That’s the argument. It is easy to lose sight of this because Geisler moves so quickly and frequently between his Scriptural citations and his governing assumptions.
Another favorite objection of Geisler’s is that Calvinism denies the love of God as an essential attribute of God. For if God does not love everyone, then love cannot be an essential attribute of God. But there are several serious problems with this objection:
i) A universalist could deploy the same objection against Geisler’s own position. How can God be loving if he sends anyone to hell?
ii) If God is unloving unless our Lord made atonement for every fallen man, then God is unloving unless our Lord made atonement for every fallen angel.
iii) Geisler is assuming an extensive rather than intensive definition of love. What is more loving: to make salvation possible for more men, or to make salvation certain for fewer?
iv) Love implies hate. Love implies a loathing of love’s opposite. If you love a child, it is only natural to despise a child-molester.
v) Geisler destroys the gratuity of grace. He destroys the merciful nature of mercy. We’re not talking about the general attribute of divine love, but God’s love of the ungodly, of the antithesis of God. Grace is arbitrary. Mercy is discretionary. Were they necessary, they would cease to be gracious and merciful. The mystery is not that God doesn't love sinners, one and all, but that God would love any sinner at all.
Geisler tries to get around this by saying that the OT word for "mercy" means loving-kindness (88, n18). But this appeal is faulty on a couple of grounds:
a) It commits the word=concept fallacy. The point at issue is not the meaning of different words, but the meaning of different concepts.
b) In the OT, God’s mercy or loving-kindness has general reference to the covenant community.
vi) The fact that God has an attribute to a maximal degree does not entail that God must manifest an attribute to a maximal degree. God is just, but God does not exact justice on everyone; God is omnipotent, but God does not do everything of which he’s capable.
Geisler’s position resembles Neoplatonic emanationism. On this view, the world is the necessary efflux of the divine essence. And that, of course, is pantheistic.
vii) Frankly, it is hard to see how God is all-loving to the damned. Consigning sinners to hell is a paralogical expression of love, although it is a logical expression of justice.
Geisler uses "love" and "goodness" interchangeably, such that a restriction on divine love entails a restriction on divine goodness. But this commits a fallacy of equivocation. For goodness is a broader concept. There are many goods. Divine love is one, but so is the justice of God. Because "love" and "goodness" are not synonymous, a restriction on the former does not entail a restriction on the latter.
Geisler uses the illustration of a farmer who finds three boys drowning in a pond where he put a no-swimming sign. What would we think if the farmer let them drown?
But the question is whether this illustration is all that analogous to a sinner’s standing before God. In fact, the illustration is successful to the degree that it is subversive of justice. To begin with, I doubt a lot of readers regard it as sinful for a few boys to go swimming in the local pond, even if they’re trespassing on private property. This seems like good clean fun, a perfectly natural, all-American thing for boys to do. We would fault the farmer for being so small-minded and legalistic in the first place. We also expect adults to protect and defend the young.
But when we’re talking about a sinner’s relation to God, we generally have in mind a grown-up, not a child.
I’ll substitute a very different illustration. A few years ago there was a widely televised bank robbery. The robbers were attired in full-body armor with paramilitary rifles. They got into a full-scale shoot-out with the police. They had the cops out-gunned. Finally the police rearmed and took down both suspects. One bled to death at the scene. His family sued, accusing the police of letting the suspect bleed to death.
To judge by the footage, the police did, indeed, stall the clock until the suspect bled out. Speaking for myself, I regard that as poetic justice. He got exactly what he deserved. What goes around comes around, and he had it coming in spades. He had been firing away at policemen and innocent by-standers, trying to kill anyone who strayed between the cross-hairs. By all means let him bleed to death. His guilt was never in doubt. It was broadcast live. The whole world was his jury. He was not entitled to medical treatment. He died as he had tried to make others die. Let him who lives by the sword, die by the sword.
Geisler faults Calvinism for saying that "God does not do all he can do to save all. Thus, it cannot escape the conclusion that God is not even as good as a finite fallible human father who would do everything he could to save all his drowning children" (260).
This objection betrays an incapacity for self-criticism. For a universalist would say the same thing about Geisler’s God. Geisler believes in hell. So even on Geisler’s view, God does not do all he can do to save all.
What if his son were drowning because he jumped off a bridge? What if he were unwilling to be fished out of the water? What if he were suicidal? If his son were clinically depressed because his brain chemistry was out of whack, would Geisler not be prepared to have him committed, against his will--if need be--for treatment to restore the imbalance?
Geisler says that freedom cannot be forced, but he confuses freewill with ill-will. The sinner, by being a sinner, is out of his mind. He is not thinking straight. When God renews the will of the elect, he restores them to a right state of mind. Call it coercion if you choose, but this is reparative.
It is an abuse of language to say that it is morally "repugnant," to put something back in proper working order, so that it can function once again as it originally designed to function. You may have to force a broken lock. The key no longer works. The tumblers were jammed in place. But once you fix the lock, it turns without effort.
Geisler is guilty of indulging in a number of elementary misrepresentations of Calvinism:
i) He equates hyper-Calvinism with supralapsarianism. But there is no logical connection between the two. Hyper-Calvinism is the view that a preacher ought not urge the unregenerate to repent and believe, whereas the supra view assigns the reprobate a theodicean role inasmuch as God foreordained the fall to manifest his mercy and justice. An infra can be a Hyper-Calvinist. Or is his beef only with the supra version?
ii) He says that according to Calvinism, "God’s predetermination is done independently of his foreknowledge of human free acts. God operates with such unapproachable sovereignty that his choices are made with total disregard for the choices of mortal men...What is more...God determines to save whomever he wishes regardless of whether they choose to believe or not" (47).
This characterization is, at best, extremely misleading. For it can foster the misimpression that predestination keeps some believers out of heaven, as if there were a certain number of men who choose to believe in Christ, but God chooses to damn them irrespective of their foreseen faith.
But the true Reformed view is that, apart from grace, there would be no believers. There are no believers to foreknow apart from grace. There are only sinners.
Geisler goes on to say this, but first impressions stick, and if you distort a position at the outset, that is what many readers are likely to remember. You have built up such a bias in the reader’s mind that your parenthetical asides bounce right off.
ii) Geisler defines spiritual inability as "the elimination of all human ability to understand or respond to God" (57), and counters that "if depravity has destroyed man’s ability to know good from evil and to choose the good over the evil, then it would have destroyed man’s ability to sin" (62).
But this is an unrecognizable caricature of Calvinism. To begin with, Calvinism limits spiritual inability to the ability to do any spiritual good. That’s why it’s called "spiritual" inability.
Calvinism doesn’t deny, but rather affirms, that by virtue of common grace, God preserves a remnant of common sense and common decency in the reprobate and unregenerate.
Geisler also slurs over key distinctions: there’s a difference between knowing good and doing good, understanding and responding. An agent can know right, but do wrong.
The essential point of spiritual inability is that the reprobate and unregenerate are ill-disposed and indisposed to repent of their sin and believe in Christ. Trust is incompatible with fear and loathing. A sinner qua sinner cannot love a hanging Judge.
iii) Geisler denies unconditional election. But he accuses some Calvinists of inconsistency on this point. He deems it inconsistent from someone who affirms that salvation is by faith alone to stipulate certain conditions in order to be saved (68).
Yet what Calvinism affirms is not that salvation is unconditional, but election. Again, we are not saved by faith alone. We are justified by faith alone. Geisler is blurring distinct categories.
For his part, Geisler believes that "foreknowledge" is a factor in election. He appeals to Rom 8:29 and 1 Pet 1:2 to justify his view. He knows that a Calvinist will render "proginosko" as "to choose beforehand," but he denies this on the grounds that in many of its NT occurrences, "ginosko" doesn't mean "to choose," while in most of its OT occurrences, "yada" doesn’t mean "to choose." He also adds that the verb "to choose" is sometimes used of persons who are not of the elect.
But this whole line of argument is flawed on several grounds:
i) "Ginosko" and "proginosko" are not synonymous. There is a reason for the prefix. It is an idiomatic expression for prior choice.
ii) Ironically, Geisler is resorting to the same statistical analysis that homosexuals resort to when they try to prove that in asking Lot to let them "know" his house guests," the Sodomites were not talking about homosexual rape. Can't you just hear these fine, upstanding citizens explain their predicament to the two angels?
"Now, looky here. This has all been a big misunderstandin'. Don't take it personal. We knows ya did't git a whole lotta time to brush up on that thar conversational Hebrah afore ya come down to these them parts. But we was just a-trying to be right neighborly, that's all. Somethin' musta got lost in translation. "To know" just means "to know," ya know. We're powerful sorry if'n we ruffled yer feathers. Nuttin' to git so all fired up about.
It should be unnecessary to point out that usage is contextual. Just as "yada" means "to copulate" in sexual situations, "yada" means "to choose" in covenantal contexts (e.g., Gen 18:19; Exod 33:17; 1 Sam 2:12; Ps 1:6; 18:43; Prov 9:10; Jer 1:5; Hos 13:5; Amos 3:2), while proginosko means "to choose beforehand" (Acts 2:23; Rom 8:29; 11:2; 1 Peter 1:2,20).
iii) Again, no one is arguing that the verb "to choose" is a technical term for eternal election. That is a question of context, as well as a theological construct from a number of different lines of exegetical evidence. As a systematic theologian, Geisler ought to have enough sophistication to appreciate the nature of theological method.
Geisler cites some verses of Scripture to prove that grace is not irresistible. But this flounders on equivocation. There is a difference between words and concepts. There is also a difference between dogmatic usage and ordinary usage. The fact that the reprobate resist the preceptive will of God (e.g., Mt 23:37; Lk 7:30; Act 7:51) is perfectly consonant with irresistible grace. Geisler even seems to admit as much in a footnote (97, n36), yet he choose to disregard that distinction in the body of the text.
He goes on to allege that "what extreme [!] Calvinists want to do is to avoid the repugnant image of a reluctant candidate being forced into the fold or captured into the kingdom...The problem with the idea of irresistible grace...is that there is no informed consent for the treatment" (99).
Geisler sounds like an ACLU lawyer who thinks it is better for mentally ill street people to freeze to death rather than having their "rights" violated. By contrast, the Calvinist sees nothing wrong with having a deranged sinner involuntarily committed to the grace of God. A sinner is like mental patient off his meds, or a cancer patient with a brain tumor. What irresistible grace does is to restore him to a right frame of mind, to cure him of his religious paranoia and criminal insanity. How is that morally "repugnant?"
This is, indeed, where we come to a theological crossroads. For a Calvinist, the magnitude of God’s grace is manifest in the fact that God saves the unwilling, that God converts his worst enemies. A man who finds this "repugnant" has failed to take the full measure of the Gospel.
In chapter 8, Geisler levels a number of stock objections to Calvinism: it exculpates man, implicates God, invites universalism, undermines assurance, undermines evangelism, and undermines prayer. Of these, only the first two are at all impressive.
On these two points, a great deal could be said, but since Geisler doesn’t say very much, neither will I:
i) Calvinism derives its doctrine of God from the revelation of God. Only God can tell us what he’s like and what he does. So these arm-chair objections, whatever their intuitive force, are castles in the air.
ii) In adapting his own illustration of a Skinner-box, I think we have some idea of how an action can be both certain and uncoerced. At least, I have presented a model for my own position, unlike Geisler.
iii) Geisler has no coherent alternative, for he falls back on self-determinism, but self-determinism is only a pseudonym for character-determinism. The agent may choose according to his character-traits, but he doesn’t choose his character-traits.
Regarding universalism, Geisler says "it does not suffice to claim that God’s justice rightly condemns those who do not believe, since even faith is a gift from God that he could give to all if he wanted to do so" (139).
But this is a non-sequitur. It is not simply that they disbelieve. They disbelieve because they are sinners. Yes, it is within his power to make everyone believe, but he is just to withhold his grace, for they do not deserve his grace; indeed, they deserve his wrath. In saving some, but not all, he shows to all that salvation is by grace alone.
Regarding the love of God, he says that "any diminution of God’s love will sooner or later eat away at one’s confidence in God’s benevolence...A partially loving God is less than ultimately good...At first blush, one is impressed with a God that supposedly loves him more than others...But upon further reflection, one cannot help but wonder why, if this God is so loving, he does not so love the world...If one allows this to gnaw at his mind long enough, it can turn him from being a particularist into being a universalist" (140-41).
To begin with, is this a logical objection, or a psychological objection? For example, Geisler also says that hell has occasioned unbelief or even atheism (140, n.5). But is that a good reason for a Christian to deny the doctrine of hell?
More to the point, Geisler once again misses the mystery and magnitude of grace. The amazing thing is that God loves any sinner, not that he doesn’t love every sinner. Once again, a Christian who fails to take this to heart is still nibbling around the corners and edges of the Gospel. Geisler’s gospel is a marginal Gospel, a faith in the fringe, the trimmings, the tassels--the circumference, but not the center.
The difference between a Reformed Christian and every other kind of Christian is not that the Calvinist is a better Christian, but that he alone has a real appreciation for the quality of grace by which he and every other Christian is saved. If a Christian had only one lesson to learn in life, this would be it. He should spend as much time as it takes for this to really sink in. And then he should remind himself on a daily basis.
Regarding evangelism, Geisler says that the following propositions undermine evangelism: "First of all, God does not love the whole world in a redemptive sense, but only the elect; Second, Christ only died for the elect, not the world. Third, no one has the faith to believe unless God gives it to him. Fourth, God has willed to give faith only to a select few, 'the frozen chosen.' Fifth, when God’s power works on the hearts of the unbelievers he wants to save, there is absolutely nothing they can do to refuse it. God’s power is irresistible" (141).
Regarding objections one and two, this would only be a disincentive to evangelism if the elect were confined to a particular part of the world, if we knew which part that was, and if it had already been evangelized--once and for all time. But since the distribution of the elect is worldwide through space and time, we believe in global evangelism. Perfectly logical.
Regarding objections three through five, even Geisler, in opposition to the Pelagian heresy, believes that grace is a necessary precondition for faith. But why is resistible grace a greater incentive to evangelism than irresistible grace? Shouldn’t a missionary be encouraged by the fact that God has made an offer which at least some of his hearers cannot refuse?
Incidentally, Calvinism has no received position on the relative number of the select. So the business about a "chosen few" has no official standing. The fact that they use this as a term of abuse, even though it goes back to the very lips of our Lord says a lot about their character--and it isn't pretty.
Finally, Geisler says that "if we believe God will do these things even if we do not pray, then there is no need for prayer" (142). True enough. But seeing as Reformed theology exalts prayer as a divinely ordained means of grace, Geisler is drawing a valid conclusion from a false premise.
This is such an elementary misstatement of the opposing position that it introduces a note of intellectual frivolity into his treatment. Does he read Reformed theology with any real understanding? Or is he so hostile that his eyes move over the page without grasping the content?
In appendix four, Geisler defends the principle of self-determination against several objections.
To the charge that self-causation is inapplicable to a human agent, Geisler says that this objection only pushes the problem back a step, for by that line of reasoning would be equally inapplicable to God. But there are two problems with this reply:
i) It erases the Creator/creature distinction. What makes a creature a creature is that it is an object as well as subject of causation. Even secondary agents or second-causes have a primary cause, outside themselves. As a Thomist, you’d think that Geisler would have a handle on that distinction.
It does no good to distinguish between actor and action, for in the case of a creaturely agent, even though he may be the immediate source of his own actions, but he is not the source of his own nature or character-traits or faculties or social conditioning, from whence his actions arise. A lawn may be watered by a sprinkler, but a sprinkler is not a wellspring.
ii) The category of self-causation is, indeed, inapplicable to God. For God is a timeless and self-sufficient agent.
To the charge that self-determination undermines divine grace and foreknowledge, Geisler says that "the answer lies in the fact that God knows--for sure (infallibly) precisely how everyone will use his freedom" (184).
This doesn’t answer the question, but begs the question. It merely paraphrases the original problem. If the agent is free to do otherwise, in the libertarian sense, then how can his choice be known before it is consummated? What is there to know? If the outcome is truly indeterminate, then the answer could either be and equally be yes or no.
Geisler says that, by their own admission, the priority of regeneration to faith is more of a logical consequence of the Reformed belief-system than it is of direct exegesis. But this is misleading, and he quotes no one to that effect.
To begin with, it is possible to infer one doctrine from another. Even if, for the sake of argument, a doctrine had no direct Scriptural support, yet if it were logically deducible from another Biblically attested doctrine, then it, too, would be Biblical. Geisler, as one who puts such stock in human reason, is in no position to object.
Likewise, a doctrine may be a theological construct, deriving from several different lines of evidence. The Trinity is a classic case in point. So is the Hypostatic Union. The priority of regeneration to faith is, in part, an inference from the necessity of regeneration in the first place, which is, in turn, complementary to the Scriptural evidence of spiritual inability.
