Triablogue

Tuesday, March 20, 2012

Coptic “Pope” Dies at Age 88

You may have seen this story floating around the Internets:

Baba Shenouda, Coptic Christian pope, dies in Cairo

Shenouda, patriarch of the Coptic Orthodox Church [in] Alexandria who led Egypt's minority Christians for 40 years during a time of increased tensions with the majority Muslim community, died yesterday in Cairo. He was 88. Shenouda, known in Cairo in Arabic as Baba Shenouda, led one of the world's oldest churches, which traced its founding to St. Mark in the 1st century. Shenouda suffered from the effects of cancer and died of a heart attack yesterday afternoon.

Coptic Christians trace their roots to the flight to Egypt by Mary, Joseph and the baby Jesus.

There was a time when there were several “popes” in the church, and the church in Alexandria, Egypt had one of them. The Coptic Church was formed as a result of the first significant schism of one of the earliest “Apostolic Sees” (Alexandria, in Egypt; the other two being Antioch and Rome, prior to the “development” of “the Pentarchy” as it was adopted in the fifth century). The historian Samuel Hugh Moffett records it this way (“A History of Christianity in Asia” Vol 1, 2^nd ed Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, ©1998):

Constantinople in the last half of the fifth century was, in effect, ruled by Germans and Isaurians, not by the imperial aristocracy, and Alexandria felt culturally and politically as well as theologically superior to such barbarians. When Chalcedon (451 A.D.) humiliated and deposed the Egyptian patriarch Dioscurus and forced a Byzantine Chalcedonian patriarch, Proterius (452-457), onto the throne of the great Cyril [of Alexandria], Egypt exploded, resulting in the first permanent schism of the Christian church. The Egyptian Monophysites elected a rival partriarch, Timothy Aelurus, nicknamed Timothy the Cat. This rupture marks the establishment of the Egyptian church as a separate, independent entity commonly called the Coptic church, since “Coptic” is the ancient Greek word for “Egyptian.” In 457, the year that Hiba of Edessa died and was succeeded by a Monophysite, mobs of Egyptians took to the streets of Alexandria, cornered the orthodox patriarch Proterius in a church, killed him, and burned his bloody body in triumph (pg 190).

There was a lot of that sort of thing going on back then.

Vatican Report on Sex Abuse in Ireland: It’s not our fault

Vatican Report of Visitation to Ireland

Pope Benedict XVI ‘eagerly desires’ renewal for the ‘beloved Church in Ireland’, where many people have “experienced a loss of trust” in the Church as a result of abuse of minors by clergy, stated a Summary of the Findings of the Apostolic Visitation to the Church in Ireland, published Tuesday.

It states that during their stay in Ireland, the 7 teams charged with Visiting the Church there were able to see just how much the shortcomings of the past gave rise to an inadequate understanding of and reaction to the terrible abuse of minors. It re-iterates the “great sense of pain and shame”, that must be acknowledged by Church authorities. It notes the “very moving penitential liturgies in the cathedrals” held to address the issue of abuse within the Church and seek forgiveness from God and from victims.

Notice, “Church authorities” must acknowledge a “great sense of pain and shame”, but the Vatican itself does not take credit for “shortcomings of the past”, nor for having instituted the policies that led to the “inadequate understanding of and reaction to the terrible abuse of minors”. It’s always somebody else’s fault. That’s how come we can keep telling ourselves we’re infallible.

Blueprint for Anarchy Among Priests etc.
There was also a selection [and keep in mind that this is the Vatican’s own story, meaning they are going to put the best possible spin on this], talking about “theological opinions at variance with the teachings of the Magisterium”:

But the overarching emphasis is on formation and communion. The formation of future priests, fidelity to Church teaching of current priests, religious and theologians. The Visitators observe that when in Ireland, they encountered “a certain tendency, not dominant but nevertheless fairly widespread among priests, Religious and laity, to hold theological opinions at variance with the teachings of the Magisterium ... this serious situation requires particular attention, directed principally towards improved theological formation. It must be stressed that dissent from the fundamental teachings of the Church is not the authentic path towards renewal”.

Here cometh the crackdown: “So they propose a re-evaluation of the pastoral program, the reinforcement of structures of Episcopal governance over the seminaries and the introduction of more consistent admission criteria.” We’ll see how far that gets them.

For more information, see the larger report. And for you Roman Catholics who are inclined to think that we’re being overly-harsh with the poor, poor Roman Catholic hierarchy, this report is the one issued by the Vatican, just today.

The Jesus Tradition and Notebooks

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/euangelion/2012/03/the-jesus-tradition-and-notebooks/

Thinking about Suffering and Death, Part 3

http://reflectionsbyken.wordpress.com/2012/03/20/thinking-about-suffering-and-death-part-3/

The Murderer Next Door

No wonder slasher movies are so popular:

http://www.utexas.edu/features/2005/murder/index.html

I don't agree with his evolutionary analysis, but the raw stats are ominously impressive. And people thought Calvin had a pessimistic view of human nature!

