Runaway slaves

15 “You shall not give up to his master a slave who has escaped from his master to you. 16 He shall dwell with you, in your midst, in the place that he shall choose within one of your towns, wherever it suits him. You shall not wrong him (Deut 23:15-16).

i) This is an interesting passage in debates over Biblical "slavery." Some commentators think it's confined to foreign runaway slaves. Ancient Israel had no extradition treaty with neighboring states to return runaway slaves. 

ii) That's one possible interpretation. However, the text itself doesn't specify that qualification. So if the restriction exists, it must be implicit. The commentaries I've read which restrict it to foreign runaway slaves don't explain why they think it's about foreign runaway slaves rather than runaway slaves in general. 

Perhaps, though, this is their assumption: If it was about runaway slaves generally, then that would undermine other OT laws regulating "slavery." It would render them unenforceable. In that respect, it would conflict with other OT laws regulating "slavery." Therefore, it must be about foreign runaway slaves. 

iii) Apropos (ii), the OT attitude towards slavery is, at best, grudgingly ambivalent. It is permitted under some circumstances, but that's viewed in the jaundiced light of Joseph's enslavement as well as the enslavement of Israel in Egypt. In addition, you have the reenslavement of Israel, as a punitive measure, in the Assyrian deportation and the Babylonian Exile. So slavery always has those invidious connotations. 

iv) It may well be that the Mosaic law has no concern with protecting slavery. Given slavery, it will regulate slavery to mitigate the evils of slavery. But it has no problem with simultaneously subverting the practice. Making slavery impractical. 

The Mosaic law never commands slavery. At best, it's merely tolerated. 

v) One possible objection to that interpretation is that not all forms of "slavery" are evil. Indentured service isn't evil. So we wouldn't expect the Mosaic law to sabotage "slavery" across the board, including morally unobjectionable forms like indentured service. 

vi) Apropos (v), if Deut 23:15-16 allowed an indentured servant to simply walk off the job, with no fear of recrimination, does that harm a morally acceptable practice? On the one hand, the master loses the benefit of his debt servant. However, he already benefited from that arrangement. And if the debt servant leaves before his contact expires, the employer no longer has to provide for his upkeep. No longer has to provide free room and board. So it's not as if a runaway slave is defrauding him. The debt-slave gets something in exchange for his labor. If his labor terminates, for whatever reason, he loses the compensation. It seems to be a wash for both sides of the transaction. 

So the more radical interpretation may well be correct. This may apply to runaway slaves in general. 

Atheism is a fairytale for people afraid of the light

"Statements by scientists are not always statements of science," said Prof Lennox. "Stephen Hawking said, "religion is a fairy story for people afraid of the dark". I said, "atheism is a fairy story for people afraid of the light". 

"Neither of those statements proves anything at all. They're all reversible. What lies behind all these delusion claims is the Freudian idea of wish fulfilment [that we believe what we hope to be true.] This works brilliantly providing there is no god. But if there is a god, then atheism is wish fulfilment." 

http://www.christiantoday.com/article/ten.quick.responses.to.atheist.claims/41439.htm

How to ruin an otherwise good apologetic

(Or, “on the need to get things straight”, along with a true account of the history of the Doctrine of the Immaculate Reception of Mary).

Jesus said, “I tell you, on the day of judgment people will give account for every careless word they speak….”

Here’s one way that works:

This recent article by Eric Davis at The Cripplegate site illustrates what I mean. Of course, it’s a long, thorough article that makes dozens and dozens of good points. But it gets a fact wrong:

She is sinless, having bypassed receiving a sin nature. Therefore, she was not in need of Christ’s saving work,...

While much of the article is spot-on correct, a Roman Catholic will point out that this particular statement is incorrect, and then all other Roman Catholics will have an excuse to disbelieve everything else in the article. So no matter how great the article is, the “see-no-evil-hear-no-evil” Roman Catholic converts have a reason (they think – but really it’s an excuse) to ignore the rest of it.

I know, the article wasn’t even about that! It’s a terrible way to think about things, but that’s the way that Roman Catholic converts think.

Because in fact, Roman dogma does allow that she WAS in need of Christ's saving work (just differently from all the rest of us).

Here is what should have been said by the Cripplegate author:

But what about the claim that Mary of Nazareth was conceived without sin? This too is an extraordinary claim and so it too requires extraordinary proof. But when we examine Scripture, we see no evidence that anyone thought Mary was conceived without sin, nor any evidence that she was exempted from Adam’s curse. While there are traditions about her sanctity from the womb and throughout her life, the church is mostly silent on the issue of her conception until the middle ages, and even then most theologians either didn’t see how it was possible for Mary to be conceived without sin or they outright denied it. The list of those opposed to the doctrine reads like a Who’s Who of the medieval church: Bernard of Clairvaux, Thomas Aquinas, Bonaventure, and Anselm of Canterbury, just to name a few.

But then in the early 1300s, two English Franciscans (William of Ware and Duns Scotus) came up with a way to overcome the objections that the doctrine was a “superstition” (so Bernard) or that it could not be reconciled with the uniqueness of Christ’s redemption (so Aquinas). William used the argument from conveniens (Latin for “convenience”), which used the formula, potuit, decuit, fecit: God could do it, it is fitting that He would do it, therefore He did do it. Since Mary’s Immaculate Conception was both possible for God and fitting (on the grounds of the medieval supposition that never too much can be said of Mary), then it follows that God must have preserved Mary from contracting original sin, and so her conception was “immaculate” (stainless).

Scotus, for his part, theorized how God was able to preserve Mary from Original Sin without denying her need for redemption. The eternal God, who sees all things as present, must have applied the merits of the redemption to Mary before the redemption actually took place. Thus Mary’s redemption was by exemption. Instead of grace taking away the power of original sin after contracting it, she was graced by not contracting it in the first place.

By all means, continue talking about Roman Catholicism. But by all means, be careful with how you present it.

HT for the OP: Bnonn Tennant

Defending penal substitution

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/euangelion/2014/11/simon-gathercoles-new-book-on-penal-substitution/

Theology on the fly

http://www.uncommondescent.com/darwinism/philosopher-laszlo-bencze-on-the-popes-recent-statement-on-evolution/

William Ames and the Christian life

http://paulhelmsdeep.blogspot.com/2014/11/william-ames-and-christian-life.html

Unexplained allusions: The sons of thunder

http://www.whatswrongwiththeworld.net/2014/11/unexplained_allusions_the_sons.html

Shell Beach

Catholic apologists argue for a church that only exists on paper. A shell corporation with P.O. Box. Like renting a mailbox. If you go to the address, you will find the One True Church® at a UPS store in North Dakota. 