In an attempt to topple Calvinism with one blow, Geisler says that "at the root of extreme [!] Calvinism is a radical form of voluntarism, which affirms that something is right simply because God willed it, rather than God willing it because it is right in accordance with his own unchangeable nature" (244).
The first thing to take note of is that Geisler does not cite a single representative statement from any historic Reformed creed to back up his sweeping claim. He only quotes from one source, and that’s a popular contemporary writer. Even if his interpretation of Piper happened to be correct, it would not go any distance toward proving this to be the mainstream position in Reformed tradition, rather than the private opinion of one Calvinist in particular.
It is also fairly obvious that Geisler is misrepresenting the very source he quotes. Piper does not drive a wedge between God’s will and God’s moral attributes. Rather, Piper drives a wedge between the will of God and the will of sinners. Not only has Geisler failed to lay his axe at the root of the Reformed faith, he hasn’t even succeeded in trimming a few twigs.
Geisler also has an appendix (8) on the Canons of Dort. In his commentary he tries at every turn to split the difference between Calvinism and Arminianism. In this respect his method is more Romish than Reformed, and he might be more at home with the Canons of Trent.
He cues off by saying that the Canons of Dort are "widely considered to be a modern origin of extreme Calvinism" (220). I would love to see the documentation for this "widely" held belief.
He makes a number of revealing remarks along the way. We are told that the atonement was "necessitated" by the love of God (221). So man's will is free, but God's will is constrained. And here he keeps telling us that love cannot be coerced or forced. But, apparently, God has no choice in the matter.
He says that even though faith is a gift, it can be refused. I often wonder if this isn't colored by a misplaced metaphor. The opponent of Calvinism seems to have the mental image of grace as though it were a Christmas present or birthday gift that you could return to the store if it didn't fit. On this view, grace is a concrete thing, outside our body, like a bottle of medicine. We must open wide and swallow to get it inside us and start to do its thing. To think this way is to get carried away with the incidental implications of picture-language. You might suppose that someone with Geisler's background would be a bit more astute.
There is also something inherently twisted and vicious about protestations against the image of God "forcing" himself upon us, or doing us "violence." This is a pretty prickly and thankless attitude to take towards the saving grace of God--as though God must be kept at arms' length. Men like Geisler want as little of God as possible--just enough, but not too much. If God wanted as little do to with them as they want with him, they'd all be burning in hell.
Geisler next says that God's grace is only effective with the willing, but not with the unwilling. This is, of course, a disguised tautology. Grace is effective when it's effective, but ineffective the rest of the time. It works when it works, except when it doesn't And that reduces to the admission that grace is impotent, for grace does not effect a state of grace. At this point you wonder why it is that men like Geisler even bother to keep up appearances.
He also says that faith is "the means through which we receive his grace." Okay, so faith is not a gift of God after all. If faith is the means through which we receive the grace of God, then there is nothing gracious about faith itself. It is, at most, a natural means to a gracious end. But if you can run the race on your own steam, who needs a nudge of grace to cross the finish line? Once again, grace is just a cosmetic word, while faith is the deal-maker or deal-breaker. Man, not God, is in the driver's seat.
With reference of the offer of the Gospel, he says that God "would never hold persons responsible for actions they could not have avoided" (224). The persuasiveness of this claim depends on what mental image is triggered by the claim. It is especially plausible when our imagination conjures up some physical impediment.
But if we shift to a moral impediment, our intuitions begin to waver. Take the command, honor your father and mother. But suppose a child doesn't love his parents? Suppose he resents them? Supposed, despite their best efforts, he's a spoiled, spiteful brat. He can't bring himself to think well of them. If he were a better man, he'd treat them better, but that's the problem. Surely this is more than a bare hypothetical. We all know grown children just like this. Is an incorrigible ingrate not responsible for being ungrateful?
By Geisler's logic, the more hard-hearted you are, the less culpable you are. To be purely evil is to be purely innocent, for you are incapable of bettering yourself. The Devil must be a devoted disciple of Geisler's value-system!
Along the same lines, Geisler assures the reader that "a sincere promise to save all who believe implies that Christ died for all and that all are capable of believing this promise to be saved" (226).
"Implies" is a strong word. But where's the logic in saying that a sincere promise to save all who believe implies that Christ died for all?" All it implies, surely, is that all believers will be saved. How is it insincere to promise salvation to all who will believe except on condition that it also extends to all who will not believe? You call that logic? Did it take Norman Geisler two earned doctorates to come up with that equation?
Suppose a florist were to advertise a Mother's Day sale, or for Valentine's? Would his offer be insincere unless he not only stocked enough roses for every prospective customer, but for everyone who had no intention of taking him up on the offer?
But what about making the provision commensurate with the promise? Well, there is one class of men who will never buy flowers for a woman--whether their wife or mother or girlfriend. And that is the misogynist. Actually, it's highly unlikely that your average, all-American misogynist has a wife or girlfriend, although he might have a mother--unless he put a pillow over her nose to collect on the life insurance. Tell me, now. Is his offer only sincere if every misogynist is potentially amendable to buying a bouquet of roses for some woman or another? Or is it Geisler's view that no sweetheart should have a dozen roses unless every sweetheart has a dozen roses?
Remember, too, that according to Geisler, God cannot make anyone willing against his will. So our poor florist must hit upon some scheme to make every unwilling buyer "willable" without making him willing. Does that make a whole lot of sense to you? Perhaps, though, Dr. Geisler is working with some version of Buddhist logic. Maybe he should rename his good "Chosen, But Buddhist," or "Free and Footloose." That would better capture its libertarian humanism.
Tuesday, September 21, 2004
Chosen but free?-1
Norman Geisler has authored a sustained attack on Calvinism, entitled Chosen But Free (Bethany 2001). His treatment enjoys certain virtues. It is well-organized. It is written in a clear style. It does a good job of covering many of the major bases.
To some extent, these virtues are weaknesses as well. By writing in a popular style, and covering so much ground, the work a rather superficial at just the point where it needs to be more rigorous and detailed. But that’s the trade-off. There is also a certain amount of redundancy and zigzagging, due, in part, to all the appendices in the second addition.
Because Geisler is such a prolific and influential writer, his critique merits a response. I will ignore most of the exegetical arguments, not because exegesis is unimportant, but because I’ve addressed that aspect in other essays.
Geisler places a great stock in rational arguments for his own position, and rational arguments against Calvinism. That will be the focal point of my own review.
In his review of The Potter’s Freedom by James White, Geisler singles out some logical fallacies, as he regards them, in White’s critique. These including "poisoning the well," "strawmen," and "false disjunctives." As I read through Chosen But Free, Geisler's own work is a textbook of informal fallacies, beginning with the subtitle: A Balanced View of Election.
This is a prejudicial way of framing the debate. For, by implication, the opposing position is unbalanced. But that begs the question of whether this is one of those issues in which the truth lies somewhere in the middle.
Actually, nothing can be more unbalanced than the prior assumption that we must strike a balance between opposing positions. Imagine if Geisler were to take a mediating position on any number of other issues, such as sola fide, same-sex marriage, abortion, evolution, Purgatory, inerrancy, the Resurrection, the Virgin Birth, hell, &c.
Since Geisler thinks that his position is true, he has a right to entitle his book accordingly, but the reader needs to keep in mind that the title is itself a preemptive strike, intended to create an unfavorable first impression of Calvinism before the reader ever cracks the covers.
Reinforcing this rhetorical ploy is his habitual way of labeling the opposing position as "extreme" Calvinism. But what he is pleased to dub as "extreme" is, in reality, mainstream Calvinism—the belief-system of the Westminster Confession, the Three Forms of Unity, and the London Baptist Confession of Faith.
He takes umbrage when his own position is branded as Arminian, but, of course, the Remonstrants also claimed to be true sons of Calvin.
It is generally liberals who characterize the opposing position as "extreme." Why does Geisler pander to this ploy?
The only justification he offers for this usage is his claim that Calvin subscribed to universal atonement. And he backs up his claim by appealing to R. T. Kendall. He is aware of rebuttals to Kendall by Helm, Rainbow, and Nicole. His response is to say that "Kendall’s view is not only one of a noted Calvinist, it is squarely based in the texts of Calvin and not a theological attempt to make Calvin consistent with one’s preconceived concept of ‘Calvinism’" (160, n.1).
But this begs the question every step of the way. Is Kendall a Calvinist? Do Helm, Rainbow, and Nicole not interact with the Calvinian witness as well? Is Kendall innocent of a theological agenda of his own? And let us remember that Beza, whom Geisler dubs an "extreme" Calvinist, was Calvin’s handpicked successor. Indeed, if you read Michael Thomas on The Extent of the Atonement (Paternoster 1997), you'll see that Calvin even acceded to Beza's supralapsarian scheme.
And even if there were, at this point, a difference between Calvin and his successors, how does that render their position "extreme?" Pretribers are a distant offshoot of historic premils. Would Geisler thereby brand his own eschatology as "extreme?"
An especially egregious example is the way he smuggles in his antinomian version of eternity security under the rubric of "moderate" Calvinism. But, traditionally, even those who upheld the universality of the atonement (e.g., Usher, Baxter, Davenant, Amyraut) were not antinomians. And this from a man who belittles election as the "frozen chosen."
However, he uses this as a pretext to trot out the old canard that Calvinism is injurious to the assurance of salvation. But if this is a problem for Calvinism, it is not only a problem for Calvinism. Every theological tradition which makes allowance for a distinction between nominal and genuine believers is susceptible to this charge. The short answer turns on the burden of proof. Absent evidence to the contrary, we have no reason to doubt our state of grace.
Even Geisler’s antinomian alternative does not remove an element of uncertainty. For faith is subjective. Faith is subject to doubt. And faith may be heretical, in whole or in part. Faith in whom? Faith in what? What degree of faith? Can a true believer die an unbeliever? What does that mean?
Good works are not a cause of salvation, but a consequence of the Holy Spirit’s work. Without good works, the Holy Spirit is not at work in the sanctification of the believer. And, absent the indwelling presence and ministry of the Spirit, the believer is only a nominal believer--unregenerate, if not reprobate.
There is a malign consistency in Geisler’s position. For him, the difference between a believer and unbeliever is a difference of degree, rather than kind. The unbeliever is free to believe; the believer is free to disbelieve. Like Schrödinger’s cat, Geisler’s version of fallen man can't quite exist in real time and space. It’s there as long as you aren't looking its way, but as soon as you look, it isn’t there!
Yet another instance of poisoning the well is the tendentious way he glosses every prooftext for his own position as the "plain meaning" of the verse in question. This is before the reader ever gets to his interpretation. And on this tactic, a couple of brief observations are in order:
i) If anyone has a corner on the "plain meaning" of universal expressions, it is the universalist. And this is not a bare hypothetical, for we have writers like Thomas Talbott who capitalize on these very verses. So it is not as though these verses broker the debate between Geisler and his Reformed opponents.
ii) Plain to whom? Is this an exercise in reader-response criticism? Geisler acts as though the Bible were directly addressed to a 21C American who speaks English as his mother tongue. Like so many writers who favor the Arminian interpretation of these verses, he never turns to any standard work of Biblical lexicography to justify the "plain meaning" of kosmos, but blusters behind his thin-air pronouncements. What do the reference works say on the subject?
1. J. Louw & E. Nida, Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament Based on Semantic Domains (UBS 1989), 2:146:
Kosmos, ou. m.
i) universe
ii) earth
iii) world-system
iv) people
v) adorning
vi) adornment
vii) tremendous amount
kosmos: unit
aion tou kosmou toutou: supernatural power
2. P. Cottrell & M. Turner, Linguistics & Biblical Interpretation (IVP 1989), 176:
i) the whole created universe: earth, heavens, heavenly bodies, &c.,
ii) "earth" as opposed to heaven, or the heavens,
iii) "mankind"; i.e. the 'world' of people,
iv) the condition of mortal life; 'life in the world,'
v) the beings (human and supernatural) in rebellion against God, together with the systems under their control, viewed as opposed to God,
vi) the system of earthly and social structures (including its joys, possessions, and cares),
vii) "adornment" or adorning."
3. W. Bauer et al., eds., A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature (Chicago Press 1979): 445-47:
kosmos, ou, ho
i) adornment, adorning
ii) the world as the sum total of everything here and now; the (orderly) universe.
iii) the world as the sum total of all beings above the level of the animals.
iv) the world as the earth, the planet upon which we live.
a) generally…In rhetorical exaggeration…In this line of development, kosmos alone serve to designate the pagan world.
b) the world as the habitation of mankind
c) earth, world in contrast to heaven—especially when mention is made of the preexistent Christ, who came from the other world into the kosmos. So, above all, in John.
d) the world outside in contrast to one's home.
v) The world as mankind
a) generally, all the world, everybody
b) of all mankind, but especially of believers, as the object of God's love
vi) the world as the scene of earthly joys, possessions, cares, sufferings.
vii) The world, and everything that belongs to it, appears as that which is hostile to God, i.e. lost in sin, wholly at odds with anything divine, ruined and depraved. The use of kosmos in this sense is even further developed in John. The kosmos stands in opposition to God (1 Jn 2:15f.) and hence is incapable of knowing God (Jn 17:25); cf. 1 Jn 4:5), and excluded from Christ's intercession (Jn 17:9). Neither Christ himself (17:14,16; 14:27), nor his own (15:19; 17:14,16; 1 Jn 3:1) belong in any way to the world. Rather, Christ has chosen them "out of the world" (Jn 15:19), even though for the present they must still live "in the world" (17:11; cf. vv15,18). All the trouble that they must undergo because of this (16:33) means nothing compared with the victorious conviction that Christ (and the believers with him) has overcome "the world" (v33; 1 Jn 5:4f.), and that it is doomed to pass away (2:17).
viii) Totality; sum total.
See also the highly inflected treatment of "kosmos" in the Exegetical Dictionary of the New Testament, H. Balz & G. Schneider, eds. (Eerdmans 2000), 2:309-13.
This tabulation should put the kibosh on any simple-minded notion that kosmos has only one, self-evident meaning. It has, rather, a wide semantic range, and which meaning we plug into any particular occurrence is less a question of semantics than exegesis.
Not only does his ignorance of the original Greek vitiate his appeal to the cosmic passages, but his ignorance of the original Hebrew spoils another argument as well. What does he think is the Biblical basis for freewill? "One of the things God gave his good creatures was a good power called freewill. God said to Adam: ‘You are free...’ (Gen 2:16).
Unfortunately for Geisler, that is not what God said to Adam. The original employs a Hebrew idiom (using the same word for verb and adverb), which is literally rendered, "eating, you may eat." This is an idiomatic way of expressing certainly. An idiomatic English rendering would be: "You may surely eat."
In addition, this constitutes a bit of wordplay, for it sets up a parallel between eating (v16) and dying (v17) inasmuch as v17 employs the same idiomatic construction: "dying, you will die," meaning, "You shall surely die."
Geisler goes on to cite Eccl 7:29, which is both a general allusion to Gen 1-3, and a specific allusion to Gen 6:5. However, it ought to be obvious that Eccl 7:29 does not posit a formal theory of the will. It simply states something that God did (in creation), followed by something that man did (in the fall and thereafter). Geisler also plucks this verse out of Ecclesiastes without regard to the theology of Ecclesiastes, in spite of its predestinarian doctrine of the right time (3:1-14).
This illustrates the systemic weakness of what passes for exegesis in so much of Geisler’s case, which is a failure to recognize the role of unspoken presuppositions. Consider some of his further efforts to prove freewill.
He says that "the power of free choice is part of mankind being created in the image of God (Gen 1:27). Adam and Eve were commanded: (1) to multiply their kind (1:28) and (2) to refrain from eating the forbidden fruit (2:16). Both of these responsibilities imply the ability to respond. As noted above, the fact that they ought to obey these commands implied that they could obey them" (32).
Many readers may find this line of reasoning to be persuasive. But let’s break it down. How does procreation flow from the imago Dei? After all, the other plants and animals reproduce as well. Does that imply that they are also made in the image of God?
Maybe Geisler would say that it is not procreation, per se, but the command to procreate that flows from the imago Dei? But does the text draw that distinction? The question is how we relate v27 to v28. All that Geisler has done is to assume that the two verses are related in a certain way without showing them to be so related.
Likewise, where do 2:16-17 ground the prohibition in the imago Dei? Or is the connection, not with the imago Dei, but with his axiom that ability limits liability? Is he deducing his conclusions from the imago Dei, or from his axiom about ability and responsibility?
And what was the argument for the latter? He says "sound reason demands that there is no responsibility where there is no ability to respond" (29). But notice that this is not an exegetical argument. Indeed, it is not even an argument. It is merely an assertion.
