down for him.
1. His response assumes a great deal that it needs to prove. This should go without saying.
2. The Protestant argument is twofold:
a. It goes to God's historical modus operandi. Why is what was acceptable for God’s old covenant community unacceptable for God’s new covenant community? If you want to know God’s intentions for the future (e.g. the church age), a good place to start is with his historical modus operandi.
b. It is also exegetical:
3. Apropos 2b, a few notes:
a. Old Covenant polity and Roman Catholic polity parallel on several levels
i. The priestly class (the Magisterium) and a high priest (Pope).
ii. Mediate authority between God and man via this class.
iii. Outward mediation of grace via the Roman sacraments parallels the sacrificial system (the Eucharist), circumcision (baptism), Levitical priesthood (holy orders), feast days, etc.
iv. The Temple, some Romanists might say, would parallel the Vatican itself.
So, the Catholic who offers the argument for infallibility wants on the one hand to maintain some continuity with the Old Covenant's outward structures (including such things a Mary being a "Queen Mother"), but the appeal is, in reality, quite selective. The Protestant argument from the Old Covenant is, therefore, a way of answering the Romanist on his own level.
Of course, the Bible itself, namely Hebrews, is quite clear that the Old Covenant is simply signs and shadows of what was to come (the New Covenant). The New Covenant is also said to be disanalogous on several levels. For example, there is no more high priesthood except for that of Christ (Hebrews). The church as a whole is a holy nation, a royal priesthood, etc. (1 Peter), eg. a kingdom of priests (Hebrews 1:16, which - by the way is the fulfillment of Exodus 19, so this is also a point of analogy as well as disanalogy, for Israel ultimately failed), feast days and the Jewish liturgical calendar are abolished (Col. 2:16, 17), and, other than the Lord's Day no other liturgical calendar is given in Scripture.
So -
b. There is no infallible teaching authority under the Old Covenant, and, if the Romanist is going to make this argument, then the Romanist needs an exegetical argument that there is some sign / shadow in the Old Covenant that prefigures the need for an infallible authority in the New Covenant. It's not enough to say, "the gift of infallibility was not yet given," because:
i. The Bible nowhere names a spiritual gift called "infallibility," in the NT or in OT prophecy and
ii. The spiritual gifts in the New Covenant find analogues in the Old Covenant.
The Romanist can say, something like "the Levitical caste decided between difficult cases under the Law" - but this is not the same as saying "they were infallible teachers." They can say "Prophets spoke infallibly from God," but the Protestant simply replies that the Prophets, as to office, are analogous to the Apostles, and we have their extant teaching already. Thus, the Romanist makes the Pope the successor of Peter, and on and on the argument goes - yet what is always missing in the exegetical link to the need for and the promise of an infallible teaching office in the New Covenant.
Further, one of the discontinuities between the Old and New Covenants is that the mediate "gifts" like prophecy and teaching are given to individuals within the body of Christ as a whole, not a specific mediating office like "priest" or "Pope."
Thus, another of the points of disanalogy between covenant epochs is that these gifts are dispersed throughout the people of God widely, not concentrated within one or two classes of persons (priests, prophets). Teaching is immediate in the sense of not being mediated so much by an office as through individuals who are themselves from all "classes" and genders within the church. In fact, the intelligent Protestant would point out that the very office of "prophet" in the Old Covenant prefigures this distribution of gifts widely, for the Prophets were not all concentrated in the school of Samuel or Elisha, you know. They were not all priests or kings; rather the bulk of them were common people, what we'd call "laity" by today's standards. The exact level of dispersion will, of course show up with great variation within local churches - since not every local church in the same. Romanism, by way of contrast, comes off as trying to make the disperson of gifts artificially uniform. The contrast with Scripture could not be more stark.