Rehabilitating purgatory

Arminians like Jerry Walls and Roger Olson have been making room for purgatory in Protestant theology. Rehabilitating purgatory. From what I can tell, there are two motivations for this:

i) Getting more people saved. If they don’t get saved through the front door, what about the back door? Let’s install a back door.

ii) Accounting for how Christians who are sinners on their deathbed suddenly pass into heaven.

I’ll just make a few observations:

i) Since Calvinism doesn’t think God intends to save everyone, death is not an arbitrary cutoff in Calvinism. God saves everyone he intends to save this side of the grave. Indeed, there’s a sense in which the cutoff occurs before they are born: predestination. So there’s no internal pressure within Calvinism to make room for postmortem salvation.

By contrast, death is an arbitrary cutoff in Arminian theology. In this life, some people have more opportunities or better opportunities to hear the gospel than others. Some never hear the gospel. Others hear the gospel, but by the time they hear the gospel, it’s too late. They have to overcome a hostile bias, due to their prejudicial upbringing or social circle. Even if everyone hears the same message, every listener is not in the same condition to hear it. Everyone doesn’t come to the same message with the same mindset.

So Arminianism is under pressure to compensate for that disparity. For that impediment. If Arminianism is all about “fairness,” then there’s nothing fair about the spiritual opportunities which this life furnishes.

ii) Then there’s the perceived problem of the instantaneous transformation of a sinful Christian into a saint at the moment of death.

iii) First thing I’d say is that this can only be settled by revelation, not intuition. Absent revelation, we know next to nothing about the afterlife. Even if some NDEs are veridical, they tell us nothing about one’s eternal destiny. They may be evidence for postmortem survival, but if so, that only tells us what happens to somebody a few minutes into clinical brain death.

iv) To some extent I think the problem is generated by collapsing the final state into the intermediate state. But when Christians die, although they automatically pass into heaven, that doesn’t mean they automatically pass into a state of undiluted bliss. It doesn’t mean they’re instantly joyful and fulfilled. Take this passage:

9 When he opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of those who had been slain for the word of God and for the witness they had borne. 10 They cried out with a loud voice, “O Sovereign Lord, holy and true, how long before you will judge and avenge our blood on those who dwell on the earth?” 11 Then they were each given a white robe and told to rest a little longer, until the number of their fellow servants and their brothers should be complete, who were to be killed as they themselves had been (Rev 6:9-11).

Although they made it to heaven, they are still dissatisfied. For things still aren’t the way they ought to be. It’s only in the final state (Rev 21-22) that everything will be the way it’s supposed to be.

v) Finally, I’d like to consider an illustration. Even in this life, there are situations in which we feel instantly better. For instance, there are people who thought they lost something forever. Something they cherished. They feel incomplete without it. Nothing can replace it. There is no compensation. They lose hope. They settle for less. There’s an undertone of sadness.

Then, some years later, they suddenly find it. They rediscover what they thought was lost. That’s a healing experience. At that moment they feeling instantly restored. Whole again. Indeed, they are so overjoyed to find it that they feel better than if they never lost it in the first place.

For instance, maybe a boy fell in love with a girl in high school. But he was too shy to make a move. Too shy to express his feelings. He let the opportunity slip by.

After graduation, they went their separate ways. He never expected to see her again. He always regretted the lost opportunity.

Then, say, ten years later, they accidentally bump into each other. He does a doubletake. He can hardly believe his eyes. Is it really her? All the old feelings come flooding back.

He drops everything and rushes over to see her again. And he learns from her that she’s still eligible! He never married and she never married. At that instant all the regrets and disappointments melt away. He’s renewed. He couldn’t be happier.

Of course, even that’s temporary. In this life we lose everything sooner or later. Sometimes twice over.

But I think that mundane experience can be a tongue-taste and foretaste of the Christian’s instantaneous restoration when he passes into glory.

There’s no need for purgatory, however refined or redefined.

Reinventing Arminianism

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/rogereolson/2012/03/1230/

To some extent this is a logical extension of Arminian principles. If God really wants to save everyone, it's arbitrary to make death the cutoff, especially since this life is not an even playing table. Some people have far more spiritual opportunities and advantages than others.

Thinking about Suffering and Death, Part 2

http://reflectionsbyken.wordpress.com/2012/03/20/thinking-about-suffering-and-death-part-2/

The religious life of children

Atheists don't think children are innately religious. They attribute the religiosity of children to indoctrination. Harvard child psychiatrist Robert Coles has investigated the religious life of children, and disagrees. Prof. Coles is by no stretch of the imagination a Christian Fundamentalist, so his conclusions aren't motivated by a Christian agenda:

http://being.publicradio.org/programs/2009/robert-coles/transcript.shtml

Early Sources On The Death Of The Apostles (Part 2)

(Part 1 can be read here.)

- Notice not only what these sources explicitly state, but also what they seem to assume and imply. For example, do they seem to expect their audiences to already be familiar with the information they're conveying? Do they seem to be aware of any rival account they need to interact with?

Was blind but now I see

Film critics typically downgrade a film if the main characters lack character development. Literary critics distinguish between round, flat, and stock characters. Stock characters and flat characters lack complexity, including a capacity to change and evolve.