On the next page he offers a supporting argument: "What we ought to do implies that we can do it. Otherwise, we have to assume that the Moral lawgiver is prescribing the irrational. Commanding that we do what is literally impossible for us to do" (30).
Notice, again, that this is not an exegetical argument. Rather, it is an intuitive argument. What Geisler is doing is to stipulate the preconditions of moral responsibility. He does not derive these from the text of Scripture. Rather, he brings these to the text of Scripture. He appears to be doing exegesis, but he is not, for the text itself (Gen 1:27-28; 2:16-17) is quite silent on the necessary and sufficient conditions of incumbency.
And I’d add that even on its own grounds, his conclusion hardly follows. To begin with, impossibility is not all of a kind. There are many different kinds of impossibility: logical, psychological, physical, metaphysical, &c.
I myself don’t find it at all difficult to think of situations in which one could reasonably issue an imperative without assuming that the recipient was able to comply. For example, I might dare someone to do something as a way of calling his bluff. The best way to expose an idle boast or empty threat is to challenge it. "If you say you can do it, then do it!"
I’m not saying that this is what motivates every injunction. But for Geisler to lay down, as a universal and self-evident proposition, that it would be irrational to tell someone to do something unless he could do it is a reckless overgeneralization that ignores any number of counterexamples.
Geisler also says that reward and punishment imply freedom of choice: "Why eulogize Mother Teresa and vilify Hitler, if they could not help doing what they did? Why blame Adolf Eichmann and praise Martin Luther King, if they had no free choice in the matter?" (31).
Again, though, this is not an exegetical question. Rather, Geisler is postulating what he regards as a prerequisite for the assignment of reward and punishment. Although he goes on to quote Rom 2:6, this verse merely says that God will render to each man according to his works. Nowhere does the verse lay down the preconditions under which some works are praiseworthy and others blameworthy. Geisler is either reading this into the verse or assuming that the verse would make no sense unless we assume a libertarian theory of the will.
Incidentally, this is a theologically treacherous claim. For if the freedom to do otherwise is a condition of praiseworthy action, then God is not a praiseworthy agent unless God is able to be or to do evil.
Okay, this is what Geisler appeals to in order to justify his interpretation of Gen 1:27-28 and 2:16-17. But you see that none of that has anything to do with the actual exegesis of the text.
Moving ahead, Geisler goes on to say that "the text narrates their choice" (32). He then cites Gen 3:6,11,13. This, however, is another non-sequitur. The point at issue is not whether Adam and Eve and other human beings make choices. For the point which Geisler wishes to prove is not the bare fact, but the prior conditions which make the fact at all possible or morally significant.
For Scripture to describe a course of action is not for Scripture to teach a particular theory of the will. There is an obvious difference between a specific action and a specific action-theory. The one does not entail the other. There are, indeed, many different theories of the will. So there is no one-to-one correspondence between a particular theory and a particular description. At best, Geisler's chosen theory is underdetermined by the very verses he adduces in its defense. At worst, he also ignores many verses that undermine his theory of the will.
Geisler says a little later that "God is not a cosmic B. F. Skinner" (48). Well, let us play along with this example. When you put a lab rat in a maze, you have given your rat a number of choices. And since he is confronted with a number of choices, he must make a number of choices. He can turn right or left. He can move forward or backward. He can stay put. He can nibble the cheese or disdain the cheese. Maybe he prefers Port Salut to Kraft!
Now, if we were to apply Geisler-style logic to the situation, we’d have to devise a rodential version of libertarian freedom to account for the decision-making ability of lab rats. Indeed, we’d need to carry this line of analysis all the way down to level of the paramecium and ameba. Such an ontology would begin to resemble the panpsychism of Leibniz or the old-fashioned animism of wood-nymphs and water-gods. All these free agents, from mice to men, fleas and flagella!
It is true that the way in which the maze is configured will direct the rat to a foregone destination. In that respect, the experimental scientist is controlling the outcome by controlling the range of options available to the lab rat.
Suppose, though, we were to substitute a more natural environment for the laboratory. A big tree blows over and our friendly rat takes up residence in the tunnels bored by the old root-system. This, too, is like a maze, a natural maze. The only difference is that the tunnels are randomly distributed in a root-system.
Notice, though, that our rat does not necessarily have any more choices in his natural environment than in the laboratory. He has freedom of opportunity, but he has no freedom over his opportunities. He can only go where the roots go.
So whether the twists and turns taken by an agent are more like a Skinner-box or a root-system make no quantitative or qualitative difference to our freedom of choice. I can only choose from the array of choices presented to me. I do not choose the framework; I choose within the framework.
What is more, it isn’t merely that the framework supplies and circumscribes my general range of options. For however many abstract options I have, yet I can only make one concrete choice at a time. So the many choices reduce to one choice. In that respect, if I choose not to turn right, then I don’t need the option of a right turn. To insist that freedom of opportunity, freedom to do otherwise, is a sine qua non of obligation or blame, is a practical illusion. This confuses reality with imagination.
But, of course, the difference between specified and randomized opportunities can make a great deal of difference to the outcome. A person who is lost in a maze may starve to death unless the maze is designed in such a way as to lead him out of the maze.
Suppose the world were a cosmic Skinner-box? That would be a model or metaphor for predestination. Suppose the world were an underground cave-system. That would be a model or metaphor for libertarian freedom. Both scenarios will present the agent with a variety of choices. But Geisler would rather be lost in a cave, at the risk of death by hunger or thirst, than live and move and have his being in a tunnel to heaven.
And that is not the half of it. The bare fact that folks can make choices does not imply that they are always free to choose otherwise. Just consider the nature of addiction. An alcoholic chooses to drink. A compulsive gambler chooses to bet. A junkie chooses to shoot up. In each case, this is an act the will. Yet it doesn’t follow that they are equally at liberty to refrain from their actions. That is what makes compulsive behavior compulsive.
There is a difference between external coercion and internal compulsion. No one is putting a gun to our head. And yet we may be unable to kick the habit. Sad to say, this is a commonplace of human experience. And addiction is a special case of sin.
Geisler wraps up this section by saying: "The NT references to Adam’s act make it plain that he made a free choice for which he was responsible. Rom 5 calls it ‘sin’ (16), an ‘offense’ (15, NKJV), and ‘disobedience’ (19). 1 Tim 2 refers to Adam’s act as a ‘transgression’ (14, NKJV). All these descriptions imply that it was a morally free and culpable act" (32).
But, of course, they do no such thing—not as Geisler uses words. This is yet another case where he interprets Scripture in light of certain extra-Scriptural assumptions regarding the requisite conditions of incumbency. Do they imply that Adam was responsible and culpable for his actions? Yes. Do they imply that Adam had libertarian freedom? No.
An implication cannot overdraw the premise. A conclusion can be less than the premise, but no more. You cannot infer something outside the text from something inside the text. To be valid, an implication must be contained within the scope of the premise, and the premise must be contained within the scope of the text. Otherwise, the inference is fallacious. Exegesis is a form of inference. That's the difference between exegesis and eisegesis.
This same chapter supplies as fine a specimen as any of Geisler’s scotch-tape style of exegesis:
"It is noteworthy that it [Lk 22:3; Jn 13:2,27] says that the devil ‘prompted,’ not forced, Judas to betray Christ. the act of Judas was free and uncoerced. This is evident from the use of the word ‘betray’ (Mt 26:16,21-23), for betrayal is a deliberate act (cf. Lk 6:16). And though the devil had put the idea into his heart (Jn 13:2), Judas performed the act freely, admitting later that he had ‘sinned’ (Mt 27:4). Jesus said to Judas, ‘What you are about to do, do quickly,’ Mark even says tat what Judas did he did ‘conveniently’ (Mk 14:10-11), (20, n.3).
What a ride! First of all, you have several instances in which Geisler overinterprets ordinary language, as though the writers were choosing technical terms to draw fine philosophical distinctions.
The Gospels don’t say that the devil merely "prompted" Judas to betray Christ. True, they also don’t say that he forced the hand of Judas. They just don’t say one way or the other. To say one thing is not to negate it’s opposite. The text is non-committal on this distinction. The distinction is crucial to Geisler, but it is not crucial to Luke or John, otherwise they'd draw it for themselves.
Again, "to betray" simply means "to betray," nothing more than that. It does not deny or affirm a libertarian theory of the will. Why does Geisler appeal to Lk 6:16 to substantiate his overloaded claim? The only difference is that Mt 26:16,21-23 use the verb, but Lk 6:16 the noun.
Not only does the word not carry this supplementary concept, but neither does the concept of betrayal itself. For betrayal can certainly be coerced. A man may be blackmailed to betray another man.
The fact that betrayal may be a deliberate act does not imply that the word "betray" means "deliberate act." This confuses words with concepts. And even if this is a deliberate act, that does not entail a libertarian theory of the will.
Geisler then infers from Judas’ admission of guilt that he had acted freely. What Geisler is doing here is to assume that libertarian freedom is a condition of moral responsibility; hence, to sin or confess one’s sin is evidence of libertarian freedom.
But, of course, the text never specifies the conditions of moral responsibility. That is something which Geisler is reading right back into the text. Even if it were a precondition of guilt, you cannot derive that from mere exegesis.
In the meantime, Geisler manages to overlook the elephant in the room. What is the nature and effect of possession? Does a demoniac act of his own free will? Does he know what he’s doing at the time? Is he in his right mind? Do the Scriptural cases of possession support that contention? What is the essential character of possession if not the notion that a human host is taken over by an alien force? That his human personality is submerged and overpowered by the incubus? That he cannot act of his own volition, but is only a vehicle of another, superior agent?
Isn’t that the purpose of possession, especially in the Passion account? Judas does something by diabolical inducement which he would be unable to come up with or carry out of his own accord.
This also fits with Lucan and Johannine theology. Judas is just the pawn, the fall guy. The real contest is between Christ and Satan.
In terms of narrative theology, the primary purpose of Judas’ confession is not to indict Judas, but to acquit Christ; not to show that Judas was guilty, but to show that Christ was innocent, was falsely accused and railroaded.
This is not to deny that Judas was culpable for his sedition. He has his lucid moments, in-between his bouts of possession. A drunk driver or drug addict may kill someone under the influence, and yet be unable to remember his crime. But his blackouts do not clear him of guilt. He may both be in a condition of diminished responsibility, and responsible for being in that condition in the first place.
At the same time, I'm not at all sure that a demoniac is his own best character-witness. Geisler's rules of evidence are pretty credulous.
Geisler seizes on the personal pronoun ("you") as if that were intended to single out Judas in distinction to the devil. Is there some overriding reason why one cannot refer to a demoniac as "you"? Is this a breach of infernal etiquette? Should only honorific titles be used when addressing the Old Serpent?
And what’s the relevance of saying that Judas sought an opportune time to betray Jesus? How does that imply libertarian freedom? For one thing, this took place before he became possessed.
I hope the reader can begin to see a pattern here. Geisler appears to be doing exegesis. He quotes a lot of Bible verses. But he filters them through an interpretive grid that is not supplied by Scripture. It is important to keep this caveat in mind whenever you read his appeal to Scripture. Although he’s quoting from Scripture, he is not proving anything from Scripture. Rather, he’s assuming that this or that verse would make no sense unless you patch it into a libertarian theory of the will. The libertarian theory is not, in fact, derived from Scripture itself. Rather, he regards this as a necessary background condition, without which the claims of Scripture would lack moral significance.
It is not an exegetical argument, but a transcendental argument. The line of reasoning is not: libertarian freedom is true because the Bible says it is true; rather: Scripture is true because libertarian freedom is true; if libertarian freedom were false, then Scripture would be false--for the absence of libertarian freedom would falsify the moral claims of Scripture.
To some extent, these virtues are weaknesses as well. By writing in a popular style, and covering so much ground, the work a rather superficial at just the point where it needs to be more rigorous and detailed. But that’s the trade-off. There is also a certain amount of redundancy and zigzagging, due, in part, to all the appendices in the second addition.
Because Geisler is such a prolific and influential writer, his critique merits a response. I will ignore most of the exegetical arguments, not because exegesis is unimportant, but because I’ve addressed that aspect in other essays.
Geisler places a great stock in rational arguments for his own position, and rational arguments against Calvinism. That will be the focal point of my own review.
In his review of The Potter’s Freedom by James White, Geisler singles out some logical fallacies, as he regards them, in White’s critique. These including "poisoning the well," "strawmen," and "false disjunctives." As I read through Chosen But Free, Geisler's own work is a textbook of informal fallacies, beginning with the subtitle: A Balanced View of Election.
This is a prejudicial way of framing the debate. For, by implication, the opposing position is unbalanced. But that begs the question of whether this is one of those issues in which the truth lies somewhere in the middle.
Actually, nothing can be more unbalanced than the prior assumption that we must strike a balance between opposing positions. Imagine if Geisler were to take a mediating position on any number of other issues, such as sola fide, same-sex marriage, abortion, evolution, Purgatory, inerrancy, the Resurrection, the Virgin Birth, hell, &c.
Since Geisler thinks that his position is true, he has a right to entitle his book accordingly, but the reader needs to keep in mind that the title is itself a preemptive strike, intended to create an unfavorable first impression of Calvinism before the reader ever cracks the covers.
Reinforcing this rhetorical ploy is his habitual way of labeling the opposing position as "extreme" Calvinism. But what he is pleased to dub as "extreme" is, in reality, mainstream Calvinism—the belief-system of the Westminster Confession, the Three Forms of Unity, and the London Baptist Confession of Faith.
He takes umbrage when his own position is branded as Arminian, but, of course, the Remonstrants also claimed to be true sons of Calvin.
It is generally liberals who characterize the opposing position as "extreme." Why does Geisler pander to this ploy?
The only justification he offers for this usage is his claim that Calvin subscribed to universal atonement. And he backs up his claim by appealing to R. T. Kendall. He is aware of rebuttals to Kendall by Helm, Rainbow, and Nicole. His response is to say that "Kendall’s view is not only one of a noted Calvinist, it is squarely based in the texts of Calvin and not a theological attempt to make Calvin consistent with one’s preconceived concept of ‘Calvinism’" (160, n.1).
But this begs the question every step of the way. Is Kendall a Calvinist? Do Helm, Rainbow, and Nicole not interact with the Calvinian witness as well? Is Kendall innocent of a theological agenda of his own? And let us remember that Beza, whom Geisler dubs an "extreme" Calvinist, was Calvin’s handpicked successor. Indeed, if you read Michael Thomas on The Extent of the Atonement (Paternoster 1997), you'll see that Calvin even acceded to Beza's supralapsarian scheme.
And even if there were, at this point, a difference between Calvin and his successors, how does that render their position "extreme?" Pretribers are a distant offshoot of historic premils. Would Geisler thereby brand his own eschatology as "extreme?"
An especially egregious example is the way he smuggles in his antinomian version of eternity security under the rubric of "moderate" Calvinism. But, traditionally, even those who upheld the universality of the atonement (e.g., Usher, Baxter, Davenant, Amyraut) were not antinomians. And this from a man who belittles election as the "frozen chosen."
However, he uses this as a pretext to trot out the old canard that Calvinism is injurious to the assurance of salvation. But if this is a problem for Calvinism, it is not only a problem for Calvinism. Every theological tradition which makes allowance for a distinction between nominal and genuine believers is susceptible to this charge. The short answer turns on the burden of proof. Absent evidence to the contrary, we have no reason to doubt our state of grace.
Even Geisler’s antinomian alternative does not remove an element of uncertainty. For faith is subjective. Faith is subject to doubt. And faith may be heretical, in whole or in part. Faith in whom? Faith in what? What degree of faith? Can a true believer die an unbeliever? What does that mean?
Good works are not a cause of salvation, but a consequence of the Holy Spirit’s work. Without good works, the Holy Spirit is not at work in the sanctification of the believer. And, absent the indwelling presence and ministry of the Spirit, the believer is only a nominal believer--unregenerate, if not reprobate.
There is a malign consistency in Geisler’s position. For him, the difference between a believer and unbeliever is a difference of degree, rather than kind. The unbeliever is free to believe; the believer is free to disbelieve. Like Schrödinger’s cat, Geisler’s version of fallen man can't quite exist in real time and space. It’s there as long as you aren't looking its way, but as soon as you look, it isn’t there!
Yet another instance of poisoning the well is the tendentious way he glosses every prooftext for his own position as the "plain meaning" of the verse in question. This is before the reader ever gets to his interpretation. And on this tactic, a couple of brief observations are in order:
i) If anyone has a corner on the "plain meaning" of universal expressions, it is the universalist. And this is not a bare hypothetical, for we have writers like Thomas Talbott who capitalize on these very verses. So it is not as though these verses broker the debate between Geisler and his Reformed opponents.
ii) Plain to whom? Is this an exercise in reader-response criticism? Geisler acts as though the Bible were directly addressed to a 21C American who speaks English as his mother tongue. Like so many writers who favor the Arminian interpretation of these verses, he never turns to any standard work of Biblical lexicography to justify the "plain meaning" of kosmos, but blusters behind his thin-air pronouncements. What do the reference works say on the subject?