Further "infallibility" is admittedly a "gift" in Romanism that is restricted to a specific class, for the "infallibility" of the "Church" (eg. the Roman Church - a visible, ecclesiastical body) is dependent on the Magisterium and the Pope - a specific class and a specific office. The Romanist who says that "the Church" is infallible can only do so by reference to these offices. This flies in the face of what was said by (ironically) Peter himself in his Pentecostal sermon:
And Paul's own discourse on gifts (1 Cor. 12, Eph. 4) does not lead us to the conclusion that the relevant gifts (teaching/prophecy) are restricted to a particular ecclesiastical class - and nowhere does he ever talk about the need for "infallibility."
In fact, he says that knowledge of sound doctrine is recognized and maintained not by a guarantee of infallibility that is attached to an office that administers particular gifts - rather, Paul speaks about division in the church in positive and negative light.
1 Cor. 11:19 uses the Greek word "haireses" for "factions". "Heresy" is a false teaching, something that deviates from orthodoxy. If we see that the Scriptures declare something clearly (orthodoxy), and if someone teaches contrary to that clear teaching, then he or she is teaching heresy. The Scriptures teach that there is a place for division and that is when opposing teachings that are contrary to sound doctrine. But division can only occur when the truth is known and those who abide with the truth should correct those who do not. If there was one place for Paul to talk about the need for an infallible arbiter of truth, here is where it should be. It is nowhere to be found.
The point, of course, is that the place where one would expect to find it: the Old Covenant system does not have it, and the New Covenant widely distributes the gifts without distinction, which flies in the face of the Romanist's own logic, for he can't argue that, because of this wide distribution there is a new need generated - an infallible teaching office- only to restrict it, for the appeal to infallibility requires the restriction of - not the wide distribution of - the relevant gift. Thus, he's left to argue, if he chooses that route, for the wide distribution of a gift like teaching among the people generally but the restriction of the gift of infallibility to an office, but this is self-defeating, for the gift of infallibility would have to be attached to the gift of teaching in order to be of any use or effect.
Now, the Roman Catholic can argue that the clergy has the effect of concentrating these gifts into particular offices - but the Protestant can agree to this much - for, with a few exceptions like Quakers, we ordain or appoint ministers of the gospel (elders) and deacons and try to employ our members who manifest the teaching gift to that ministry either formally or informally in the churches. In addition, most of us recognize there are teachers that exist outside of these specific offices (elder/deacon), which seem to serve the purpose of calling those in those offices to account from time to time. Many a Protestant minister (and Catholic priest) can tell of the "wise woman" or "incredibly intelligent young man" who sits in their church very humbly, doesn't call attention to himself or herself, and yet is somebody to whom that minister can go to for wise counsel, to help them study, and who will even challenge their teaching from time to time - yet in terms of ecclesiastical office, they submit themselves to the authority of the elders and deacons of the local church as prescribed in Scripture.
Further, if the Old Covenant is greater than the New Covenant, and the New Covenant is written on the heart of the people (Jeremiah 31), why would there need to be an infallible teaching authority? In fact, the Protestant argument is that one of the things that makes the New Covenant "new" is not the writing of the Law on the heart via regeneration or justification by faith alone via grace alone (and certainly not the need for or gift of an infallible teaching office) but things like:
1. The extension of salvation from a single visible nation, Israel, to "the whole world." The curse of the Diaspora upon the covenant community is reversed in the New Covenant - it becomes a blessing (1 Peter). The curse of Babel is reversed (Acts 2).
2. The revelation of the mystery of (1) and the making plain of the fact that this is how this has been how men have been saved all along (Romans).
3. The distribution of teaching gifts outside of the classes of "prophet" and "priest."
He can say that an infallible teaching office is "better" than not having one, but how does this follow? If the covenant is "better" as a whole, why would it require an infallible teaching authority? Where is the supporting argument from for the need for such a thing? Wouldn't it make more sense to have an infallible teaching authority for a covenant written on tablets of stone and than one one written on hearts of flesh, and if one of the hidden mysteries of the whole covenant of grace is, in fact, that it has been written on tables of flesh all along, in the sense of individual salvation being via the same means - faith alone and grace alone - and the Old Covenant did not require an infallible external teaching office then, why would it now need one? That's what we're really talking about anyway isn't it - an external teaching office? This isn't about the phenomenology of the inspiration of Scripture or the illumination of the mind, rather it's about an external teaching office, and that too carries over between covenants - both have an external teaching office both include a teaching/prophecy component, but in the Old Covenant the office and gift is restricted; in the New Covenant it is widened. The responsibility of the teaching office itself continues - as elders - but the gift itself is not limited to the eldership.