Yet, as a practical matter, many people in real life are more like stock characters or flat characters than round characters. Many real people change little in the course of a lifetime. Their character traits are cast in bronze from an early age. They retain the same basic worldview throughout life. They are static characters rather than dynamic characters.

So why are filmmakers faulted for realistic characters? If that’s the way most people are, then why do film critics demand unrealistic characterization?

Well, aside from the fact that it’s more dramatically interesting, I wonder if this doesn’t reflect a redemptive motif which even secular film critics have unconsciously internalized from Christianity.

Take the parable of the prodigal son. Or the parable of the lost sheep. Take the life of David. Or Jacob. Or Joseph. Samson or Moses. We like stories where the protagonist has a transformative experience that makes him a better person. Stories that exemplify a lost and found or death and rebirth motif.

This often takes the form of a journey–the classic quest genre. But the quest can also be internalized. A journey of self-discovery–and redemption.

As I was channel surfing recently, I stumbled across Have a Little Faith, a film starring Laurence Fishburne–a recovering junkie who kicked the habit when he underwent a Christian conversion. He’s now an inner city pastor, ministering to other hoods, junkies, and street people. I don’t care for the film’s ecumenical agenda, but the character of Pastor Covington is quite appealing. And there are endless films and TV dramas that exemplify a redemptive motif–even when that’s secularized. Those who spurn the Gospel unwittingly recreate the Gospel.

‘Really brainwash people’ to be anti-gun

http://dailycaller.com/2012/03/18/holder-in-1995-really-brainwash-people-to-be-anti-gun/?print=1

Is It Unconstitutional for Laws to Be Based on Their Supporters’ Religiously Founded Moral Beliefs?

http://volokh.com/2012/03/17/is-it-unconstitutional-for-laws-to-be-based-on-their-supporters-religiously-founded-moral-beliefs/

Fast and Furry-ous

Today I did a tongue-in-cheek post spoofing a dispensational critique of recapitulatory parallelism in Revelation. But now I’d like to make a serious point. Revelation frequently uses the deus ex machina. I suppose sniffy literary critics would mark it down on that account. But why does Revelation do that? I can think of two reasons:

i) God’s people often find themselves is apparently hopeless situations. Revelation is a case in point. 1C Christians were a powerless persecuted minority. These are situations in which nothing short of a miracle (literally, not figuratively) will rescue them from their predicament.

I think Revelation frequently uses the deus ex machina in part to encourage beleaguered Christians. Our extremity is God’s opportunity.

Of course, that’s not something we can count on. But the walk of faith alternates between hope and assurance. In some cases we have an ironclad promise from God. In other cases we lack that level of certainty. But we always have hope. Hope and promise are enough to keep us going.

Alec Guinness once made a comedy entitled Situation Hopeless... But Not Serious. In a way, that’s often the Christian experience. No matter how desperate our situation in this life, there’s always an out–if not in this life, then the afterlife.

ii) I think another reason goes to poetic justice. There are movies in which the good guy wins while bad guy loses, but it’s not enough to beat the bad guy. To rub it in, the hero arranges things so that the villain mistakenly imagines he won, only to discover, at the last minute, that he really lost. To think you won, only to find out that you lost, is far more deflating than simply losing.

And it’s like that in Revelation. Time and again the Devil and his minions are within a hair’s breadth of winning, only to have God snatch victory from the jaws of defeat, in a stunning, punishing reversal of fortunes. God strings the Devil along; let’s the Devil gain on God’s people, catch up, and overtake; makes the Devil think he has an insurmountable lead–only to throw the race at the very last minute. The Devil doesn’t know what hit him until it’s too late. Until the dust settles and he finds himself on the wrong side of the finish line, with the Christian quarry lining up for ribbons. The Devil is forever Wile E. Coyote to the Christian’s Road Runner. Carnivorous Vulgaris to Accelleratii Incredibus.

Deus ex machina

ALAN KURSCHNER SAID:

Revelation 20 bleeds consummation. So taking your principle of absolute separation, the binding of Satan should be absolute, but here comes the deus ex machina of recapitulation to avoid the inconsistency!

Kinda makes me wonder what would happen had John the Revelator submitted a rough draft to a dispensational editor.

7 And when they have finished their testimony, the beast that rises from the bottomless pit will make war on them and conquer them and kill them, 8 and their dead bodies will lie in the street of the great city that symbolically is called Sodom and Egypt, where their Lord was crucified. 9 For three and a half days some from the peoples and tribes and languages and nations will gaze at their dead bodies and refuse to let them be placed in a tomb, 10 and those who dwell on the earth will rejoice over them and make merry and exchange presents, because these two prophets had been a torment to those who dwell on the earth. 11 But after the three and a half days a breath of life from God entered them, and they stood up on their feet, and great fear fell on those who saw them. 12 Then they heard a loud voice from heaven saying to them, “Come up here!” And they went up to heaven in a cloud, and their enemies watched them (Rev 11:7-12).

