In his final years, Gordon Clark staked out a number of increasingly eccentric positions. Perhaps this represents his intellectual development. Or perhaps he always held these views.
It’s a pity because, in some respects, he was a very useful Reformed apologist. Unfortunately, all the good stuff he did tends to lend specious credibility to some of his lapses in judgment. To take a few examples:
“One may wonder whether the truths of mathematics, unlike the truths of history, are infinite in number. Each year some brilliant professor adds one or two more. Theorems seem to be possible without end. Then would not omniscience make God infinite? There are two replies. First, if the theorems are infinite in number, neither God nor man could know them, for with respect to infinite there is no all’ to be known. Infinite has no last term, and God’s knowledge would be as incomplete as man,” The Incarnation, 61-62.
“It is a delicate question whether God’s knowledge is infinite in the English sense of the world. If it were, God’s knowledge would be incomplete, if not unsystematic…If God’s knowledge were infinite, there would always be an extra item beyond the last,” The Atonement, 130n1.”
i) The basic problem with this objection is that it fails to distinguish between a potential and actual infinite. Yet Cantor demonstrated the possibility of an actual infinite. The infinite as a given totality.
ii) In addition, Clark’s definition is infected with spatial and temporal metaphors. The notion that an infinite that has no “last term,” because there’d always be an extra item “beyond the last,” takes the notion of an infinite “series” too literally. It seems to equate the process of counting (from one to infinity) with the internal structure of the infinite. But that confuses an abstract object with a concrete process.
The infinite is not something that literally grows. It doesn’t literally “go on and on.” That’s a figurative way to depict the infinite. A way of making it easier for us to conceive of something a bit beyond our grasp. But we shouldn’t confuse metaphors with reality.
iii) We should also keep in mind that the term “infinite,” especially in application to God, can mean more than one thing. It can be used as a synonym for a being who is not conditioned by the vicissitudes time, space, or other contingencies.
“[When we] consider the will of God, we are apt to think or subconsciously suppose that God makes decisions. He willed to create, he willed, after some deliberation, to save some, and so on. Though we may not say so out loud, we suppose that God was puzzled: He could create or he could refuse to create; he could or could ruse to save some; and if he decided to save some, he could use any means imaginable…This seems to me to be logically inconsistent, for if it relieves God of indecision on the last point, it pictures him as indecisive on the prior points, and assigns to him a relatively momentary act of choice. This makes God a temporal creature, or if not a creature, at least a temporal being” The Atonement, 129.
i) What’s ironic about this allegation is not the subconscious assumption which Clark gratuitously imputes to Hodge, but the Clark’s own subconscious assumption. Clark is simply taking for granted, without any supporting argument, that the notion of divine choice or divine decision implies a psychological process or interval of time.
But why should we assume such a thing? If God is timeless, then there was never a time when God was undecided. Clark is failing to distinguish between the incidental features of human decision-making with the fundamental notions of having or making choices. Making choices is subjective, while having choices is objective.
ii) Having choices has reference to opportunities. Alternate courses of action. And that can be independent of decision-making in the sense that such opportunities might exist quite apart from the existence or deliberation of any particular agent. The existence of an objective opportunity doesn’t ipso facto depend on the subjective process of decision-making.
Suppose a student has been accepted to Harvard and Oxford alike. He has those two choices. And if he has those two choices, he can choose between them (barring some impediment). But Harvard and Oxford aren’t contingent on his decision-making process. They’d get along just fine without him.
I don’t say this to say that choices bear the same relationship to God. Just that we need to distinguish between what it means to make a choice and what it means to have a choice. One of flaws in Clark’s argument is his confusion of the two.
iii) And the fact that human decision-making involves a psychological process doesn’t mean that time is an essential feature of choosing or resolving on a particular outcome.
In any comparison between God and man, we need to make due allowance for the discontinuities as well as continuities between the two. We have to compare the two at the appropriate level of abstraction.
In the subjective sense, a choice is simply an intention or purpose to do something. That, of itself, doesn’t imply any prior state of indecision.
“First, it is not true that the Father could choose to create or choose not to create. God did not have, from eternity, a blank mind, undecided as to whether to create or not. God’s mind is, or better, includes the idea of this particular cosmos, with Abraham, David, and Jesus at particular points in time,” The Trinity, 111.
A number of problems with this objection:
i) It commits the same conceptual confusion I noted before, by illicitly intruding the notion of a temporal or psychological process into divine choice.
ii) And it bundles that error with another error by assuming that if God chose between two or more possible outcomes, then God had a “blank” mind. It’s a mystery to me how Clark can even begin to draw that inference.
In the nature of the case, an agent can’t choose between two or more alternatives if his mind is blank. To the contrary, he could only make that choice in case his mind is cognizant of the various possibilities. He has to have something on his mind to do that. A blank mind is a nonstarter.
iii) It’s true that God’s mind includes the idea of the actual world. Did anyone deny that?
But that’s hardly all it includes. God’s mind also includes the idea of various unexemplified possibilities. Includes the idea of hypothetical or counterfactual scenarios.
a) For one thing, God himself has cast certain issues in hypothetical or counterfactual terms. Just consider the very different consequences of obedience and disobedience in Deut 28. God has to have an idea of what each hypothetical outcome amounts to.
b) Likewise, human beings have an imaginative faculty. And God has an idea of whatever we have in mind. God is hardly ignorant of human ideas.
c) Moreover, not all possibilities are compossible. Go back to Deut 28. These two opposing outcomes cannot be simultaneously realized. Therefore, the actual world can’t exemplify both outcomes. For whichever outcome is actual, there must be a possible world which represents the unexemplified alternative.
“It there had been a God who might not have created, he would not have been the God described in the Bible,” ibid. 111.
i) God is the source of all possible worlds, whether exemplified or unexemplified. They all inhere in his nature or will. So, yes, he’s the same God across all possible worlds.
ii) To take an example, if in one possible world, Brad has a haircut on Tuesday, whereas, in another possible world, Brad has a haircut on Friday, would we say they can’t be the same individual?
iii) To take another example, suppose a novelist writes himself into one of his novels. The author is a character in his own novel.
And suppose he composes another novel, with a different setting, in which, once again, he’s a character.
Is he the same person in both novels? That’s equivocal. He’s not the same character in both novels, but he’s the same author.
iv) In a tautological sense, it’s true that if God hadn’t made our world, then he wouldn’t be the God described in the Bible. But that’s misleading. The differential factor isn’t the presence or absence of God, but the presence or absence of the world.
In the nature of the case, a description of God in reference to our world is a world-indexed property. If God hadn’t made our world, then our world wouldn’t be a descriptor for God. But that doesn’t mean he’d cease to be the very same God.
If Laurence Olivier stars in Macbeth rather than King Lear, then he wouldn’t be the same actor described in some production of King Lear–since, ex hypothesi, he didn’t act in King Lear. But to change the setting (Macbeth instead of King Lear) doesn’t mean he’s not the same actor qua actor. Just that he’s not the same actor qua acting. Same actor, different role. To play a different part doesn’t make you a different individual.
“On this view of things no other conditions than the actual conditions are possible. This is not ‘the best of all possible worlds,’ as Leibniz claimed: It is the only possible world, as Spinoza claimed. Any other world, on this view, can be imagined only by failing to see that it contains a logical contradiction or impossibility…Since God’s mind is immutable, since his decree is eternal, it follows that no other world than this is possible or imaginable,” 118-19.
This piggybacks on some of Clark’s previous confusions while introducing some new confusions:
i) It seems to equivocate on the meaning of possibility. It conflates what is feasible with what is conceivable. But these are distinct and separable ideas.
ii) To say that no other world than ours is even imaginable is simply absurd. We can all imagine variations on this world. We do so on a regular basis. And some individuals, like philosophers and fiction writers, make a career of doing that very thing.
iii) Clark also seems to be utterly clueless about the metaphysical basis of possible worlds. He’s very selective in what divine attributes he appeals to. By possible worlds are generated (as it were) by the conjunction of two divine attributes: omniscience and omnipotence.
A possible world is a way of expressing what an omnipotent God could possibly do. And since not all possibilities are compossible, there’s more than one possible thing an omnipotent God could possibly do.
Possible worlds are generated (as it were) by the application of divine omniscience to divine omnipotence. God knows what God can do. And what he can do outstrips any finite set of effects.
Does Clark seriously think that God couldn’t give Absalom dandruff or bald spots? Is it metaphysically necessary that every day be a good hair day for Absalom? Is it not within God’s power to do a single thing differently? Is God incapable of even imagining a different outcome?
I think Clark’s basic problem is that he suffered from intellectual isolation. As a result, his thinking becomes more erratic as time goes on.
Thursday, October 22, 2009
Wednesday, October 21, 2009
The intellectually fulfilled atheist
It has been Darwin, Richard Dawkins remarked, that has made it possible to be an intellectually fulfilled atheist.
A much better case might be made in the other direction. It is atheism that makes it possible for a man to be an intellectually fulfilled Darwinist.
D. Berlinski, The Deniable Darwin (Discovery Institute Press 2009), 507.
A much better case might be made in the other direction. It is atheism that makes it possible for a man to be an intellectually fulfilled Darwinist.
D. Berlinski, The Deniable Darwin (Discovery Institute Press 2009), 507.
Finding a Good God in an Evil World
I) William Dembski has written a new book: The End of Christianity: Finding a Good God in an Evil World (B&H 2009).
The book is adorned with a number of glowing blurbs by the likes of John Collins, Stephen Davis, Doug Groothuis, Gary Habermas, Hank Hanegraaff, William Hasker, Josh McDowell, John Warwick Montgomery, J. P. Moreland, and Don Page.
In one respect, these kudos are superfluous. It’s not as if Dembski is a debutante who needs to be introduced to the world. He’s an established figure in Evangelicalism. He has a following. I assume any major book he publishes would already have a preexisting constituency. But that’s a minor point.
More to the point is what some of them actually say. Moreland says it “towers over” the competition in “profundity and quality.” McDowell says it’s “groundbreaking.” Hanegraaff says it “may well prove to be a Copernican breakthrough,” while Montgomery says “Believers have badly needed the kind of compelling case for biblical theodicy provided in Dr Dembski’s new book.”
One of the problems with all this hype is the insinuation that Christian theodicy was in truly dire straits before he came along to save our bacon. You’d think that, up until now, we were utterly dumbfounded in the face of evil.
My own assessment is rather different. Reading his book is like watching a cinematic failure by a great director. Even if the film falls short of the high aims it set for itself, it still has memorable moments which a more successful film by a lesser director wouldn’t approach. A flawed masterpiece contains touches of greatness you won’t find in a flawless, but pedestrian piece of work.
Likewise, Dembski’s new book is one of those productions in which the parts are greater than the whole. Odd lapses of judgment punctuated by flashes of insight.
I also have a quibble with the subtitle: the world we inhabit is not an evil world. Rather, we inhabit a fallen world. Our world contains a lot of evil, but it’s also a world that contains a lot of common grace and special grace. So it’s deeply misleading to say our world is evil. There is both good and evil. Moreover, the good will out.
II) There are different ways of evaluating a work like this. One criterion is whether he succeeded in solving the problem he posed for himself. In that respect, I think Dembski’s book is only a partial success. I’ll have more to say about that shortly.
But perhaps a more fundamental issue is whether he’s giving us the right answers to the wrong questions. I just don’t see the problem of natural evil the way he does. Apparently he regards that problem as either evident or even self-evident. So he goes straight to the next step. But to me he’s expending a lot of ingenuity in solving what is more often than not a pseudoproblem. For example, here’s one way he states the issue:
Let’s make some preliminary observations before delving into the various permutations of his position. There are two broad aspects to the problem of natural evil:
a) The problem that natural evil poses to human victims of natural evil.
b) The problem that natural evil poses to subhuman victims natural evil.
These are distinct and separable issues. I don’t think they require the same treatment.
1) Concerning (a):
i) I think that even a sinless world would contain natural “evils.” That’s because I think natural evils are generally natural goods. What makes them “evil” is if they’re evil to you. If they do you harm. They’re only “evil” in the relative sense that if you’re in the wrong place at the wrong time, then they pose a threat to your life or wellbeing. But, in general, many natural “evils” are actually beneficial to the ecosystem. Indeed, essential to the balance of nature as we know it.
I think what the Fall effects is not the existence of natural evil, but a liability to natural evil. It exposes us to dangers which, in a sinless world, we’d be immune to–in one way or another.
There’s a difference between a dangerous world and a world which endangers you and me. A world with mountains and streams is a dangerous world inasmuch as you can fall off a cliff or drown in the river. I think the difference between a pristine world and a fallen world is not so much the presence or absence of natural evils, but whether we are put in harm’s ways. Is the potential for harm actually realized?
ii) I also assume that part of the cultural mandate is to tame the wilderness. We start in a garden, then we extend the garden. Cultivate the wilderness. Domesticate animals. Found towns and cities.
I think God has posed certain natural challenges for us to overcome. We need these raw materials to exercise our God-given creativity.
In a fallen world, that becomes an occupational hazard. But I don’t view the underlying principle as essentially different for an unfallen world.
iii) This is not to deny that some natural evils are second-order evils which reflect our fallenness. Scientists develop treatments for STDs. STDs are a natural punishment for sin. The STDs then adapt by developing a resistant-strain to the conventional treatment. So some natural evils to presuppose the Fall.
iv) And, of course, to the extent that some natural evils are penal sanctions for sin, they require no special justification.
2) Concerning (b):
i) Seems to me the so-called problem of animal pain is greatly overrated. For one thing, surely we need to draw some distinction between higher and lower animals. To say a dog can suffer doesn’t mean a millipede can suffer.
ii) Likewise, it seems to me, from my observation, that animals have a high pain threshold, not to mention a high pain tolerance. Haven’t we all seen veterinarians inject horses and dogs? When the needle goes in, they don’t even flinch.
Likewise, what looks painful may be painless. We know from survivors of shark attacks, bear maulings, and the like, that the victim often goes into shock. He feels nothing at the time.
If he survives, he may be in excruciating pain, but of course, the victim is ordinarily killed and eaten.
iii) It’s demonstrable that predation, parasitism, disease, aging, death, and even extinction serve a natural purpose in the ecosystem. Although we classify natural disasters as natural “evils,” they hardly a gratuitous evil. While I regard human mortality as a result of the fall, I don’t regard subhuman mortality as a result of the fall.
iv) Beyond functionality, I think God has another purpose in this respect. We live in a “sacramental universe.” God has designed the animal kingdom to mimic good and evil. There are “good” animals and “bad” animals. Bestial heroes and villains.
You can see this in Scripture itself, where animals serve as moral and spiritual metaphors. They also symbolize good and evil in world literature, as well as many popular idioms.
3) At a specific level, this is how Dembski frames the problem of natural evil:
On the other hand, he makes statements like this.
But if imponderables like the butterfly effect and the incommensurability of possible worlds prevent us from being able to say whether one world is better than another, or being able to say whether a merely conceivable world is, in fact, a live possibility, then how can Dembski appeal to some imaginative ideal in we have a tropic paradise devoid of natural evils? Is that actually feasible?
Wouldn’t changing one variable trigger a series of mutual adjustments? You might have to trade down in one respect to trade up in another respect.
4) Likewise, Dembski says:
A couple of problems:
i) It begs the question to say that thorns, thistles, vipers, viruses, and vermin represent natural “disorders.”
ii) Dembski is ascribing an extraordinary degree of power to Satan. Satan becomes a mad scientist or criminal genius with the power to reengineer the natural world. Create vipers, viruses, and vermin in his laboratory. That borders on the radical dualism which he finds so objectionable in Gregory Boyd’s worldview.