The church Catholic apologists argue for is two steps removed from reality. They resort to Counter-Reformation era prooftexts from Scripture and the church fathers. Now, those prooftexts never did demonstrate what they were quoted to prove. But in the past, that was one step removed from reality. For in the past, the Catholic establishment at least believed in the presuppositions underlying the prooftexts. They believed in the historicity of the Bible. They believed in the traditional authority of the canonical books. They believed the traditional church historical narrative. 

However, the church which Catholic apologists argue for is now two steps removed from reality, inasmuch as the Catholic establishment no longer even believes the underlying presuppositions of the traditional prooftexts. The modernists won that fight. 

So the church which Catholic apologists argue for is like Shell Beach, in Dark City. A tattered, yellowing poster on a brick wall. That's it. There is no corresponding place.  

Parsing "baptism"

My main objective in this post is to make a linguistic point about "baptism" in the NT. But for completeness' sake, I will review some related issues before getting to the main point. 

i) Sacramentarians believe in baptismal regeneration and/or baptismal justification. This includes Roman Catholics, Anglo-Catholics, Eastern Orthodox, Lutherans, and Campbellites (e.g. Everett Ferguson, Jack Cottrell). In the case of Roman Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy, this depends the authority of the church to dictate the interpretation of Scripture. In the case of Protestants, this involves methodological errors. 

ii) Sacramentarians don't understand the basic nature of symbolism. A symbol stands for what it symbolizes. Therefore, you can impute to the symbol what is literally true of what it signifies. Take the OT sacrificial system. Animal sacrifice emblemized the principle of vicarious atonement and penal substitution. From that, some Jews probably inferred that sacrificial animals could actually atone for sin. But, of course, that's not true. That confuses the symbol with what it stands for. 

Even if the NT attributes saving benefits to the sacraments, this doesn't means the sacraments are in fact the source of saving benefits. For the NT would characterize the sacraments is precisely the same way even if that's merely what they represent. For that's the nature of symbolic representation. 

iii) The Bible often uses food and water as theological metaphors. The fact, therefore, that some NT passages use such imagery doesn't presume that this is referring to the sacraments. 

iv) Although the NT sometimes attributes saving benefits to the sacraments, it often promises the same saving benefits apart from the sacraments. For instance, it indexes such benefits to faith in Christ. That confirms the point that the ascription of saving benefits to the sacraments is symbolic. They illustrate divine grace. 

v) Now to the main point. Because the meaning of "baptism" (as well as the theology of baptism) is controversial, English translators of Scripture traditionally avoid prejudging the question by simply transliterating the Greek nouns and verbs rather than rendering them into English synonyms. 

However, because the word "baptism" is used in almost every Christian denomination as a technical term for water baptism, for the rite of initiation or church membership, that conditions us to associate the word "baptism" with the Christian sacrament whenever we read the word "baptism" in the NT. That constant linguistic association in church practice becomes the subconscious default meaning when we read the NT. 

As a result, sacramentarians find more occurrences of water baptism in the NT than may actually be there. So when we read the NT, we should make a conscious effort to bracket that linguistic conditioning. "Baptism" doesn't have a presumptive meaning in NT usage. Rather, that's to be determined on a case-by-case basis. 

vi) There are explicit references to water baptism in the Gospels and Acts. In the Gospels, some of these refer to John's baptism–which is the precursor to Christian baptism. But even in the Gospels, "baptism" doesn't always denote water baptism. In Mk 10:38-39 and Lk 12:50, it's a metaphor for persecution or judgment. It trades on the imagery of drowning.

Likewise, the Gospels refer to "baptism" by fire. That, too, is figurative.  

vii) Although Acts contains several references to water baptism, the first reference is to Spirit-baptism (Acts 1:5). That's both backward-looking and forward-looking. It looks back to the contrast between John's baptism, by water, and the fiery "baptism" which Christ confers, which is a metaphor for imparting the Holy Spirit. And it looks forward to Pentecost, when the Spirit descends.

Interestingly, Joel's description uses an aqueous metaphor: the "outpouring" of the Spirit. One question is the precise nuance of this image. Does it trade on water as a cleansing agent? Washing away one's guilt? A metaphor for the remission of sins? Or does it trade on water as rain? A downpour which revives parched land after a drought? A metaphor for new life? Given the agricultural prelude in Joel, it probably signifies spiritual renewal or spiritual empowerment.   

viii) Mt 28:19 is a locus classics of baptism. However, that doesn't specify water baptism. So that's not something we can just assume. It's something we ought to exegete.

Could it refer to Spirit-baptism? One objection to that interpretation is that it makes reception of the Spirit contingent on apostles transmitting the Spirit, as if it's a power which they discharge. So I think water baptism makes more sense. 

ix) More ambiguous are some Pauline references (e.g. Rom 6:3-4; 1 Cor 12:13; Gal 4:25-26; Eph 4:5). Do these denote water baptism, Spirit-baptism, or something else?

Baptists tend to construe Rom 6:3-4 (and Col 2:12) as a reference to the Christian sacrament because they think that interpretation bolsters immersion as the proper mode of baptism. However,  I think the up-and-down imagery trades on the comparison with burial and resurrection (i.e. to be lowered into the ground, to rise from the grave) rather than baptism. I think it's a mistake to use Rom 6:3-4 as a prooftext for the mode of baptism. Of course, it could still refer to water baptism, but that apologetic agenda shouldn't drive the interpretation.  

I happen to think immersion is the normative mode of baptism. But I think narrative passages furnish better evidence for the mode.    

x) Attempts to defend one interpretation or another (i.e. water baptism, Spirit-baptism) are often circular inasmuch as commentators will construe one Pauline passage in relation to other Pauline passages. But that assumes the other passages refer to the same thing, which is the very issue in dispute! 

If it refers refers to Spirit-baptism, we might render the verb or noun by "saturated" in the Spirit (or something along those lines). 

xi) Let's take some specific examples:

Commenting on Eph 4:5, Hoehner thinks it refers, not to water baptism, but functions as  a baptismal metaphor for union with Christ in his death and resurrection. And he cites Rom 6:1-11, 1 Cor 10:2; Gal 3:27, and Col 2:12 to corroborate that interpretation. Ephesians, 518. 

Commenting on Gal 3:26-29, Thielman says:

The reference to putting on Christ is metaphorical, and so the reference to baptism is best understood as metaphorical also. Ephesians, 258-59. 