John. Having the slain witnesses reanimated and beamed up to heaven is a classic deus ex machina. It strains credulity.

12And a great sign appeared in heaven: a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars. 2 She was pregnant and was crying out in birth pains and the agony of giving birth. 3 And another sign appeared in heaven: behold, a great red dragon, with seven heads and ten horns, and on his heads seven diadems. 4 His tail swept down a third of the stars of heaven and cast them to the earth. And the dragon stood before the woman who was about to give birth, so that when she bore her child he might devour it. 5 She gave birth to a male child, one who is to rule all the nations with a rod of iron, but her child was caught up to God and to his throne.

John. Having the Christchild teleported to safety the moment the dragon is about to devour him is another deus ex machina. You need to avoid this ac hoc plot device. It’s an artistic flaw.

13 And when the dragon saw that he had been thrown down to the earth, he pursued the woman who had given birth to the male child. 14 But the woman was given the two wings of the great eagle so that she might fly from the serpent into the wilderness, to the place where she is to be nourished for a time, and times, and half a time. 15 The serpent poured water like a river out of his mouth after the woman, to sweep her away with a flood. 16 But the earth came to the help of the woman, and the earth opened its mouth and swallowed the river that the dragon had poured from his mouth (Rev 12:1-5,13-16).

John. Having the earth suddenly open its mouth to magically swallow the draconian flood, on top of having the mother sprout wings to elude the dragon, is piling one deus ex machina on top of another. You overtax the willing suspension of belief.

11 Then I saw heaven opened, and behold, a white horse! The one sitting on it is called Faithful and True, and in righteousness he judges and makes war. 12 His eyes are like a flame of fire, and on his head are many diadems, and he has a name written that no one knows but himself. 13 He is clothed in a robe dipped in blood, and the name by which he is called is The Word of God. 14 And the armies of heaven, arrayed in fine linen, white and pure, were following him on white horses. 15 From his mouth comes a sharp sword with which to strike down the nations, and he will rule them with a rod of iron. He will tread the winepress of the fury of the wrath of God the Almighty. 16 On his robe and on his thigh he has a name written, King of kings and Lord of lords.

19 And I saw the beast and the kings of the earth with their armies gathered to make war against him who was sitting on the horse and against his army. 20 And the beast was captured, and with it the false prophet who in its presence had done the signs by which he deceived those who had received the mark of the beast and those who worshiped its image. These two were thrown alive into the lake of fire that burns with sulfur. 21 And the rest were slain by the sword that came from the mouth of him who was sitting on the horse, and all the birds were gorged with their flesh (Rev 19:11-16,19-21).

John. Having Jesus come riding over the hill just in the nick of time is a deus ex machina. It’s becoming such a cliché. You really need to avoid this clumsy plot device.

20 Then I saw an angel coming down from heaven, holding in his hand the key to the bottomless pit and a great chain. 2 And he seized the dragon, that ancient serpent, who is the devil and Satan, and bound him for a thousand years, 3 and threw him into the pit, and shut it and sealed it over him, so that he might not deceive the nations any longer, until the thousand years were ended. After that he must be released for a little while.

John. Having an angel swoop down from heaven to bind the devil is…you guessed it!…a deus ex machina. Don’t you think that’s a bit contrived? I mean, how many times can you play the same trump card before we suspect the deck is stacked?

7 And when the thousand years are ended, Satan will be released from his prison 8 and will come out to deceive the nations that are at the four corners of the earth, Gog and Magog, to gather them for battle; their number is like the sand of the sea. 9 And they marched up over the broad plain of the earth and surrounded the camp of the saints and the beloved city, but fire came down from heaven and consumed them, 10 and the devil who had deceived them was thrown into the lake of fire and sulfur where the beast and the false prophet were, and they will be tormented day and night forever and ever (Rev 20:1-3,7-10).

John. The bad guys were winning fair-n-square until you had lightning magically strike them dead. That’s a deus ex machina.

John, you’re story is very promising. But you need to study under Quintilian to learn how to avoid these makeshift interventions. As Aristotle puts it in the Poetics, “A writer ought always to seek what is either necessary or probable, so that it is either necessary or probable that a person of such-and-such a sort say or do things of the same sort, and it is either necessary or probable that this incident happen after that one. It is obvious that the solutions of plots too should come about as a result of the plot itself, and not from a contrivance.”

I’m afraid your MS isn’t ready for publication (much less canonization) at this time. Please submit a revised draft after you’ve made the necessary editorial corrections.

Was John the Disciple Whom Jesus Loved?

http://readingacts.wordpress.com/2012/03/16/was-john-the-disciple-whom-jesus-loved/

R D Miksa's blog on taking over the outsider test for faith

http://dangerousidea.blogspot.com/2012/03/r-d-miksas-blog-on-taking-over-outsider.html

Arminian Gnostics

I’m going to quote and comment on some statements in this article:

http://evangelicalarminians.org/files/McCall.%20I%20Believe%20in%20Divine%20Sivereignty%20(Contra%20Piper).pdf

Thomas McCall, “I Believe in Divine Sovereignty,” TrinJ 29.2 (Fall 2008): 205-226.