A couple of problems:
i) That’s a trick question. To ask if God made the creation “defective” on purpose begs the question of whether natural “evils” like the cockroach wasp represent a design flaw or “subversion” of the natural order.
ii) To describe the “subversion of an originally good design” is ambiguous. Does he merely mean that sin results in certain diseases, genetic defects, &c.? Or does he mean that God had an original plan, as well as a backup plan in case the original plan fell through? Does the fall scuttle God’s original plan? Does God have to “respond” with a fallback plan?
iii) The example of the cockroach is blatantly anthropomorphic. In what sense can a cockroach suffer? What’s its level of awareness? Isn’t this a case in which Dembski is simply projecting himself into the “brain” of a cockroach? Isn’t he, in effect, saying to himself, “If I were a cockroach, I sure wouldn’t want that to happen to me!”
But, of course, if he were a lowly cockroach, he wouldn’t have that imaginative faculty in the first place. Dembski, from his human viewpoint, is implicitly asking himself what it feels like to be a cockroach. But if he were a cockroach, he wouldn’t share the human viewpoint which forms the basis of that empathetic projection. Does a cockroach even have a viewpoint? It’s a complete illusion to think that we can identify with the plight of a cockroach. I’m puzzled by what so many otherwise bright, sophisticated thinkers fall into this trap.
iv) I’d also add that, from the perspective of a human observer, animals seem to be pretty content with their lot in life. Do chipmunks suffer from clinical depression?
That’s a tendentious way of putting it. Calvinists, for one, don’t think God “subverted” his own plan. Rather, the fall was instrumental to a greater good. That was part of the plan all along.
i) Once again, this way of putting things borders on open theism. On the one hand, there is what God originally intended. On the other hand, there’s what actually played out-–which falls short of what God originally intended. Did his plan go awry?
ii) It’s true that absent pathogens, there may be no need for an immune system. But what if pathogens are a form of population control for the animal kingdom? And if Adam and Eve needed an immune system of shield them from that potential side-effect, is that a natural evil-–or a natural good?
III) But let’s waive my reservations to the way he’s chosen to frame the problem. Given that framework, is his solution successful? His answer involves the “retroactive” effects of the fall. That, of itself, could be a promising response depending on he defines his terms and develops his thesis. Unfortunately, his treatment suffers from some crippling confusions and equivocations.
1) I’m not clear on what metaphysical machinery underlies his thesis. For example, sometimes he resorts to the language of retrocausation. I don’t know if he’s speaking literally or figuratively. For example, you can use time-travel scenarios to illustrate a point even though you don’t believe in time-travel.
If he’s serious about retrocausation, then, of course, his position is saddled with all the paradoxes of retrocausation. Not only is that self-defeating, but it’s also unnecessary–since I think it’s possible to recast his solution in ways that sidestep the metaphysical baggage.
2) His equivocation may be due to a deeper problem. He speaks as though natural evils are part of a contingency plan after God’s original plan disintegrated on contact.
A more elegant solution would be to say the Fall was a part of God’s original plan, as a means to a higher end. And with that in mind, God frontloaded his creation with natural evils as a proleptic penal consequence of the Fall.
Why he avoids that solution, I don’t know. Perhaps it’s a bit too Calvinistic for his bloodstream, and he’s trying to hit on a mediating solution which strikes the right between Calvinism and neotheism.
3) On a related note, he appears to be torn between deontologism and consequentialism. On the one hand, Dembski seems to reject the possibility of a greater good defense:
But there are some problems with this objection:
i) It takes Kantian deontologism for granted. Where’s the supporting argument?
ii) It fails to distinguish between culpable and inculpable agents. Suppose, all things being equal, that men are entitled to be treated as ends rather than means. So far so good. But what if a man happens to be a criminal or wrongdoer? Is it not possible, in that moral condition, for him to forfeit certain rights and immunities he enjoyed as an innocent man? In that case, it might be permissible to treat him as a means rather than an end. Shouldn’t Dembski at least consider that objection?
iii) It also seems to contradict other statements in which Dembski apparently endorses some version of the greater good defense:
This [O felix culpa] tradition redresses the Fall by pointing to the great redemption in Christ that the Fall elicits. In that tradition, just because a good outweighs an evil does nothing to make the evil less evil. Yes in the end we will be better off because Jesus saved us from evil rather than because we happened to be descendents of an Adam and Eve who escaped evil by never sinning. But their sin and its consequences must, even in the O felix culpa tradition, be viewed as a tragedy” (30).
But wouldn’t that “manipulate” the situation to “advance a divine agenda”?
On the one hand, we accept the narrative description insofar as we continue to take the Garden to be a real place in time. On the other hand, we reject the narrative description insofar as we take the process by which they were made Adam and Eve to be unreal unreal. Isn’t that a makeshift explanation?
Why are we still using the Edenic paradigm if we no longer believe the original story? In that event, why keep tweaking the same old paradigm? If we don’t believe the original story, isn’t it time to scrap that paradigm and move one? Start from scratch? Why cling to an obsolete paradigm when you’ve lost faith in the paradigm?
Mind you, Dembski doesn’t seem to be speaking for himself. From what I can tell, he’s basically an old-earth creationist. So he’s pointing out that his theodicy is neutral with respect to the theistic evolutionist/old-earth creationist debate. I wonder, though, why he’s more accommodating to theistic evolution than young-earth creationism. Even if he regards young-earth creationism as mistaken, is this a graver mistake than theistic evolution?
Even at a purely speculative level, I don’t find this conjecture very plausible.
i) For one thing, there’s more to human sexuality than making babies–although that’s undervalued nowadays. Human sexuality is also a fundamental form of emotional bonding. A way of giving and receiving affection.
ii) Aren’t sex hormones a part of physical maturation? Wouldn’t adolescents in a pristine world still have a sex drive?
iii) On this view, there would be a final, albeit immortal, human generation. The final generation wouldn’t mate or beget. But that would deprive the final generation of the emotional fulfillment which comes from pairing off and having kids.
iv) I can imagine several other scenarios which partially or fully address this hypothetical question:
a) At that point, God might preserve the human sex drive, but render couples infertile.
b) Human beings might colonize the universe.
c) Dembski is also assuming the coexistence of the human race. But perhaps human beings, even immortal ones, could occupy different segments of the timeline–past or future. Even now, there’s some evidence for timeslips. The best-known case (but not the only reported case) involved the celebrated claim of Annie Moberly and Eleanor Jourdain.
d) In a world where everyone is immortal, it’s not as if you have to have all your kids in the first 10 years of marriage. You can space things out. You have time to spare.
IV) “As a consequence, the doctrine of divine omniscience entails a paradox: to know everything, God must know by acquaintance the full measure of human experience and thus must know what it is not to know since not knowing (what we call ‘ignorance’) is a basic feature of human finiteness (19).
Several problems with this claim:
i) That would, indeed, be a paradox, and Dembski states the paradox rather than resolving it. But that’s unsatisfactory in this context. It won’t do to say that in order for God to be omniscient, he must also be ignorant. You can’t say, on the one hand, that knowledge by acquaintance is a necessary condition to render God omniscient, then say, on the other hand, that knowledge by acquaintance imposes a limitation on God’s knowledge. At that point, what does your argument amount to? How does that solve the problem you originally posed for yourself?
ii) There’s another problem with Dembski’s contention. Must God, to be omniscient, experience what it feels like to be a sadist or serial killer or pedophile? If a sadist finds it plesant to torture little children, but God find that pleasant as well? Must he experience whatever the sadist or serial killer or pedophile finds appealing? Know what it’s like to like evil? What it’s like to give into sin? What it’s like to take satisfaction in evil for its own sake?
This would cast God in the role of the criminal profiler who, to get inside the mind of the killer, is slowly seduced by evil. Begins to identify with the killer. Empathize with the killer.
iii) Moreover, if knowledge by acquaintance is a necessary condition of omniscience, then God is not omniscient. The incarnation hardly acquaints God with the “full measure of human experience.” At best, it would only acquaint God with some cultural universals–along with the unique life-experience of one particular individual. But everyone’s life experience is unique. To experience one is not to experience another.
In addition, that would still leave God unacquainted with the experience of the entire subhuman order. To become a man doesn’t acquaint God with the inner experience of a squirrel.
iv) Let’s illustrate the distinction between knowledge by acquaintance and knowledge by description. A color-blind ophthalmologist is the world’s leading authority on color vision. He knows everything there is to know about the physiology of color vision. That’s knowledge by description.
Yet there’s one crucial and elusive bit of information he doesn’t know. He doesn’t know what it’s like to actually see colors. That’s knowledge by acquaintance.
Is this applicable to God? No. The fact that we frequently experience color as a physical sensation doesn’t mean that color is essentially physical. For example, we may dream in color, but we’re not actually seeing sensible objects. The dream is a simulation reality. There’s no external stimulus producing this sensation.
Color is ultimately an abstract universal. God’s exemplary idea of different colors. Different shades of color. The sensible colors we perceive when we see a sunset or rainbow or flower garden is a concrete property instance of God’s insensible idea. God doesn’t have to experience the sensible exemplum to know the insensible exemplar. God doesn’t need to reproduce our finite mode of knowledge to know what we know.
i) This sounds like the Kenotic heresy. One wonders why a statement like that didn’t raise red flags for a confessional Lutheran like John Warwick Montgomery or a countercult apologist like Hank Hanegraaff or Doug Groothuis.
ii) It also turns on a particular theory of the atonement–Dembski’s disclaimer notwithstanding (cf. 204n5). If you subscribe to penal substitution, then that was not the point of the Incarnation. And penal substitution doesn’t require the Redeemer to “identify with the whole of human experience.”
V) Dembski uses anachronistic answers to prayer (51; 127-28) as a paradigm case of retroactive effects. Depending on how we define our terms, there is nothing wrong with this example. However, we don’t need retrocausation to explain anachronistic answers to prayer. A prayer can affect the past without changing the past. If God foreknew (much less, if he predestined) our prayer, then the answer to can be built into his plan for the world. He doesn’t have to rewrite the plan while the program is running to answer our prayer.
i) I don’t even know what that’s supposed to mean. Seems backwards to me. Is God is able to anticipate events and human actions by acting in response before they occur? Wouldn’t it make more sense to say that God is able to respond to events and human actions before they occur because he can anticipate their occurrence?
ii) More to the point, why is God “responding” to events before they occur? Are the events inevitable? Is God a first-responder? He can’t prevent it–he can only deal with it, as a fait accompli?
VI) On the one hand, Dembski scornfully rejects open theism, and variants thereof:
On the other hand, Dembski stakes out a position which seems to be functionally equivalent:
Doesn’t this make God seem to be a shortsighted Creator who’s having to improvise in light of unforeseen variables or unintended consequences?
On a related note, he says:
i) He makes it sounds as though all possible worlds are fallen worlds. God can only choose between one fallen world and another.
ii) He also makes it sound as though tradeoffs only occur in fallen worlds. But it seems to me that cost/benefit considerations apply more broadly. Different possible worlds may exemplify incommensurable goods. A sinless world may be better in one respect, but deficient in another–if it can’t include certain second-order goods which presuppose evil.
VII) Demski has a whole chapter on YEC. And, even beyond that, YEC is a running foil throughout his book. I have two basic problems with his treatment of YEC:
1) If I were defending YEC, I wouldn’t go about it the way he describes it. So his criticisms, even if valid on their own level, are counterarguments to arguments (or specific formulations, thereof) I wouldn’t use in the first place, if I were making a case for YEC.
2) If you’re going to attack a position, then you need to give it the amount of attention it demands to get the job done. Dembski’s attack on YEC is far too cursory.
The proper way for him to do this would be to quote the most astute representatives of YEC (e.g. John Byl, Jonathan Sarfati, Kurt Wise), then offer a sustained critique of their position. This would also have to go beyond stuff they write for popular consumption. It would involve contacting them directly. Posing questions for them to answer.
I don’t see that Dembski has done that. In his acknowledgements, he thanks people like Don Page, Hugh Ross, David Snoke, the ASA list, and so on. But names from the YEC camp are conspicuously missing. There’s no evidence of direct, personal interaction with them. They don’t seem to be his conversation partners or even his sparring partners.
Likewise, he incorporates email communications in his book. But, once again, there’s nothing from the YEC camp.
So I don’t know quite what he’s trying to accomplish. Is he trying to dissuade young-earth-creationists? If so, he can’t very well talk them out of their position unless he does a lot more to engage the argument.
Now I realize that he may not wish to get sidetracked. But if he can’t give YEC the space it requires in this book, the least he could do is to write some lengthy reviews of books and articles by Byl, Sarfati, Wise, &c., and then refer the reader to his reviews for more detail. And his book reviews could also incorporate personal correspondence.
Or he could write a separate article on the subject. He has a website where he posts a lot of his shorter writings.
All in all, I prefer Dembski’s book for some of the side dishes rather than the main course. And I also like some side dishes better than others.
The book is adorned with a number of glowing blurbs by the likes of John Collins, Stephen Davis, Doug Groothuis, Gary Habermas, Hank Hanegraaff, William Hasker, Josh McDowell, John Warwick Montgomery, J. P. Moreland, and Don Page.
In one respect, these kudos are superfluous. It’s not as if Dembski is a debutante who needs to be introduced to the world. He’s an established figure in Evangelicalism. He has a following. I assume any major book he publishes would already have a preexisting constituency. But that’s a minor point.
More to the point is what some of them actually say. Moreland says it “towers over” the competition in “profundity and quality.” McDowell says it’s “groundbreaking.” Hanegraaff says it “may well prove to be a Copernican breakthrough,” while Montgomery says “Believers have badly needed the kind of compelling case for biblical theodicy provided in Dr Dembski’s new book.”
One of the problems with all this hype is the insinuation that Christian theodicy was in truly dire straits before he came along to save our bacon. You’d think that, up until now, we were utterly dumbfounded in the face of evil.
My own assessment is rather different. Reading his book is like watching a cinematic failure by a great director. Even if the film falls short of the high aims it set for itself, it still has memorable moments which a more successful film by a lesser director wouldn’t approach. A flawed masterpiece contains touches of greatness you won’t find in a flawless, but pedestrian piece of work.
Likewise, Dembski’s new book is one of those productions in which the parts are greater than the whole. Odd lapses of judgment punctuated by flashes of insight.
I also have a quibble with the subtitle: the world we inhabit is not an evil world. Rather, we inhabit a fallen world. Our world contains a lot of evil, but it’s also a world that contains a lot of common grace and special grace. So it’s deeply misleading to say our world is evil. There is both good and evil. Moreover, the good will out.
II) There are different ways of evaluating a work like this. One criterion is whether he succeeded in solving the problem he posed for himself. In that respect, I think Dembski’s book is only a partial success. I’ll have more to say about that shortly.
But perhaps a more fundamental issue is whether he’s giving us the right answers to the wrong questions. I just don’t see the problem of natural evil the way he does. Apparently he regards that problem as either evident or even self-evident. So he goes straight to the next step. But to me he’s expending a lot of ingenuity in solving what is more often than not a pseudoproblem. For example, here’s one way he states the issue:
“But animal death and suffering as it exits now and as it appears to have existed throughout the fossil record bespeak a cruelty and perverseness that only exacerbates the problem of evil” (210n6).
Let’s make some preliminary observations before delving into the various permutations of his position. There are two broad aspects to the problem of natural evil:
a) The problem that natural evil poses to human victims of natural evil.
b) The problem that natural evil poses to subhuman victims natural evil.
These are distinct and separable issues. I don’t think they require the same treatment.
1) Concerning (a):
i) I think that even a sinless world would contain natural “evils.” That’s because I think natural evils are generally natural goods. What makes them “evil” is if they’re evil to you. If they do you harm. They’re only “evil” in the relative sense that if you’re in the wrong place at the wrong time, then they pose a threat to your life or wellbeing. But, in general, many natural “evils” are actually beneficial to the ecosystem. Indeed, essential to the balance of nature as we know it.
I think what the Fall effects is not the existence of natural evil, but a liability to natural evil. It exposes us to dangers which, in a sinless world, we’d be immune to–in one way or another.