Commenting on 1 Cor 12:13, Fee argues for Spirit-baptism rather than water baptism, in part because there's no reference to water, as well as Semitic parallelism. To "drink" the Spirit is clearly figurative. 

He also refers to agricultural metaphors (Isa 32:15; 44:3). God's Empowering Presence, 179-80.

xii) My purpose is not to settle on the correct interpretation of these passages. The point, rather, is that "baptism" in NT usage isn't necessarily a technical term for the Christian sacrament. It's a mistake to read the NT through that filter. That preconditions the reader to perceive something that may not be there. 

We should treat "baptism" as a neutral word, a placeholder, the meaning of which must be determined in context. And in some cases, there may be insufficient textual clues to nail down the identification. 

“Dismantle the Papacy”? “Pope Francis” may be an ally in this effort

I would see this as a positive, though incomplete, “development”.

With the current pope, the “school of Bologna” is convinced that it has a clear road ahead:

The leaders of the “school of Bologna” have a very ambitious new project in the works: a history of the movement for Christian unity aimed at a thorough reform of the Catholic Church, starting with the dismantling of the papacy in its current form. They believe they have an ally in Pope Francis….

ROME, November 3, 2014 – At the end of October, Pope Francis received a delegation of Old Catholic bishops of the Union of Utrecht.

Numerically this is a very small group, but it is the bearer of a model of Church that pleases not a few progressive Catholics. It recognizes a primacy of honor for the pope, but it does not accept that he is infallible or has jurisdiction over the bishops. It has its bishops elected by a synod composed of clergy and laity. At Mass it gives Eucharistic communion to all, as long as they are baptized in one of the various Christian confessions. It administers collective absolution of sins. It allows second marriages for the divorced.

It also advocates a return to the early faith and recognizes as fully ecumenical only the first seven councils, those of the first millennium, when the Churches of West and East were still undivided….

They couldn’t dismantle it enough for my liking.

First, note that these are “Old Catholics” – those who refused to accept “papal infallibility” at Vatican I. I don’t think there should be a “primacy of honor” – not one that was acquired so dishonestly.

Second, my hopes for this type of dismantling, and the hopes of “not a few progressive Catholics”, would be quite different. They would see it as “license”, whereas I would hope to see it as an admission on the part of Rome that it had overstated its own importance and had thus harmed Christianity for centuries.

Third, I would want to see an actual repentance from the papacy of itself.

And of course, as I’ve written, it is a myth that “the Church” was “undivided” in the first 1000 years.

One of the most significant, Protestant-like “divisions” in the early church may be found in the simple designations of "The School of Antioch" or "The School of Alexandria," both of which held differing views of Scripture, and later, of the person of Christ. This manifested itself in “The Great Schism,” a schism of church governments of “The Church of the East,” the separation of the Church of Alexandria, etc.

Samuel Hugh Moffett, in his work, "A History of Christianity in Asia," describes this "Great Schism" this way:

What finally divided the early church, East from West, Asia from Europe, was neither war nor persecution, but the blight of a violent theological controversy, that raged through the Mediterranean world in the second quarter of the fifth century. It came to be called the Nestorian controversy, and how much of it was theological and how much political is still being debated, but it irreversibly split the church not only east and west but also north and south and cracked it into so many pieces that it was never the same again. (pg. 169)

This is an ugly memory for the “Greco-Roman” church -- it is a far larger and messier divide than the 1054 schism between the Roman and Orthodox churches. It makes a lie of the “unified church” claims of today's Roman Catholic apologists. It is the clearest example that there never was a governmentally-unified church -- especially not “under the papacy” -- ever in the history of the church.

See also A History of the Interpretation of Matt 16:18.

Tuesday is Election Day. Here are some House Races to Watch

Over the last 20 years, I’ve observed that the economy seems to be best when there’s a Democrat president and a Republican congress. It happened with Clinton in the late 1990’s – he could demagogue, but “he couldn’t get anything done”. And the late 1990’s saw the only federal budget surplus since about the 1950’s. These next two years promise to deliver good economic times. The same dynamic is in effect. Plus lower-cost energy is rippling through economy like the Kennedy and Reagan-era tax cuts.

With that said, it seems as if Republicans are poised to make gains in both the House and Senate.

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2014/11/03/house_races_to_watch_on_tuesday_124537.html

During last year’s contentious government shutdown, Democratic Party-aligned Public Policy Polling released a batch of surveys suggesting Democrats could win control the House in 2014, thanks to GOP-directed backlash over the 16-day debacle. They needed a net gain of 17 seats to establish a majority, and “such a pickup would be well within reach,” according to the PPP’s Jim Williams.

Several analysts were bearish on that scenario early on, however, and Princeton professor Sam Wang cautioned that a lot could happen over the next year to change the state of play.

Indeed, the landscape has changed. Rather than bracing for losses, Republicans are set to pick up House seats tomorrow. The Rothenberg Political report, updated on Oct. 29, projects a Republican gain of between five and 12 seats. The next day, Larry Sabato’s “Crystal Ball” estimated Republicans will pick up nine seats. Earlier this month, the Cook Political report suggested four to 10 seats.

Should the GOP win 13 seats -- a plausible, though unlikely, scenario -- Republicans would have their biggest majority in the lower chamber since 1932. Picking up nine seats would give them their biggest majority since 1946.

RCP’s Battle for the House map shows Republicans projected to win 228 seats to Democrats’ 181 seats, with 26 races too close to call. Even if Democrats won every tossup race, they still couldn’t take the gavel from Speaker John Boehner’s hand.

There are several explanations for the stability of Republican dominance in the House, which election analyst Nate Cohn called “the biggest paradox in American electoral politics.” ...

Read more...

A word on Oliver Crisp's "Deviant Calvinism"

http://theologui.blogspot.com/2014/11/a-word-on-oliver-crisps-deviant.html?m=1

Post-Reformation Digital Library

A useful resource.

Can microevolutionary changes add up to macroevolutionary change?

EN&V responds.

"Polling Data Consistently Shows Women are Pro-Life on Abortion"

"Ironically, it turns out that women are much more supportive of the fictitious 'war on women' than men."

Read the rest here.

Deliver us from evil

http://godawa.com/movieblog/deliver-us-evil-movie-muscular-spirituality-vs-foolish-materialism/

BW3 on miracles

Although I disagree with some of BW3's statements, this is a somewhat useful summary:

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/bibleandculture/2014/10/30/blombergs-can-we-still-believe-the-bible-part-eight/

To Coyne a phrase

http://www.mandm.org.nz/2014/10/jerry-coyne-on-deception-and-the-omission-of-facts.html#more-11645

Quest for the chimerical moderate Muslim

http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/dgreenfield/80-of-london-muslims-support-isis/print/

Returning to an empty lot

Every year, predictably, there are Roman Catholics and ecumenists who lament or complain about Reformation Day. The Reformation was, at best a "tragic necessity," and we should work overtime on interfaith dialogue to achieve reconciliation. 