Why do tsunamis rise up and send walls of water through unprepared and largely defenseless communities, leaving behind in their wake hundreds of thousands of dead, with beaches littered with the broken and lifeless bodies of young children, shattered families, and grief-stricken loved ones?

McCall then proceeds to quote David Bentley Hart. Since McCall’s article is available online (see above), I’m not going to manually transcribe the quotes. In addition, Hart says the same things in two online articles about the South Asian tsunami, so I’ll copy/paste some representative passages from them to give the reader the flavor of the objection.

The Christian understanding of evil has always been more radical and fantastic than that of any theodicist; for it denies from the outset that suffering, death and evil have any ultimate meaning at all.

When confronted by the sheer savage immensity of worldly suffering–when we see the entire littoral rim of the Indian Ocean strewn with tens of thousands of corpses, a third of them children’s–no Christian is licensed to utter odious banalities about God's inscrutable counsels or blasphemous suggestions that all this mysteriously serves God's good ends.

http://davidbhart.blogspot.com/2006/03/david-b-harts-tremors-of-doubt.html

Being infinitely sufficient in Himself, God had no need of a passage through sin and death to manifest His glory in His creatures or to join them perfectly to Himself. This is why it is misleading (however soothing it may be) to say that the drama of fall and redemption will make the final state of things more glorious than it might otherwise have been. No less metaphysically incoherent–though immeasurably more vile–is the suggestion that God requires suffering and death to reveal certain of his attributes (capricious cruelty, perhaps? morbid indifference? a twisted sense of humor?). It is precisely sin, suffering, and death that blind us to God’s true nature.

There is, of course, some comfort to be derived from the thought that everything that occurs at the level of what Aquinas calls secondary causality–in nature or history–is governed not only by a transcendent providence, but by a universal teleology that makes every instance of pain and loss an indispensable moment in a grand scheme whose ultimate synthesis will justify all things. But consider the price at which that comfort is purchased: it requires us to believe in and love a God whose good ends will be realized not only in spite of–but entirely by way of–every cruelty, every fortuitous misery, every catastrophe, every betrayal, every sin the world has ever known; it requires us to believe in the eternal spiritual necessity of a child dying an agonizing death from diphtheria, of a young mother ravaged by cancer, of tens of thousands of Asians swallowed in an instant by the sea, of millions murdered in death camps and gulags and forced famines. It seems a strange thing to find peace in a universe rendered morally intelligible at the cost of a God rendered morally loathsome. Better, it seems to me, the view of the ancient Gnostics: however ludicrous their beliefs, they at least, when they concluded that suffering and death were essential aspects of the creator’s design, had the good sense to yearn to know a higher God.

I do not believe we Christians are obliged–or even allowed–to look upon the devastation visited upon the coasts of the Indian Ocean and to console ourselves with vacuous cant about the mysterious course taken by God’s goodness in this world, or to assure others that some ultimate meaning or purpose resides in so much misery.

http://www.firstthings.com/onthesquare/2008/05/tsunami-and-theodicy

i) Hart is Eastern Orthodox. By contrast, McCall is a member of the Wesleyan Theological Society, as well as a theology prof. at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School. Notice that McCall quotes Hart approvingly. He agrees with Hart. Notice, too, that McCall’s two articles are hosted by the Society of Evangelical Arminians.

ii) I wonder if we’re not seeing a paradigm shift in Arminian theology. Contemporary Arminians who feel free to deny the traditional view of God as the ultimate cause of natural evil. McCall acts as if this is unique to Calvinism. If so, he’s rewriting historical theology.

iii) I also wonder why Arminians like McCall think their denial is even orthodox. Why do they think that’s a live option in evangelical theology?

Likewise, why do they think their denial is even plausible? It’s as if they imagine that they can simply wish away God’s complicity in natural evil. They seem to begin with emotional revulsion at natural evils. Based on their emotional reaction, they say it’s “blasphemous” or “odious” or “vile” or “morally loathsome” to attribute natural disasters to God. They then simply deny that God is responsible for natural disasters.

But what makes them suppose that’s a credible denial? Denying something doesn’t make it go away. Denying something doesn’t suspend the laws of logical entailment. An unwelcome truth remains true, even if you shut your eyes, stop your ears, and stamp your feet.

iv) Aren’t natural disasters and fatal diseases the result of physical determinism? Natural cause and effect? Where antecedent conditions, events, and natural forces necessitate the result?

If God is the Creator of the world, then he created natural forces. He initiated second causes. He initiated the ensuing chain-reaction.

v) But suppose, for the sake of argument, that we treat natural evils as random events, a la chaos theory. Still, if God is the Creator of the world, then he initiated the stochastic process that produces natural evils.

So on either model, I don’t see how McCall can insulate God from complicity in the dire outcome.

vi) Moreover, the Bible attributes natural evils to God. At the very least, that’s a prima facie defeater for McCall’s position.

vii) Furthermore, I assume McCall believes in God’s knowledge of the future. So whether he views natural evils as determinate or indeterminate events, his God was in a position to anticipate the end-result. And God was in a position to circumvent the dire outcome.