1. J. Louw & E. Nida, Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament Based on Semantic Domains (UBS 1989), 2:146:
Kosmos, ou. m.
i) universe
ii) earth
iii) world-system
iv) people
v) adorning
vi) adornment
vii) tremendous amount
kosmos: unit
aion tou kosmou toutou: supernatural power
2. P. Cottrell & M. Turner, Linguistics & Biblical Interpretation (IVP 1989), 176:
i) the whole created universe: earth, heavens, heavenly bodies, &c.,
ii) "earth" as opposed to heaven, or the heavens,
iii) "mankind"; i.e. the 'world' of people,
iv) the condition of mortal life; 'life in the world,'
v) the beings (human and supernatural) in rebellion against God, together with the systems under their control, viewed as opposed to God,
vi) the system of earthly and social structures (including its joys, possessions, and cares),
vii) "adornment" or adorning."
3. W. Bauer et al., eds., A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature (Chicago Press 1979): 445-47:
kosmos, ou, ho
i) adornment, adorning
ii) the world as the sum total of everything here and now; the (orderly) universe.
iii) the world as the sum total of all beings above the level of the animals.
iv) the world as the earth, the planet upon which we live.
a) generally…In rhetorical exaggeration…In this line of development, kosmos alone serve to designate the pagan world.
b) the world as the habitation of mankind
c) earth, world in contrast to heaven—especially when mention is made of the preexistent Christ, who came from the other world into the kosmos. So, above all, in John.
d) the world outside in contrast to one's home.
v) The world as mankind
a) generally, all the world, everybody
b) of all mankind, but especially of believers, as the object of God's love
vi) the world as the scene of earthly joys, possessions, cares, sufferings.
vii) The world, and everything that belongs to it, appears as that which is hostile to God, i.e. lost in sin, wholly at odds with anything divine, ruined and depraved. The use of kosmos in this sense is even further developed in John. The kosmos stands in opposition to God (1 Jn 2:15f.) and hence is incapable of knowing God (Jn 17:25); cf. 1 Jn 4:5), and excluded from Christ's intercession (Jn 17:9). Neither Christ himself (17:14,16; 14:27), nor his own (15:19; 17:14,16; 1 Jn 3:1) belong in any way to the world. Rather, Christ has chosen them "out of the world" (Jn 15:19), even though for the present they must still live "in the world" (17:11; cf. vv15,18). All the trouble that they must undergo because of this (16:33) means nothing compared with the victorious conviction that Christ (and the believers with him) has overcome "the world" (v33; 1 Jn 5:4f.), and that it is doomed to pass away (2:17).
viii) Totality; sum total.
See also the highly inflected treatment of "kosmos" in the Exegetical Dictionary of the New Testament, H. Balz & G. Schneider, eds. (Eerdmans 2000), 2:309-13.
This tabulation should put the kibosh on any simple-minded notion that kosmos has only one, self-evident meaning. It has, rather, a wide semantic range, and which meaning we plug into any particular occurrence is less a question of semantics than exegesis.
Not only does his ignorance of the original Greek vitiate his appeal to the cosmic passages, but his ignorance of the original Hebrew spoils another argument as well. What does he think is the Biblical basis for freewill? "One of the things God gave his good creatures was a good power called freewill. God said to Adam: ‘You are free...’ (Gen 2:16).
Unfortunately for Geisler, that is not what God said to Adam. The original employs a Hebrew idiom (using the same word for verb and adverb), which is literally rendered, "eating, you may eat." This is an idiomatic way of expressing certainly. An idiomatic English rendering would be: "You may surely eat."
In addition, this constitutes a bit of wordplay, for it sets up a parallel between eating (v16) and dying (v17) inasmuch as v17 employs the same idiomatic construction: "dying, you will die," meaning, "You shall surely die."
Geisler goes on to cite Eccl 7:29, which is both a general allusion to Gen 1-3, and a specific allusion to Gen 6:5. However, it ought to be obvious that Eccl 7:29 does not posit a formal theory of the will. It simply states something that God did (in creation), followed by something that man did (in the fall and thereafter). Geisler also plucks this verse out of Ecclesiastes without regard to the theology of Ecclesiastes, in spite of its predestinarian doctrine of the right time (3:1-14).
This illustrates the systemic weakness of what passes for exegesis in so much of Geisler’s case, which is a failure to recognize the role of unspoken presuppositions. Consider some of his further efforts to prove freewill.
He says that "the power of free choice is part of mankind being created in the image of God (Gen 1:27). Adam and Eve were commanded: (1) to multiply their kind (1:28) and (2) to refrain from eating the forbidden fruit (2:16). Both of these responsibilities imply the ability to respond. As noted above, the fact that they ought to obey these commands implied that they could obey them" (32).
Many readers may find this line of reasoning to be persuasive. But let’s break it down. How does procreation flow from the imago Dei? After all, the other plants and animals reproduce as well. Does that imply that they are also made in the image of God?
Maybe Geisler would say that it is not procreation, per se, but the command to procreate that flows from the imago Dei? But does the text draw that distinction? The question is how we relate v27 to v28. All that Geisler has done is to assume that the two verses are related in a certain way without showing them to be so related.
Likewise, where do 2:16-17 ground the prohibition in the imago Dei? Or is the connection, not with the imago Dei, but with his axiom that ability limits liability? Is he deducing his conclusions from the imago Dei, or from his axiom about ability and responsibility?
And what was the argument for the latter? He says "sound reason demands that there is no responsibility where there is no ability to respond" (29). But notice that this is not an exegetical argument. Indeed, it is not even an argument. It is merely an assertion.
On the next page he offers a supporting argument: "What we ought to do implies that we can do it. Otherwise, we have to assume that the Moral lawgiver is prescribing the irrational. Commanding that we do what is literally impossible for us to do" (30).
Notice, again, that this is not an exegetical argument. Rather, it is an intuitive argument. What Geisler is doing is to stipulate the preconditions of moral responsibility. He does not derive these from the text of Scripture. Rather, he brings these to the text of Scripture. He appears to be doing exegesis, but he is not, for the text itself (Gen 1:27-28; 2:16-17) is quite silent on the necessary and sufficient conditions of incumbency.
And I’d add that even on its own grounds, his conclusion hardly follows. To begin with, impossibility is not all of a kind. There are many different kinds of impossibility: logical, psychological, physical, metaphysical, &c.
I myself don’t find it at all difficult to think of situations in which one could reasonably issue an imperative without assuming that the recipient was able to comply. For example, I might dare someone to do something as a way of calling his bluff. The best way to expose an idle boast or empty threat is to challenge it. "If you say you can do it, then do it!"
I’m not saying that this is what motivates every injunction. But for Geisler to lay down, as a universal and self-evident proposition, that it would be irrational to tell someone to do something unless he could do it is a reckless overgeneralization that ignores any number of counterexamples.
Geisler also says that reward and punishment imply freedom of choice: "Why eulogize Mother Teresa and vilify Hitler, if they could not help doing what they did? Why blame Adolf Eichmann and praise Martin Luther King, if they had no free choice in the matter?" (31).
Again, though, this is not an exegetical question. Rather, Geisler is postulating what he regards as a prerequisite for the assignment of reward and punishment. Although he goes on to quote Rom 2:6, this verse merely says that God will render to each man according to his works. Nowhere does the verse lay down the preconditions under which some works are praiseworthy and others blameworthy. Geisler is either reading this into the verse or assuming that the verse would make no sense unless we assume a libertarian theory of the will.
Incidentally, this is a theologically treacherous claim. For if the freedom to do otherwise is a condition of praiseworthy action, then God is not a praiseworthy agent unless God is able to be or to do evil.
Okay, this is what Geisler appeals to in order to justify his interpretation of Gen 1:27-28 and 2:16-17. But you see that none of that has anything to do with the actual exegesis of the text.
Moving ahead, Geisler goes on to say that "the text narrates their choice" (32). He then cites Gen 3:6,11,13. This, however, is another non-sequitur. The point at issue is not whether Adam and Eve and other human beings make choices. For the point which Geisler wishes to prove is not the bare fact, but the prior conditions which make the fact at all possible or morally significant.
For Scripture to describe a course of action is not for Scripture to teach a particular theory of the will. There is an obvious difference between a specific action and a specific action-theory. The one does not entail the other. There are, indeed, many different theories of the will. So there is no one-to-one correspondence between a particular theory and a particular description. At best, Geisler's chosen theory is underdetermined by the very verses he adduces in its defense. At worst, he also ignores many verses that undermine his theory of the will.
Geisler says a little later that "God is not a cosmic B. F. Skinner" (48). Well, let us play along with this example. When you put a lab rat in a maze, you have given your rat a number of choices. And since he is confronted with a number of choices, he must make a number of choices. He can turn right or left. He can move forward or backward. He can stay put. He can nibble the cheese or disdain the cheese. Maybe he prefers Port Salut to Kraft!
Now, if we were to apply Geisler-style logic to the situation, we’d have to devise a rodential version of libertarian freedom to account for the decision-making ability of lab rats. Indeed, we’d need to carry this line of analysis all the way down to level of the paramecium and ameba. Such an ontology would begin to resemble the panpsychism of Leibniz or the old-fashioned animism of wood-nymphs and water-gods. All these free agents, from mice to men, fleas and flagella!
It is true that the way in which the maze is configured will direct the rat to a foregone destination. In that respect, the experimental scientist is controlling the outcome by controlling the range of options available to the lab rat.
Suppose, though, we were to substitute a more natural environment for the laboratory. A big tree blows over and our friendly rat takes up residence in the tunnels bored by the old root-system. This, too, is like a maze, a natural maze. The only difference is that the tunnels are randomly distributed in a root-system.
Notice, though, that our rat does not necessarily have any more choices in his natural environment than in the laboratory. He has freedom of opportunity, but he has no freedom over his opportunities. He can only go where the roots go.
So whether the twists and turns taken by an agent are more like a Skinner-box or a root-system make no quantitative or qualitative difference to our freedom of choice. I can only choose from the array of choices presented to me. I do not choose the framework; I choose within the framework.
What is more, it isn’t merely that the framework supplies and circumscribes my general range of options. For however many abstract options I have, yet I can only make one concrete choice at a time. So the many choices reduce to one choice. In that respect, if I choose not to turn right, then I don’t need the option of a right turn. To insist that freedom of opportunity, freedom to do otherwise, is a sine qua non of obligation or blame, is a practical illusion. This confuses reality with imagination.
But, of course, the difference between specified and randomized opportunities can make a great deal of difference to the outcome. A person who is lost in a maze may starve to death unless the maze is designed in such a way as to lead him out of the maze.
Suppose the world were a cosmic Skinner-box? That would be a model or metaphor for predestination. Suppose the world were an underground cave-system. That would be a model or metaphor for libertarian freedom. Both scenarios will present the agent with a variety of choices. But Geisler would rather be lost in a cave, at the risk of death by hunger or thirst, than live and move and have his being in a tunnel to heaven.
And that is not the half of it. The bare fact that folks can make choices does not imply that they are always free to choose otherwise. Just consider the nature of addiction. An alcoholic chooses to drink. A compulsive gambler chooses to bet. A junkie chooses to shoot up. In each case, this is an act the will. Yet it doesn’t follow that they are equally at liberty to refrain from their actions. That is what makes compulsive behavior compulsive.
There is a difference between external coercion and internal compulsion. No one is putting a gun to our head. And yet we may be unable to kick the habit. Sad to say, this is a commonplace of human experience. And addiction is a special case of sin.
Geisler wraps up this section by saying: "The NT references to Adam’s act make it plain that he made a free choice for which he was responsible. Rom 5 calls it ‘sin’ (16), an ‘offense’ (15, NKJV), and ‘disobedience’ (19). 1 Tim 2 refers to Adam’s act as a ‘transgression’ (14, NKJV). All these descriptions imply that it was a morally free and culpable act" (32).
But, of course, they do no such thing—not as Geisler uses words. This is yet another case where he interprets Scripture in light of certain extra-Scriptural assumptions regarding the requisite conditions of incumbency. Do they imply that Adam was responsible and culpable for his actions? Yes. Do they imply that Adam had libertarian freedom? No.
An implication cannot overdraw the premise. A conclusion can be less than the premise, but no more. You cannot infer something outside the text from something inside the text. To be valid, an implication must be contained within the scope of the premise, and the premise must be contained within the scope of the text. Otherwise, the inference is fallacious. Exegesis is a form of inference. That's the difference between exegesis and eisegesis.
This same chapter supplies as fine a specimen as any of Geisler’s scotch-tape style of exegesis:
"It is noteworthy that it [Lk 22:3; Jn 13:2,27] says that the devil ‘prompted,’ not forced, Judas to betray Christ. the act of Judas was free and uncoerced. This is evident from the use of the word ‘betray’ (Mt 26:16,21-23), for betrayal is a deliberate act (cf. Lk 6:16). And though the devil had put the idea into his heart (Jn 13:2), Judas performed the act freely, admitting later that he had ‘sinned’ (Mt 27:4). Jesus said to Judas, ‘What you are about to do, do quickly,’ Mark even says tat what Judas did he did ‘conveniently’ (Mk 14:10-11), (20, n.3).
What a ride! First of all, you have several instances in which Geisler overinterprets ordinary language, as though the writers were choosing technical terms to draw fine philosophical distinctions.
The Gospels don’t say that the devil merely "prompted" Judas to betray Christ. True, they also don’t say that he forced the hand of Judas. They just don’t say one way or the other. To say one thing is not to negate it’s opposite. The text is non-committal on this distinction. The distinction is crucial to Geisler, but it is not crucial to Luke or John, otherwise they'd draw it for themselves.
Again, "to betray" simply means "to betray," nothing more than that. It does not deny or affirm a libertarian theory of the will. Why does Geisler appeal to Lk 6:16 to substantiate his overloaded claim? The only difference is that Mt 26:16,21-23 use the verb, but Lk 6:16 the noun.
Not only does the word not carry this supplementary concept, but neither does the concept of betrayal itself. For betrayal can certainly be coerced. A man may be blackmailed to betray another man.
The fact that betrayal may be a deliberate act does not imply that the word "betray" means "deliberate act." This confuses words with concepts. And even if this is a deliberate act, that does not entail a libertarian theory of the will.
Geisler then infers from Judas’ admission of guilt that he had acted freely. What Geisler is doing here is to assume that libertarian freedom is a condition of moral responsibility; hence, to sin or confess one’s sin is evidence of libertarian freedom.
But, of course, the text never specifies the conditions of moral responsibility. That is something which Geisler is reading right back into the text. Even if it were a precondition of guilt, you cannot derive that from mere exegesis.
In the meantime, Geisler manages to overlook the elephant in the room. What is the nature and effect of possession? Does a demoniac act of his own free will? Does he know what he’s doing at the time? Is he in his right mind? Do the Scriptural cases of possession support that contention? What is the essential character of possession if not the notion that a human host is taken over by an alien force? That his human personality is submerged and overpowered by the incubus? That he cannot act of his own volition, but is only a vehicle of another, superior agent?
Isn’t that the purpose of possession, especially in the Passion account? Judas does something by diabolical inducement which he would be unable to come up with or carry out of his own accord.
This also fits with Lucan and Johannine theology. Judas is just the pawn, the fall guy. The real contest is between Christ and Satan.
In terms of narrative theology, the primary purpose of Judas’ confession is not to indict Judas, but to acquit Christ; not to show that Judas was guilty, but to show that Christ was innocent, was falsely accused and railroaded.
This is not to deny that Judas was culpable for his sedition. He has his lucid moments, in-between his bouts of possession. A drunk driver or drug addict may kill someone under the influence, and yet be unable to remember his crime. But his blackouts do not clear him of guilt. He may both be in a condition of diminished responsibility, and responsible for being in that condition in the first place.
At the same time, I'm not at all sure that a demoniac is his own best character-witness. Geisler's rules of evidence are pretty credulous.
Geisler seizes on the personal pronoun ("you") as if that were intended to single out Judas in distinction to the devil. Is there some overriding reason why one cannot refer to a demoniac as "you"? Is this a breach of infernal etiquette? Should only honorific titles be used when addressing the Old Serpent?
And what’s the relevance of saying that Judas sought an opportune time to betray Jesus? How does that imply libertarian freedom? For one thing, this took place before he became possessed.