One obvious problem with that scenario is that it isn't even possible to return to Rome, even if you wanted to. The Church of Rome which the Protestant Reformers left behind no longer exists. That's long gone. It's like going back home to an empty lot. Just weeds. The house was bulldozed years ago. 

You can still convert to Rome, but you can't revert to Rome. Not unless you're a post-Vatican II cradle Catholic. There's no Rome to go back to. Rome keeps changing. Same address, different establishment. Under new management. New menu. 

It's like telling fourth-generation Chinese-Americans to "go back to where you came from." At best, that's something their great-grandparents could do. It's way too late for that now. 

REFORMATION DAY AND ITS CRITICS

http://calvinistinternational.com/2013/11/11/reformation-day-critics/

Are miracles extraordinary?

One often  encounters the claim that "by definition," miracles are "extraordinary." Both atheists and some theologians/Christian apologists take that position. Atheists say miracles are extraordinary by definition to create an insuperable presumption against their occurrence–or belief in their occurrence. Some Christians apologists say miracles are extraordinary by definition because their evidentiary value supposedly lies in their extraordinary nature. One problem is how to define "extraordinary" in this context. 

1. Quantitatively extraordinary

i) One possibility is to define miracles as quantitatively extraordinary events. Very rare, exceptional events. That, however, seems to be inadequate. Surely there are very rare naturally occurring events which atheists and Christian apologists don't classify as miraculous. A freak mutation might be a unique, one-off event. But that, by itself, wouldn't make it miraculous. 

ii) In addition, the quantitative definition is vague. What's the frame of reference? For instance, in the OT, some men (e.g. Moses, Elijah, Elisha) reportedly perform miracles. They are exceptional in the sense that most Jews did not (even reportedly) perform miracles. Miracles are statically rare in the sense that only a tiny minority of the (OT Jewish) population performs them. 

Yet, if you're one of the rare individuals who performs miracles, you may frequently perform miracles. It is not out-of-the-ordinary for you to perform miracles. So it's not extraordinary in reference to the miracle-worker. Yet atheists and Christian apologists alike would say the feats attributed to these singular individuals are still miraculous–if true. 

iii) Take Acts 2:17-18. The scope of that promise is disputed. However, my argument doesn't turn on the correct interpretation. For the sake of argument, let's stipulate that according to this promise, most Christians will experience revelatory dreams and visions. Let's treat that as a hypothetical case. By a revelatory dream, I mean, for instance, premonitions that come true. These are too specific, and come true too often, to be coincidental. An atheist would typically say that's incompatible with naturalism. If that really happens, then it must be supernatural. Miraculous.

But is it extraordinary? If this happened to most Christians, then it would be the norm. It would be an ordinary part of Christian experience. It wouldn't be extraordinary in the quantitative sense. Yet, presumably, a typical atheist would classify revelatory dreams and visions as miraculous–as would a Christian apologist.   

iv) According to Biblical eschatology, there will be a general resurrection on the day of judgment. Everyone who died will be raised from the dead. Their souls will be reunited with their bodies. The only exception will be the humans who are still alive at the time of the Parousia. 

That ranges along a continuum. At one end of the continuum you might have the corpse of somebody who died an hour before. His corpse lies in the morgue. It's undergone some necrosis. It can't be naturally resuscitated. A resurrection requires God to repair the corpse. But the body is still intact. Further along the continuum are skeletal remains. At the other hand of the spectrum you have decedents whose bodies have disintegrated. A resurrection requires God to recreate the body from scratch. Recreate that unique arrangement of particles. 

Quantitatively speaking, the general resurrection is not extraordinary. It will happen to every man, women, and while who died. The cumulative mortality of the whole human race. Most people who ever lived will experience the general resurrection. So that isn't a rare event. Or even unusual. The majority of the human race will experience the general resurrection.

Of course, an atheist doesn't believe that will happen. But that's not my point. I'm discussing this from hypothetic standpoint to probe the definition of a miracle. If that were to happen, would it not be miraculous because it is so commonplace?

2. Qualitatively extraordinary

Assuming that the quantitative definition is a failure, what about a qualitative definition? What makes a miracle miraculous? 

i) One might try to define a miracle as extraordinary in the sense that it's naturally or scientifically inexplicable. Of course, that only pushes the question back a step. What makes an event naturally or scientifically inexplicable? Perhaps we might try to unpack that definition by invoking the principle of causal closure. We might define causal closure to mean "every physical change has a purely physical cause." Put another way, "everything that happens in the physical universe is caused by something else in the physical universe." 

On that definition, an event is miraculous or extraordinary if it violates causal closure (thus defined). 

Certainly, this definition may better capture the intuitive definition of miracles that many atheists work with. However, a glaring problem with this definition is that it begs the question by assuming that physicalism is true. Or that physicalism is the default assumption. 

To say that miracles face an insuperable presumption against their occurrence (or belief in their occurrence) because they violate causal closure is viciously circular. For if miracles do, in fact, occur, then causal closure is either false or not a universal principle. At a minimum, an objector to miracles must first establish causal closure. 

ii) In addition, some kinds of miracles don't seem to violate causal closure. Take coincidence miracles. For instance:

R.F. Holland (1965) has suggested that a religiously significant coincidence may qualify as a miracle. Suppose a child who is riding a toy motor-car gets stuck on the track at a train crossing. A train is approaching from around a curve, and the engineer who is driving it will not be able to see the child until it is too late to stop. By coincidence, the engineer faints at just the right moment, releasing his hand on the control lever, which causes the train to stop automatically. The child, against all expectations, is saved, and his mother thanks God for his providence; she continues to insist that a miracle has occurred even after hearing the explanation of how the train came to stop when it did. Interestingly, when the mother attributes the stopping of the train to God she is not identifying God as its cause; the cause of the train's stopping is the engineer's fainting. Nor is she, in any obvious way, offering an explanation for the event—at least none that is intended to compete with the naturalistic explanation made possible by reference to the engineer's medical condition. What makes this event a miracle, if it is, is its significance, which is given at least in part by its being an apparent response to a human need Like a violation miracle, such a coincidence occurs contrary to our expectations, yet it does this without standing in opposition to our understanding of natural law.  

http://www.iep.utm.edu/miracles/#H9

Admittedly, this is a hypothetical case. But for now I'm just testing the definition of a miracle. Moreover, there are real examples of reported coincidence miracles. 