There’s a difference between a dangerous world and a world which endangers you and me. A world with mountains and streams is a dangerous world inasmuch as you can fall off a cliff or drown in the river. I think the difference between a pristine world and a fallen world is not so much the presence or absence of natural evils, but whether we are put in harm’s ways. Is the potential for harm actually realized?
ii) I also assume that part of the cultural mandate is to tame the wilderness. We start in a garden, then we extend the garden. Cultivate the wilderness. Domesticate animals. Found towns and cities.
I think God has posed certain natural challenges for us to overcome. We need these raw materials to exercise our God-given creativity.
In a fallen world, that becomes an occupational hazard. But I don’t view the underlying principle as essentially different for an unfallen world.
iii) This is not to deny that some natural evils are second-order evils which reflect our fallenness. Scientists develop treatments for STDs. STDs are a natural punishment for sin. The STDs then adapt by developing a resistant-strain to the conventional treatment. So some natural evils to presuppose the Fall.
iv) And, of course, to the extent that some natural evils are penal sanctions for sin, they require no special justification.
2) Concerning (b):
i) Seems to me the so-called problem of animal pain is greatly overrated. For one thing, surely we need to draw some distinction between higher and lower animals. To say a dog can suffer doesn’t mean a millipede can suffer.
ii) Likewise, it seems to me, from my observation, that animals have a high pain threshold, not to mention a high pain tolerance. Haven’t we all seen veterinarians inject horses and dogs? When the needle goes in, they don’t even flinch.
Likewise, what looks painful may be painless. We know from survivors of shark attacks, bear maulings, and the like, that the victim often goes into shock. He feels nothing at the time.
If he survives, he may be in excruciating pain, but of course, the victim is ordinarily killed and eaten.
iii) It’s demonstrable that predation, parasitism, disease, aging, death, and even extinction serve a natural purpose in the ecosystem. Although we classify natural disasters as natural “evils,” they hardly a gratuitous evil. While I regard human mortality as a result of the fall, I don’t regard subhuman mortality as a result of the fall.
iv) Beyond functionality, I think God has another purpose in this respect. We live in a “sacramental universe.” God has designed the animal kingdom to mimic good and evil. There are “good” animals and “bad” animals. Bestial heroes and villains.
You can see this in Scripture itself, where animals serve as moral and spiritual metaphors. They also symbolize good and evil in world literature, as well as many popular idioms.
3) At a specific level, this is how Dembski frames the problem of natural evil:
“We can imagine a world far more violent than ours in which many more people die annually of natural disasters. Alternatively, we can imagine a world far more halcyon than ours in which no one dies of natural disasters because the whole world is a serene tropical paradise…As suggested earlier, why didn’t God simply place us on a less dangerous planet where earthquakes don’t ravage human life? Or was this not an option for the Creator, and if not, why not?” (30).
On the other hand, he makes statements like this.
“…in the real world, there are no causally isolated events. Everything hangs together with everything else. The slightest change in one thing changes everything…Thus, by a butterfly flapping its wings in Brazil, a hurricane is averted in Miami…The lesson of chaos theory and nonlinear dynamics is that even the slightest physical changes ramify and eventually change the history of the entire world…The slightest change in any event makes everything different (if not immediately, then soon enough). That’s why films like It’s a Wonderful Life, Frequency, and Timecop (in decreasing order of excellence), which chart different possible futures but keep too many features of the world constant, make for entertaining fiction but are completely unrealistic” (139-40).
“The standard possible-worlds semantics for these conditionals (see David Lewis, Counterfactuals) depends on a similarity metric on possible worlds: the counterfactual if A, then B is true if in the worlds closest to ours where A is true B is also true. Such measurements of closeness among possible worlds, however, fail to respect the multidimensionality of similarity–along which dimension(s) do we gauge similarity?” (215n14).
But if imponderables like the butterfly effect and the incommensurability of possible worlds prevent us from being able to say whether one world is better than another, or being able to say whether a merely conceivable world is, in fact, a live possibility, then how can Dembski appeal to some imaginative ideal in we have a tropic paradise devoid of natural evils? Is that actually feasible?
Wouldn’t changing one variable trigger a series of mutual adjustments? You might have to trade down in one respect to trade up in another respect.
4) Likewise, Dembski says:
“All three forms of God’s will seem to be involved in the disordering of creation via natural evil. Genesis 3:17-18 suggests that God actively wills thorns and thistles (which symbolize the material effects of the fall…Vipers, viruses, and vermin seem more appropriately attributed to God’s permissive will, the permission going to Satan. On this view Satan ravages the earth prior to the Fall but is permitted to do so because of his success in tempting the first humans, a temptation that itself required God’s permission” (146).
A couple of problems:
i) It begs the question to say that thorns, thistles, vipers, viruses, and vermin represent natural “disorders.”
ii) Dembski is ascribing an extraordinary degree of power to Satan. Satan becomes a mad scientist or criminal genius with the power to reengineer the natural world. Create vipers, viruses, and vermin in his laboratory. That borders on the radical dualism which he finds so objectionable in Gregory Boyd’s worldview.
5) Moreover, “Biologists have since discovered even nastier critters. I leave to the reader to study the emerald cockroach wasp (which stings the brain of a cockroach twice, first turning it into a zombie and then into a vegetable)…Did God, in making the creation defective on purpose, specifically design such features into the natural world?…One possibility worth exploring is to what extent such instances of perverseness in nature can be explained as a subversion (by Satan? By evolution?) of an originally good design” (149).
A couple of problems:
i) That’s a trick question. To ask if God made the creation “defective” on purpose begs the question of whether natural “evils” like the cockroach wasp represent a design flaw or “subversion” of the natural order.
ii) To describe the “subversion of an originally good design” is ambiguous. Does he merely mean that sin results in certain diseases, genetic defects, &c.? Or does he mean that God had an original plan, as well as a backup plan in case the original plan fell through? Does the fall scuttle God’s original plan? Does God have to “respond” with a fallback plan?
iii) The example of the cockroach is blatantly anthropomorphic. In what sense can a cockroach suffer? What’s its level of awareness? Isn’t this a case in which Dembski is simply projecting himself into the “brain” of a cockroach? Isn’t he, in effect, saying to himself, “If I were a cockroach, I sure wouldn’t want that to happen to me!”
But, of course, if he were a lowly cockroach, he wouldn’t have that imaginative faculty in the first place. Dembski, from his human viewpoint, is implicitly asking himself what it feels like to be a cockroach. But if he were a cockroach, he wouldn’t share the human viewpoint which forms the basis of that empathetic projection. Does a cockroach even have a viewpoint? It’s a complete illusion to think that we can identify with the plight of a cockroach. I’m puzzled by what so many otherwise bright, sophisticated thinkers fall into this trap.
iv) I’d also add that, from the perspective of a human observer, animals seem to be pretty content with their lot in life. Do chipmunks suffer from clinical depression?
6) Furthermore, “The worry now arises whether the ‘genius’ who subverts an original good into a natural evil is God. Theological determinists, who think that every detail of the world is planned and executed by God, counter this worry by simply admitting that any such subversion of the original good must be God’s doing” (150).
That’s a tendentious way of putting it. Calvinists, for one, don’t think God “subverted” his own plan. Rather, the fall was instrumental to a greater good. That was part of the plan all along.
7) Finally, “In the Garden of Eden, the originally intended perfect world borders the Fall-corrupted imperfect world. In the originally intended world, there were no pathogenic microbes and, correspondingly, there is no need for Adam and Eve to have an immune system that wards off these microbes” (153).
i) Once again, this way of putting things borders on open theism. On the one hand, there is what God originally intended. On the other hand, there’s what actually played out-–which falls short of what God originally intended. Did his plan go awry?
ii) It’s true that absent pathogens, there may be no need for an immune system. But what if pathogens are a form of population control for the animal kingdom? And if Adam and Eve needed an immune system of shield them from that potential side-effect, is that a natural evil-–or a natural good?
III) But let’s waive my reservations to the way he’s chosen to frame the problem. Given that framework, is his solution successful? His answer involves the “retroactive” effects of the fall. That, of itself, could be a promising response depending on he defines his terms and develops his thesis. Unfortunately, his treatment suffers from some crippling confusions and equivocations.
1) I’m not clear on what metaphysical machinery underlies his thesis. For example, sometimes he resorts to the language of retrocausation. I don’t know if he’s speaking literally or figuratively. For example, you can use time-travel scenarios to illustrate a point even though you don’t believe in time-travel.
If he’s serious about retrocausation, then, of course, his position is saddled with all the paradoxes of retrocausation. Not only is that self-defeating, but it’s also unnecessary–since I think it’s possible to recast his solution in ways that sidestep the metaphysical baggage.
2) His equivocation may be due to a deeper problem. He speaks as though natural evils are part of a contingency plan after God’s original plan disintegrated on contact.
A more elegant solution would be to say the Fall was a part of God’s original plan, as a means to a higher end. And with that in mind, God frontloaded his creation with natural evils as a proleptic penal consequence of the Fall.
Why he avoids that solution, I don’t know. Perhaps it’s a bit too Calvinistic for his bloodstream, and he’s trying to hit on a mediating solution which strikes the right between Calvinism and neotheism.
3) On a related note, he appears to be torn between deontologism and consequentialism. On the one hand, Dembski seems to reject the possibility of a greater good defense:
“The difficulty of this suggestion, which is made throughout the old-earth creationist literature, is that natural evil becomes simply a tool for furthering God’s ends rather than a consequence of human sin. Old-earth creationism thus opens God to the charge of inflicting pain simply to advance a divine agenda” (79).
“Thus, according to Whorton’s Perfect Purpose Paradigm, God creates a world of suffering not in response to human sin but to accomplish some future end (i.e., ‘the Master’s plan’). But this, again, makes human suffering a means to an end. And even if this end is lofty, we are still being used. Used is used, and there is no way to make this palatable, much less compatible with human dignity. That’s why Kant taught that we must treat fellow human beings not as ends in themselves. And that’s’ why, unless human suffering is permitted by God because we have, in some way, brought it on ourselves. Whorton’s Perfect Purpose Paradigm becomes a cynical manipulation of means to justify otherwise high ends” (79).
But there are some problems with this objection:
i) It takes Kantian deontologism for granted. Where’s the supporting argument?
ii) It fails to distinguish between culpable and inculpable agents. Suppose, all things being equal, that men are entitled to be treated as ends rather than means. So far so good. But what if a man happens to be a criminal or wrongdoer? Is it not possible, in that moral condition, for him to forfeit certain rights and immunities he enjoyed as an innocent man? In that case, it might be permissible to treat him as a means rather than an end. Shouldn’t Dembski at least consider that objection?
iii) It also seems to contradict other statements in which Dembski apparently endorses some version of the greater good defense:
“But why was the Cross necessary at all? If there was a rift between God and humanity, why was suffering–Christ’s suffering on the Cross–the key to healing it? In a fallen world, the only currency of love is suffering. Indeed, the only way to tell how much one person loves another is by what that person is willing to endure for the other. Without the cost incurred by suffering, love among fallen creatures becomes cheap and self-indulgent. Suffering removes the suspicion that the good we do for one another is for ulterior motives, with strings attached, a qui pro quo…Moreover, only such a full demonstration of God’s love enables us to love God with all our heart. The extent to which we can love God depends on the extent to which God has demonstrated his love for us, and that depends on the extent of evil that God has had to absorb, suffer, and overcome on our behalf…But note, for us to love God also depends on our seeing the magnitude of our offense against God and gratefully receiving the forgiveness that God’s suffering, in Christ on the Cross, has made possible. The principle at issue here is stated in Luke 7:47; those who realize that they have been forgiven much love much; those who think that they have only been forgiven little love little” (24).
This [O felix culpa] tradition redresses the Fall by pointing to the great redemption in Christ that the Fall elicits. In that tradition, just because a good outweighs an evil does nothing to make the evil less evil. Yes in the end we will be better off because Jesus saved us from evil rather than because we happened to be descendents of an Adam and Eve who escaped evil by never sinning. But their sin and its consequences must, even in the O felix culpa tradition, be viewed as a tragedy” (30).
But wouldn’t that “manipulate” the situation to “advance a divine agenda”?
4) “What were humans doing before they received the divine image and entered the Garden of Eden?…In the theodicy I’m proposing, these hominids initially lacked the cognitive and moral capacities required to bear the image of God. Then, at the moment they entered the Garden, they received God’s image and became fully human.” (158).
On the one hand, we accept the narrative description insofar as we continue to take the Garden to be a real place in time. On the other hand, we reject the narrative description insofar as we take the process by which they were made Adam and Eve to be unreal unreal. Isn’t that a makeshift explanation?
Why are we still using the Edenic paradigm if we no longer believe the original story? In that event, why keep tweaking the same old paradigm? If we don’t believe the original story, isn’t it time to scrap that paradigm and move one? Start from scratch? Why cling to an obsolete paradigm when you’ve lost faith in the paradigm?
Mind you, Dembski doesn’t seem to be speaking for himself. From what I can tell, he’s basically an old-earth creationist. So he’s pointing out that his theodicy is neutral with respect to the theistic evolutionist/old-earth creationist debate. I wonder, though, why he’s more accommodating to theistic evolution than young-earth creationism. Even if he regards young-earth creationism as mistaken, is this a graver mistake than theistic evolution?
5) “What environment would God have arranged for us if Adam and Eve had not sinned?…In Gen 1, God tells humanity and the other organisms to reproduce and fill the earth. Once the earth is adequately filled with a given type of organism, and supposing organisms of that type do not die, what is the point of continued reproduction? It makes sense to think that a homeostatic mechanism actives when a population has adequately filled an environmental niche, maintaining the stability of population numbers and thus preventing overpopulation” (172).
Even at a purely speculative level, I don’t find this conjecture very plausible.
i) For one thing, there’s more to human sexuality than making babies–although that’s undervalued nowadays. Human sexuality is also a fundamental form of emotional bonding. A way of giving and receiving affection.
ii) Aren’t sex hormones a part of physical maturation? Wouldn’t adolescents in a pristine world still have a sex drive?
iii) On this view, there would be a final, albeit immortal, human generation. The final generation wouldn’t mate or beget. But that would deprive the final generation of the emotional fulfillment which comes from pairing off and having kids.
iv) I can imagine several other scenarios which partially or fully address this hypothetical question:
a) At that point, God might preserve the human sex drive, but render couples infertile.
b) Human beings might colonize the universe.
c) Dembski is also assuming the coexistence of the human race. But perhaps human beings, even immortal ones, could occupy different segments of the timeline–past or future. Even now, there’s some evidence for timeslips. The best-known case (but not the only reported case) involved the celebrated claim of Annie Moberly and Eleanor Jourdain.
d) In a world where everyone is immortal, it’s not as if you have to have all your kids in the first 10 years of marriage. You can space things out. You have time to spare.
IV) “As a consequence, the doctrine of divine omniscience entails a paradox: to know everything, God must know by acquaintance the full measure of human experience and thus must know what it is not to know since not knowing (what we call ‘ignorance’) is a basic feature of human finiteness (19).
Several problems with this claim:
i) That would, indeed, be a paradox, and Dembski states the paradox rather than resolving it. But that’s unsatisfactory in this context. It won’t do to say that in order for God to be omniscient, he must also be ignorant. You can’t say, on the one hand, that knowledge by acquaintance is a necessary condition to render God omniscient, then say, on the other hand, that knowledge by acquaintance imposes a limitation on God’s knowledge. At that point, what does your argument amount to? How does that solve the problem you originally posed for yourself?
ii) There’s another problem with Dembski’s contention. Must God, to be omniscient, experience what it feels like to be a sadist or serial killer or pedophile? If a sadist finds it plesant to torture little children, but God find that pleasant as well? Must he experience whatever the sadist or serial killer or pedophile finds appealing? Know what it’s like to like evil? What it’s like to give into sin? What it’s like to take satisfaction in evil for its own sake?