The Catholic can point out that the Old Covenant teaching authority "failed," but how is this an argument for the necessity of an infallible teaching office under the New Covenant?
1. Wasn't this "failure" precisely what precipiated the institution of the New Covenant? Matthew, after all, among other things, presents Jesus bringing a lawsuit from God upon the nation - faulting the priestly class. Since the New Covenant was prophesied in Jeremiah, isn't this precisely the intention of the Old Covenant's "failure?" If the OT rule of faith "failed," that is not because it was flawed. To the contrary, if it failed, then it did so because it was designed to do so. In fact, the OT rule of faith was a success. It succeeded in achieving the purpose that God meant for it.
2. Signs and shadows are just that. The sacrifices did not take away sin either - and they were never intended to do so. Old Covenant believers had their sins taken away via the cross, not bulls and goats. Likewise, in the Old Covenant, promises are made to Abraham for example, and yet they are not all fulfilled until Christ.
3. The Bible tells us about a wholly sufficient, "infallible" sacrifice offered once for all time (Hebrews) - Christ's - but makes none for an infallible teaching office. Note that on the one hand, the Catholic wants to maintain an infallible teaching office but wants to deny the once for all, complete sufficiency of Christ's sacrifice by the perpetual sacrifice of Christ "on a thousand altars" in that abomination called the Mass, and this must be administered by a priest in a valid holy order, etc. Again, the contrast could not be more stark.
The argument goes thusly: Since God Himself did not find it necessary to institute an infallible teaching authority under the Old Covenant, the Roman Catholic argument is thereby highly suspect unless it has exegetical support. Put another way:
If Christians require the services of a living Magisterium, wouldn’t the Old Covenant community be under the same necessity? Yet it’s clear from the Gospels that none of the rival parties spoke for God in any definitive sense. The priesthood was the only faction with any institutional standing under the Mosaic Covenant, and its members were frequently and fundamentally mistaken in their construal of its ethical obligations, such as the matter of putting to death their prophesied Messiah. So much for a divine teaching office to ensure unity and fidelity.
The typical Roman Catholic reply is rather too often something like this:
“In OT times, the Jewish assembly was not yet given the gift of infallibility. Things change after Jesus comes and the Holy Spirit indwells believers. Is this not elementary?”
Apparently, the argument has gone over Dave's head, so it appears we'll have to break it down for him.
1. His response assumes a great deal that it needs to prove. This should go without saying.
2. The Protestant argument is twofold:
a. It goes to God's historical modus operandi. Why is what was acceptable for God’s old covenant community unacceptable for God’s new covenant community? If you want to know God’s intentions for the future (e.g. the church age), a good place to start is with his historical modus operandi.
b. It is also exegetical:
3. Apropos 2b, a few notes:
a. Old Covenant polity and Roman Catholic polity parallel on several levels
i. The priestly class (the Magisterium) and a high priest (Pope).
ii. Mediate authority between God and man via this class.
iii. Outward mediation of grace via the Roman sacraments parallels the sacrificial system (the Eucharist), circumcision (baptism), Levitical priesthood (holy orders), feast days, etc.
iv. The Temple, some Romanists might say, would parallel the Vatican itself.
So, the Catholic who offers the argument for infallibility wants on the one hand to maintain some continuity with the Old Covenant's outward structures (including such things a Mary being a "Queen Mother"), but the appeal is, in reality, quite selective. The Protestant argument from the Old Covenant is, therefore, a way of answering the Romanist on his own level.