In the aforesaid example, nowhere is the chain of physical cause and effect interrupted. At that level, it's all explicable by reference to physical factors. What makes it naturally inexplicable is not the means, but the opportune timing. 

Likewise, take some examples of retroactive prayer:

http://www.proginosko.com/2014/10/open-theism-and-past-directed-prayers/

http://www.proginosko.com/docs/Open_Theism_and_Past-Directed_Prayers.pdf (§5)

Once again, this doesn't violate causal closure. An atheist may object that it breaks causal closure in the ulterior sense that God prearranged that outcome, and God is not a physical agent. 

True, and, of course, many miracles presuppose the existence of God. However, in these cases the miraculous outcome is effected through physical means. Although the outcome reflects divine premeditation, the plan is implemented through ordinary providential factors or second-causes. God not only planned the event, but planned the event to eventuate through intramundane causation.  

So coincidence miracles and retroactive prayers aren't qualitatively extraordinary, in terms of how they come about. They are mediated by the causal continuum, rather than operating outside the causal continuum.

BTW, I'm not suggesting there's anything sacrosanct about causal closure. I'm framing the issue in those terms for the sake of argument. Certainly there are kinds of miracles which involve direct mental agency rather than physical agency. Types of miracles which are discontinuous with a physical chain of cause and effect. I have no problem with that.

I'm simply discussing, whether, as a matter of principle, miracles are "extraordinary." What does that mean? If it's meaningful, does it cover all miracles, or only some? And how does that affect the burden of proof?   

Grafted in

http://campaign.r20.constantcontact.com/render?ca=2026c32b-68b6-4e17-a887-ca18a0420b68&c=c40802f0-2987-11e3-b570-d4ae529a848a&ch=c443fa80-2987-11e3-b5a5-d4ae529a848a

Editorial discrepancies

Jason Engwer recently referred to this article–which includes the following statement:

Accordingly, the postulation of a pre-existing, forty-member genealogy structured around Abraham, David, Josiah, and Joseph does more than merely solve a math problem. 

http://hypotyposeis.org/weblog/2014/10/cbq-article-on-matt-117-published.html

I haven't read Carlson's article. But I'd like to make a general observation. As is widely documented, the Bible contains some apparent discrepancies. Discrepancies about names and numbers, times and places. That's not a novel observation on my part. And there are various proposals to harmonize these apparently discrepancies. 

Now I'd like to make a neglected point: some Bible writers undoubtedly use written sources. And in so doing, they make selective use of their sources. Once again, that's not a novel observation on my part. Historians typically use written sources. And when a historian quotes from a source, he doesn't normally quote the whole text. He only quotes what's relevant.

This, however, invites what I'll call editorial discrepancies. Editorial discrepancies aren't the same as factual discrepancies.

Say a written source mentions a certain number of people. Say it totals their number. 

When a historian excerpts that source, he may only quote what it says about the people of interest to him. Yet when he copies the original source, he may include the total. 

That creates a discrepancy, because he mentions fewer people than the total. The discrepancy is generated by the fact that he's omitted some information. The total is correct, but if you add it up yourself, based on what he shows you, it doesn't add up. Yet that's not a mistake. He didn't make a mistake. Rather, the discrepancy is due to missing information. If he copied the total, but he didn't copy every name, then the total number doesn't match what's on display. Yet what he wrote is factually accurate. It's just that the reader lacks access to the original source, which contains the missing information. If you could compare the original source with the redacted document, it would fall right into place. 

Take another example. When we write about someone, we may give their full name at the outset. Their first and last name. Having, however, initially identified them, we don't continue to give their full name. Thereafter, we refer to them either by their first or last name. 

If, however, you were to copy part of what a biographer or historian wrote about someone, that might be confusing, because the part you copy may only use the first or last name. That can be even more confusing if there are two people with the same first or last name. To the reader, it may seem like you confused two different people. But that's simply an editorial discrepancy, not a factual discrepancy. 

For instance, in Bible times, people could be referred to by first or last name. Sometimes both. And I think the surname was generally more important in Bible times. Who was your father? What was your clan? 

It also wouldn't surprise me if, in Bible times, more people went by the same name. In the US, because we're so multiethnic, there's probably a greater variety of names than in a more linguistically homogenous culture. 

If a Bible writer selectively quotes from a written sources, it's easy to see how the source might mention two people who share the same name. The original source might initially distinguish them by giving their full names, but that's something it only does once. The first time they are introduced. After than, they are distinguished by context. 

If, however, a Bible writer is only quoting the relevant part of his source, then the excerpt may not include their full names. But that could be confusing to the reader.

Let's take a concrete example. There's a famous Muslim philosopher who's commonly referred to simply as Al-Ghazâlî. However, his full name is Abû Hâmid Muhammad ibn Muhammad al-Ghazâlî. Quite a mouthful! 

A writer won't give the full name every time he mentions to him. At most, he will only give the full name when he introduces him to the reader. Thereafter, he will use the simplified designation. 

In fact, editorial discrepancies are commonplace in the computer age, where we often copy/paste from electronic texts. I suspect the Bible contains quite a few editorial discrepancies. These are not errors. They are simply an artifact of incorporating written source material into a historical account. 

Since, however, the reader doesn't have access to the original source, it may not be possible to harmonize an editorial discrepancy. We can't see what the author saw. We can't see what he left out. All we have is the end-product of his editorial process. So we're often in no position to reconstruct the original. Yet that doesn't mean he made a mistake. To the contrary, editorial discrepancies are to be expected. And that's entirely consistent with inerrancy. 

‪Every Grunt from Home Improvement‬

Every so often, Jason Engwer does a post on people who fritter away their lives in ephemeral, trivial diversions. Here's something I just ran across. No, I didn't watch it:

Every Grunt from Home Improvementkoonjam215,924
Published on Jun 14, 2013This is every grunt (662), in order, from all 203 episodes of Home Improvement, with the exception of intro grunts and any other repeated grunts.

Think how much time it took to excerpt every grunt from Home Improvement. 

If koonjam was diagnosed with terminal cancer and given 6 months to live, is that how he'd spend his remaining time on earth? I'm afraid some people would.

But some people, who take life for granted, are shaken up by a life-threatening experience. It changes their priorities. 

My point is: why wait for a cancer diagnosis?  