This would cast God in the role of the criminal profiler who, to get inside the mind of the killer, is slowly seduced by evil. Begins to identify with the killer. Empathize with the killer.
iii) Moreover, if knowledge by acquaintance is a necessary condition of omniscience, then God is not omniscient. The incarnation hardly acquaints God with the “full measure of human experience.” At best, it would only acquaint God with some cultural universals–along with the unique life-experience of one particular individual. But everyone’s life experience is unique. To experience one is not to experience another.
In addition, that would still leave God unacquainted with the experience of the entire subhuman order. To become a man doesn’t acquaint God with the inner experience of a squirrel.
iv) Let’s illustrate the distinction between knowledge by acquaintance and knowledge by description. A color-blind ophthalmologist is the world’s leading authority on color vision. He knows everything there is to know about the physiology of color vision. That’s knowledge by description.
Yet there’s one crucial and elusive bit of information he doesn’t know. He doesn’t know what it’s like to actually see colors. That’s knowledge by acquaintance.
Is this applicable to God? No. The fact that we frequently experience color as a physical sensation doesn’t mean that color is essentially physical. For example, we may dream in color, but we’re not actually seeing sensible objects. The dream is a simulation reality. There’s no external stimulus producing this sensation.
Color is ultimately an abstract universal. God’s exemplary idea of different colors. Different shades of color. The sensible colors we perceive when we see a sunset or rainbow or flower garden is a concrete property instance of God’s insensible idea. God doesn’t have to experience the sensible exemplum to know the insensible exemplar. God doesn’t need to reproduce our finite mode of knowledge to know what we know.
“God’s knowledge includes knowledge of the future. When God becomes man in Jesus Christ, however, he sets aside divine omniscience. The point of God’s becoming man is for God to identify with the whole human experience, and this is not possible if Christ retains all his divine privileges (20).
i) This sounds like the Kenotic heresy. One wonders why a statement like that didn’t raise red flags for a confessional Lutheran like John Warwick Montgomery or a countercult apologist like Hank Hanegraaff or Doug Groothuis.
ii) It also turns on a particular theory of the atonement–Dembski’s disclaimer notwithstanding (cf. 204n5). If you subscribe to penal substitution, then that was not the point of the Incarnation. And penal substitution doesn’t require the Redeemer to “identify with the whole of human experience.”
V) Dembski uses anachronistic answers to prayer (51; 127-28) as a paradigm case of retroactive effects. Depending on how we define our terms, there is nothing wrong with this example. However, we don’t need retrocausation to explain anachronistic answers to prayer. A prayer can affect the past without changing the past. If God foreknew (much less, if he predestined) our prayer, then the answer to can be built into his plan for the world. He doesn’t have to rewrite the plan while the program is running to answer our prayer.
“God is able to anticipate events and human actions by acting in response before they occur” (131).
i) I don’t even know what that’s supposed to mean. Seems backwards to me. Is God is able to anticipate events and human actions by acting in response before they occur? Wouldn’t it make more sense to say that God is able to respond to events and human actions before they occur because he can anticipate their occurrence?
ii) More to the point, why is God “responding” to events before they occur? Are the events inevitable? Is God a first-responder? He can’t prevent it–he can only deal with it, as a fait accompli?
VI) On the one hand, Dembski scornfully rejects open theism, and variants thereof:
“Contemporary strategies for redressing the Fall consistently run aground because they attribute at least some of the evil that humanity suffers to factors other than human guilt. In such approaches, God lets humanity suffer evils of which it is entirely innocent–evils for which it is not responsible and which it therefore does not deserve. For a good God to permit such evils thus presupposes a limitation on God’s power and knowledge. For presumably, if God’s power and knowledge were up to the task, he would be both able and morally obligated, as a matter of justice to prevent evils of which we are innocent from afflicting us. This is why process and openness theologies have become increasingly attractive. They give us a God who means well but is limited in stemming the tide of evil,” ibid. 32.
“Such a God wrings his hands over the world’s evil and, like an ineffectual politician, tries haltingly to make the world a better place. To our hardier theological forebears, this God would have seemed pathetic (to say nothing of heretical). But each age constructs gods in its own image, and in this touchy-feely age, a diminished God who shares our vulnerabilities and weaknesses is all the rage,” ibid. 34.
“Gregory Boyd, a proponent of open theism, has in fact written an entire book on the evils that may, in his view, properly be ascribed to Satan: Satan and the Problem of Evil: Constructing a Trinitarian Warfare Theodicy. In that book, Boyd shifts to Satan the responsibility for natural evil. Yet, in making that shift, Boyd embraces a dualism that Lewis would have rejected. Because open theism contracts the power and knowledge of God, God does not have Satan on a leash as he does in classical theism. Thus, for Boyd, Satan becomes an independent center of evil activity. This is not quite a Manichean dualism, in which good and evil are ontological equals (Satan for Boyd is still a created being). But it’s close. Moreover, it’s not clear how Boyd’s theodicy absolves God of evil since as Satan’s Creator, he must have realized the possibilities of evil inherent in his creation,” ibid. 38-39.
On the other hand, Dembski stakes out a position which seems to be functionally equivalent:
“All things are created twice. There’s a mental or first creation, and a physical or second creation of all things.’ Creation always starts with an idea and ends with a thing. Anything achieved must first be conceived. Creation is thus a process bounded by conception at one end and realization at the other…All this is unproblematic so long as the second creation fulfills the promise of the first. But what if the two creations don’t match up? What if the second creation doesn’t achieve anything like the goal set by the first Creation? God, who is perfect, cannot make mistakes in the first creation. The first creation is creation as a conceptual act and is therefore completely under divine control” (107-08).
“Thus, if divine creation miscarries, it ahs to miscarry at the second creation. But how can a prefect first creation end in failure at the second creation? The short answer, of course, is rebellion of the creature–in a world, the Fall. Rebellion of the creature sabotages the second creation by preventing the first creation from fulfilling its purpose” (108).
“God writes our story and, when we fall, rewrites it…God can rewrite our story while it is being performed and even change the entire backdrop against which it is performed–that includes past, present, and future…Once humanity falls in Genesis 3, God must act to undo the damage.” (110-11).
Doesn’t this make God seem to be a shortsighted Creator who’s having to improvise in light of unforeseen variables or unintended consequences?
On a related note, he says:
“God has to deal with a sin-ridden world and all the messiness that entails. There are no neat solutions for dealing with a fallen world. Even God faces difficult decisions…The problem is that in a fallen world, no decision, when executed, has prefect consequences. A fallen world is a world of costs and benefits. It is a world of tradeoffs and compromise. The challenge for God is to pick the best compromise among competing objectives that procures the greatest good” (173-74).
i) He makes it sounds as though all possible worlds are fallen worlds. God can only choose between one fallen world and another.
ii) He also makes it sound as though tradeoffs only occur in fallen worlds. But it seems to me that cost/benefit considerations apply more broadly. Different possible worlds may exemplify incommensurable goods. A sinless world may be better in one respect, but deficient in another–if it can’t include certain second-order goods which presuppose evil.
VII) Demski has a whole chapter on YEC. And, even beyond that, YEC is a running foil throughout his book. I have two basic problems with his treatment of YEC:
1) If I were defending YEC, I wouldn’t go about it the way he describes it. So his criticisms, even if valid on their own level, are counterarguments to arguments (or specific formulations, thereof) I wouldn’t use in the first place, if I were making a case for YEC.
2) If you’re going to attack a position, then you need to give it the amount of attention it demands to get the job done. Dembski’s attack on YEC is far too cursory.
The proper way for him to do this would be to quote the most astute representatives of YEC (e.g. John Byl, Jonathan Sarfati, Kurt Wise), then offer a sustained critique of their position. This would also have to go beyond stuff they write for popular consumption. It would involve contacting them directly. Posing questions for them to answer.
I don’t see that Dembski has done that. In his acknowledgements, he thanks people like Don Page, Hugh Ross, David Snoke, the ASA list, and so on. But names from the YEC camp are conspicuously missing. There’s no evidence of direct, personal interaction with them. They don’t seem to be his conversation partners or even his sparring partners.
Likewise, he incorporates email communications in his book. But, once again, there’s nothing from the YEC camp.
So I don’t know quite what he’s trying to accomplish. Is he trying to dissuade young-earth-creationists? If so, he can’t very well talk them out of their position unless he does a lot more to engage the argument.
Now I realize that he may not wish to get sidetracked. But if he can’t give YEC the space it requires in this book, the least he could do is to write some lengthy reviews of books and articles by Byl, Sarfati, Wise, &c., and then refer the reader to his reviews for more detail. And his book reviews could also incorporate personal correspondence.
Or he could write a separate article on the subject. He has a website where he posts a lot of his shorter writings.
All in all, I prefer Dembski’s book for some of the side dishes rather than the main course. And I also like some side dishes better than others.
Self-Defeating Skepticism
Here's a recent thread at Stand To Reason on the trustworthiness of the gospels. Notice that the skeptics in the thread show so little knowledge of the subjects they're discussing, as if they haven't done much research. They often raise objections to the Bible that, if they were consistent, they would have to apply to non-Christian historical sources and common human behavior in everyday life. If you're going to object to the reliability of human memory, paraphrasing people, translating what people have said, etc., then your objections reach far beyond the Bible.
Two of the skeptics participating in the thread, Joe and Bino Bolumai, posted on Triablogue in the past. Joe was banned after he lied about his identity, and Bino Bolumai was caught lifting material from an unreliable skeptical web site and presenting that material as if it was his own.
Two of the skeptics participating in the thread, Joe and Bino Bolumai, posted on Triablogue in the past. Joe was banned after he lied about his identity, and Bino Bolumai was caught lifting material from an unreliable skeptical web site and presenting that material as if it was his own.
Bored
I recently read a Time article about problems people are having saving for retirement with a 401(k). What I found most significant in the story was what it assumes about the nature of retirement. For example:
What do people do in retirement? They play golf or buy a new home. Despite their early retirement, and despite their spending money and time on things like a new home, we're told that these people may "have" to get a job again. Things are getting "darker" for them, since they won't be able to keep spending $75000 a year.
I often meet, or hear about, people who return to work because they can't find much to do in retirement. They're bored. A few years ago, I spoke with a man, who professed to be a Christian, who was about to retire. What were his plans for retirement? Not much, apparently. His wife had lined up a long list of unnecessary housework for him to do. A television ad I saw, maybe a year or two ago, was built on the premise that people largely spend their retirement watching television. A recent study found that the average American spends more than five hours a day watching TV, and the average is higher for the elderly.
How are you using your time? How are you raising your children? What examples are you setting for them and for other people? What are your plans for retirement?
If you're a Christian who's bored, who can't think of much that's significant to do with his time, go see one of the pastors of your church. Or contact a missionary, apologist, or somebody else working in some field of Christian ministry. They should be able to give you a lot of ideas about how to better spend your time.
"Consider a story from the February 1998 edition of Reader's Digest, which tells about a couple who 'took early retirement from their jobs in the Northeast five years ago when he was 59 and she was 51. Now they live in Punta Gorda, Florida, where they cruise on their 30 foot trawler, play softball and collect shells.' At first, when I read it I thought it might be a joke. A spoof on the American Dream. But it wasn't. Tragically, this was the dream: Come to the end of your life - your one and only precious, God-given life - and let the last great work of your life, before you give an account to your Creator, be this: playing softball and collecting shells. Picture them before Christ at the great day of judgment: 'Look, Lord. See my shells.' That is a tragedy. And people today are spending billions of dollars to persuade you to embrace that tragic dream." (John Piper, Don't Waste Your Life [Wheaton, Illinois: Crossway Books, 2003], pp. 45-46)
Retiree Robert Shively spends his days on the golf course. For many, that would be a dream come true, but not quite in the way Shively does it. The 68-year-old is the cart mechanic at the Niagara Falls Country Club....
Lucantonio, 61, is proud of what he has been able to afford in retirement. He and his wife bought a cabin in New York's hilly Southern Tier. "It's even got ceramic tile in the kitchen," he says. He would like to spend more time there, but like many other former Occidental employees we talked to, he's had to unretire into a new job....
Dennis O'Neil plays the part of a former HR executive well. You can find O'Neil, who left Oxy on disability a few years ago, on a golf course, clad in picture-perfect golden-years attire: a black Izod shirt with white shorts, faux-alligator-skin cleats, Ray-Bans, a gold shamrock hanging from a gold chain on his neck and a black baseball cap. But O'Neil's retirement outlook is growing darker every day. He once made a six-figure salary, but the 63-year-old is fairly certain that his savings won't be able to sustain him for very much longer. He has some $500,000 left in his 401(k) and spends about $75,000 a year. At this rate, he worries he will tap out his retirement savings within the next decade.
Unless, as O'Neil's thinking goes, he can make something happen in the stock market. So he spends much of his day watching CNBC. "Right now, I want to know which area of the economy is going to recover first. Will it be retail? Commodities? Energy?" says O'Neil. Playing the market is probably the wrong thing to do, but he got divorced eight years ago, depleting a good portion of his savings, and his medical bills are likely to go up soon. O'Neil is going blind from histoplasmosis. These days he has to golf with a friend. He would like to buy a house in Florida before he loses his eyesight completely, but he just can't afford it.
What do people do in retirement? They play golf or buy a new home. Despite their early retirement, and despite their spending money and time on things like a new home, we're told that these people may "have" to get a job again. Things are getting "darker" for them, since they won't be able to keep spending $75000 a year.
I often meet, or hear about, people who return to work because they can't find much to do in retirement. They're bored. A few years ago, I spoke with a man, who professed to be a Christian, who was about to retire. What were his plans for retirement? Not much, apparently. His wife had lined up a long list of unnecessary housework for him to do. A television ad I saw, maybe a year or two ago, was built on the premise that people largely spend their retirement watching television. A recent study found that the average American spends more than five hours a day watching TV, and the average is higher for the elderly.
How are you using your time? How are you raising your children? What examples are you setting for them and for other people? What are your plans for retirement?
If you're a Christian who's bored, who can't think of much that's significant to do with his time, go see one of the pastors of your church. Or contact a missionary, apologist, or somebody else working in some field of Christian ministry. They should be able to give you a lot of ideas about how to better spend your time.
"Consider a story from the February 1998 edition of Reader's Digest, which tells about a couple who 'took early retirement from their jobs in the Northeast five years ago when he was 59 and she was 51. Now they live in Punta Gorda, Florida, where they cruise on their 30 foot trawler, play softball and collect shells.' At first, when I read it I thought it might be a joke. A spoof on the American Dream. But it wasn't. Tragically, this was the dream: Come to the end of your life - your one and only precious, God-given life - and let the last great work of your life, before you give an account to your Creator, be this: playing softball and collecting shells. Picture them before Christ at the great day of judgment: 'Look, Lord. See my shells.' That is a tragedy. And people today are spending billions of dollars to persuade you to embrace that tragic dream." (John Piper, Don't Waste Your Life [Wheaton, Illinois: Crossway Books, 2003], pp. 45-46)
Tuesday, October 20, 2009
Twisse on supralapsarianism
[Quote] Now Twisse was no enemy to logic in theological discussions. In fact his statement and defense of Supralapsarianism has been obscured if not ignored in later accounts of the question. It is therefore in order to hear his own precise formulation, which differs from that of others with whom he has been included as holding this high version of Calvinism. In treating of the teaching of Prov. 16:4 as to the manifestation of God’s glory as the end of his works, Twisse writes: “And from hence we conclude, that in case the end is such as has been specified, and all those actions following, congruous means tending to that end, therefore the decree of manifesting God’s glory, as above specified is first with God, and secondly, the decree of the means; which means although they are many materially, yet they come all under one formal notion of means tending to a certain end, which according to the several parts thereof bespeaks them all, and consequently they are all to be considered, as making up the object of one formal decree, called the decree of the means: and the intention of none of them is before another, but all intended at once, as means tending to the end which is first intended. In like manner if God shall be pleased to intend the manifestation of his glory in Man, or Angel, in the way of justice vindicative, the means necessarily required hereunto are Creation, Permission of sin, and Damnation unto punishment, and all three make up the object of one formal decree which is to be called the decree of the means. So that like as God doth not intend the creature’s creation, before he intends his damnation, in the same respect he cannot be said to intend his damnation before he intends his creation, or the permissions of his sin.” (p. 11). In this way, Twisse demolishes the Arminian objection that Supralapsarianism is guilty of the blasphemy that God has determined to create men in order to damn them. At the same time he hints gently that Infralapsarians have no reason to agree with Arminians on this point.
http://www.presbyterianreformed.org/articlesbooksShow.php?articlesID=24
http://www.presbyterianreformed.org/articlesbooksShow.php?articlesID=24
Giving Up Social Currency For Something Better
People often like to flatter themselves, or be flattered by others, with the notion that they have less free time than they actually have. Advertisers and politicians, for example, often flatter people in an attempt to get their money or their vote. People want to think of themselves as hard workers, even if they aren't. And claiming to be busy is a common excuse for ignorance of the Bible, ignorance of politics, and other forms of negligence. Supposedly, people don't know more about the Bible, pray more, follow election campaigns more closely, or know more about current events, for example, because they don't have the time for it.