Of course, the Bible itself, namely Hebrews, is quite clear that the Old Covenant is simply signs and shadows of what was to come (the New Covenant). The New Covenant is also said to be disanalogous on several levels. For example, there is no more high priesthood except for that of Christ (Hebrews). The church as a whole is a holy nation, a royal priesthood, etc. (1 Peter), eg. a kingdom of priests (Hebrews 1:16, which - by the way is the fulfillment of Exodus 19, so this is also a point of analogy as well as disanalogy, for Israel ultimately failed), feast days and the Jewish liturgical calendar are abolished (Col. 2:16, 17), and, other than the Lord's Day no other liturgical calendar is given in Scripture.
So -
b. There is no infallible teaching authority under the Old Covenant, and, if the Romanist is going to make this argument, then the Romanist needs an exegetical argument that there is some sign / shadow in the Old Covenant that prefigures the need for an infallible authority in the New Covenant. It's not enough to say, "the gift of infallibility was not yet given," because:
i. The Bible nowhere names a spiritual gift called "infallibility," in the NT or in OT prophecy and
ii. The spiritual gifts in the New Covenant find analogues in the Old Covenant.
The Romanist can say, something like "the Levitical caste decided between difficult cases under the Law" - but this is not the same as saying "they were infallible teachers." They can say "Prophets spoke infallibly from God," but the Protestant simply replies that the Prophets, as to office, are analogous to the Apostles, and we have their extant teaching already. Thus, the Romanist makes the Pope the successor of Peter, and on and on the argument goes - yet what is always missing in the exegetical link to the need for and the promise of an infallible teaching office in the New Covenant.
Further, one of the discontinuities between the Old and New Covenants is that the mediate "gifts" like prophecy and teaching are given to individuals within the body of Christ as a whole, not a specific mediating office like "priest" or "Pope."
Thus, another of the points of disanalogy between covenant epochs is that these gifts are dispersed throughout the people of God widely, not concentrated within one or two classes of persons (priests, prophets). Teaching is immediate in the sense of not being mediated so much by an office as through individuals who are themselves from all "classes" and genders within the church. In fact, the intelligent Protestant would point out that the very office of "prophet" in the Old Covenant prefigures this distribution of gifts widely, for the Prophets were not all concentrated in the school of Samuel or Elisha, you know. They were not all priests or kings; rather the bulk of them were common people, what we'd call "laity" by today's standards. The exact level of dispersion will, of course show up with great variation within local churches - since not every local church in the same. Romanism, by way of contrast, comes off as trying to make the disperson of gifts artificially uniform. The contrast with Scripture could not be more stark.
Further "infallibility" is admittedly a "gift" in Romanism that is restricted to a specific class, for the "infallibility" of the "Church" (eg. the Roman Church - a visible, ecclesiastical body) is dependent on the Magisterium and the Pope - a specific class and a specific office. The Romanist who says that "the Church" is infallible can only do so by reference to these offices. This flies in the face of what was said by (ironically) Peter himself in his Pentecostal sermon:
7" 'In the last days, God says,
I will pour out my Spirit on all people.
Your sons and daughters will prophesy,
your young men will see visions,
your old men will dream dreams.
18Even on my servants, both men and women,
I will pour out my Spirit in those days,
and they will prophesy.
And Paul's own discourse on gifts (1 Cor. 12, Eph. 4) does not lead us to the conclusion that the relevant gifts (teaching/prophecy) are restricted to a particular ecclesiastical class - and nowhere does he ever talk about the need for "infallibility."
In fact, he says that knowledge of sound doctrine is recognized and maintained not by a guarantee of infallibility that is attached to an office that administers particular gifts - rather, Paul speaks about division in the church in positive and negative light.
1 Cor. 11:18-19, "For, in the first place, when you come together as a church, I hear that divisions exist among you; and in part, I believe it. 19 For there must also be factions among you, in order that those who are approved may have become evident among you."
1 Cor. 1:10, "Now I exhort you, brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you all agree, and there be no divisions among you, but you be made complete in the same mind and in the same judgment."
1 Cor. 11:19 uses the Greek word "haireses" for "factions". "Heresy" is a false teaching, something that deviates from orthodoxy. If we see that the Scriptures declare something clearly (orthodoxy), and if someone teaches contrary to that clear teaching, then he or she is teaching heresy. The Scriptures teach that there is a place for division and that is when opposing teachings that are contrary to sound doctrine. But division can only occur when the truth is known and those who abide with the truth should correct those who do not. If there was one place for Paul to talk about the need for an infallible arbiter of truth, here is where it should be. It is nowhere to be found.