Matthew's Counting In Matthew 1:17

Stephen Carlson just published an article about Matthew 1:17 and how Matthew arrived at his count of three sets of 14 generations.

Arminians and Calvinists on inerrancy

As I've noted on more than one occasion, Arminians–especially in academia–have a center of gravity that's typically to the left of Calvinists. It's interesting to see Ben Witherington admit this, as well as Blomberg's explanation:

6) Inerrancy is an issue that seems to be more of an issue among Reformed Evangelicals than Arminian ones. Why do you think that is? 

The classic exponent of comparatively recent American inerrantism was B. B. Warfield, a Princeton theologian and Presbyterian and Reformed scholar of about a century ago. Mark Noll, a prolific American evangelical church historian, has pointed out that the more Calvinistic wing of Christianity valued higher education and theological education earlier and more widely in the settling of American than the more Wesleyan-Arminian wing. And these debates tend to go on among scholars much more so than among the average Christian, unless those Christians have been provoked by scholars they trust into making it a big issue. That doesn’t mean inerrancy isn’t a very important topic, but it is at least, I think, a partial answer to the question of why it is more of an issue among Reformed than among Arminian evangelicals. 

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/bibleandculture/2014/10/22/blombergs-can-we-still-believe-the-bible-part-one/

Burnt to a Crisp

I'm going to comment on an interview with Oliver Crisp:

http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2014/september-web-only/softer-face-of-calvinism.html

There are many tensions in his interview, but one in particular is the tension between ecumenism and the progress of dogma. The progress of dogma is divisive and sectarian rather than ecumenical. The progress of dogma generates increasing theological divergence rather than convergence over time.

The less people are required to agree about, the more they agree. It's easy to agree with the uninterpreted statements in the Apostles' creed. That conceals a lot of latent disagreement. It's easy to agree with the Nicene Creed, because it only covers a few topics.

The Westminster Confession is more sectarian because it covers far more ground. The more theological questions you presume to answer, the more room for disagreement that creates or exposes. 

The progress of dogma begins with many open questions in theology. Over the centuries, more questions are given official answers. There are ever fewer open questions. People takes sides. That's moving apart. 

The catholic creeds of the first few centuries of the church are a secondary tier of norm that witnesses to Scripture. Then we have confessions that represent particular church bodies, like the 39 Articles of Anglicanism—which are very Reformed, I might add—and the Westminster Confession for Presbyterians. Confessions are a third tier of witness, norms that stand under Scripture and the catholic creeds.

I understand that that ranking system is appealing to an ecumenist. But if we're truth-seekers, why would the earliest creeds, the most theologically underdeveloped creeds, outrank later, more theologically reflective creeds?

Or one might end up cherry-picking some things and not others.

What about a different agricultural metaphor? Winnowing the wheat from the chaff?

No one theologian, however important, can trump the voice of the church expressed in the creeds or confessions. 

Are creeds or confessions "the voice of the church"? Creeds and confessions are formulated by a handful of bishops or theologians. They can be appropriated by "the church." Christians can embrace them. But they don't start out as "the voice of the church." They must earn that right. They must be true. A creed can speak on my behalf if it's true. 

But in that respect, a theologian a trump a creed. It just depends on who is right. 

There's no tradition of universalism in Calvinism. No universalism in Reformed confessions. Heck, no Reformed theologians of any note who espouse universalism. 

Perhaps that's why he tries to classify Barth as a Reformed theologian. To use Barth's implicit universalism as a foothold. But that's circular. That begs the question of whether Barth is Reformed.

And tradition aside, reprobation goes to the deep structure of Reformed theology. It's not just a historical accident–like some inherited doctrines. 

Although universal unconditional election is theoretically possible, reprobation concretely demonstrates the unconditionality of election. God doesn't have to save everyone, and he proves it directly by not in fact saving everyone. 

Moreover, this isn't just a question of different possible ways to combine different ideas. There are factual constraints on Calvinism. Calvinism is guided by its understanding of revealed truth. 

Does he mean universalism is compatible with Calvinism because Calvinism has the internal resources to pull it off? If predestination is true, then God can predestine everyone to be saved? (Which would require other adjustments, like universal atonement.)

If so, how does that fit into his libertarian Calvinism?

Finally, yes, all things being equal, God could save everyone. But what if, all things considered, God has objectives which conflict with universal salvation? 

It's not just a matter of extending the scope of election, while leaving everything else intact. There are tradeoffs.

For that matter, why would God predestine the Fall in the first place if he intended to save everyone? 

Two 19th-century Reformed theologians come to mind. The first is William Cunningham, who was a professor at the University of Edinburgh and one of the founding fathers of the Free Church of Scotland. He wrote an important essay on this topic, arguing that the Westminster Confession neither requires nor denies “philosophical determinism,” as he called it. He believed the Confession is conceptually porous on the matter and doesn’t commit its adherents to determinism, though it doesn’t exclude it either.

He's wrong about that. Cunningham was distinguishing between spiritual inability due to original sin, and Edwardian necessitarianism. Edwards isn't just a divine determinist. Arguably, he's a divine necessitarian. 

It isn't just a question of whether humans could do otherwise, but whether God could do otherwise. I think this is related to his appeal to the principle of sufficient reason which he deployed against Arminians. God must have a sufficient reason for what he does. And that means God can't do otherwise. Alternate possibilities aren't live possibilities–even for God.

You have that tension in Leibniz, as well as Aquinas. Cunningham is noncommittal on metaphysical necessity. That's a very strong version of determinism. 

One question is what is he opposing? William Hamilton is one of his foils, whom he quotes:

That man has no will, agency, moral personality of his own, God being the only real agent in every apparent act of His creatures…that the theological scheme of the absolute decrees implies fatalism, pantheism, the negation of a moral governor, as of a moral world (471).

Clearly, to reject that is not to endorse either libertarian freewill or merely partial predestination (pace Crisp).

Cunningham then defines his terms:

The advocates of this doctrine [philosophical necessity] maintain that there is an invariable and necessary connection between men's motives and their volitions,–between objects of desire and pursuit as seen and apprehended by them and all their acts of volition or choice; or that our volitions and choices are invariably determined by the last practical judgment of the understanding.The invariable and necessary influence of motives in determining volitions,–and a  liberty of indifference, combined with a self-determining power in the will itself,–are thus the opposite positions of the contending parties on this question.  The dispute manifestly turns wholly upon a question as to what is the law which regulates those mental processes that result in, or constitute, volitions or choices (484).

Throughout the essays he refers to a "system of necessity" or psychological "laws." He associates philosophical necessity with a regime of psychological laws.