McCall’s God knows what will happen if he intervenes as well as what will happen if he declines to intervene. McCall can erect as many buffers between God and natural evil as he likes, but that’s beside the point, for as long as God can stop it, God is responsible for not stopping it.

viii) McCall can’t very well invoke the freewill defense. It’s not as if earthquakes, tsunamis, tornadoes, and cancer cells have freewill.

ix) To say that “Being infinitely sufficient in Himself, God had no need of a passage through sin and death to manifest His glory,” is utterly confused. This is not about God needing anything for himself to complete himself.

Rather, this is about the nature of finite timebound spacebound creatures who learn by personal empirical experience. And there’s a dimension of knowledge by acquaintance which no amount of knowledge by description can adequately capture.

In the nature of the case, you can’t have a manifestation of justice and mercy absent sinners.

x) In a footnote, McCall appeals to either Molinism or Thomism as alternatives to Calvinism. But God is the ultimate source of natural evils in Thomism and Molinism alike.

xi) Finally, McCall endorses Hart’s view that natural evils are surd evils. Gratuitous evils. They serve no good purpose.

But how does that even begin to exonerate the Arminian God? To say that God knowingly exposes men, woman, and children to horrendous evils for no good reason? How does that let God off the hook? And how is that an improvement on what McCall finds so objectionable in Calvinism?

McCall acts as though it’s just too horrible to believe that God is behind natural evils, therefore he refuses to believe it. Well, by that logic (if logic is the operative word), why not bite the bullet and go all the way with Mary Baker Eddy. Evil is too horrible to believe, therefore there really is no evil. That’s all an illusion.

Early Sources On The Death Of The Apostles (Part 1)

(This will be a five-part series.)

Information about the death of the apostles is important in many contexts. How long were the apostles alive to serve as witnesses of events or to lead the earliest churches, for example? What does the manner of their death suggest about their willingness to suffer for their beliefs? If any of them died as a martyr, how many did so? Did any of them renounce Christianity later in life? These and other issues related to the death of the apostles are significant, yet they often aren't addressed well by Christians or their critics.

http://news.investors.com/article/604303/201203141303/oil-abundant-in-the-united-states.htm

In fact, far from being oil-poor, the country is awash in vast quantities — enough to meet all the country's oil needs for hundreds of years.

The U.S. has 22.3 billion barrels of proved reserves, a little less than 2% of the entire world's proved reserves, according to the Energy Information Administration. But as the EIA explains, proved reserves "are a small subset of recoverable resources," because they only count oil that companies are currently drilling for in existing fields.

When you look at the whole picture, it turns out that there are vast supplies of oil in the U.S., according to various government reports. Among them:

At least 86 billion barrels of oil in the Outer Continental Shelf yet to be discovered, according to the government's Bureau of Ocean Energy Management.

About 24 billion barrels in shale deposits in the lower 48 states, according to EIA.

Up to 2 billion barrels of oil in shale deposits in Alaska's North Slope, says the U.S. Geological Survey.

Up to 12 billion barrels in ANWR, according to the USGS.

As much as 19 billion barrels in the Utah tar sands, according to the Bureau of Land Management.

Then, there's the massive Green River Formation in Wyoming, which according to the USGS contains a stunning 1.4 trillion barrels of oil shale — a type of oil released from sedimentary rock after it's heated.

One of the most fundamental things Steve Hays has ever said

By the way, in case you missed it, this is one of the most profound and fundamental and dearest-to-his-heart things that Steve Hays has ever written, imo:

Common truth paradigm

On this view, truth is truth. Our source of information is inconsequential. If a general moral norm comes from Scripture, that’s applicable to believers and unbelievers alike. If it’s true, then it’s true for both groups. It doesn’t cease to be generally true just because it’s a revealed moral truth. It isn’t right for believers, but wrong for unbelievers–or wrong for believers, but right for unbelievers. What’s intrinsically right or wrong is universally binding. Not relative to believers or unbelievers.

As well, this is perhaps one of the most important reasons why I can’t accept the kind of nonsense that Roman Catholics put out about to the effect that God supernaturally protects the Roman Catholic Magisterium from error on matters of doctrine, etc., in spite of such things as we’ve written about below. God’s truth is a whole cloth. God, in his holy, awesome character, doesn’t make a special case for the Roman Catholic Church to have been evil and nonsensical all of its history, and yet still be the infallible source for his truth in the world.

Sunday, March 18, 2012

Is God a monstrous madman?

Furthermore, Washington does not in any way benefit from the execution of Andre…

On the other hand, consider this analogy. Imagine a parent who is able to control each and every action of his children, and furthermore is able to do so by controlling their thoughts and inclinations. He is thus able to determine each and all actions taken by those children. He is also able to guarantee that they desire to do everything that they do, and this is exactly what he does. He puts them in a special playroom that contains not only toys but also gasoline and matches, and then he gives them explicit instructions (with severe warnings) to avoid touching the gasoline and matches. Stepping out of sight, he determines that the children indeed begin to play with the gasoline and matches. When the playroom is ablaze and the situation desperate, he rushes in to save them (well, some of them).