I hope the reader can begin to see a pattern here. Geisler appears to be doing exegesis. He quotes a lot of Bible verses. But he filters them through an interpretive grid that is not supplied by Scripture. It is important to keep this caveat in mind whenever you read his appeal to Scripture. Although he’s quoting from Scripture, he is not proving anything from Scripture. Rather, he’s assuming that this or that verse would make no sense unless you patch it into a libertarian theory of the will. The libertarian theory is not, in fact, derived from Scripture itself. Rather, he regards this as a necessary background condition, without which the claims of Scripture would lack moral significance.
It is not an exegetical argument, but a transcendental argument. The line of reasoning is not: libertarian freedom is true because the Bible says it is true; rather: Scripture is true because libertarian freedom is true; if libertarian freedom were false, then Scripture would be false--for the absence of libertarian freedom would falsify the moral claims of Scripture.
Monday, September 20, 2004
Thoughts on Prohibition in an age of binge drinking.
From this post that includes articles on recent drinking related deaths:
"When I've worked with college students in Spain they have informed me because there is no drinking age, binge drinking is only done by the very young. Binge drinking has a stigma associated with the immature or the pathetic alchoholic. All of this makes me wonder if prohibition related to student
drinking is not making the problem worse."
Saturday, September 18, 2004
Naive
Sweden's sick leave payments skyrocket
This article amazes me. Is Sweden really this naive about human nature?They need a good dose of Augustine.
This article amazes me. Is Sweden really this naive about human nature?They need a good dose of Augustine.
Ethics and Institutions
A post on the importance of integrity for institutions, be they religious, academic, or business etc.
Thursday, September 16, 2004
Televangelist Paul Crouch Attempts to Keep Accuser Quiet
This is what's important enough to the LA Times to merit the front page.
Hugh Hewitt things that despite the LA Times penchant for poor journalism, this might be an exception:
"Sometimes old media does serious, difficult work. See the Los Angeles Times on the effort by Trinity Broadcast Network's Paul Crouch's efforts to silence an accuser. The article --potentially a TBN-destroyer-- is carefully researched and thoroughly balanced with charges and counter-charges, precisely sourced documents and named sources (though there is one unnamed source as well.) I know the reporter of this story, and he's a model of careful journalism and integrity. Perhaps the Times could assign him to the collapse of old media credibility surrounding Rathergate."
Hugh Hewitt things that despite the LA Times penchant for poor journalism, this might be an exception:
"Sometimes old media does serious, difficult work. See the Los Angeles Times on the effort by Trinity Broadcast Network's Paul Crouch's efforts to silence an accuser. The article --potentially a TBN-destroyer-- is carefully researched and thoroughly balanced with charges and counter-charges, precisely sourced documents and named sources (though there is one unnamed source as well.) I know the reporter of this story, and he's a model of careful journalism and integrity. Perhaps the Times could assign him to the collapse of old media credibility surrounding Rathergate."
Dan Rather makes stunning new allegations...
Dan Rather makes stunning new allegations not related to the forged memos: First stunning allegation; and the second stunning reversal.
Wednesday, September 15, 2004
Flower power-2
vi) The Third Terrorist : The Middle East Connection to the Oklahoma City Bombing
by Jayna Davis
Product Details
* Publisher: WND Books; (April 15, 2004)
* ISBN: 0785261036
Editorial Reviews
Book Description
Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols were not the lone conspirators in the Oklahoma City bombing—the attack that killed nearly 170 people in a few short seconds. They were part of a greater scheme, one which involved Islamic terrorists and at least one provable link to Iraq. This book, written by the relentless reporter who first broke the story of the Mideast connection, is filled with new revelations about the case and explains in full detail the complete, and so far untold, story behind the failed investigation—why the FBI closed the door, what further evidence exists to prove the Iraqi connection, why it has been ignored, and what makes it more relevant now than ever. Told with a gripping narrative style and rock-solid investigative journalism and vetted by men such as former CIA director James Woolsey, Davis’s piercing account is the first book to set the record straight about what really happened April 19, 1995.
vii) The Secret History of the Iraq War
by Yossef Bodansky
Product Details
* Publisher: ReganBooks; (June 15, 2004)
* ISBN: 0060736798
Editorial Reviews
From Publishers Weekly
Bodansky, ex-director of the Congressional Task Force on Terrorism and Unconventional Warfare and author of Bin Laden: The Man Who Declared War on America, offers many bold and contentious claims in this sprawling history of the Iraqi conflict up to Saddam’s capture. Saddam, he asserts, was deeply involved with al-Qaeda, and indeed dispatched a (never "activated") 500-man terrorist battalion to North America in 2002. Iraqi forces were awash in WMDs, which they planned to (but never did) launch at American soldiers, and which were finally spirited away to Syria or buried in the sand. And Syria and especially Iran, which now allegedly hosts al-Qaeda’s headquarters, have been busily fomenting turmoil in Iraq and terror throughout the region. Bodansky affirms the Bush Administration’s case for regime change and its larger "axis-of-evil" worldview. But he deplores the invasion itself-Saddam could have been toppled by a coup instigated by Russia or the Arab states, he says-and despairs of the American nation-building project in Iraq, which he feels faces an unstoppable jihad by a coalition of Islamists, Baathists, Sunnis, Shiites, al-Qaeda and even many Kurds, supported by an increasingly anti-American populace. Bodansky offers a microscopically detailed portrait of the byzantine politics of the various Iraqi factions and their regional sponsors, along with a vigorous critique of the chaos, intelligence failures, political ignorance and military overkill that characterize the American occupation.
viii) Treachery : How America's Friends and Foes Are Secretly Arming Our Enemies
by BILL GERTZ
Product Details
* Hardcover: 288 pages ;
* Publisher: Crown Forum; (September 7, 2004)
* ISBN: 1400053153
Editorial Reviews
From the Inside Flap
In his explosive new book, New York Times bestselling author Bill Gertz uncovers the most significant threat to U.S. national security today: America’s enemies—including radical terrorist groups—are arming themselves with the world’s most dangerous weapons. And they’re doing it with the help of America’s supposed allies. Worst of all, the U.S. has let it all happen.
Using his unparalleled access to the U.S. intelligence and defense communities, Gertz names names, revealing which of our "friends" have placed greed over principle to make America’s enemies far more deadly and the world a far more dangerous place. In Treachery, Gertz tells the whole story, complete with previously unpublished classified intelligence documents, and based on dozens of exclusive interviews with senior U.S. officials, including Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.
In shocking detail, Treachery exposes:
*How Iraqi insurgents are killing U.S. soldiers with weapons that France, Germany, and Russia sold them
*How the French and German governments turn a blind eye to arms sales to rogue regimes and terrorist states like Iran, Syria, and North Korea
*How intelligence reports show that China supplied arms to al Qaeda after the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on America
*The real story of why Libya dismantled its nuclear program—how U.S. intelligence caught the Libyans red-handed trying to smuggle in nuclear weapons technology
*How Pakistan’s nuclear proliferation network is even more extensive than has been reported
*The CIA report revealing that al Qaeda is pursuing—and may already have—nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons
*The classified intelligence showing that Russia and France were cooperating with Saddam Hussein even after the 2003 Iraq war broke out
*The full story of how Saddam exploited the United Nations "oil for food" program, not only to line his own pockets but also to rebuild Iraq’s weapons and missile programs
*How U.S. security lapses have enabled our enemies to target Americans using our own weapons technology secrets
ix) Nuclear Terrorism : The Ultimate Preventable Catastrophe
by Graham Allison
Product Details
* Publisher: Times Books; (August 9, 2004)
∑ ISBN: 0805076514
Editorial Reviews
From Publishers Weekly
A founding dean of Harvard's John F. Kennedy School of Government, Allison applies a long, distinguished career in government and academia to this sobering—indeed frightening—presentation of U.S. vulnerability to a terrorist nuclear attack. While he begins by asserting such an attack is preventable, the balance of his text is anything but reassuring. Allison begins by describing the broad spectrum of groups who could intend a nuclear strike against the U.S. They range from an al-Qaeda with its own Manhattan Project to small and determined doomsday cults. Their tools can include a broad spectrum of weapons, either stolen or homemade from raw materials increasingly available worldwide. Once terrorists acquire a nuclear bomb, Allison argues, its delivery to an American target may be almost impossible to stop under current security measures. The Bush administration, correct in waging war against nuclear terrorism, has not, he says, yet developed a comprehensive counter strategy.
x) The Connection : How al Qaeda's Collaboration with Saddam Hussein Has Endangered America
by Stephen F. Hayes
Product Details
∑ Hardcover: 224 pages ;
* Publisher: HarperCollins; (June 1, 2004)
* ISBN: 0060746734
Editorial Reviews
From Publishers Weekly
Weekly Standard reporter Hayes marshals a wealth of evidence that, in contrast with the tenuous connections that have so far made news, point to ties between Saddam Hussein's regime and al-Qaeda. Most intriguingly, Hayes finds links between Iraq and the 1993 World Trade Center bombers, one of whom apparently received shelter and financial support from Iraq after the attack. Hayes also gets confirmation by Czech officials of the alleged Prague meeting between September 11 hijacker Mohammed Atta and an Iraqi intelligence agent. Elsewhere, Hayes points to Iraqi intelligence documents that mention a "good relationship" with bin Laden. Other sources note an alleged agreement for Iraq to assist al-Qaeda in making chemical and biological weapons. Relying both on "open sources" like news articles, transcripts from the 1998 embassy bombing trials, as well as anonymous intelligence reports and informants, Hayes allows that some of these stories may prove unreliable. But he contends that the number, consistency and varied provenance of reports of high-level contacts between al-Qaeda and Iraq throughout the past decade allows one to "connect the dots" into a clear pattern of collaboration. Despite the frustrating absence of source notes and no knowledge of what cooperative efforts ever came of these contacts, most readers will conclude from this volume that the Saddam–al-Queda thread has some play left in it.
*******************************************
You then bring up the prison flap, which you choose to characterize as ‘the systematic torture and humiliation of Iraqi prisoners of war in Abu Ghraib.’ But there are a number of flaws in your summary.
i) These were not POWs. These were terrorists, murdering our troops--as well as Iraqi citizens.
ii) You have a single adjective (systematic) govern both nouns. But even if there were a systematic pattern of humiliation, what evidence do you have of systematic torture? Torture and humiliation are not at all the same thing. The word "torture" is a loaded-word, with connotations of mutilation and the like.
I saw a simulated execution, but although that's nasty business, yet given a choice, I'd opt for a simulated execution over the real deal any day of the week, wouldn't you?
iii) Most of the examples I saw took the form of sexual humiliation. Indeed, the photos could just as well have been shot at a San Francisco bathhouse. Yet you say that we shouldn’t 'squabble' about sex and sexual politics. Why do you fixate on the sadistic treatment of a few detainees while you turn a blind eye to the S&M culture in America?
iv) Isn’t one of the lessons of Abu Graib the sexual temptations of a coed military? But you say that we shouldn't 'squabble' about sex and sexual politics.
So what you take to be a 'symptom' of our 'reckless' foreign policy is really a symptom of reckless sexuality.
iv) What about the Catholic sex scandal, which is really a homosexual sex scandal, and which outnumbers Abu Graib by many orders of magnitude? Why do you turn a blind eye to that?
v) Why do you strain at the gnat of Abu Ghaib while you swallow the camel of truly systematic torture under Saddam’s regime? His victims outnumber our victims by many orders of magnitude.
You then raise the ethical question of the Bush doctrine. Yes, this question is well-worth raising. And we have an entire book of the Bible that answers that very question. The Book of Esther is a full-length prooftext for preemption. The Jews, in order to advert genocide, strike the first blow.
You then say that 'Jesus taught his followers to turn the other cheek when attacked. At the heart of Christian identity as his disciples is the call to be
peacemakers. Yet we fail repeatedly. Scripture diagnoses our true
condition: 'Their feet are swift to shed blood; ruin and misery are in
their paths, and the way of peace they have not known' (Romans 3:15-17, quoting Isaiah 59:7-8).
Of course, how we should apply the New Testament's teachings to
international affairs in a post-9-11 world is a complex question. At
present, however, we are not having the debate at all.'
This is quite a jumble:
i) Why do you limit the debate to NT teaching when this sentence follows on the heels of the previous statement, where you quote Paul quoting Isaiah? If Paul thought that OT ethics were relevant under the New Covenant, why don't you? If Isaiah is applicable, what about Deut 20?
Indeed, some of the provisions in the Sermon on the Mount go straight back to OT ethics (cf. Deut 32:35; Prov 22:21-22).
ii) As to turning the other cheek, what does this picturesque image depict? To strike a man on the right side of the face (Mt 5:39) implies a backhanded slap. In other words, this is dealing, not with assault and battery, much less national self-defense, but with a personal insult or affront to one's honor. As a NT scholar, I would expect you to be more attentive to the concrete imagery.
Again, this was addressed to Jews living under Roman occupation. It does not address the post-Constantinian situation.
BTW, I assume that Duke University as a campus police station. Have you lobbied for the abolition of campus security on the grounds that the staff, faculty, and student body should turn the other cheek?
iii) You conflate peacemakers with peacetalkers. Talking about peace is not the same thing as making peace. If you are serious about this, why don't you take a sabbatical, go to some hotspot in the world, and make peace between the warring parties? Or maybe you can persuade al-Qaida to lay down their arms and sing a round of Kumba-ya.
Am I being facetious? The more important question is: are you being facetious? Either you have a practical alternative or you don't. If you do, do it! Go somewhere and make it work. Otherwise, shut up!
You go on to say that 'the public, including the Islamic world, receives the impression that Christianity underwrites war-making.'
Well, one can only hope. Muslims are a warlike people. If Bush has fostered the impression in the Muslim world that if they fight us, we will fight back with superior force, then that's an excellent deterrent to further aggression.
You then say that 'Instead of obsessively debating sexual politics, we should raise our voices together in calling the Church and the nation to repentance and peacemaking.'
We should, should we?
i) Not only do you deny OT ethics, you deny Pauline ethics as well. After all, the debate is over sodomy, and sodomy runs counter to Pauline ethics (Rom 1:24-27; 1 Cor 6:9; 1 Tim 1:10).
ii) Not only do you deny Pauline ethics, you deny dominical ethics as well. Our Lord took traditional marriage as the paradigm (Mt 19:1-9). And he cited the Lord's judgment on Sodom and Gomorrah with evident approval (Mt 10:14-15).
iii) The church has no direct control over our foreign policy. But the church does enjoy direct control over its own code of conduct.
You round out by saying that we should 'seek God's mercy for the chaos our national has unleashed.' I'll grant that Iraq is unstable, but why you assume that chaos is worse than a homicidal police state or state sponsor of international terrorism is less than self-explanatory.
In any event, a chaotic Iraq poses no threat to the US, for the rival factions are to busy fighting each other to menace America any time soon.
My overall impression of your article is that, for a professional ethicist, you are morally blind. You lack a capacity for the most rudimentary moral discrimination. You have made no apparent effort to acquaint yourself with the opposing position. You indulge in fact-free denunciations and double standards. You say one thing, but live another. And you display only the most shallow grasp of Scripture.
by Jayna Davis
Product Details
* Publisher: WND Books; (April 15, 2004)
* ISBN: 0785261036
Editorial Reviews
Book Description
Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols were not the lone conspirators in the Oklahoma City bombing—the attack that killed nearly 170 people in a few short seconds. They were part of a greater scheme, one which involved Islamic terrorists and at least one provable link to Iraq. This book, written by the relentless reporter who first broke the story of the Mideast connection, is filled with new revelations about the case and explains in full detail the complete, and so far untold, story behind the failed investigation—why the FBI closed the door, what further evidence exists to prove the Iraqi connection, why it has been ignored, and what makes it more relevant now than ever. Told with a gripping narrative style and rock-solid investigative journalism and vetted by men such as former CIA director James Woolsey, Davis’s piercing account is the first book to set the record straight about what really happened April 19, 1995.
vii) The Secret History of the Iraq War
by Yossef Bodansky
Product Details
* Publisher: ReganBooks; (June 15, 2004)
* ISBN: 0060736798
Editorial Reviews
From Publishers Weekly
Bodansky, ex-director of the Congressional Task Force on Terrorism and Unconventional Warfare and author of Bin Laden: The Man Who Declared War on America, offers many bold and contentious claims in this sprawling history of the Iraqi conflict up to Saddam’s capture. Saddam, he asserts, was deeply involved with al-Qaeda, and indeed dispatched a (never "activated") 500-man terrorist battalion to North America in 2002. Iraqi forces were awash in WMDs, which they planned to (but never did) launch at American soldiers, and which were finally spirited away to Syria or buried in the sand. And Syria and especially Iran, which now allegedly hosts al-Qaeda’s headquarters, have been busily fomenting turmoil in Iraq and terror throughout the region. Bodansky affirms the Bush Administration’s case for regime change and its larger "axis-of-evil" worldview. But he deplores the invasion itself-Saddam could have been toppled by a coup instigated by Russia or the Arab states, he says-and despairs of the American nation-building project in Iraq, which he feels faces an unstoppable jihad by a coalition of Islamists, Baathists, Sunnis, Shiites, al-Qaeda and even many Kurds, supported by an increasingly anti-American populace. Bodansky offers a microscopically detailed portrait of the byzantine politics of the various Iraqi factions and their regional sponsors, along with a vigorous critique of the chaos, intelligence failures, political ignorance and military overkill that characterize the American occupation.
viii) Treachery : How America's Friends and Foes Are Secretly Arming Our Enemies
by BILL GERTZ
Product Details
* Hardcover: 288 pages ;
* Publisher: Crown Forum; (September 7, 2004)
* ISBN: 1400053153
Editorial Reviews
From the Inside Flap
In his explosive new book, New York Times bestselling author Bill Gertz uncovers the most significant threat to U.S. national security today: America’s enemies—including radical terrorist groups—are arming themselves with the world’s most dangerous weapons. And they’re doing it with the help of America’s supposed allies. Worst of all, the U.S. has let it all happen.