I've written on this subject in the past. People have more free time than they let on. A recent study found that the average American spends more than five hours a day watching television. The New York Times article I just linked concludes:
But knowledge of some other subjects isn't so valuable as social currency. Most Americans don't read the Bible much. They don't know much about the Bible. They place more of an emphasis on being an American than being a Christian. In summary:
The New York Times article cited above refers to watching television as something that provides social currency. I think an excessive desire for social currency is one of the reasons why so many professing Christians spend an inordinate amount of time with popular television programs, movies, music, sports, etc. If you spend your time responsibly, you'll pay a high social price for it. Are you paying that sort of price for your time management? If you go into work this morning without being able to name the four gospels, without knowing who the vice president of the nation is, or without knowing how to defend your view of abortion, you probably won't pay much of a social price for it. But if you didn't watch American Idol or Monday Night Football, you'll most likely be left out of a lot of discussions. The world won't reward you for your knowledge of theology, church history, or ethics as much as it will reward you for your knowledge of trivial and vulgar television programs, music, and sports.
There's nothing inherently wrong with something like watching television or playing a video game. But the degree to which Americans are involved in such activity, while neglecting things that are far more important, is grossly wrong.
But apart from what's wrong, what's wise? If a Christian is free to watch a television program, in the sense that there's nothing about the program that makes watching it unacceptable in most or all contexts, it doesn't follow that he ought to do so in the current context.
One of the reasons why I oppose the sort of large government role in healthcare that's currently being proposed by many Democrats is that we can't afford it as a nation. We're out of money. We've already put our children and grandchildren into deep debt.
And we don't just have a financial debt. We also have a debt of time. We can't afford to spend time on things like sports and video games the way we might have in the past. In a time of war, you make sacrifices that you wouldn't make at other times. The less your surrounding culture is teaching you about the Bible, for example, the more time you'll have to spend to learn about it without your culture's help. The less other people in your society know about the Bible, the more time you'll have to spend trying to educate them. You have to spend more time educating your children yourself. More time analyzing television programs and books, for example, before allowing them into your life or your home. More time trying to learn how to interact with a culture that's more ignorant of and hostile toward your worldview. Etc. The same is true of politics, ethics, and other subjects when a society neglects them.
I'm not suggesting that everything is getting worse. It's a mixed bag. On some issues, such as racism and abortion, there's been some improvement over time. But I think the general trend has been negative. (Societal acceptance of pornography and homosexuality are a couple of examples, and see the recent Barna data on views of the Bible here, for instance.) And even if things were getting better, or were the same, we would still be far from where we ought to be.
Scripture often encourages us to consider future generations and make sacrifices for their benefit, "that a people yet to be created may praise the Lord" (Psalm 102:18). You don't have to avoid things like sports and video games altogether. But why not give them up, or at least decrease your time spent on them, anyway? Many people of previous generations did so, to your benefit. A Christian ought to be enthralled by "the unfathomable riches of Christ" (Ephesians 3:8). He should be risking and sacrificing (responsibly), trying to achieve great things, involved in something that's "more wonderful than all the golden fancies of all our golden dreams". That's difficult to do when your mind is immersed in baseball, American Idol, and the latest popular music and movies.
I've written on this subject in the past. People have more free time than they let on. A recent study found that the average American spends more than five hours a day watching television. The New York Times article I just linked concludes:
When subjects in the study were asked to recall their behaviors, “people underestimated the amount of time they spent with TV by a substantial amount,” about 25 percent on average, Mr. Wakshlag said. The same people tended to overestimate their use of other media.
For some people, there is a “social stigma” attached to high levels of TV watching, Mr. Bloxham said. When some people are asked to estimate their TV viewing, he said, some of them may not “want to tell you five or six hours, because that may slip into the couch potato category,” he said. For others, he said, “there is no stigma because being able to talk about last night’s reality show or last night’s ball game is social currency.”
But knowledge of some other subjects isn't so valuable as social currency. Most Americans don't read the Bible much. They don't know much about the Bible. They place more of an emphasis on being an American than being a Christian. In summary:
The Christian body in America is immersed in a crisis of biblical illiteracy. How else can you describe matters when most church-going adults reject the accuracy of the Bible, reject the existence of Satan, claim that Jesus sinned, see no need to evangelize, believe that good works are one of the keys to persuading God to forgive their sins, and describe their commitment to Christianity as moderate or even less firm?
The New York Times article cited above refers to watching television as something that provides social currency. I think an excessive desire for social currency is one of the reasons why so many professing Christians spend an inordinate amount of time with popular television programs, movies, music, sports, etc. If you spend your time responsibly, you'll pay a high social price for it. Are you paying that sort of price for your time management? If you go into work this morning without being able to name the four gospels, without knowing who the vice president of the nation is, or without knowing how to defend your view of abortion, you probably won't pay much of a social price for it. But if you didn't watch American Idol or Monday Night Football, you'll most likely be left out of a lot of discussions. The world won't reward you for your knowledge of theology, church history, or ethics as much as it will reward you for your knowledge of trivial and vulgar television programs, music, and sports.
There's nothing inherently wrong with something like watching television or playing a video game. But the degree to which Americans are involved in such activity, while neglecting things that are far more important, is grossly wrong.
But apart from what's wrong, what's wise? If a Christian is free to watch a television program, in the sense that there's nothing about the program that makes watching it unacceptable in most or all contexts, it doesn't follow that he ought to do so in the current context.
One of the reasons why I oppose the sort of large government role in healthcare that's currently being proposed by many Democrats is that we can't afford it as a nation. We're out of money. We've already put our children and grandchildren into deep debt.
And we don't just have a financial debt. We also have a debt of time. We can't afford to spend time on things like sports and video games the way we might have in the past. In a time of war, you make sacrifices that you wouldn't make at other times. The less your surrounding culture is teaching you about the Bible, for example, the more time you'll have to spend to learn about it without your culture's help. The less other people in your society know about the Bible, the more time you'll have to spend trying to educate them. You have to spend more time educating your children yourself. More time analyzing television programs and books, for example, before allowing them into your life or your home. More time trying to learn how to interact with a culture that's more ignorant of and hostile toward your worldview. Etc. The same is true of politics, ethics, and other subjects when a society neglects them.
I'm not suggesting that everything is getting worse. It's a mixed bag. On some issues, such as racism and abortion, there's been some improvement over time. But I think the general trend has been negative. (Societal acceptance of pornography and homosexuality are a couple of examples, and see the recent Barna data on views of the Bible here, for instance.) And even if things were getting better, or were the same, we would still be far from where we ought to be.
Scripture often encourages us to consider future generations and make sacrifices for their benefit, "that a people yet to be created may praise the Lord" (Psalm 102:18). You don't have to avoid things like sports and video games altogether. But why not give them up, or at least decrease your time spent on them, anyway? Many people of previous generations did so, to your benefit. A Christian ought to be enthralled by "the unfathomable riches of Christ" (Ephesians 3:8). He should be risking and sacrificing (responsibly), trying to achieve great things, involved in something that's "more wonderful than all the golden fancies of all our golden dreams". That's difficult to do when your mind is immersed in baseball, American Idol, and the latest popular music and movies.
Monday, October 19, 2009
James & the Jesus tradition
Here’s a question I wrote to a commentator on James, followed by his reply:
Dear Dr. McCartney,
Today I was reading through your new commentary on James. Thanks for your contribution to the church.
I had a question. On a section documenting various points of commonality between James and the Jesus tradition, you say: “A few correspondences are found only with the Lukan Sermon on the Plain and not in Matthew…” (51).
As you know, liberals treat the dominical speeches in the Synoptic Gospels as fictional set-pieces which redactors put in the mouth of Jesus.
Does the fact that James has close parallels with both the Matthean and Lukan editions of this dominical material indicate that this material goes back to a well-entrenched, preexisting Jesus tradition, rather than something a redactor fabricated on the spot? Otherwise, how would James independently hit upon such similar formulations?
Steve Hays
********************************
Steve,
That is indeed one of several indications. James doesn't appear to be getting his material from the extant Gospels, but it does have an uncanny resemblance to the peculiarities of the Jesus tradition, esp. what is sometimes called Q. Either James is dependent on a strong tradition (either a written Q or an oral tradition) or else he has personal knowledge of the material -- either way it suggests both an early date for James and the antiquity of the Jesus tradition, at least in terms of Jesus's teaching.
If you haven't seen it yet, Bauckham's little book on James (Routledge, 1999) was very helpful to me in this regard. A book by P. Hartin on James and Q in the JSNTSupp series is also helpful but not so convincing. (I have my doubts whether Q was ever a document)
Blessings
---------
Dan McCartney
Professor of New Testament Interpretation
Redeemer Theological Seminary, Dallas
Dear Dr. McCartney,
Today I was reading through your new commentary on James. Thanks for your contribution to the church.
I had a question. On a section documenting various points of commonality between James and the Jesus tradition, you say: “A few correspondences are found only with the Lukan Sermon on the Plain and not in Matthew…” (51).
As you know, liberals treat the dominical speeches in the Synoptic Gospels as fictional set-pieces which redactors put in the mouth of Jesus.
Does the fact that James has close parallels with both the Matthean and Lukan editions of this dominical material indicate that this material goes back to a well-entrenched, preexisting Jesus tradition, rather than something a redactor fabricated on the spot? Otherwise, how would James independently hit upon such similar formulations?
Steve Hays
********************************
Steve,
That is indeed one of several indications. James doesn't appear to be getting his material from the extant Gospels, but it does have an uncanny resemblance to the peculiarities of the Jesus tradition, esp. what is sometimes called Q. Either James is dependent on a strong tradition (either a written Q or an oral tradition) or else he has personal knowledge of the material -- either way it suggests both an early date for James and the antiquity of the Jesus tradition, at least in terms of Jesus's teaching.
If you haven't seen it yet, Bauckham's little book on James (Routledge, 1999) was very helpful to me in this regard. A book by P. Hartin on James and Q in the JSNTSupp series is also helpful but not so convincing. (I have my doubts whether Q was ever a document)
Blessings
---------
Dan McCartney
Professor of New Testament Interpretation
Redeemer Theological Seminary, Dallas
The skeptical conundrum
Modern skeptics have staked out a self-refuting position on the history of Scripture. On the one hand, they insist that Scripture is historically unreliable. Unreliable, they assure us, because it was written long after the fact. Decades or centuries later. Written by men were didn’t witness the purported events they describe. Written by men who never knew anyone contemporaneous with the purported events they describe.
On the other hand, modern skeptics who say this are writing long after the fact. Millennia later. Skeptics who didn’t witness the purported events they deny. Skeptics who never knew anyone contemporaneous with the purported events they deny.
On the other hand, modern skeptics who say this are writing long after the fact. Millennia later. Skeptics who didn’t witness the purported events they deny. Skeptics who never knew anyone contemporaneous with the purported events they deny.
Dembski on freedom and evil
To my knowledge, William Dembski is not a Calvinist. That makes his comments on various permutations of the freewill defense all the more interesting:
“The Cross is God’s answer to evil. But whence evil?…Since everything is created by God, a will that turns against God is one of his creations. But a good God presumably created a good will. How, then, could a good will turn against God? I’m not sure that any final answer can be given to this question. Invoking freedom of the will is little help here. Certainly, freedom of the will contains within it the logical possibility of a will turning against God. But why should a good will created by a good God exercise its freedom in that way (for instance, Christian theology teaches that there are good angels whose wills never turned against God)?” The End of Christianity: Finding a Good God in an Evil World (B&H 2009), 27.
“Elliot Sober also feels the force of this problem: ‘It is often claimed that some evils exist because human beings have free will and sometimes freely chose actions that are wrong. Free will is supposed to be such a wonderful thing that a benevolent God would have given us this great benefit even though it brought with it a considerable cost. Like a number of other philosophers, I don’t see why having free will rules out always freely choosing to do the right thing. If a sinner can have free will, why can’t a saint?’” ibid. 201n1.
“We can imagine a world far more violent than ours in which many more people die annually of natural disasters. Alternatively, we can imagine a world far more halcyon than ours in which no one dies of natural disasters because the whole world is a serene tropical paradise…As suggested earlier, why didn’t God simply place us on a less dangerous planet where earthquakes don’t ravage human life? Or was this not an option for the Creator, and if not, why not? What are we to make of divine providence in a world with the freedom to crush us? Why, in most classical Christian liturgies of the Christian churches, do we pray for favorable seasons and good crops if the freedom of creation means that the land is going to do what it will regardless? Or does God constrain the freedom of creation? But, if so, why doesn’t God place tighter constraints on this freedom in relation to evil?” ibid. 30-31.
“Contemporary strategies for redressing the Fall consistently run aground because they attribute at least some of the evil that humanity suffers to factors other than human guilt. In such approaches, God lets humanity suffer evils of which it is entirely innocent–evils for which it is not responsible and which it therefore does not deserve. For a good God to permit such evils thus presupposes a limitation on God’s power and knowledge. For presumably, if God’s power and knowledge were up to the task, he would be both able and morally obligated, as a matter of justice to prevent evils of which we are innocent from afflicting us. This is why process and openness theologies have become increasingly attractive. They give us a God who means well but is limited in stemming the tide of evil,” ibid. 32.
“Kushner, in offering these reflections, no doubt means well–just as his God means well. But he fails to address the obvious question: Did God, as Creator, set up the conditions by which the laws of nature, evolution, and human freedom lead to painful things? If not, what sort of Creator is he? And if so, how is God any less complicit in our pain?” ibid. 33.
“So, according to Campolo, God was at one point all-powerful but then gave up his power so that humans could experience free will. But now, like King Lear, God, having ceded his power, witnesses the wreckage of his kingdom and can’t do anything about it. Campolo’s self limiting God raises several questions:
1. Isn’t God culpable for voluntarily limiting himself and thereby allowing evil to run amuck? To say that free will was worth the cost seems hardly fair since humans are the ones picking up the tab.
2. Why should human free will require natural evil? It’s easy enough to imagine a far safer world in which we retain our free will.
3. What are we to make of the biblical teaching that God performs miracles? If God can intervene in the world miraculously, then why doesn’t he use that power more frequently and effectively to reduce our suffering (rather than just crying about Pakistani earthquakes)? And if he can’t perform miracles, what does that do to biblical exegesis?” ibid. 33-34.
“Such a God wrings his hands over the world’s evil and, like an ineffectual politician, tries haltingly to make the world a better place. To our hardier theological forebears, this God would have seemed pathetic (to say nothing of heretical). But each age constructs gods in its own image, and in this touchy-feely age, a diminished God who shares our vulnerabilities and weaknesses is all the rage,” ibid. 34.