The point, of course, is that the place where one would expect to find it: the Old Covenant system does not have it, and the New Covenant widely distributes the gifts without distinction, which flies in the face of the Romanist's own logic, for he can't argue that, because of this wide distribution there is a new need generated - an infallible teaching office- only to restrict it, for the appeal to infallibility requires the restriction of - not the wide distribution of - the relevant gift. Thus, he's left to argue, if he chooses that route, for the wide distribution of a gift like teaching among the people generally but the restriction of the gift of infallibility to an office, but this is self-defeating, for the gift of infallibility would have to be attached to the gift of teaching in order to be of any use or effect.
Now, the Roman Catholic can argue that the clergy has the effect of concentrating these gifts into particular offices - but the Protestant can agree to this much - for, with a few exceptions like Quakers, we ordain or appoint ministers of the gospel (elders) and deacons and try to employ our members who manifest the teaching gift to that ministry either formally or informally in the churches. In addition, most of us recognize there are teachers that exist outside of these specific offices (elder/deacon), which seem to serve the purpose of calling those in those offices to account from time to time. Many a Protestant minister (and Catholic priest) can tell of the "wise woman" or "incredibly intelligent young man" who sits in their church very humbly, doesn't call attention to himself or herself, and yet is somebody to whom that minister can go to for wise counsel, to help them study, and who will even challenge their teaching from time to time - yet in terms of ecclesiastical office, they submit themselves to the authority of the elders and deacons of the local church as prescribed in Scripture.
Further, if the Old Covenant is greater than the New Covenant, and the New Covenant is written on the heart of the people (Jeremiah 31), why would there need to be an infallible teaching authority? In fact, the Protestant argument is that one of the things that makes the New Covenant "new" is not the writing of the Law on the heart via regeneration or justification by faith alone via grace alone (and certainly not the need for or gift of an infallible teaching office) but things like:
1. The extension of salvation from a single visible nation, Israel, to "the whole world." The curse of the Diaspora upon the covenant community is reversed in the New Covenant - it becomes a blessing (1 Peter). The curse of Babel is reversed (Acts 2).
2. The revelation of the mystery of (1) and the making plain of the fact that this is how this has been how men have been saved all along (Romans).
3. The distribution of teaching gifts outside of the classes of "prophet" and "priest."
He can say that an infallible teaching office is "better" than not having one, but how does this follow? If the covenant is "better" as a whole, why would it require an infallible teaching authority? Where is the supporting argument from for the need for such a thing? Wouldn't it make more sense to have an infallible teaching authority for a covenant written on tablets of stone and than one one written on hearts of flesh, and if one of the hidden mysteries of the whole covenant of grace is, in fact, that it has been written on tables of flesh all along, in the sense of individual salvation being via the same means - faith alone and grace alone - and the Old Covenant did not require an infallible external teaching office then, why would it now need one? That's what we're really talking about anyway isn't it - an external teaching office? This isn't about the phenomenology of the inspiration of Scripture or the illumination of the mind, rather it's about an external teaching office, and that too carries over between covenants - both have an external teaching office both include a teaching/prophecy component, but in the Old Covenant the office and gift is restricted; in the New Covenant it is widened. The responsibility of the teaching office itself continues - as elders - but the gift itself is not limited to the eldership.
The Catholic can point out that the Old Covenant teaching authority "failed," but how is this an argument for the necessity of an infallible teaching office under the New Covenant?
1. Wasn't this "failure" precisely what precipiated the institution of the New Covenant? Matthew, after all, among other things, presents Jesus bringing a lawsuit from God upon the nation - faulting the priestly class. Since the New Covenant was prophesied in Jeremiah, isn't this precisely the intention of the Old Covenant's "failure?" If the OT rule of faith "failed," that is not because it was flawed. To the contrary, if it failed, then it did so because it was designed to do so. In fact, the OT rule of faith was a success. It succeeded in achieving the purpose that God meant for it.