Using his unparalleled access to the U.S. intelligence and defense communities, Gertz names names, revealing which of our "friends" have placed greed over principle to make America’s enemies far more deadly and the world a far more dangerous place. In Treachery, Gertz tells the whole story, complete with previously unpublished classified intelligence documents, and based on dozens of exclusive interviews with senior U.S. officials, including Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.
In shocking detail, Treachery exposes:
*How Iraqi insurgents are killing U.S. soldiers with weapons that France, Germany, and Russia sold them
*How the French and German governments turn a blind eye to arms sales to rogue regimes and terrorist states like Iran, Syria, and North Korea
*How intelligence reports show that China supplied arms to al Qaeda after the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on America
*The real story of why Libya dismantled its nuclear program—how U.S. intelligence caught the Libyans red-handed trying to smuggle in nuclear weapons technology
*How Pakistan’s nuclear proliferation network is even more extensive than has been reported
*The CIA report revealing that al Qaeda is pursuing—and may already have—nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons
*The classified intelligence showing that Russia and France were cooperating with Saddam Hussein even after the 2003 Iraq war broke out
*The full story of how Saddam exploited the United Nations "oil for food" program, not only to line his own pockets but also to rebuild Iraq’s weapons and missile programs
*How U.S. security lapses have enabled our enemies to target Americans using our own weapons technology secrets
ix) Nuclear Terrorism : The Ultimate Preventable Catastrophe
by Graham Allison
Product Details
* Publisher: Times Books; (August 9, 2004)
∑ ISBN: 0805076514
Editorial Reviews
From Publishers Weekly
A founding dean of Harvard's John F. Kennedy School of Government, Allison applies a long, distinguished career in government and academia to this sobering—indeed frightening—presentation of U.S. vulnerability to a terrorist nuclear attack. While he begins by asserting such an attack is preventable, the balance of his text is anything but reassuring. Allison begins by describing the broad spectrum of groups who could intend a nuclear strike against the U.S. They range from an al-Qaeda with its own Manhattan Project to small and determined doomsday cults. Their tools can include a broad spectrum of weapons, either stolen or homemade from raw materials increasingly available worldwide. Once terrorists acquire a nuclear bomb, Allison argues, its delivery to an American target may be almost impossible to stop under current security measures. The Bush administration, correct in waging war against nuclear terrorism, has not, he says, yet developed a comprehensive counter strategy.
x) The Connection : How al Qaeda's Collaboration with Saddam Hussein Has Endangered America
by Stephen F. Hayes
Product Details
∑ Hardcover: 224 pages ;
* Publisher: HarperCollins; (June 1, 2004)
* ISBN: 0060746734
Editorial Reviews
From Publishers Weekly
Weekly Standard reporter Hayes marshals a wealth of evidence that, in contrast with the tenuous connections that have so far made news, point to ties between Saddam Hussein's regime and al-Qaeda. Most intriguingly, Hayes finds links between Iraq and the 1993 World Trade Center bombers, one of whom apparently received shelter and financial support from Iraq after the attack. Hayes also gets confirmation by Czech officials of the alleged Prague meeting between September 11 hijacker Mohammed Atta and an Iraqi intelligence agent. Elsewhere, Hayes points to Iraqi intelligence documents that mention a "good relationship" with bin Laden. Other sources note an alleged agreement for Iraq to assist al-Qaeda in making chemical and biological weapons. Relying both on "open sources" like news articles, transcripts from the 1998 embassy bombing trials, as well as anonymous intelligence reports and informants, Hayes allows that some of these stories may prove unreliable. But he contends that the number, consistency and varied provenance of reports of high-level contacts between al-Qaeda and Iraq throughout the past decade allows one to "connect the dots" into a clear pattern of collaboration. Despite the frustrating absence of source notes and no knowledge of what cooperative efforts ever came of these contacts, most readers will conclude from this volume that the Saddam–al-Queda thread has some play left in it.
*******************************************
You then bring up the prison flap, which you choose to characterize as ‘the systematic torture and humiliation of Iraqi prisoners of war in Abu Ghraib.’ But there are a number of flaws in your summary.
i) These were not POWs. These were terrorists, murdering our troops--as well as Iraqi citizens.
ii) You have a single adjective (systematic) govern both nouns. But even if there were a systematic pattern of humiliation, what evidence do you have of systematic torture? Torture and humiliation are not at all the same thing. The word "torture" is a loaded-word, with connotations of mutilation and the like.
I saw a simulated execution, but although that's nasty business, yet given a choice, I'd opt for a simulated execution over the real deal any day of the week, wouldn't you?
iii) Most of the examples I saw took the form of sexual humiliation. Indeed, the photos could just as well have been shot at a San Francisco bathhouse. Yet you say that we shouldn’t 'squabble' about sex and sexual politics. Why do you fixate on the sadistic treatment of a few detainees while you turn a blind eye to the S&M culture in America?
iv) Isn’t one of the lessons of Abu Graib the sexual temptations of a coed military? But you say that we shouldn't 'squabble' about sex and sexual politics.
So what you take to be a 'symptom' of our 'reckless' foreign policy is really a symptom of reckless sexuality.
iv) What about the Catholic sex scandal, which is really a homosexual sex scandal, and which outnumbers Abu Graib by many orders of magnitude? Why do you turn a blind eye to that?
v) Why do you strain at the gnat of Abu Ghaib while you swallow the camel of truly systematic torture under Saddam’s regime? His victims outnumber our victims by many orders of magnitude.
You then raise the ethical question of the Bush doctrine. Yes, this question is well-worth raising. And we have an entire book of the Bible that answers that very question. The Book of Esther is a full-length prooftext for preemption. The Jews, in order to advert genocide, strike the first blow.
You then say that 'Jesus taught his followers to turn the other cheek when attacked. At the heart of Christian identity as his disciples is the call to be
peacemakers. Yet we fail repeatedly. Scripture diagnoses our true
condition: 'Their feet are swift to shed blood; ruin and misery are in
their paths, and the way of peace they have not known' (Romans 3:15-17, quoting Isaiah 59:7-8).
Of course, how we should apply the New Testament's teachings to
international affairs in a post-9-11 world is a complex question. At
present, however, we are not having the debate at all.'
This is quite a jumble:
i) Why do you limit the debate to NT teaching when this sentence follows on the heels of the previous statement, where you quote Paul quoting Isaiah? If Paul thought that OT ethics were relevant under the New Covenant, why don't you? If Isaiah is applicable, what about Deut 20?
Indeed, some of the provisions in the Sermon on the Mount go straight back to OT ethics (cf. Deut 32:35; Prov 22:21-22).
ii) As to turning the other cheek, what does this picturesque image depict? To strike a man on the right side of the face (Mt 5:39) implies a backhanded slap. In other words, this is dealing, not with assault and battery, much less national self-defense, but with a personal insult or affront to one's honor. As a NT scholar, I would expect you to be more attentive to the concrete imagery.
Again, this was addressed to Jews living under Roman occupation. It does not address the post-Constantinian situation.
BTW, I assume that Duke University as a campus police station. Have you lobbied for the abolition of campus security on the grounds that the staff, faculty, and student body should turn the other cheek?
iii) You conflate peacemakers with peacetalkers. Talking about peace is not the same thing as making peace. If you are serious about this, why don't you take a sabbatical, go to some hotspot in the world, and make peace between the warring parties? Or maybe you can persuade al-Qaida to lay down their arms and sing a round of Kumba-ya.
Am I being facetious? The more important question is: are you being facetious? Either you have a practical alternative or you don't. If you do, do it! Go somewhere and make it work. Otherwise, shut up!
You go on to say that 'the public, including the Islamic world, receives the impression that Christianity underwrites war-making.'
Well, one can only hope. Muslims are a warlike people. If Bush has fostered the impression in the Muslim world that if they fight us, we will fight back with superior force, then that's an excellent deterrent to further aggression.
You then say that 'Instead of obsessively debating sexual politics, we should raise our voices together in calling the Church and the nation to repentance and peacemaking.'
We should, should we?
i) Not only do you deny OT ethics, you deny Pauline ethics as well. After all, the debate is over sodomy, and sodomy runs counter to Pauline ethics (Rom 1:24-27; 1 Cor 6:9; 1 Tim 1:10).
ii) Not only do you deny Pauline ethics, you deny dominical ethics as well. Our Lord took traditional marriage as the paradigm (Mt 19:1-9). And he cited the Lord's judgment on Sodom and Gomorrah with evident approval (Mt 10:14-15).
iii) The church has no direct control over our foreign policy. But the church does enjoy direct control over its own code of conduct.
You round out by saying that we should 'seek God's mercy for the chaos our national has unleashed.' I'll grant that Iraq is unstable, but why you assume that chaos is worse than a homicidal police state or state sponsor of international terrorism is less than self-explanatory.
In any event, a chaotic Iraq poses no threat to the US, for the rival factions are to busy fighting each other to menace America any time soon.
My overall impression of your article is that, for a professional ethicist, you are morally blind. You lack a capacity for the most rudimentary moral discrimination. You have made no apparent effort to acquaint yourself with the opposing position. You indulge in fact-free denunciations and double standards. You say one thing, but live another. And you display only the most shallow grasp of Scripture.
Flower power-1
Dear Dr. Hays,
I read with some interest your recent article on ‘War, not sex, is the issue.’ You open your article by saying that ‘Christians in the United States should stop fighting one another about issues of sexuality so that we can focus on the deepest moral crisis of our time: our responsibility for the destruction our nation has inflicted upon the people of Iraq.’
To begin with, I don’t know of any Christians who are fighting one another over sex. All I’ve heard of is a battle between nominal believers and outright unbelievers, on the one hand, who are trying to impose their immorality on the church, and Bible-believing Christians, on the other hand, who are fighting back.
I also don’t know by what criteria you judge the Iraq war to be the deepest moral crisis of our time. Certainly there are other candidates for that distinction. Some would say that abortion is the great moral issue of our time. Some would say the persecution of the faithful around the world. Some would say the need to defeat gobal jihad. Some would say the attack on traditional family values.
However, let’s assume, for the sake of argument, that the Iraq war is the great moral issue of our time. How does that justify your characterization of the conflict: ‘our responsibility for the destruction our national has inflicted upon the people of Iraq’?
Before we toppled Saddam, the people of Iraq were living under the most oppressive despot in the Mideast. And we are now rebuilding a country whose infrastructure had deteriorated under decades of tyranny.
In fairness, though, you offer some supporting arguments for your allegation. You begin by saying that the US ignored just-war criteria.
That is a very debatable contention. Roman Catholic scholars such as Richard John Neuhaus and Michael Novak have argued at some length that the Iraq war had satisfied just-war criteria.
Richard John Neuhaus, 'War in a New Era.'
http://www.firstthings.com/ftissues/ft0308/public.html
Neuhaus, 'Just war is an obligation of charity.'
http://www.catholic.net/us_catholic_news/template_article.phtml?article_id=306&channel_id=1
'Fr. Richard John Neuhaus on the Iraq Crisis.'
http://www.catholicity.com/commentary/20030314.html
Michael Novak, 'Asymmetrical Warfare & Just War.'
http://www.nationalreview.com/novak/novak021003.asp
So, to be taken seriously, you would need to make a case for your contention. For example, it seems rather obvious that in some cases, at least, preemption is a logical extension of national self-defense, viz., the Six Day War, or when Israel took out Iraq's nuclear reactor.
Your accusation also assumes, without benefit of argument, that just-war criteria should dictate our defense posture. But since you are a Methodist rather than a Thomist, it is unclear to me why you resort to medieval moral theology as your point of reference.
I wonder, do you extend this line of reasoning to what Aquinas would have to say about the ordination of homosexuals?
Thus far, your article consists in a string of assertions instead of arguments. However, you go on to cite some statistics, the purpose of which is, I gather, to bolster your case. You say that at least 10,000 Iraqi civilians have been killed, along with more that 900 American soldiers, and that ‘thousands more have been wounded and maimed on both sides of the conflict.’
'Both sides'? The last sentence is fascinating for what it reveals about your ethical center of gravity. Are you insinuating some sort of moral equivalence between American soldiers and suicide bombers?
On the one hand, we have American soldiers are risking their lives to defend the civilian populace; on the other hand, we have a terrorist network that is targeting the civilian populace.
The death of American soldiers is tragic, but that is really beside the point. In any war, soldiers are killed. Even just-war criteria war take that much for granted.
In addition, Catholic moral theology operates with the double-effect principle. Collateral damage may be an inevitable and licit side-effect of a just war. If you don’t agree with this, don’t invoke just-war theory in the first place.
You then say that ‘justifications proposed by the president and other leaders have proven false: no weapons of mass destruction, no involvement by Iraq in the 9-11 attacks or in sponsoring al-Qaida.’
But there are numerous errors in this summary:
i) When or where did the president or any of his war cabinet ever propose an Iraq/9-11 link as a justification for the war? Can you produce a single hyperlink to any speech or interview or press conference in which the war was predicated on such a connection?
You seem to be parroting a popular urban legend about the causus belli. Maybe you need to go back and check your sources.
ii) I’d add that if you read the Congressional war resolution, the causus belli is broader than WMD or al-Qaida. So, on the one hand, you’ve oversimplified the official causus belli while, on the other hand, you’ve intruded a gratuitous justification (an Iraq/9-11) link which was no part of the official causus belli.
I have to wonder if this is the quality of scholarship you bring to your NT writings. It is your habit not to consult primary source data before you go to press?
iii) We need to draw an elementary distinction between being right and being in the right or having the right. We must often make important decisions based on insufficient evidence. Life confronts us with forced options, as Williams James has said. But the moral warrant for a particular action does not depend on our being right.
I see a man breaking into a house. I call the cops. It turns out that the man was not a house-burglar, but the homeowner, who had locked himself out of his own home. Was I right to call the cops? No. Was I in the right to call the cops? Yes.
A suspect brandishes a toy gun and points it at a policeman. From a distance, the toy gun looks like the real deal. The policeman shoots him dead. Was the policeman right? No. Was the policeman in the right? Yes.
The most that we can expect of a president is not that he be right, but that he be reasonable, acting on the best evidence at hand, and opting for the most likely rather than least likely interpretation of the evidence.
The salient question is not whether Bush was right, but whether he had the right to act on what he thought he knew. What was the state of prewar intel? Just off the top-of-my head, I'm able to come up with the following:
a) In his biography (American Soldier), Tommy Franks says he was told by both King Abdullah and Hosni Mubarak that Saddam had WMD. So that was the state of Arab intel.
b) Bob Woodward, in his new book (Plan of Attack), quotes George Tenant as assuring Bush that Saddam had WMD. So that was the state of CIA intel.
c) Lord Bulter’s report reaffirms the finding of MI-6 that Saddam was trying to acquire yellowcake from Africa. So that was the state of British intel.
d) Putin warned Bush of planned Iraqi attacks on the mainland. So that was the state of KGB intel.
e) Former UNSCOM inspectors like David Kay and Richard Butler, in various prewar interviews, assured the public that Iraq had WMD. So that was the state of UN intel.
BTW, I even heard Hans Blix, on Hardball, express his surprise that we didn’t find WMD in Iraq. He also admitted that inspectors could never have done their job as long as Saddam was calling the shots.
f) Iraqi defectors, such as a nuclear scientist, gave many prewar interviews affirming a WDM program. So that was the state of Iraqi intel.
Even assuming that all this turns out to have been false, would it not have been recklessly irresponsible of Bush to disregard all this information? Is it your position that a commander-in-chief, after escalating attacks on American interests abroad under his predecessor, and culminating in the attack under his own watch on 9/11, should disregard the information he was being fed by his own DCI, by MI-6, by the KGB, by Arab leaders, as well as former UNSCOM inspectors and Iraqi defectors?