“Gregory Boyd, a proponent of open theism, has in fact written an entire book on the evils that may, in his view, properly be ascribed to Satan: Satan and the Problem of Evil: Constructing a Trinitarian Warfare Theodicy. In that book, Boyd shifts to Satan the responsibility for natural evil. Yet, in making that shift, Boyd embraces a dualism that Lewis would have rejected. Because open theism contracts the power and knowledge of God, God does not have Satan on a leash as he does in classical theism. Thus, for Boyd, Satan becomes an independent center of evil activity. This is not quite a Manichean dualism, in which good and evil are ontological equals (Satan for Boyd is still a created being). But it’s close. Moreover, it’s not clear how Boyd’s theodicy absolves God of evil since as Satan’s Creator, he must have realized the possibilities of evil inherent in his creation,” ibid. 38-39.
“By the way, I’m no fan of middle knowledge…. Philosophically, I object to middle knowledge because it hinges on assigning determinate truth-values to counterfactual conditionals, a property these conditionals can’t reasonably be said to possess. If John F. Kennedy hadn’t been assassinated, he would have been reelected in 1964. Is this counterfactual conditional true? Given Kennedy’s popularity, it seems likely that he would have been reelected. Given his sexual indiscretions, a scandal might have prevented him from being reelected,” ibid. 215n14.
“On the assumption that humans have libertarian free will, how does God figure out what we would do in a given circumstance? Sure, God will know our range of options. But if Kennedy hadn’t been assassinated, how does God know all the free actions of voters as they cast or refrain from casting their ballots’ for JFK? Does God determine the action of voters? That would defeat the whole point of middle knowledge, which is to avoid the hard theological determinism of Calvinism. But if God has no determinative role in human action (and many passages of Scripture suggest that he does, e.g., Prov 21:1), is God’s knowledge of the action of free agents in particular circumstances simply a surd? In other words, it simply is the case, with nothing further making it true, that free agents act in one and only one way in a given circumstance. While there may be no logical contradiction in treating middle knowledge as a surd, that hardly comments it,” ibid. 215.
“Theologically, I object to middle knowledge because it seems to compromise grace. The big selling point of middle knowledge for theodicy is that it portrays God as doing everthing he can to break the grip of evil over fallen creatures. If God has middle knowledge, God knows what a given creature would do in every conceivable circumstance. Thus, if God is also truly loving, he will employ his middle knowledge to arrange circumstances so that the creature derives maximal benefit.
“Here’s the difficulty: the problem of evil is so insidious that the free will of some free creatures will never shake it. Many free creatures, if we are to believe Scripture, will use their freedom to embrace evil and consign themselves to hell. What starts out as a way of killing two birds with one stone-God appears to get a theodicy and we humans appear to get free will–thus winds up providing neither. If middle knowledge is correct, for free creatures that perpetually abuse their freedom, under no conceivable circumstance will such creatures turn from evil to good–no matter how much of God’s grace gets applied to turn the tide of evil in their lives.
“But think what this means. Here is a creature incapable of being touched by God’s grace, a creature so completely trapped that try what God may, that creature will never escape evil. Call this a free creature if you will, but this free creature of the Arminians is functionally equivalent to the reprobate creature of the Calvinists…Both creatures have been determined to remain in evil, one for the noble-sounding reason that the creature’s free will unremittingly chooses evil, the other for the ignoble-sounding reason that God, for the sake of his glory, chose the creature to remain interminably in evil,” ibid. 215-16.
“The Cross is God’s answer to evil. But whence evil?…Since everything is created by God, a will that turns against God is one of his creations. But a good God presumably created a good will. How, then, could a good will turn against God? I’m not sure that any final answer can be given to this question. Invoking freedom of the will is little help here. Certainly, freedom of the will contains within it the logical possibility of a will turning against God. But why should a good will created by a good God exercise its freedom in that way (for instance, Christian theology teaches that there are good angels whose wills never turned against God)?” The End of Christianity: Finding a Good God in an Evil World (B&H 2009), 27.
“Elliot Sober also feels the force of this problem: ‘It is often claimed that some evils exist because human beings have free will and sometimes freely chose actions that are wrong. Free will is supposed to be such a wonderful thing that a benevolent God would have given us this great benefit even though it brought with it a considerable cost. Like a number of other philosophers, I don’t see why having free will rules out always freely choosing to do the right thing. If a sinner can have free will, why can’t a saint?’” ibid. 201n1.
“We can imagine a world far more violent than ours in which many more people die annually of natural disasters. Alternatively, we can imagine a world far more halcyon than ours in which no one dies of natural disasters because the whole world is a serene tropical paradise…As suggested earlier, why didn’t God simply place us on a less dangerous planet where earthquakes don’t ravage human life? Or was this not an option for the Creator, and if not, why not? What are we to make of divine providence in a world with the freedom to crush us? Why, in most classical Christian liturgies of the Christian churches, do we pray for favorable seasons and good crops if the freedom of creation means that the land is going to do what it will regardless? Or does God constrain the freedom of creation? But, if so, why doesn’t God place tighter constraints on this freedom in relation to evil?” ibid. 30-31.
“Contemporary strategies for redressing the Fall consistently run aground because they attribute at least some of the evil that humanity suffers to factors other than human guilt. In such approaches, God lets humanity suffer evils of which it is entirely innocent–evils for which it is not responsible and which it therefore does not deserve. For a good God to permit such evils thus presupposes a limitation on God’s power and knowledge. For presumably, if God’s power and knowledge were up to the task, he would be both able and morally obligated, as a matter of justice to prevent evils of which we are innocent from afflicting us. This is why process and openness theologies have become increasingly attractive. They give us a God who means well but is limited in stemming the tide of evil,” ibid. 32.
“Kushner, in offering these reflections, no doubt means well–just as his God means well. But he fails to address the obvious question: Did God, as Creator, set up the conditions by which the laws of nature, evolution, and human freedom lead to painful things? If not, what sort of Creator is he? And if so, how is God any less complicit in our pain?” ibid. 33.
“So, according to Campolo, God was at one point all-powerful but then gave up his power so that humans could experience free will. But now, like King Lear, God, having ceded his power, witnesses the wreckage of his kingdom and can’t do anything about it. Campolo’s self limiting God raises several questions:
1. Isn’t God culpable for voluntarily limiting himself and thereby allowing evil to run amuck? To say that free will was worth the cost seems hardly fair since humans are the ones picking up the tab.
2. Why should human free will require natural evil? It’s easy enough to imagine a far safer world in which we retain our free will.
3. What are we to make of the biblical teaching that God performs miracles? If God can intervene in the world miraculously, then why doesn’t he use that power more frequently and effectively to reduce our suffering (rather than just crying about Pakistani earthquakes)? And if he can’t perform miracles, what does that do to biblical exegesis?” ibid. 33-34.
“Such a God wrings his hands over the world’s evil and, like an ineffectual politician, tries haltingly to make the world a better place. To our hardier theological forebears, this God would have seemed pathetic (to say nothing of heretical). But each age constructs gods in its own image, and in this touchy-feely age, a diminished God who shares our vulnerabilities and weaknesses is all the rage,” ibid. 34.
“Gregory Boyd, a proponent of open theism, has in fact written an entire book on the evils that may, in his view, properly be ascribed to Satan: Satan and the Problem of Evil: Constructing a Trinitarian Warfare Theodicy. In that book, Boyd shifts to Satan the responsibility for natural evil. Yet, in making that shift, Boyd embraces a dualism that Lewis would have rejected. Because open theism contracts the power and knowledge of God, God does not have Satan on a leash as he does in classical theism. Thus, for Boyd, Satan becomes an independent center of evil activity. This is not quite a Manichean dualism, in which good and evil are ontological equals (Satan for Boyd is still a created being). But it’s close. Moreover, it’s not clear how Boyd’s theodicy absolves God of evil since as Satan’s Creator, he must have realized the possibilities of evil inherent in his creation,” ibid. 38-39.
“By the way, I’m no fan of middle knowledge…. Philosophically, I object to middle knowledge because it hinges on assigning determinate truth-values to counterfactual conditionals, a property these conditionals can’t reasonably be said to possess. If John F. Kennedy hadn’t been assassinated, he would have been reelected in 1964. Is this counterfactual conditional true? Given Kennedy’s popularity, it seems likely that he would have been reelected. Given his sexual indiscretions, a scandal might have prevented him from being reelected,” ibid. 215n14.
“On the assumption that humans have libertarian free will, how does God figure out what we would do in a given circumstance? Sure, God will know our range of options. But if Kennedy hadn’t been assassinated, how does God know all the free actions of voters as they cast or refrain from casting their ballots’ for JFK? Does God determine the action of voters? That would defeat the whole point of middle knowledge, which is to avoid the hard theological determinism of Calvinism. But if God has no determinative role in human action (and many passages of Scripture suggest that he does, e.g., Prov 21:1), is God’s knowledge of the action of free agents in particular circumstances simply a surd? In other words, it simply is the case, with nothing further making it true, that free agents act in one and only one way in a given circumstance. While there may be no logical contradiction in treating middle knowledge as a surd, that hardly comments it,” ibid. 215.
“Theologically, I object to middle knowledge because it seems to compromise grace. The big selling point of middle knowledge for theodicy is that it portrays God as doing everthing he can to break the grip of evil over fallen creatures. If God has middle knowledge, God knows what a given creature would do in every conceivable circumstance. Thus, if God is also truly loving, he will employ his middle knowledge to arrange circumstances so that the creature derives maximal benefit.
“Here’s the difficulty: the problem of evil is so insidious that the free will of some free creatures will never shake it. Many free creatures, if we are to believe Scripture, will use their freedom to embrace evil and consign themselves to hell. What starts out as a way of killing two birds with one stone-God appears to get a theodicy and we humans appear to get free will–thus winds up providing neither. If middle knowledge is correct, for free creatures that perpetually abuse their freedom, under no conceivable circumstance will such creatures turn from evil to good–no matter how much of God’s grace gets applied to turn the tide of evil in their lives.
“But think what this means. Here is a creature incapable of being touched by God’s grace, a creature so completely trapped that try what God may, that creature will never escape evil. Call this a free creature if you will, but this free creature of the Arminians is functionally equivalent to the reprobate creature of the Calvinists…Both creatures have been determined to remain in evil, one for the noble-sounding reason that the creature’s free will unremittingly chooses evil, the other for the ignoble-sounding reason that God, for the sake of his glory, chose the creature to remain interminably in evil,” ibid. 215-16.
Sunday, October 18, 2009
Whence then Calvinism?
Many of our Arminian friends make the claim that Calvinism is not found in the Bible, but it instead eisegeted in by the Calvinist. I would humbly ask a question of any Arminian who believes this:
From whence did the belief of Calvinism originate?
That is, suppose for argument that you are correct and that the Bible does not teach Calvinism. Why, then, would anyone who reads Scripture come to a Calvinist understanding of those passages? If Arminianism is true, then why would any man read Scripture and believe Calvinism to be true? What worldly system proffers a view like Calvinism such that a Calvinist believes this false philosophy and imputes it into the text of Scripture? What is that false philosophy? Name it and trace the path between it and the Reformed view. Or barring any actual existent philosophy, name the error of thought that would render a man incapable of reading Arminianism in Scripture and instead coming to the opposite conclusion.
Because the Calvinist can answer this question in reverse. For even Arminians ought to be able to see that if you assume Calvinism is true (for the sake of argument), then we know that man is depraved and wishes to think more importantly of himself than is his due. This will immediately tend to make a person believe he has more power in determining his salvation than he actually does. Hence, if Calvinism is true, Arminians are to be expected.
But how does that work for the Arminian? Even if man is depraved, God supposedly gives grace that makes it possible for all to believe—at least all who hear the Gospel. Why, then, in the presence of this grace, would any man believe Calvinism instead of Arminianism? What are the steps there, Arminian brothers? How does this follow? Have you thought it out at all? Does this not interest you in the least?
From whence did the belief of Calvinism originate?
That is, suppose for argument that you are correct and that the Bible does not teach Calvinism. Why, then, would anyone who reads Scripture come to a Calvinist understanding of those passages? If Arminianism is true, then why would any man read Scripture and believe Calvinism to be true? What worldly system proffers a view like Calvinism such that a Calvinist believes this false philosophy and imputes it into the text of Scripture? What is that false philosophy? Name it and trace the path between it and the Reformed view. Or barring any actual existent philosophy, name the error of thought that would render a man incapable of reading Arminianism in Scripture and instead coming to the opposite conclusion.
Because the Calvinist can answer this question in reverse. For even Arminians ought to be able to see that if you assume Calvinism is true (for the sake of argument), then we know that man is depraved and wishes to think more importantly of himself than is his due. This will immediately tend to make a person believe he has more power in determining his salvation than he actually does. Hence, if Calvinism is true, Arminians are to be expected.
But how does that work for the Arminian? Even if man is depraved, God supposedly gives grace that makes it possible for all to believe—at least all who hear the Gospel. Why, then, in the presence of this grace, would any man believe Calvinism instead of Arminianism? What are the steps there, Arminian brothers? How does this follow? Have you thought it out at all? Does this not interest you in the least?
Foretastes
From Matthew Henry:
The best and dearest of God’s saints and servants may sometimes have their lot cast in a wilderness, which speaks them lonely and solitary, desolate and afflicted, wanting, wondering, and unsettled, and quite at a loss what to do with themselves. All the straits and difficulties of a wilderness must not put us out of tune for sacred songs; but even then it is our duty and interest to keep up a cheerful communion with God. There are psalms proper for a wilderness, and we have reason to thank God that it is the wilderness of Judah we are in, not the wilderness of sin. "Early I seek you." The true Christian devotes to God the morning hour. He opens the eyes of his understanding with those of his body, and awakes each morning to righteousness. He arises with the thirst after those comforts that the world cannot give, and has immediate recourse by prayer to the Fountain of the water of life. The true believer is convinced that nothing in this sinful world can satisfy the wants and desires of his immortal soul; he expects his happiness from God, as his portion. When faith and hope are most in exercise, the world appears a weary desert, and the believer longs for the joys of heaven, of which he has some foretastes in the ordinances of God upon earth.HT: The Gospel Coalition Blog.
Home sweet home
"Lord, you have been our dwelling place in all generations." (Psa. 90:1)
Like the ancient Israelites, many of us who live in this country originally came from different lands. Many of our families have moved from one land to another land. Many have settled in one place for a generation or two, only to be uprooted for political or economic or other reasons in a subsequent generation. That's how our family and personal histories have unfolded in space and time.
In fact, that's the story of history itself. How people have peopled the earth. That's part of what makes history so interesting.
Indeed, the earth itself is a wonderful place worth exploring and appreciating. It's full of beauties for the eye and ear and more. And the universe itself is a marvel for the senses.
Yet, the universe and all it contains including the earth is not our home. If we could people the entire solar system, the Milky Way, and all the other galaxies in the universe, it would not be enough for us. If we could behold the untold beauties beyond our pale blue dot, it would not quench our thirst.
That's not because of the universe, but because of us. As large and as beautiful as the universe is, it is but a trifle in comparison to the measure of man. The universe is too small for us. For we were made for something greater. We yearn for it.
After all, we can appreciate the universe in the first place. What would the universe be without one who could appreciate it? What would we be if we couldn't appreciate it? We can discover its hidden treasures. We can create from its very depths. The universe supplies mathematicians with elegant patterns and formulas and scientists with scientific laws and discoveries as much as it supplies poets and writers with the stuff of poetry and literature. The universe supplies scenes for the painter's eyes, sounds for the musician's ears, food and drink for the chef's taste. But it is material which we can use and improve upon. Which we can form into something which is of an even greater glory than the original material. We can imagine greater things beyond the universe.
What's more, when we look at others, we realize each one of us is universe in himself. I mean there's more to discover in one person than in the entire cosmos.