It's an interesting question where that framework comes from. Does that involve a parallel between physics and psychology? Does that involve an extension of Newtonian physics to psychology? Just as there are laws of nature, there are laws of the mind? 

On that model, philosophical necessity suggests that God determines human choices through the mediation of psychological laws. I'm not sure what that's supposed to mean, but in any event, the logical alternative to that framework isn't libertarian freedom. It's not as if "psychological laws" are the only way God could determine human choices. 

Cunningham says:

Predestination implies that the end or result is certain, and that adequate provision has been made for bringing it about. But it does not indicate anything as to what must be the nature of this provision in regard to the different classes of events which are taking place under God's government, including the volitions of rational and responsible beings (509).

Here he distinguishes between what God predetermines and how he brings it about. He's noncommittal on the mode of execution, but not on the scope or inevitability of predestination. 

It [the will] is not emancipated from the influence of God's decrees foreordaining whatever comes to pass. It is not placed beyond the control of HIs providence,–whereby in the execution of His decrees He ever rules and governs all His creatures and all their actions. It is not set free from the operation of those general laws which God has impressed upon man's mental constitution, for directing the exercise of his faculties and regulating his mental processes. But it is set free from the dominion of depravity; and thereby it is exempted from the necessity of willing only what is evil… (521).

Here Cunningham affirms the universality of predestination. Everything is foreordained. Everything comes to pass by God's providence. 

The closest thing Cunningham says which might give Crisp is "wiggle room" is:

The doctrine of necessity, when once established, leads by strict logical sequence to predestination, unless men take refuge in atheism. But it does not seem to follow e converso, that the doctrine of predestination leads necessarily to the doctrine of necessity; as men may hold, that God could certainly execute His decrees and infallibly accomplish His purposes in and by the volitions of men, even though he had not impressed upon their mental constitution the law of necessity, as that by which its processes are regulated and its volitions determined (513).

But that doesn't reject divine determinism. Rather, it's noncommittal on a model of divine determinism based on "law-like" mechanism. 

He does say, two pages earlier, that:

...we think, unwarranted and presumptuous to assert, that even a self-determining power in the will would place it beyond the sphere of the divine control,–would prevent [God]…from superintending and directing all its movements according to the counsel of His own will (511). 

Although taken by itself, a "self-determining power of the will" suggests autonomy, he couches that as a hypothetical position, and even so, he states that in the context of God's ability, even in that hypothetical situation, to control the outcome.  

Cunningham distinguishes lack of freedom due to original sin from lack of freedom due to psychological laws. Although he discusses Edwards, one limitation of his analysis is that his interpretation of Edwardian philosophical necessity doesn't consider another definition of philosophical necessity: the principle of sufficient reason.

However, I don't think commitment to the PSR commits one to metaphysical necessity. At most, God must choose the best provided that there's one best thing to choose. But that seems equivocal. Since not all possible goods are compossible, some possible goods must be sacrificed to achieve other possible goods. In that event it's not clear that there is one best choice. The distinctive goods of one possible world are gained at the loss of other distinctive goods. So God is never confronted with a forced option. 

Back to Crisp:

On one hand, I am concerned about ecumenical theology and the place of Reformed theology relative to other communions within Christianity. But I am also trying to show there is a significant breadth to the Reformed tradition that is often overlooked, that there is more wiggle room than is often perceived.

Ecumenists are such silly people. Every generation has ecumenists. They fail, just like the previous generation.

That's because ecumenical dialogue consists of ecumenists dialoguing with fellow ecumenists. It's circular from start to finish. 

Ecumenists don't really come to agreement. Rather, they wouldn't be ecumenists in the first place unless they were noncommittal on some doctrines. Those are the bargaining chips. That's what they are prepared to give away. Those were always negotiable. Their commitment to ecumenism precommits them to find areas of agreement. Their agreement was a foregone conclusion. So they end where they began. There's no real progress (even if that was a good thing).

Ecumenists remind me of women who knowingly marry philanderers. They think to themselves, "But this time it will be different. He won't cheat on me, because he truly loves me. I'm special. Why, he looked in my eyes and told me that never met anyone like me." Yeah...which is something he says to every woman. 

Take, for example, the Book of Confessions of the PCUSA, my own denomination. 

Well, I'd say he just tipped his hand. 

God and Corn Flakes

One is the question of free will and salvation. Reformed theology is often identified with determinism—the idea that God determines everything, and we don’t really have free choice. From my eating Corn Flakes for breakfast to my having faith in Christ, all of these decisions are determined by God, and if we’re not automatons or robots at least, my decisions are only free in some very minimal sense. Well, historical material suggests there is a broader way of thinking about this within Reformed theology. 

http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2014/september-web-only/softer-face-of-calvinism.html

Critics of predestination use examples like one's choice of cereal to belittle predestination. Does God really predestine what I eat for breakfast? How silly! Surely God has more important things to predestine. He can leave the little choices up to us. 

The problem with that objection is that it's so shortsighted. Small innocuous changes in the present can generate huge changes in the future. In a case/effect world, changing a variable in the past can snowball. 

Corn Flakes is a Kellogg's product. Kellogg's is headquartered in Battle Creek, Michigan. That makes it the largest local employer (in Battle Creek). But the primary production center for Corn Flakes is Manchester, England. In the US, corn production is centered in illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Minnesota, Nebraska, and Texas. 

Compare that to Wheaties. That's a General Mills' product. General Mills is headquartered in Golden Valley, Minnesota. In the US, white wheat production is centered in Idaho, Michigan, New York, Oregon, and Washington.

If more people eat Corn Flakes, that benefits the economies of Battle Creek, Michigan, Manchester, England, and corn-producing states. If, by contrast, more people eat Wheaties, that depresses the the economies of Battle Creek, Michigan, Manchester, England, and corn-producting states, but benefits the economies of Golden Valley, Minnesota and white wheat-producing states.

If Kellogg's is prosperous, that benefits its employees and shareholders. If General Mills is prosperous, that benefits its employees and shareholders. If Kellogg's does better, it can hire more people. If General Mills does better, Kellogg's has to lay people off. 

People usually live within commuting distance of where they work. As a consumer, you will patronize local businesses. The local supermarket will benefit from your presence. And so on and so forth. 

Where you live impacts who you meet and mate with. If you grew up in Battle Creek, Michigan, you will probably have kids by someone else from Michigan. If, by contrast, you grew up in Golden Valley, MInnesota, you will probably have kids by someone else from Minnesota. Same thing with corn and wheat producing states. 