It is better to be right than wrong, but as I say, we often have no choice in life but to act on the basis of inadequate information, for both action and inaction carry potential and unforeseeable consequences.
Relative risk assessments are made all the time in various walks of life, by drug companies, insurance companies, by gov't when issuing a mandatory evacuation orders in case of a tornado, hurricane, volcanic eruption, wildfire, &c., or when it quarantines a carrier or infected population group to prevent an epidemic or pandemic; when the military decides to vaccinate its servicemen, when it devises a battle plan, &c.
I'd add that the Iraq war is not all of a piece. It is possible to support regime-change, but oppose nation-building; to support disarmament, but oppose democratization.
And I have been assuming, for the sake of argument, that Bush was mistaken. But on what basis do you claim that Bush has been ‘proven’ wrong? How has the postwar situation falsified the evidence of an Iraq/al-Qaeda connection, or even WMD?
When Colin Powell gave his UN address, most of it consisted, not in the claim that Saddam had WMD, but that Saddam had had WMD, and that the onus was on Saddam to document that he no longer had WMD, given the status quo ante.
Again, Bush, in his prewar Cincinnati speech, didn't’ say that Saddam had a nuclear weapons program. Rather, he said that we didn’t know the state of his nuclear weapons program, and that was precisely the problem.
Now maybe you’d disagree with the burden of proof, but that is how the administration framed its case for going to war.
In addition, there are many postwar books and articles and other findings that reaffirm everything you deny, and a good deal more. Off-the-cuff, the following items come to mind:
i) Laurie Mylroi, 'Iraq's Complicity in Terrorism,'
http://www.worldandi.com/subscribers/feature_detail.asp?num=23930
ii) The 'Feith Memo' http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/003/378fmxyz.asp
iii) Evan Kohlmann's website: http://www.globalterroralert.com/
iv) September 11 Commission report (p. 66)
In March 1998, after Bin Ladin's public fatwa against the United States, two al Qaeda members reportedly went to Iraq to meet with Iraqi intelligence. In July, an Iraqi delegation traveled to Afghanistan to meet first with the Taliban and then with Bin Ladin. Sources reported that one, or perhaps both, of these meetings was apparently arranged through Bin Ladin's Egyptian deputy, Zawahiri, who had ties of his own to the Iraqis.
September 11 Commission report (p. 66)
Similar meetings between Iraqi officials and Bin Ladin or his aides may have occurred in 1999 during a period of some reported strains with the Taliban. According to the reporting, Iraqi officials offered Bin Ladin a safe haven in Iraq.
Bipartisan Senate Intelligence Committee Report (Conclusion 92, p. 345)
The Central Intelligence Agency's examination of contacts, training, safehaven and operational cooperation as indicators of a possible Iraq-al Qaida relationship was a reasonable and objective approach to the question.
Bipartisan Senate Intelligence Committee Report (Conclusion 94, p. 346)
The Central Intelligence Agency reasonably and objectively assessed in Iraqi Support for Terrorism that the most problematic area of contact between Iraq and al-Qaida were the reports of training in the use of non-conventional weapons, specifically chemical and biological weapons.
Bipartisan Senate Intelligence Committee Report (Conclusion 95, p. 347)
The Central Intelligence Agency's assessment on safehaven--that al-Qaida or associated operatives were present in Baghdad and in northeastern Iraq in an area under Kurdish control--was reasonable.
For more citations, cf. S. F. Hayes, 'No Terrorism in Iraq Before the War?'
http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/004/631slkle.asp
v) The David Kay Report:
From http://OpinionJournal.com
Best of the Web Today - October 3, 2003
By JAMES TARANTO
David Kay's preliminary report on Iraqi weapons of mass destruction is out. Here are some highlights (with a hat tip to Andrew Sullivan http://andrewsullivan.com/index.php?dish_inc=archives/2003_09_28_dish_archive.html#106515452491080509 ):
*** QUOTE ***
We have discovered dozens of WMD-related program activities and significant amounts of equipment that Iraq concealed from the United Nations during the inspections that began in late 2002. The discovery of these deliberate concealment efforts have come about both through the admissions of Iraqi scientists and officials concerning information they deliberately withheld and through physical evidence of equipment and activities that ISG [Iraq Survey Group] has discovered that should have been declared to the UN. . . .
Let me just give you a few examples of these concealment efforts . . .:
-A clandestine network of laboratories and safehouses within the Iraqi Intelligence Service that contained equipment subject to UN monitoring and suitable for continuing CBW [chemical and biological weapons] research.
-A prison laboratory complex, possibly used in human testing of BW agents, that Iraqi officials working to prepare for UN inspections were explicitly ordered not to declare to the UN.
-Reference strains of biological organisms concealed in a scientist's home, one of which can be used to produce biological weapons.
-New research on BW-applicable agents, Brucella and Congo Crimean Hemorrhagic Fever (CCHF), and continuing work on ricin and aflatoxin were not declared to the UN.
-Documents and equipment, hidden in scientists' homes, that would have been useful in resuming uranium enrichment by centrifuge and electromagnetic isotope separation (EMIS).
-A line of UAVs [unmanned aerial vehicles] not fully declared at an undeclared production facility and an admission that they had tested one of their declared UAVs out to a range of 500 km, 350 km beyond the permissible limit.
-Continuing covert capability to manufacture fuel propellant useful only for prohibited SCUD variant missiles, a capability that was maintained at least until the end of 2001 and that cooperating Iraqi scientists have said they were told to conceal from the UN.
-Plans and advanced design work for new long-range missiles with ranges up to at least 1000 km--well beyond the 150 km range limit imposed by the UN. Missiles of a 1000 km range would have allowed Iraq to threaten targets through out the Middle East, including Ankara, Cairo, and Abu Dhabi.
-Clandestine attempts between late-1999 and 2002 to obtain from North Korea technology related to 1,300 km range ballistic missiles--probably the No Dong--300 km range anti-ship cruise missiles, and other prohibited military equipment.
*** END QUOTE ***
'In addition to the discovery of extensive concealment efforts,' Kay continues, 'we have been faced with a systematic sanitization of documentary and computer evidence in a wide range of offices, laboratories, and companies suspected of WMD work. The pattern of these efforts to erase evidence--hard drives destroyed, specific files burned, equipment cleaned of all traces of use--are ones of deliberate, rather than random, acts.'
I read with some interest your recent article on ‘War, not sex, is the issue.’ You open your article by saying that ‘Christians in the United States should stop fighting one another about issues of sexuality so that we can focus on the deepest moral crisis of our time: our responsibility for the destruction our nation has inflicted upon the people of Iraq.’
To begin with, I don’t know of any Christians who are fighting one another over sex. All I’ve heard of is a battle between nominal believers and outright unbelievers, on the one hand, who are trying to impose their immorality on the church, and Bible-believing Christians, on the other hand, who are fighting back.
I also don’t know by what criteria you judge the Iraq war to be the deepest moral crisis of our time. Certainly there are other candidates for that distinction. Some would say that abortion is the great moral issue of our time. Some would say the persecution of the faithful around the world. Some would say the need to defeat gobal jihad. Some would say the attack on traditional family values.
However, let’s assume, for the sake of argument, that the Iraq war is the great moral issue of our time. How does that justify your characterization of the conflict: ‘our responsibility for the destruction our national has inflicted upon the people of Iraq’?
Before we toppled Saddam, the people of Iraq were living under the most oppressive despot in the Mideast. And we are now rebuilding a country whose infrastructure had deteriorated under decades of tyranny.
In fairness, though, you offer some supporting arguments for your allegation. You begin by saying that the US ignored just-war criteria.
That is a very debatable contention. Roman Catholic scholars such as Richard John Neuhaus and Michael Novak have argued at some length that the Iraq war had satisfied just-war criteria.
Richard John Neuhaus, 'War in a New Era.'
http://www.firstthings.com/ftissues/ft0308/public.html
Neuhaus, 'Just war is an obligation of charity.'
http://www.catholic.net/us_catholic_news/template_article.phtml?article_id=306&channel_id=1
'Fr. Richard John Neuhaus on the Iraq Crisis.'
http://www.catholicity.com/commentary/20030314.html
Michael Novak, 'Asymmetrical Warfare & Just War.'
http://www.nationalreview.com/novak/novak021003.asp
So, to be taken seriously, you would need to make a case for your contention. For example, it seems rather obvious that in some cases, at least, preemption is a logical extension of national self-defense, viz., the Six Day War, or when Israel took out Iraq's nuclear reactor.
Your accusation also assumes, without benefit of argument, that just-war criteria should dictate our defense posture. But since you are a Methodist rather than a Thomist, it is unclear to me why you resort to medieval moral theology as your point of reference.
I wonder, do you extend this line of reasoning to what Aquinas would have to say about the ordination of homosexuals?
Thus far, your article consists in a string of assertions instead of arguments. However, you go on to cite some statistics, the purpose of which is, I gather, to bolster your case. You say that at least 10,000 Iraqi civilians have been killed, along with more that 900 American soldiers, and that ‘thousands more have been wounded and maimed on both sides of the conflict.’
'Both sides'? The last sentence is fascinating for what it reveals about your ethical center of gravity. Are you insinuating some sort of moral equivalence between American soldiers and suicide bombers?
On the one hand, we have American soldiers are risking their lives to defend the civilian populace; on the other hand, we have a terrorist network that is targeting the civilian populace.
The death of American soldiers is tragic, but that is really beside the point. In any war, soldiers are killed. Even just-war criteria war take that much for granted.
In addition, Catholic moral theology operates with the double-effect principle. Collateral damage may be an inevitable and licit side-effect of a just war. If you don’t agree with this, don’t invoke just-war theory in the first place.
You then say that ‘justifications proposed by the president and other leaders have proven false: no weapons of mass destruction, no involvement by Iraq in the 9-11 attacks or in sponsoring al-Qaida.’
But there are numerous errors in this summary:
i) When or where did the president or any of his war cabinet ever propose an Iraq/9-11 link as a justification for the war? Can you produce a single hyperlink to any speech or interview or press conference in which the war was predicated on such a connection?
You seem to be parroting a popular urban legend about the causus belli. Maybe you need to go back and check your sources.
ii) I’d add that if you read the Congressional war resolution, the causus belli is broader than WMD or al-Qaida. So, on the one hand, you’ve oversimplified the official causus belli while, on the other hand, you’ve intruded a gratuitous justification (an Iraq/9-11) link which was no part of the official causus belli.
I have to wonder if this is the quality of scholarship you bring to your NT writings. It is your habit not to consult primary source data before you go to press?
iii) We need to draw an elementary distinction between being right and being in the right or having the right. We must often make important decisions based on insufficient evidence. Life confronts us with forced options, as Williams James has said. But the moral warrant for a particular action does not depend on our being right.
I see a man breaking into a house. I call the cops. It turns out that the man was not a house-burglar, but the homeowner, who had locked himself out of his own home. Was I right to call the cops? No. Was I in the right to call the cops? Yes.
A suspect brandishes a toy gun and points it at a policeman. From a distance, the toy gun looks like the real deal. The policeman shoots him dead. Was the policeman right? No. Was the policeman in the right? Yes.
The most that we can expect of a president is not that he be right, but that he be reasonable, acting on the best evidence at hand, and opting for the most likely rather than least likely interpretation of the evidence.
The salient question is not whether Bush was right, but whether he had the right to act on what he thought he knew. What was the state of prewar intel? Just off the top-of-my head, I'm able to come up with the following:
a) In his biography (American Soldier), Tommy Franks says he was told by both King Abdullah and Hosni Mubarak that Saddam had WMD. So that was the state of Arab intel.
b) Bob Woodward, in his new book (Plan of Attack), quotes George Tenant as assuring Bush that Saddam had WMD. So that was the state of CIA intel.
c) Lord Bulter’s report reaffirms the finding of MI-6 that Saddam was trying to acquire yellowcake from Africa. So that was the state of British intel.
d) Putin warned Bush of planned Iraqi attacks on the mainland. So that was the state of KGB intel.
e) Former UNSCOM inspectors like David Kay and Richard Butler, in various prewar interviews, assured the public that Iraq had WMD. So that was the state of UN intel.
BTW, I even heard Hans Blix, on Hardball, express his surprise that we didn’t find WMD in Iraq. He also admitted that inspectors could never have done their job as long as Saddam was calling the shots.
f) Iraqi defectors, such as a nuclear scientist, gave many prewar interviews affirming a WDM program. So that was the state of Iraqi intel.
Even assuming that all this turns out to have been false, would it not have been recklessly irresponsible of Bush to disregard all this information? Is it your position that a commander-in-chief, after escalating attacks on American interests abroad under his predecessor, and culminating in the attack under his own watch on 9/11, should disregard the information he was being fed by his own DCI, by MI-6, by the KGB, by Arab leaders, as well as former UNSCOM inspectors and Iraqi defectors?
It is better to be right than wrong, but as I say, we often have no choice in life but to act on the basis of inadequate information, for both action and inaction carry potential and unforeseeable consequences.
Relative risk assessments are made all the time in various walks of life, by drug companies, insurance companies, by gov't when issuing a mandatory evacuation orders in case of a tornado, hurricane, volcanic eruption, wildfire, &c., or when it quarantines a carrier or infected population group to prevent an epidemic or pandemic; when the military decides to vaccinate its servicemen, when it devises a battle plan, &c.
I'd add that the Iraq war is not all of a piece. It is possible to support regime-change, but oppose nation-building; to support disarmament, but oppose democratization.
And I have been assuming, for the sake of argument, that Bush was mistaken. But on what basis do you claim that Bush has been ‘proven’ wrong? How has the postwar situation falsified the evidence of an Iraq/al-Qaeda connection, or even WMD?
When Colin Powell gave his UN address, most of it consisted, not in the claim that Saddam had WMD, but that Saddam had had WMD, and that the onus was on Saddam to document that he no longer had WMD, given the status quo ante.
Again, Bush, in his prewar Cincinnati speech, didn't’ say that Saddam had a nuclear weapons program. Rather, he said that we didn’t know the state of his nuclear weapons program, and that was precisely the problem.
Now maybe you’d disagree with the burden of proof, but that is how the administration framed its case for going to war.
In addition, there are many postwar books and articles and other findings that reaffirm everything you deny, and a good deal more. Off-the-cuff, the following items come to mind:
i) Laurie Mylroi, 'Iraq's Complicity in Terrorism,'
http://www.worldandi.com/subscribers/feature_detail.asp?num=23930
ii) The 'Feith Memo' http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/003/378fmxyz.asp
iii) Evan Kohlmann's website: http://www.globalterroralert.com/
iv) September 11 Commission report (p. 66)
In March 1998, after Bin Ladin's public fatwa against the United States, two al Qaeda members reportedly went to Iraq to meet with Iraqi intelligence. In July, an Iraqi delegation traveled to Afghanistan to meet first with the Taliban and then with Bin Ladin. Sources reported that one, or perhaps both, of these meetings was apparently arranged through Bin Ladin's Egyptian deputy, Zawahiri, who had ties of his own to the Iraqis.
September 11 Commission report (p. 66)
Similar meetings between Iraqi officials and Bin Ladin or his aides may have occurred in 1999 during a period of some reported strains with the Taliban. According to the reporting, Iraqi officials offered Bin Ladin a safe haven in Iraq.
Bipartisan Senate Intelligence Committee Report (Conclusion 92, p. 345)
The Central Intelligence Agency's examination of contacts, training, safehaven and operational cooperation as indicators of a possible Iraq-al Qaida relationship was a reasonable and objective approach to the question.
Bipartisan Senate Intelligence Committee Report (Conclusion 94, p. 346)
The Central Intelligence Agency reasonably and objectively assessed in Iraqi Support for Terrorism that the most problematic area of contact between Iraq and al-Qaida were the reports of training in the use of non-conventional weapons, specifically chemical and biological weapons.
Bipartisan Senate Intelligence Committee Report (Conclusion 95, p. 347)
The Central Intelligence Agency's assessment on safehaven--that al-Qaida or associated operatives were present in Baghdad and in northeastern Iraq in an area under Kurdish control--was reasonable.
For more citations, cf. S. F. Hayes, 'No Terrorism in Iraq Before the War?'
http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/004/631slkle.asp
v) The David Kay Report:
From http://OpinionJournal.com
Best of the Web Today - October 3, 2003
By JAMES TARANTO
David Kay's preliminary report on Iraqi weapons of mass destruction is out. Here are some highlights (with a hat tip to Andrew Sullivan http://andrewsullivan.com/index.php?dish_inc=archives/2003_09_28_dish_archive.html#106515452491080509 ):
*** QUOTE ***
We have discovered dozens of WMD-related program activities and significant amounts of equipment that Iraq concealed from the United Nations during the inspections that began in late 2002. The discovery of these deliberate concealment efforts have come about both through the admissions of Iraqi scientists and officials concerning information they deliberately withheld and through physical evidence of equipment and activities that ISG [Iraq Survey Group] has discovered that should have been declared to the UN. . . .