When they ask about the situation, their father tells them that this tragic occurrence had been determined by him, and indeed that it was a smashing success–it had worked out in exact accordance with his plan. He then reminds them of his instructions and warnings and he reminds them further that they willingly violated his commands. They should be grateful for their rescue, and they should understand that the others got what they deserved.

The children are puzzled by this, and one wants to know why such a compassionate father does not rescue the others (when it is clearly within his power to do so). His answer is this: this has happened so that everyone could see how smart he is (for being able to know how to do all this), how powerful he is (for being able to control everything and then effectively rescue them), how merciful he is (for rescuing the children who broke his rules), and how just he is (for leaving the others to their fate in the burning playroom).

Surely the fact that such a man is a monster is beyond dispute…And if he were to add that he did it for the good of his children, we would rightly consider him a madman as well as a moral monster.

http://evangelicalarminians.org/files/McCall.%20We%20Believe%20in%20God's%20Sovereign%20Goodness.pdf

Thomas McCall, “I Believe in God's Sovereign Goodness: A Rejoinder to John Piper,” TrinJ 29.2 (Fall 2008): 241-42.

By way of reply:

i) McCall is critiquing John Piper’s two-wills model of Calvinism. I myself don’t subscribe to that model.

ii) Piper isn’t a philosopher, so there may be some weaknesses in Piper’s formulations. For instance, Jeremy Pierce is critical of how Piper formulates the self-glorification of God.

iii) I don’t know why McCall imagines that God is the beneficiary of election and reprobation. The elect are the beneficiaries.

Perhaps McCall is misled by the ambiguities of God doing something for his own glory. But God has nothing to gain. Rather, the elect gain from the manifestation of God’s glory.

iv) If McCall is alleging that the father in this scenario is monstrous simply because he determined the outcome, then that begs the question. In that event he’s treating as libertarianism as a given. But that’s something he needs to argue for.

v) His illustration is compromised by the parent/child metaphor. That’s designed to push the reader’s buttons. It’s ironic that a libertarian would try to coerce the reader through emotional manipulation.

And he isn’t consistent with the metaphor, for within the confines of his illustration, the children have, in fact, done nothing to deserve their fate.

vi) Even parent/child metaphors can backfire. When the Menendez brothers murder their parents, we shouldn’t feel sorry for the orphaned brothers!

vii) But if we trade the parent/child metaphor for a judge/felon metaphor, like a judge who sentences a trigger-man to death by hanging, that ought to provoke moral satisfaction in the verdict.

viii) Finally, McCall’s illustration is an extended metaphor, but it has a literal counterpart. In the real world there are real tykes who play with matches and accidentally set themselves on fire. Some of them burn to death while others survive, but are horribly maimed for life.

McCall’s Arminian God can see that coming. He knows what will happen unless he steps in to prevent it. McCall’s God has complete control over that situation. He can rescue every child who’s on the verge of self-immolation.

Indeed, he ultimately put them in that situation. He created a world in which he foresaw that outcome. By but going right ahead, he guaranteed the outcome. It’s inevitable that they will set themselves on fire unless he intervenes–which is clearly within his power to do. Why does he stand by and let the screaming child go up in flames?

Surely it’s not because McCall’s God must defer to their freewill. Aren’t young children in a condition of diminished responsibility? Isn’t that a presupposition of McCall’s hypothetical scenario? The children don’t know any better. Ther lack the cognitive development to appreciate the danger. Hence, it’s the duty of the father to protect his kids from playing with matches around gasoline. Hence, the father is culpable for exposing them to harm.

Well, shouldn’t McCall’s God be at least a conscientious a father as a human father ought to be under those circumstances? Shouldn’t McCall’s God look out for the welfare of little kids who are about to unwittingly commit self-immolation? So why isn’t McCall’s God a monster?

Living in the civil kingdom

Pastor Lane has responded to my questions. I appreciate his taking the time to do so.

http://greenbaggins.wordpress.com/2012/03/16/response-to-steve-hays/

My motivation in asking him these questions is not so much to grade his answers based on whether I think he gave the right answers, but whether his answers are consistent with 2k. Whether his answers are justifiable by 2k principles. For the most part that’s how I’m going to evaluate his answers.

Put another way, the question is whether Pastor Lane has a stable position. How does his position compare and contrast to Frame’s position?

When introducing his review of Frame’s book, Pastor Lane said: “My political views are what I might call ‘mild’ two kingdoms. I would acknowledge the distinctions that the two kingdoms make without taking them as far as some WSC folks take them.”

Just to set the stage, there are at least three different positions on social ethics and church/state relations. Actually, there are more than three, but I’m going to focus on three as a handy way to frame the basic alternatives:

1. Amish paradigm

On this paradigm, there is no common morality between believers and unbelievers. Rather, the Amish have a code of conduct for insiders. The Amish try, as best they can, to live and work in self-contained communities, minimizing contact with the outside world.