2. Signs and shadows are just that. The sacrifices did not take away sin either - and they were never intended to do so. Old Covenant believers had their sins taken away via the cross, not bulls and goats. Likewise, in the Old Covenant, promises are made to Abraham for example, and yet they are not all fulfilled until Christ.
3. The Bible tells us about a wholly sufficient, "infallible" sacrifice offered once for all time (Hebrews) - Christ's - but makes none for an infallible teaching office. Note that on the one hand, the Catholic wants to maintain an infallible teaching office but wants to deny the once for all, complete sufficiency of Christ's sacrifice by the perpetual sacrifice of Christ "on a thousand altars" in that abomination called the Mass, and this must be administered by a priest in a valid holy order, etc. Again, the contrast could not be more stark.
The Gospel and Personal Evangelism
The Gospel and Personal Evangelism by Mark Dever
Endorsements:
“Mark Dever’s personal devotion to Scripture has led him to think deeply, read widely, preach clearly, and write simply to the great blessing of the body of Christ. Evangelism is the church’s mandate, and the one reason the redeemed are still on earth. Doing it effectively requires doing it biblically. Mark teaches us how to mobilize our churches to do just that.” - John MacArthur, Pastor-Teacher, Grace Community Church, Sun Valley, California
“For most of us, personal evangelism is the reverse of easy, and so it becomes a task we evade. Mark Dever writes to shake us up about this, clearing our heads as to just what evangelizing involves and motivating our hearts to go to it realistically and responsibly. This is a word in season that will surely do a great deal of good.” - J. I. Packer, Professor of Theology, Regent College
“Mark Dever has done every Christian and pastor a tremendous favor. With great humility, Dever helps us to connect the dots of our hopes for seeing people saved with the truth about the gospel and evangelism itself. This little book searches our hearts, corrects our thinking, calls us to faithfulness, and encourages us with practical examples and exhortations.” - Thabiti M. Anyabwile, Senior Pastor, First Baptist Church of Grand Cayman; author, The Faithful Preacher
Too Much Confidence, Too Little Evidence
Worth noting in this regard is a well-known comment by C.S. Lewis. In his famous essay, "Fern-seed and Elephants," Lewis reflects upon the times when his own literary works had been subjected to redaction-critical assessments by his contemporary reviewers, that is, times when reviewers attempted speculatively to reconstruct the genesis and development of his works. Lewis responds,
"My impression is that in the whole of my experience not one of these guesses has on any one point been right; that the method shows a record of one hundred per cent failure. You would expect that by mere chance they would hit as often as they miss. But it is my impression that they do no such thing. I can't remember a single hit....What I can say with certainty is that they are usually wrong. And yet they would often sound - if you didn't know the truth - extremely convincing."
This is enough to render the enterprise of speculating on the redactional motives and moves of the Gospel authors and the redactional histories of their writings suspect. But Lewis goes on to note that his reviewers had advantages that contemporary New Testament scholars do not have with regard to the biblical texts. For example, Lewis's reviewers shared the same culture and language as Lewis, something that is not true of critics of the New Testament. This strongly suggests that speculations about the redactional histories of ancient texts have far less likelihood of being correct than the speculations about Lewis's writings proffered by contemporary reviewers. And this cannot help but call the whole enterprise into question.
Yet, remarkably enough, the more extreme redaction critics, and especially those who employ redaction criticism in defense of the legendary-Jesus thesis, typically exhibit very little tentativeness in presenting their speculative reconstructions. Furthermore, it appears that often the rhetoric of confidence is rooted less in inevitable conclusions drawn from the literary evidence than in the simple fact that the speculations are inherently unfalsifiable. As Lewis himself notes - with no small tinge of sarcasm - "remember, the Biblical critics, whatever reconstructions they devise, can never be crudely proved wrong. St. Mark is dead. When they meet St. Peter there will be more pressing matters to discuss." (Paul Eddy and Gregory Boyd, The Jesus Legend [Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Academic, 2007], p. 400)
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