On the downside, the world is a wearying place. It can quickly become a desert. As many beauties as there are to behold in the universe, most of us come to a point at which we realize that there's more emptiness than there is fullness in the universe. There's more darkness in the universe than there is light. There's more cold than there is heat. More silence than sound. We realize that life is the rare exception in the entropic universe which is gradually but inexorably decaying and dying. Like the atom, which mainly consists of empty space, so too the universe is largely tractless void emptying into more tractless void.
The universe is a lonely place. At best the earth is an oasis amid the desert wasteland of the universe.
Ultimately, we have no home. And what we do have is falling apart all around us. We're falling apart too.
Not so for the believer. Not so the one who has taken refuge in the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, who is his rock and fortress and ark of salvation. Not so for the one who has hidden his life with Christ in God.
Not so for the one who sees the Celestial City from afar, having acknowledged that he is a stranger and exile on the earth. For he seeks a better country, a heavenly country. He looks forward to the city that has foundations, whose designer and builder is God. And though God will shake not only the earth but also the heavens so that only those things which cannot be shaken will remain, and though the heavens will pass away with a roar and be dissolved, yet God has promised a new heavens and a new earth in which true goodness and holiness and righteousness dwells. Therefore, God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared for them a city, the New Jerusalem.
At present we have no place to lay our heads in this world. But Christ has promised that he goes to prepare a place for us. And if he goes and prepares a place for us, he will come again and will take us to himself, that where he is we may be also. We will be his people, and he will be our God.
It's a long journey home, but it'll be a well spent journey, though seven deaths lay between, when we reach Immanuel's land.
Or, as Augustine put it, we were made for God and our hearts are restless until they find their rest in him. Our hearts long and faint to be home with him. For, truly, he is our dwelling place. Our home sweet home.
Like the ancient Israelites, many of us who live in this country originally came from different lands. Many of our families have moved from one land to another land. Many have settled in one place for a generation or two, only to be uprooted for political or economic or other reasons in a subsequent generation. That's how our family and personal histories have unfolded in space and time.
In fact, that's the story of history itself. How people have peopled the earth. That's part of what makes history so interesting.
Indeed, the earth itself is a wonderful place worth exploring and appreciating. It's full of beauties for the eye and ear and more. And the universe itself is a marvel for the senses.
Yet, the universe and all it contains including the earth is not our home. If we could people the entire solar system, the Milky Way, and all the other galaxies in the universe, it would not be enough for us. If we could behold the untold beauties beyond our pale blue dot, it would not quench our thirst.
That's not because of the universe, but because of us. As large and as beautiful as the universe is, it is but a trifle in comparison to the measure of man. The universe is too small for us. For we were made for something greater. We yearn for it.
After all, we can appreciate the universe in the first place. What would the universe be without one who could appreciate it? What would we be if we couldn't appreciate it? We can discover its hidden treasures. We can create from its very depths. The universe supplies mathematicians with elegant patterns and formulas and scientists with scientific laws and discoveries as much as it supplies poets and writers with the stuff of poetry and literature. The universe supplies scenes for the painter's eyes, sounds for the musician's ears, food and drink for the chef's taste. But it is material which we can use and improve upon. Which we can form into something which is of an even greater glory than the original material. We can imagine greater things beyond the universe.
What's more, when we look at others, we realize each one of us is universe in himself. I mean there's more to discover in one person than in the entire cosmos.
On the downside, the world is a wearying place. It can quickly become a desert. As many beauties as there are to behold in the universe, most of us come to a point at which we realize that there's more emptiness than there is fullness in the universe. There's more darkness in the universe than there is light. There's more cold than there is heat. More silence than sound. We realize that life is the rare exception in the entropic universe which is gradually but inexorably decaying and dying. Like the atom, which mainly consists of empty space, so too the universe is largely tractless void emptying into more tractless void.
The universe is a lonely place. At best the earth is an oasis amid the desert wasteland of the universe.
Ultimately, we have no home. And what we do have is falling apart all around us. We're falling apart too.
Not so for the believer. Not so the one who has taken refuge in the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, who is his rock and fortress and ark of salvation. Not so for the one who has hidden his life with Christ in God.
Not so for the one who sees the Celestial City from afar, having acknowledged that he is a stranger and exile on the earth. For he seeks a better country, a heavenly country. He looks forward to the city that has foundations, whose designer and builder is God. And though God will shake not only the earth but also the heavens so that only those things which cannot be shaken will remain, and though the heavens will pass away with a roar and be dissolved, yet God has promised a new heavens and a new earth in which true goodness and holiness and righteousness dwells. Therefore, God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared for them a city, the New Jerusalem.
At present we have no place to lay our heads in this world. But Christ has promised that he goes to prepare a place for us. And if he goes and prepares a place for us, he will come again and will take us to himself, that where he is we may be also. We will be his people, and he will be our God.
It's a long journey home, but it'll be a well spent journey, though seven deaths lay between, when we reach Immanuel's land.
Or, as Augustine put it, we were made for God and our hearts are restless until they find their rest in him. Our hearts long and faint to be home with him. For, truly, he is our dwelling place. Our home sweet home.
Gut-reactive theological method
“In Friday's post, I did not suggest, either in the original post or in the revised version, that supralapsarians insist that the elect are few and the reprobate are many. That was my summation. Hence those who admit that I did in fact suggest such a thing are guilty of misrepresentation.”
http://classicalarminianism.blogspot.com/2009/10/few-shall-be-elected-many-shall-be.html
How is that a misrepresentation if I’m quoting his very own summation? Doesn’t his summation represent his true views?
“Therefore, we are under no obligation to historically investigate what Calvinists have taught concerning the number of the elect and the reprobate, for no suggestion was made to infer such. Nor is it our concern as to what Calvinists have believed historically on the question of the number of the elect and the reprobate. The only thing that matters is what Scripture teaches. We will then judge the validity of the supralapsarian's claims against that righteous Standard.”
That’s simplistic and deceptive. You can’t begin to judge whether or not the supra position is unscriptural unless, as a preliminary step, you accurately describe the supra position.
If he’s going to claim supralapsarianism is unscriptural because it says the reprobate outnumber the elect, then that allegation turns on the establishment of two or more propositions:
i) Supralapsarianism teaches that the reprobate outnumber the elect.
ii) It’s unscriptural to teach that the reprobate outnumber the elect.
iii) In addition, (ii) could be broken down into either of two possible objections:
a) Reprobation is unscriptural
b) Reprobation is scriptural, but it’s unscriptural to teach that the reprobate outnumber the elect.
“However, if we find in Scripture any allusion to the number of the elect being few and the reprobate being many, we can then ask questions regarding the supralapsarian model of God's decrees.”
Of course, that’s fatally equivocal. Since Birch doesn’t believe that Scripture even teaches reprobation, as Calvinism defines it, then he doesn’t believe the reprobate outnumber the elect, as Calvinism defines it.
Indeed, this puts him in a dilemma. If he actually thinks, according to Scripture, that the reprobate outnumber the elect, then how would supralapsarian be falsified by teaching that fact (assuming that it does)?
“Thes following three Calvinists, however, had this to say concerning the number of the elect and the reprobate.”
i) Notice that Birch is once again equivocating. What is the point of quoting three Reformed exegetes? Is the point to establish what supralapsarianism teaches? Or is the point to establish the correct exegesis of a Bible verse?
Birch himself prefaced his post by saying it doesn’t matter what Calvinists teaches; it only matters what the Bible teaches. So why is he quoting three Reformed exegetes? Is that to establish the correct exegesis of Scripture? But if Birch thinks that Calvinists correctly exegete Scripture, especially on issues like reprobation, then why is he an Arminian rather than a Calvinist?
ii) If, on the other hand, he’s quoting three Calvinists to establish what Calvinism teaches, then his sampling fails to establish his contention. The question at issue is not whether some Calvinists think the reprobate outnumber the elect. Rather, the question at issue is whether this is a defining feature of Calvinism. Is this a sine qua non of Calvinism?
For example, you can quote Calvinists who are amillenialists. That, however, wouldn’t begin to establish that amillennialism is the official position of Calvinism, or even the mainstream position. After all, many Calvinists are postmils, while some are premils.
Quoting a Calvinist can only establish one of two possible things:
a) That such a position is permissible in Calvinism.
b) That such a position is representative of Calvinism in general.
Quoting a Calvinist does not, of itself, establish (b).
iii) Furthermore, remember how Billy chose to frame the issue. He’s taking issue with supralapsarian Calvinism in particular, not Calvinism in general. So, to establish his contention within his chosen framework, he would need to confine his quotations to supralapsarian exegetes. Are Calvin, Henry, and Hendrickson supralapsarians?
“Calvinism may have no official position as to the number of the elect and the reprobate, but those three heavy weight Calvinists sure believed that the number of the reprobate outnumber those of the elect!”
And, of course, you have heavyweights like Warfield who take the opposite position. Indeed, Warfield is in a higher weight division than either Henry or Hendrickson.
“Certain Calvinists tend towards affliction and vexation that their theology implies that God only intended via unconditional election to save a few. Why should that matter to them? If all things are determined toward the glory of God, then it should not matter whether or not God unconditionally elected to save three people out of a hundred billion, or ten billion people out of a hundred billion.”
Either Billy is still too uncomprehending to grasp the question at issue, or else this is another example of his bait-and-switch tactics.
I have no antecedent objection to the possibility that the reprobate outnumber the elect. And I have no strong position one way or the other on what percentage of humanity God has chosen to save.
That’s not the issue, is it? The issue is the position which Billy is attributing to Calvinism. The issue is whether Billy is misrepresenting Reformed theology.
I don’t think it’s asking too much of someone who plans to become a church historian that he should accurately represent a theological tradition–even if he disagrees with it.
Billy has repeatedly attributed to Calvinism the position that the reprobate outnumber the elect. That’s the bone of contention. Did he misstate what Reformed theology stands for? That’s the issue at hand.
Billy’s problem is that, at best, he’s conflicted. On the one hand, he’s an Armininan polemicist. On the other hand, he fancies himself to be a budding church historian. But he frequently sacrifices historical accuracy to score polemic points.
Billy then spends some time trying to exegete Mt 7:13-14. I notice that he blows right past the exegetical arguments of the commentators I quoted. He makes no effort to interact with, much less disprove, their interpretation.
i) He then goes on to quote Lenski, Macarthur, Plummer, and Griffith Thomas. This illustrates his lack of scholarship. If you’re going to do serious exegesis, and if you’re going to consult commentaries, then you need to have some rating system for commentaries, and not reach for just any commentary or study Bible you happen to own-–or can google.
I cited some top commentaries by some top scholars. Billy and I are simply not operating at the same level. Citing very dated and/or popular commentaries (much less study Bibles) doesn’t cut it, exegetically.
Remember, Billy has academic ambitions. He wants to be a church historian. So he needs to operate at a more academic level, with academic standards. I hope he wouldn’t quote a Puritan commentary or a footnote from a study Bible in a term paper for a course in NT studies.
If he can’t afford the best commentaries, or if the library at his college is poorly stocked, he can get what he needs through interlibrary loan.
ii) Keep in mind that I don’t have to have a settled position on the correct interpretation of Mt 7:13-14. My belief-system is consistent with either interpretation. Whether the elect outnumber the reprobate or vice versa is irrelevant to Calvinism. It could go either way without falsifying Calvinism.
“Whether or not one believes that the reprobate will outnumber the elect, that should not distract anyone from the fact that in the supralapsarian scheme, God's first decree was to unconditionally elect some to heaven and unconditionally reprobate others to hell prior to His decree to even create human beings.”
“Distract”? Billy is the one who keeps harping on the percentages, not me. I’m merely responding to his emphasis, not mine.
This is a face-saving maneuver on Billy’s part. Unable to back up his allegations, he has to back down. But in the process he acts as though I was trying to deflect attention from the real issue, when he himself made the issue of percentages a central concern.
“Steve Hays, of Triablogue, indicating that from God's view, the decrees were made simultaneously.”
Since they’re timeless, they’re not either successive or simultaneous. My point, rather, as I explained at the time, is that God views the parts in relation to the whole and the whole in relation to the parts. The decree is holistic. God doesn’t decree one thing in isolation to another. It’s therefore simplistic to think that in the internal teleology of the decree, one decree has no object in relation to another–as if this is a psychological or chronological process.
“Concerning the reprobate ‘revealing the justice of God,’ exactly how will they accomplish the revealing of God's justice? They will do so by spending an eternity in hell. And why will they spend an eternity in hell, ‘revealing the justice of God’? Because God predetermined that they would sin, and thus be cast into hell, solely for the purpose of ‘revealing the justice of God.’ Thus when I suggested in my original post that the reprobate were created solely for hell, according to Hays, what I should have conveyed was that the reprobate were created solely for revealing the justice of God by spending eternity in hell. And somehow this is a more biblical perspective.”
i) There’s a fundamental difference between the claim that God creates the reprobate solely to damn them, and the claim that God creates the reprobate to reveal his justice in damning sinners. In one case, damnation is an end in itself. Done for its own sake. In the other case, damnation is a means to an end. Done for the sake of other considerations. What could be more elementary–or elemental?
ii) Moreover, to simply express his distaste for a predetermined outcome is not an argument. I realize that Billy suffers from a visceral reaction to Calvinism. However, the lower intestine is not the best organ to use in evaluating theological claims.
iii) Furthermore, I specifically addressed the alleged injustice of predestining the damned to hell. Billy can only repeat his formulaic objection. He does nothing to advance the argument. He offers no counterargument to my reply.
“Of course, in Hays' second proposal, God also needed some reprobate fathers to beget some elect children. This is just utter nonsense…”
What’s utter nonsense is Billy’s inability to either follow his own argument or mine. I was merely responding to the way in which he cast the issue. Did I say that God “needed” some reprobate fathers to beget elect children? No.
I was merely responding to Billy’s sweeping claim about God’s “sole” purpose in reprobation. Whether or not it’s necessary (God “needed” it) is irrelevant to whether or not that’s an additional reason for reprobation. Remember, once again, how Billy chose to frame the issue. Does God create the reprobate merely to damn them? But if the reprobate serve more than one purpose, then that’s sufficient to overturn Billy’s contention.
It would behoove him to keep track of his own arguments. Of course, I realize that when he uses so many lame arguments, he might well be inclined to ditch them in the nearest dumpster. But I reserve the right to hold him to the terms of his challenge.
“And can only be substantiated by one's a priori that God has unconditionally elected to save some and unconditionally reprobated others.”
Calvinism doesn’t teach unconditional reprobation.
“Otherwise, no one would ever come to such a conclusion from a prima facie reading of Scripture.”
Of course, that simply begs the question.
“God did not damn the reprobate for the sake of damning them; according to Hays, the reprobate have a much more noble purpose: revealing the justice of God.”
And Billy thinks the revelation of divine justice is an ignoble purpose?
Even on his own terms, why does Billy think God damns anyone? Does he think God damns the wicked justly or unjustly? If justly, then isn’t that a good thing? Or is that ignoble?
“Perhaps this will comfort them while they spend eternity in hell for having done that which God unconditionally predetermined them to do.”
Why should the wicked take comfort in God’s punishment?
“In Arminianism, God creates those whom He foreknows will spend eternity in hell. In that case, Hays is correct. But how he sees this as no more softer than the supralapsarian theory is very telling. Hays forgets, no doubt unintentionally, that in Arminianism, God grants the ‘non-elect’ enabling grace to believe in Christ Jesus when presented with the gospel (Rom. 1:16), and when being convicted of one's sins through the ministry of the Holy Spirit (John 16:8-11). God's intention, if you will, was not to unconditionally reprobate certain people. The reprobate appertain to those who reject salvation by grace through faith in Christ Jesus.”
If God foreknew the fate of the damned, then it was his intention to create them with that hellish destiny in mind. He knew by creating them that this is where they’d spend eternity. So he created them with a view to consigning them to everlasting hell. He sends them to hell. And he made them with that outcome in mind.