When Amish are forced to leave the community and interact with outsiders, the Amish will treat outsiders according to the Amish code of conduct, but there’s no effort to impose their code of conduct on outsiders, no attempt at obligating outsiders to observe the Amish code of conduct. This is a two-kingdoms paradigm taken to its logical extreme. For instance:

A separation shall be made from the evil and from the wickedness which the devil planted in the world; in this manner, simply that we shall not have fellowship with them (the wicked) and not run with them in the multitude of their abominations. This is the way it is: Since all who do not walk in the obedience of faith, and have not united themselves with God so that they wish to do His will, are a great abomination before God, it is not possible for anything to grow or issue from them except abominable things. For truly all creatures are in but two classes, good and bad, believing and unbelieving, darkness and light, the world and those who (have come) out of the world, God's temple and idols, Christ and Belial; and none can have part with the other.

To us then the command of the Lord is clear when He calls upon us to be separate from the evil and thus He will be our God and we shall be His sons and daughters.

He further admonishes us to withdraw from Babylon and earthly Egypt that we may not be partakers of the pain and suffering which the Lord will bring upon them.

From this we should learn that everything which is not united with our God and Christ cannot be other than an abomination which we should shun and flee from.

Finally it will be observed that it is not appropriate for a Christian to serve as a magistrate because of these points: The government magistracy is according to the flesh, but the Christian's is according to the Spirit; their houses and dwelling remain in this world, but the Christian's are in heaven; their citizenship is in this world, but the Christian's citizenship is in heaven; the weapons of their conflict and war are carnal and against the flesh only, but the Christian's weapons are spiritual, against the fortification of the devil. The worldlings are armed with steel and iron, but the Christians are armed with the armor of God, with truth, righteousness, peace, faith, salvation and the Word of God.

http://www.anabaptists.org/history/the-schleitheim-confession.html

Of course, the Amish community can only survive at the indulgence of the “world.”

2. Two-Kingdoms paradigm

On this view, there’s a dual code of conduct. On the one hand, Christians have their own code of conduct, which includes what is unique to Biblical ethics. This doesn’t apply to believers and unbelievers alike, but only to (or within) the community of faith. That’s the “spiritual kingdom.”

On the other hand, there is also a common morality, based on natural law. Biblical ethics obligates unbelievers only insofar as Biblical ethics overlaps with natural law.

Christians cohabit both kingdoms. When interacting with unbelievers in the “civil kingdom,” they switch to natural law ethics.

3. Common truth paradigm

Each of these positions is subject to further qualifications. But that supplies a rough frame of reference. With that in mind, let’s consider Pastor Lane’s answers:

“The solution, if there is one, is not silence”

This video is heartbreaking, in more ways than one. It aired on “60 Minutes” earlier this month. The Archbishop of Dublin, Ireland, shown in the video, new in his position, just recently released more than 65,000 documents related to various scandals, which previously the diocese of Dublin had refused to release.

The archbishop says, “There’s a real danger today of people today saying ‘the child abuse scandal is over, let’s bury it, let’s move on.’ It isn’t over, the protection of children is something that will go on for the rest of our lives and into the future, because the problems are there.”

In the story, it is noted, “Some younger priests believe the only way forward is repentance”. If Rome does issue an apology, and I don’t think it will, it will be of the nature, “we apologize for the sins of the children of ‘The Church’”. And the implication will be that “The Church” [and the hierarchical, successional “Church”, as currently defined by Rome], is ‘perfect and pure’ and able to be the protector of pure doctrine.”

The truth is, Rome corrupted Christian doctrine long ago, and the scandal that we see – priests who abuse children, and a secretive hierarchy that covers it up, is merely a symptom of it. It is more the case that “Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like a mortal human being and birds and animals and reptiles. Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another” [and for abusing children]. “They exchanged the truth about God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator—who is forever praised.”

For those who say, “Catholicism has given more to humanity than any other organization. Her charity is unrivaled”, I would still turn that around and say, “if individuals who are Roman Catholic exhibit charity, it is not because of their Roman Catholicism. It is in spite of it. In spite of their adherence to Roman dogma, God mercifully granted that they are saved through faith in Christ, and He has prepared in advance the good works that they do, in order that his own Name might be praised [and not that of the Roman Catholic Church, which nevertheless instinctively wants to take credit for them].

[Please note: I apologize for the commercials that may be embedded in the video. I have seen some in there that I wouldn't agree with.]

“A bad tree cannot bear good fruit”.

Philip said, “The Church has endured many trials. She always emerges stronger. And she always outlives her persecutors and opponents”.

Is it because God somehow is protecting this institution? Or is it more likely that, after centuries of hiding things, they have become masters of the art of obfuscation, itself a form of evil?

In September 2003, a grand jury of local citizens released a report detailing a sad history of sexual abuse by priests of the Archdiocese of Philadelphia. That abuse was known, tolerated, and hidden by high church officials, up to and including the Cardinal himself. The previous grand jury was frustrated that it could not charge either the abusers or their protectors in the church, because the successful cover-up of the abuse resulted in the expiration of the statute of limitations.

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