How many people choose Corn Flakes over Wheaties, or vice versa, affects who will or will not be born. It affects where various crimes like murder will occur. If affects where–or whether–you will attend church. That, in turn, can affect whether you go to heaven or hell. 

This generates two diverging timelines. The existence or nonexistence of some humans in relation to other humans who take their place. Increasingly different events the further into the future past changes ramify. Alternate histories. What might seem like a trivial choice in the present has vast, complex consequences down the line–for good and ill. 

Debating moral relativists

I'm not a big fan of Thomism, although I think natural law theory has some merit. This, however, is a useful example of dialoguing with moral relativists:

http://www.undergroundthomist.org/an-angry-professor

http://www.undergroundthomist.org/dredging-the-sunken-conscience

http://www.undergroundthomist.org/conviction

HT: Andrew Fulford

The world is not enough

Some readers may well consider Ecclesiastes to be the most worldly book of the Bible. And there's a grain of truth to that. It's focused on what happens "under the sun."

Even so, there's an implicit doctrine of the afterlife. There's a doctrine of final judgment. Ecclesiastes notes the deplorable fact that in this life the wicked often elude justice while the righteous are often denied justice. A reversal of fortunes in the afterlife could be the only compensation.

However, I'd like to draw attention to a somewhat different point. Ecclesiastes encourages people to make the most of what this life has to offer. Earthly goods are good. Enjoy it while you have it. 

At the same time, no book of the Bible is more dissatisfied with what this fallen world has to offer. Throughout Ecclesiastes is an unrequited yearning for something greater, something better, than this fleeting, fallen world has to offer. In that respect, Ecclesiastes is one of the most heavenly-minded books of the Bible. This life is unfulfilling. The world is not enough. It longs for more than life "under the sun" can furnish–even at its best. In that respect, Ecclesiastes is a preparation for the Gospel.

Canaanite babies

i) Some Christian apologists defend the OT holy war commands by appealing to universal infant salvation. I'm skeptical about that postulate. However, it's pretty speculative either way. Certainly Calvinism has the internal resources to make that possible.

Keep in mind that denying universal infant salvation doesn't preclude God from saving some Canaanite babies. It's not necessarily an all-or-nothing proposition. (I'm using "babies" to cover anyone below the age of reason.)

ii) One objection to this appeal is that it's ad hoc. It superimposes on the texts something that isn't even hinted at. I'd like to comment on that objection.

iii) To begin with, suppose God planned to save Canaanite babies through the retroactive merit of the atonement. Would we expect Deuteronomy to say babies are saved by Jesus dying on the cross? Clearly that would be quite anachronistic. Indeed, it would be unintelligible to readers in the 2nd millennium BC. 

iv) In addition, the retroactive merit of the atonement is the way anyone was saved before the death of Christ. That's the way all OT saints were saved. To suggest that that's how Canaanite babies were saved is not carving out a special exception in their case. It's not concocting a mechanism just for them. Rather, that's a general principle.

v) In considering the silence of Scripture regarding the eternal fate of Canaanite babies, that silence isn't confined to them. What do the holy war commands say about the eternal fate of Jewish soldiers who die in battle? Precisely nothing. The holy war passages don't speak to that issue in reference to anyone. Not just Canaanite babies, but Jewish combatants. But surely some Jewish soldiers were devout Jews. Surely some of them were heavenbound. 

Indeed, it's a bit surprising that doesn't offer Jewish soldiers any hope beyond the grave. Perhaps that's to discourage belief that death in battle is a ticket to heaven.  

There are some OT texts that explicitly or implicitly teach the afterlife. But they don't figure in the conquest narratives or the holy war commands. So I don't think the silence of Scripture regarding the eternal fate of Canaanite babies is prejudicial. If so, that would be equally prejudicial to Jewish combatants who perish in holy war.

vi) Finally, there's nothing about Canaanite babies qua babies that essentially distinguishes them from other dying babies. So there's no antecedent reason, that I can see, why God would save non-Canaanite babies but not save Canaanite babies. 

"Open Theism and Past-Directed Prayers"

Prof. James Anderson has a forthcoming paper worth checking out.

An apologetic of horror

Since All Hallows' Eve is almost upon us, here is an article by Brian Godawa on the subject of horror. (He also appears to have an out-of-print lecture on DVD titled "Horror: A Biblical Genre.")

Here's an interview with Godawa on the same topic as well:

All good things must end

i) Scholars debate the meaning of hebel in Ecclesiastes. Popular offerings include fleeting, futile, enigmatic, and meaningless.

ii) One source of ambiguity is that we need to distinguish between appearance and reality in Ecclesiastes. Life could be "meaningless," not in the sense that it has no intrinsic purpose, but that it's ultimate is elusive. Everything happens for a reason, but we can't figure that out. In that respect, "enigmatic" is clearer than "meaningless." 

iii) Likewise, there are two senses in which it could be futile. It could be futile in the sense that trying to understand divine providence is an exercise in futility. Futility in an epistemic sense. Ecclesiastes is, in part, a frustrated quest for the meaning of life. He senses that there's more to reality than meets the eye, but providence is perplexing. 

Or it could be futile in the sense that even though we can plan for the future, even though we ought to plan for the future, life is fickle and unpredictable. Life is unfair. You can be responsible, do all the right things, yet lose the race. In addition, everything we have and do is ephemeral. Futility in a metaphysical, mundane sense. This life is futile. 

iv) Fredericks makes a strong case that hebel means fleeting. However, he admits that hebel (lit. "breath") is used metaphorically. So the question concerns the figurative connotations of the word.

v) There's also the danger of committing the word-concept fallacy, as well as the illegitimate totality transfer fallacy. The meaning of one oft-used word in Ecclesiastes isn't necessarily the interpretive key to the whole book. Moreover, whatever the word means, the concepts of life as fleeting and inscrutable are certainly pervasive in Ecclesiastes.

vi) One challenge for translators is whether to use the same English synonym throughout, or more than one synonym if they think the sense varies with the context. Using different English synonyms for the same Hebrew word will obscuring the function of the Hebrew term as a leading word. If, however, the sense varies, then it's inaccurate to settle on one synonym. 

vii) In addition, what we think hebel means (or connotes) in Ecclesiastes depends in part on how we interpret the writer's worldview. For instance, Fredericks' commentary is one of the best. But he pursues a relentlessly claustrophobic, this-worldly interpretation. That forces a simplistic consistency onto the book, as if the author's outlook must be one-dimensional. 

In this life, all good things must end. Yet death is not the end–but a new beginning.