“His attempt to construct an Arminian theory of possible worlds (allowing for libertarian freedom), wherein ‘a hellbound sinner in this world is a heavenbound sinner in the alternative scenario,’ noting that ‘God didn't realize the alternative scenario in which the sinner goes to heaven rather than hell’ is nothing more than a smoke screen. For in both possible worlds, allowing for libertarian freedom, the hellbound sinner in this world, which could hypothetically go to heaven in another world (and vice versa), given different cirucumstances, etc., was still graced and enabled by God to trust in Christ Jesus. I have never been comfortable in the discussion of Molinism (middle knowledge and possible worlds). There is no way to validate this theory. I am much more comfortable with inquiring into that which Scripture reveals, and addressing God's activity in the only possible world to which we are privy: this one.”
i) My analysis doesn’t depend on Molinism. The fact that Molinism has recourse to possible worlds doesn’t mean that that’s distinctive to Molinism.
Rather, my analysis derives from libertarian freewill. Arminians attribute libertarian freewill to human beings. And they define that faculty as the freedom or power to do otherwise (and choose otherwise).
And what it means to do otherwise is cashed out in terms of possible worlds. A possible world corresponding to an alternate course of action. If Billy is committed to libertarian freewill, then that, in turn, commits him to a possible world which represents the hypothetical alternative.
If Judas has the freedom to do otherwise, then there’s a possible world in which Judas did not betray Jesus.
Libertarianism, especially the Arminian variety, generates forking paths. A fork in the road where you could either turn right or left. And there’s a possible world for each direction.
So if he takes Arminian action theory seriously, then God didn’t save lots of people he was in a position to save by instantiating the possible world or world-segment in which they were believers rather than unbelievers.
ii) Since, moreover, Billy clearly believes that only a minority of the human race is heavenbound, then God refused to save a majority of the human race although it lay within his power, even on libertarian grounds, to save every single one of them.
The only way around this–consistent with libertarianism– is to stake out the open theist position, according to which God can’t foresee future contingents. Therefore, God can’t foresee which possible world contains more believers. Therefore, it’s a roll of the dice which possible world is instantiated. And, unfortunately for most of us, the dice came up snake eyes.
“But could God not have accomplished this through angels? There were angels who obeyed the LORD, and angels who ‘did not keep their own domain, but abandoned their proper abode’ (Jude 6 NASB). He could have demonstrated His goodness to the angels who obeyed Him, and evinced His justice to those who abandoned Him. It does not seem proper to speak of God needing to create human beings (who will live in one state or another for all of eternity) merely in order to fulfill a decree.”
Is Billy saying that reprobation would be “proper” if applied to angels, but “improper” if applied to men? But if it’s proper in one case, why not the other?
http://classicalarminianism.blogspot.com/2009/10/few-shall-be-elected-many-shall-be.html
How is that a misrepresentation if I’m quoting his very own summation? Doesn’t his summation represent his true views?
“Therefore, we are under no obligation to historically investigate what Calvinists have taught concerning the number of the elect and the reprobate, for no suggestion was made to infer such. Nor is it our concern as to what Calvinists have believed historically on the question of the number of the elect and the reprobate. The only thing that matters is what Scripture teaches. We will then judge the validity of the supralapsarian's claims against that righteous Standard.”
That’s simplistic and deceptive. You can’t begin to judge whether or not the supra position is unscriptural unless, as a preliminary step, you accurately describe the supra position.
If he’s going to claim supralapsarianism is unscriptural because it says the reprobate outnumber the elect, then that allegation turns on the establishment of two or more propositions:
i) Supralapsarianism teaches that the reprobate outnumber the elect.
ii) It’s unscriptural to teach that the reprobate outnumber the elect.
iii) In addition, (ii) could be broken down into either of two possible objections:
a) Reprobation is unscriptural
b) Reprobation is scriptural, but it’s unscriptural to teach that the reprobate outnumber the elect.
“However, if we find in Scripture any allusion to the number of the elect being few and the reprobate being many, we can then ask questions regarding the supralapsarian model of God's decrees.”
Of course, that’s fatally equivocal. Since Birch doesn’t believe that Scripture even teaches reprobation, as Calvinism defines it, then he doesn’t believe the reprobate outnumber the elect, as Calvinism defines it.
Indeed, this puts him in a dilemma. If he actually thinks, according to Scripture, that the reprobate outnumber the elect, then how would supralapsarian be falsified by teaching that fact (assuming that it does)?
“Thes following three Calvinists, however, had this to say concerning the number of the elect and the reprobate.”
i) Notice that Birch is once again equivocating. What is the point of quoting three Reformed exegetes? Is the point to establish what supralapsarianism teaches? Or is the point to establish the correct exegesis of a Bible verse?
Birch himself prefaced his post by saying it doesn’t matter what Calvinists teaches; it only matters what the Bible teaches. So why is he quoting three Reformed exegetes? Is that to establish the correct exegesis of Scripture? But if Birch thinks that Calvinists correctly exegete Scripture, especially on issues like reprobation, then why is he an Arminian rather than a Calvinist?
ii) If, on the other hand, he’s quoting three Calvinists to establish what Calvinism teaches, then his sampling fails to establish his contention. The question at issue is not whether some Calvinists think the reprobate outnumber the elect. Rather, the question at issue is whether this is a defining feature of Calvinism. Is this a sine qua non of Calvinism?
For example, you can quote Calvinists who are amillenialists. That, however, wouldn’t begin to establish that amillennialism is the official position of Calvinism, or even the mainstream position. After all, many Calvinists are postmils, while some are premils.
Quoting a Calvinist can only establish one of two possible things:
a) That such a position is permissible in Calvinism.
b) That such a position is representative of Calvinism in general.
Quoting a Calvinist does not, of itself, establish (b).
iii) Furthermore, remember how Billy chose to frame the issue. He’s taking issue with supralapsarian Calvinism in particular, not Calvinism in general. So, to establish his contention within his chosen framework, he would need to confine his quotations to supralapsarian exegetes. Are Calvin, Henry, and Hendrickson supralapsarians?
“Calvinism may have no official position as to the number of the elect and the reprobate, but those three heavy weight Calvinists sure believed that the number of the reprobate outnumber those of the elect!”
And, of course, you have heavyweights like Warfield who take the opposite position. Indeed, Warfield is in a higher weight division than either Henry or Hendrickson.
“Certain Calvinists tend towards affliction and vexation that their theology implies that God only intended via unconditional election to save a few. Why should that matter to them? If all things are determined toward the glory of God, then it should not matter whether or not God unconditionally elected to save three people out of a hundred billion, or ten billion people out of a hundred billion.”
Either Billy is still too uncomprehending to grasp the question at issue, or else this is another example of his bait-and-switch tactics.
I have no antecedent objection to the possibility that the reprobate outnumber the elect. And I have no strong position one way or the other on what percentage of humanity God has chosen to save.
That’s not the issue, is it? The issue is the position which Billy is attributing to Calvinism. The issue is whether Billy is misrepresenting Reformed theology.
I don’t think it’s asking too much of someone who plans to become a church historian that he should accurately represent a theological tradition–even if he disagrees with it.
Billy has repeatedly attributed to Calvinism the position that the reprobate outnumber the elect. That’s the bone of contention. Did he misstate what Reformed theology stands for? That’s the issue at hand.
Billy’s problem is that, at best, he’s conflicted. On the one hand, he’s an Armininan polemicist. On the other hand, he fancies himself to be a budding church historian. But he frequently sacrifices historical accuracy to score polemic points.
Billy then spends some time trying to exegete Mt 7:13-14. I notice that he blows right past the exegetical arguments of the commentators I quoted. He makes no effort to interact with, much less disprove, their interpretation.
i) He then goes on to quote Lenski, Macarthur, Plummer, and Griffith Thomas. This illustrates his lack of scholarship. If you’re going to do serious exegesis, and if you’re going to consult commentaries, then you need to have some rating system for commentaries, and not reach for just any commentary or study Bible you happen to own-–or can google.
I cited some top commentaries by some top scholars. Billy and I are simply not operating at the same level. Citing very dated and/or popular commentaries (much less study Bibles) doesn’t cut it, exegetically.
Remember, Billy has academic ambitions. He wants to be a church historian. So he needs to operate at a more academic level, with academic standards. I hope he wouldn’t quote a Puritan commentary or a footnote from a study Bible in a term paper for a course in NT studies.
If he can’t afford the best commentaries, or if the library at his college is poorly stocked, he can get what he needs through interlibrary loan.
ii) Keep in mind that I don’t have to have a settled position on the correct interpretation of Mt 7:13-14. My belief-system is consistent with either interpretation. Whether the elect outnumber the reprobate or vice versa is irrelevant to Calvinism. It could go either way without falsifying Calvinism.
“Whether or not one believes that the reprobate will outnumber the elect, that should not distract anyone from the fact that in the supralapsarian scheme, God's first decree was to unconditionally elect some to heaven and unconditionally reprobate others to hell prior to His decree to even create human beings.”
“Distract”? Billy is the one who keeps harping on the percentages, not me. I’m merely responding to his emphasis, not mine.
This is a face-saving maneuver on Billy’s part. Unable to back up his allegations, he has to back down. But in the process he acts as though I was trying to deflect attention from the real issue, when he himself made the issue of percentages a central concern.
“Steve Hays, of Triablogue, indicating that from God's view, the decrees were made simultaneously.”
Since they’re timeless, they’re not either successive or simultaneous. My point, rather, as I explained at the time, is that God views the parts in relation to the whole and the whole in relation to the parts. The decree is holistic. God doesn’t decree one thing in isolation to another. It’s therefore simplistic to think that in the internal teleology of the decree, one decree has no object in relation to another–as if this is a psychological or chronological process.
“Concerning the reprobate ‘revealing the justice of God,’ exactly how will they accomplish the revealing of God's justice? They will do so by spending an eternity in hell. And why will they spend an eternity in hell, ‘revealing the justice of God’? Because God predetermined that they would sin, and thus be cast into hell, solely for the purpose of ‘revealing the justice of God.’ Thus when I suggested in my original post that the reprobate were created solely for hell, according to Hays, what I should have conveyed was that the reprobate were created solely for revealing the justice of God by spending eternity in hell. And somehow this is a more biblical perspective.”
i) There’s a fundamental difference between the claim that God creates the reprobate solely to damn them, and the claim that God creates the reprobate to reveal his justice in damning sinners. In one case, damnation is an end in itself. Done for its own sake. In the other case, damnation is a means to an end. Done for the sake of other considerations. What could be more elementary–or elemental?
ii) Moreover, to simply express his distaste for a predetermined outcome is not an argument. I realize that Billy suffers from a visceral reaction to Calvinism. However, the lower intestine is not the best organ to use in evaluating theological claims.
iii) Furthermore, I specifically addressed the alleged injustice of predestining the damned to hell. Billy can only repeat his formulaic objection. He does nothing to advance the argument. He offers no counterargument to my reply.
“Of course, in Hays' second proposal, God also needed some reprobate fathers to beget some elect children. This is just utter nonsense…”
What’s utter nonsense is Billy’s inability to either follow his own argument or mine. I was merely responding to the way in which he cast the issue. Did I say that God “needed” some reprobate fathers to beget elect children? No.
I was merely responding to Billy’s sweeping claim about God’s “sole” purpose in reprobation. Whether or not it’s necessary (God “needed” it) is irrelevant to whether or not that’s an additional reason for reprobation. Remember, once again, how Billy chose to frame the issue. Does God create the reprobate merely to damn them? But if the reprobate serve more than one purpose, then that’s sufficient to overturn Billy’s contention.
It would behoove him to keep track of his own arguments. Of course, I realize that when he uses so many lame arguments, he might well be inclined to ditch them in the nearest dumpster. But I reserve the right to hold him to the terms of his challenge.
“And can only be substantiated by one's a priori that God has unconditionally elected to save some and unconditionally reprobated others.”
Calvinism doesn’t teach unconditional reprobation.
“Otherwise, no one would ever come to such a conclusion from a prima facie reading of Scripture.”
Of course, that simply begs the question.
“God did not damn the reprobate for the sake of damning them; according to Hays, the reprobate have a much more noble purpose: revealing the justice of God.”
And Billy thinks the revelation of divine justice is an ignoble purpose?
Even on his own terms, why does Billy think God damns anyone? Does he think God damns the wicked justly or unjustly? If justly, then isn’t that a good thing? Or is that ignoble?
“Perhaps this will comfort them while they spend eternity in hell for having done that which God unconditionally predetermined them to do.”
Why should the wicked take comfort in God’s punishment?
“In Arminianism, God creates those whom He foreknows will spend eternity in hell. In that case, Hays is correct. But how he sees this as no more softer than the supralapsarian theory is very telling. Hays forgets, no doubt unintentionally, that in Arminianism, God grants the ‘non-elect’ enabling grace to believe in Christ Jesus when presented with the gospel (Rom. 1:16), and when being convicted of one's sins through the ministry of the Holy Spirit (John 16:8-11). God's intention, if you will, was not to unconditionally reprobate certain people. The reprobate appertain to those who reject salvation by grace through faith in Christ Jesus.”
If God foreknew the fate of the damned, then it was his intention to create them with that hellish destiny in mind. He knew by creating them that this is where they’d spend eternity. So he created them with a view to consigning them to everlasting hell. He sends them to hell. And he made them with that outcome in mind.
“His attempt to construct an Arminian theory of possible worlds (allowing for libertarian freedom), wherein ‘a hellbound sinner in this world is a heavenbound sinner in the alternative scenario,’ noting that ‘God didn't realize the alternative scenario in which the sinner goes to heaven rather than hell’ is nothing more than a smoke screen. For in both possible worlds, allowing for libertarian freedom, the hellbound sinner in this world, which could hypothetically go to heaven in another world (and vice versa), given different cirucumstances, etc., was still graced and enabled by God to trust in Christ Jesus. I have never been comfortable in the discussion of Molinism (middle knowledge and possible worlds). There is no way to validate this theory. I am much more comfortable with inquiring into that which Scripture reveals, and addressing God's activity in the only possible world to which we are privy: this one.”
i) My analysis doesn’t depend on Molinism. The fact that Molinism has recourse to possible worlds doesn’t mean that that’s distinctive to Molinism.
Rather, my analysis derives from libertarian freewill. Arminians attribute libertarian freewill to human beings. And they define that faculty as the freedom or power to do otherwise (and choose otherwise).
And what it means to do otherwise is cashed out in terms of possible worlds. A possible world corresponding to an alternate course of action. If Billy is committed to libertarian freewill, then that, in turn, commits him to a possible world which represents the hypothetical alternative.
If Judas has the freedom to do otherwise, then there’s a possible world in which Judas did not betray Jesus.
Libertarianism, especially the Arminian variety, generates forking paths. A fork in the road where you could either turn right or left. And there’s a possible world for each direction.
So if he takes Arminian action theory seriously, then God didn’t save lots of people he was in a position to save by instantiating the possible world or world-segment in which they were believers rather than unbelievers.
ii) Since, moreover, Billy clearly believes that only a minority of the human race is heavenbound, then God refused to save a majority of the human race although it lay within his power, even on libertarian grounds, to save every single one of them.
The only way around this–consistent with libertarianism– is to stake out the open theist position, according to which God can’t foresee future contingents. Therefore, God can’t foresee which possible world contains more believers. Therefore, it’s a roll of the dice which possible world is instantiated. And, unfortunately for most of us, the dice came up snake eyes.
“But could God not have accomplished this through angels? There were angels who obeyed the LORD, and angels who ‘did not keep their own domain, but abandoned their proper abode’ (Jude 6 NASB). He could have demonstrated His goodness to the angels who obeyed Him, and evinced His justice to those who abandoned Him. It does not seem proper to speak of God needing to create human beings (who will live in one state or another for all of eternity) merely in order to fulfill a decree.”
Is Billy saying that reprobation would be “proper” if applied to angels, but “improper” if applied to men? But if it’s proper in one case, why not the other?
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