Let me just give you a few examples of these concealment efforts . . .:
-A clandestine network of laboratories and safehouses within the Iraqi Intelligence Service that contained equipment subject to UN monitoring and suitable for continuing CBW [chemical and biological weapons] research.
-A prison laboratory complex, possibly used in human testing of BW agents, that Iraqi officials working to prepare for UN inspections were explicitly ordered not to declare to the UN.
-Reference strains of biological organisms concealed in a scientist's home, one of which can be used to produce biological weapons.
-New research on BW-applicable agents, Brucella and Congo Crimean Hemorrhagic Fever (CCHF), and continuing work on ricin and aflatoxin were not declared to the UN.
-Documents and equipment, hidden in scientists' homes, that would have been useful in resuming uranium enrichment by centrifuge and electromagnetic isotope separation (EMIS).
-A line of UAVs [unmanned aerial vehicles] not fully declared at an undeclared production facility and an admission that they had tested one of their declared UAVs out to a range of 500 km, 350 km beyond the permissible limit.
-Continuing covert capability to manufacture fuel propellant useful only for prohibited SCUD variant missiles, a capability that was maintained at least until the end of 2001 and that cooperating Iraqi scientists have said they were told to conceal from the UN.
-Plans and advanced design work for new long-range missiles with ranges up to at least 1000 km--well beyond the 150 km range limit imposed by the UN. Missiles of a 1000 km range would have allowed Iraq to threaten targets through out the Middle East, including Ankara, Cairo, and Abu Dhabi.
-Clandestine attempts between late-1999 and 2002 to obtain from North Korea technology related to 1,300 km range ballistic missiles--probably the No Dong--300 km range anti-ship cruise missiles, and other prohibited military equipment.
*** END QUOTE ***
'In addition to the discovery of extensive concealment efforts,' Kay continues, 'we have been faced with a systematic sanitization of documentary and computer evidence in a wide range of offices, laboratories, and companies suspected of WMD work. The pattern of these efforts to erase evidence--hard drives destroyed, specific files burned, equipment cleaned of all traces of use--are ones of deliberate, rather than random, acts.'
Tuesday, September 14, 2004
Brainwashing 101
This is the title of a provocative new documentary on the leftist repression of free speech on college campuses. It reflects very poorly on Bucknell, Cal Poly SLO and the University of Tennessee at Knoxville. You can watch it online. The feature length film is coming in 2005.
The difference...
Well said, Steve.
Mark Steyn says it as only he can:
Mark Steyn says it as only he can:
I remember a couple of days after September 11 writing in some column or other that weepy candlelight vigils were a cop-out: the issue wasn't whether you were sad about the dead people but whether you wanted to do something about it.
Three years on, that's still the difference. We can all get upset about dead children, but unless you're giving honest thought to what was responsible for the slaughter your tasteful elegies are no use.
Sunday, September 12, 2004
A God for girly-men
The recent slaughter of Russian schoolchildren by Jihadi promoted a number of comments by Anglican clergymen. A common thread running through these remarks was their humanistic orientation.
The Archbishop of Canterbury said "I think it is probably the suffering of children that most deeply challenges anybody's personal faith.
"When you see the depth of energy that people can put into such evil, then of course, yes, there is a flicker, there is a doubt. It would be inhuman, I think, not to react that way."
He insisted the murdered children had not been abandoned by God. God had given humans the freedom to make their own decisions, and He did not intervene, even in evil acts like the massacre.
He said he did not want to see the terrorists exterminated, and called for them to be given life sentences.
Canon Enid Morgan of Llangynwyd Church, near Maesteg, said, "We find it hard to think of anything as bad as September 11, then this happens. There has to be a refusal to take revenge. It was absolutely terrible. I was reminded of the story in the New Testament of Herod slaughtering the infant children. As Jesus wept over Jerusalem, so we can only weep over this."
Andrew Morton, rector of St Cybi's Church in Llangybi, near Cwmbran, said that "God has given human beings free will, so they can either choose to do bad things or they can choose to do good things. If they choose to do bad things, then it is not so much that they can't do anything about it, but He chooses not to do anything about it, because what is the alternative. The alternative is to take away our free will and our capacity to do evil, at which point we are no longer human."
"What is the alternative to people making choices? The alternative is that people don't have power to make choices. If that happens then we are no longer humans."
Church congregations across Wales were yesterday praying for the people of Beslan.
Philip Johnes, vicar of Llanegwad in Carmarthenshire, said, "God is in the middle of all the suffering and He is weeping for all creation and all those involved. All we can do is to pray for the sorrowful and the dead.
Although it is early for the people of Beslan, we must talk about forgiveness and reconciliation, there has to be forgiveness and reconciliation in any situation. These things have been going on for centuries, time is not always a healer and you have to do something. Unless we do forgive and have reconciliation at some time in the future then we are not fully human either."
Notice, again, the consistently androcentric emphasis. Not to doubt God would be inhuman. Not to be free would be inhuman. Not to forgive would be inhuman.
All we can do is weep. Indeed, this is all that God can do as well.
Not only is this thoroughly humanistic, but it presents a downright girlish view of God and man.
When confronted with evil-doers, we do not fight back. No, we, along with God, break out the hankies and have ourselves a nice long cry. And when we've run through a box of Kleenex, we absolve the evil-doers, not for what they've done to us, but what they've done to others.
One is also struck by the oracular tone of these pronouncements, as though they were beyond confutation.
Why, exactly, would it be inhuman not to doubt God at a moment like this? For one thing, why now? Has the Archbishop suddenly discovered the problem of evil? Where has he been all this time?
Is this a truly human reaction, or is it just an intellectual affectation? Faith is respectable as long as it is doubtful. The only good faith is a dubious faith.
Observe the manward understanding of faith. On this view, Christian faith is a faith in God, but not a faith from God. For if it were a faith from God, it would not be such a flickering candle in the winds of adversity.
I say "Christian" faith, but the Archbishop goes on to invoke the Koran as well. This is deeply ironic, for the God of Islam is a macho God for macho men. The dainty divinity of liberal churchmen is no match for Muslim machismo.
And why does the Archbishop take it upon himself to defend the religion of the child-killers? Jihadist theology is fixture of Islamic tradition. Cf. Paul Fregosi, Jihad in the West; Mark Gabriel, Islam & Terrorism.
I'm not saying that a Christians is immune to a crisis of faith. But to define faith by the presence of doubt instead of its absence is to found faith in faithlessness--which is not how the Bible defines it.
And although some in the saints of Scripture suffer from bouts of uncertainty, it's hard to think of any instance in which they doubt the very existence of God. Rather, they are simply perplexed. It is because they believe in God that they find certain situations to be perplexing.
And what are we to make of freedom as a fundamentum of human nature? One obvious problem with this appeal is that some "free" agents have a lot more freedom than others. The child-killers had a lot more freedom than the childish victims. That outcome was not, after all, the choice which the children would have made.
And how persuasive is it to say that God dare not lift a finger to intervene lest his interference infringe on the freedom of the human agents? Here was a case in which one party is completely violating the freedom of another party. Why respect the freedom of the child-killers over the freedom of their childish victims?
Suppose our clergymen were walking one of their own children through the park when their kid was jumped by a murderous assailant? Would they just stand there, crying their eyes out, as the assailant murdered their child? Would they refuse to defend their child on the grounds that any intervention on their part would rob the assailant of his freewill?
I pose this as a rhetorical question, but I'm unsure how rhetorical it really is. Not one of the clergymen has even suggested that we ought to fight back. Fr. Johnes says that all we can do in the face of terrorism is to weep and pray, forgive and seek reconciliation, while Morgan says that "there has to be a refusal to take revenge…[just] as Jesus wept over Jerusalem, so we can only weep over this"
But, of course, there's a lot more that we can do than burst into tears, is there not? We can defend ourselves, can't we? We can kill the killers before the kill again, can we not?
That would be the manly thing to do, but their theology has become so effeminate that the use of lethal force is apparently out of question.
The Archbishop tells us that we ought not destroy our enemy, but imprison him instead. But, to begin with, how is the threat of jail time any sort of deterrent to suicide-bombers? If they're prepared to kill themselves, will they really be impressed by the prospect of imprisonment?
And there's yet another little difficulty. Before you can imprison them, you must take them into custody. It's not as though they're turning themselves in to the authorities. Short of force, how does the Archbishop suppose that we can apprehend the a band of armed assailants?
How do we avoid a shootout, with a lot of bloodshed on either side? And how does this differ from conventional warfare, where we kill the enemy unless and until he surrenders?
And observe, for just a moment, the squint-eyed logic of all this. Having banished God from his own universe, and having disarmed all the men of good will, our clergymen then express their shock and dismay at how it is that evil-doers can do evil. Well, don't you suppose it might possibly have something to do with the fact that in a world one part Deism to two parts pacificism, evil-doers feel free to commit atrocities with utter impunity?
For that matter, why are libertarians so appalled by the slaughter of the innocents? Did they choose to be appalled? Did they will themselves to be appalled?
Fr. Johnes says that all we can do is to pray. Pray for what? Pray that God do something? Yet his God is not allowed to do anything. Why does a Deist pray to a God in exile?
One wonders, too, where all this Deism and pacifism is coming from. Not only is the God of the Bible not locked away in a broom-closet, but the God of the Bible is, among other things, a warrior God. And this is not only true of the OT, for the capstone of the NT canon is all about holy war, with Jesus in the lead (cf. Rev 19).
Again, there's nothing new about the doctrine of preemption. The Book of Esther is a classic case of a first strike, as the Jews strike the first blow to advert genocide. If the fate of the Jews were in the hands of such soft-hearted churchmen, rather than Mordecai's, they would stand by as Haman massacred the chosen people, then hold a teary-eyed vigil in memory of the victims.
There is a lot in life to cry about. But grief is no substitute for action. Jesus was more than a mourner; he was a doer.
Yes, Jesus wept, but Jesus was one of us. To say that God incarnate weeps over evil is not to say that God the Father weeps over evil. And let us remember that Christ restrained his omnipotence in the furtherance of his redemptive ends.
The idea that we need a heavenly sob sister is another mark of a sissified theology. And what good does that do anyone anyway? If I'm drowning, I want a lifeguard who can save me, not weep for me as I flail about.
A God who can only weep over the work of his hands is a pretty pitiful excuse for a God. This is not the God of Isaiah (40-48) or Job (39-41). This is not the God who redeemed the Israelites from Egypt and sustained them in the wilderness. A hapless, helpless crybaby God is not a real God, but a baby-doll for little girls to play with and put in their toy box.
And while we're at it, where goes Fr. Johnes get his notion of forgiveness? Why must there be forgiveness in every situation? To begin with, not every evil can be healed--not in this life, at least. What is the cure for a father or mother who loses a child to a terrorist? This is not like popping a pill or setting a broken bone. To speak of healing in a situation such as this is to indulge in cheap talk of the worst kind.
In addition, many victims find justice far more therapeutic than remission and reconciliation. The word "revenge" has come to be an easy fire-extinguisher for dowsing every faint flicker of righteous indignation. But there is nothing wrong with a wish to see justice done, to see justice exacted upon the unjust. The God of the Bible is, among other things, a just Judge. Even vengeance--yes, vengeance--has its proper place in Christian ethics (cf. Rev 6:10; 16:5-6; chap. 18).
Who is Fr. Johnes to forgive the child-killers on behalf of the victims and their parents? Where does Scripture ever authorize the idea of third-party absolution?
There are no doubt times when forgiveness is better than bitterness. But absolution is contingent on contrition. If the offender is impenitent, then there is no obligation to absolve him (cf. Mt 18:15-20; Lk 17:3-4).
And even if reconciliation were preferable, reconciliation is a two-way street. How can you be reconciled with a bunch of irreconciliables? Reconciliation cannot be stipulated on behalf of an unwilling party.
One of the striking things in all this is the loss of indignation among many men of the cloth. This was on full display during the Catholic sex-scandal. The clergy were ever so sorrowful and apologetic, but they were incapable of mustering any feeling of outrage. They felt pity for everyone alike, whether molester or acolyte. The tonal difference between the clergy and the laity was downright deafening.
There is, however, a further distinction between revenge, on the one hand, and retaliation, on the other, to deter further aggression, or preemption--to nip a looming threat in the bud. There is nothing punitive about self-defense.
And let us remember that you cannot be merciful to everyone. If you're merciful to the merciless, you are merciless to their victims. The victims have the first claim upon our mercies.
But if the freewill defense is no defense, then what is the answer? God's greatest gift to man is not man's freedom from God; no, God's greatest gift to man is the God made man; is God giving himself to man in revelation and redemption; For God is the highest good and the heavenly die in which all earthly goods are cast. And some goods are higher goods because the supervene upon the abuse of lower goods.
To know the Redeemer God is a greater good than knowing Creator God. That is the theodicy of Scripture, whereas the freewill defense is the philosophy of the Snake. (Cf. Gen 45:7; 50:20; Exod 7:3-5; 20:12; 1 Kg 8:37-40; Ps 51:4; 130:4; Prov 21:18; Eccl 3:11,14; Isa 6:9-13; 43:3-4; Ezk 20:25-26; Lk 2:34; Jn 3:16-21; 9:3,39; 15:22; Acts 2:23; 4:28; Rom 9:17,22-23; 11:32; 2 Cor 4:7-12; 12:9-10; Gal 3:22; Eph 3:9-10; 1 Tim 1:12-16; 1 Pet 1:12; 2:6-9; Rev 11:13).
**************************************************
These excerpts are taken from "So where was God at Beslan?," by
Aled Blake.
http://www.virtuosityonline.org/portal/modules/news/article.php?storyid=1283&com_id=2472&com_rootid=2472&com_mode=flat&com_order=0#comment2472
The Archbishop of Canterbury said "I think it is probably the suffering of children that most deeply challenges anybody's personal faith.
"When you see the depth of energy that people can put into such evil, then of course, yes, there is a flicker, there is a doubt. It would be inhuman, I think, not to react that way."
He insisted the murdered children had not been abandoned by God. God had given humans the freedom to make their own decisions, and He did not intervene, even in evil acts like the massacre.
He said he did not want to see the terrorists exterminated, and called for them to be given life sentences.
Canon Enid Morgan of Llangynwyd Church, near Maesteg, said, "We find it hard to think of anything as bad as September 11, then this happens. There has to be a refusal to take revenge. It was absolutely terrible. I was reminded of the story in the New Testament of Herod slaughtering the infant children. As Jesus wept over Jerusalem, so we can only weep over this."
Andrew Morton, rector of St Cybi's Church in Llangybi, near Cwmbran, said that "God has given human beings free will, so they can either choose to do bad things or they can choose to do good things. If they choose to do bad things, then it is not so much that they can't do anything about it, but He chooses not to do anything about it, because what is the alternative. The alternative is to take away our free will and our capacity to do evil, at which point we are no longer human."
"What is the alternative to people making choices? The alternative is that people don't have power to make choices. If that happens then we are no longer humans."
Church congregations across Wales were yesterday praying for the people of Beslan.
Philip Johnes, vicar of Llanegwad in Carmarthenshire, said, "God is in the middle of all the suffering and He is weeping for all creation and all those involved. All we can do is to pray for the sorrowful and the dead.
Although it is early for the people of Beslan, we must talk about forgiveness and reconciliation, there has to be forgiveness and reconciliation in any situation. These things have been going on for centuries, time is not always a healer and you have to do something. Unless we do forgive and have reconciliation at some time in the future then we are not fully human either."
Notice, again, the consistently androcentric emphasis. Not to doubt God would be inhuman. Not to be free would be inhuman. Not to forgive would be inhuman.
All we can do is weep. Indeed, this is all that God can do as well.
Not only is this thoroughly humanistic, but it presents a downright girlish view of God and man.
When confronted with evil-doers, we do not fight back. No, we, along with God, break out the hankies and have ourselves a nice long cry. And when we've run through a box of Kleenex, we absolve the evil-doers, not for what they've done to us, but what they've done to others.
One is also struck by the oracular tone of these pronouncements, as though they were beyond confutation.
Why, exactly, would it be inhuman not to doubt God at a moment like this? For one thing, why now? Has the Archbishop suddenly discovered the problem of evil? Where has he been all this time?
Is this a truly human reaction, or is it just an intellectual affectation? Faith is respectable as long as it is doubtful. The only good faith is a dubious faith.
Observe the manward understanding of faith. On this view, Christian faith is a faith in God, but not a faith from God. For if it were a faith from God, it would not be such a flickering candle in the winds of adversity.
I say "Christian" faith, but the Archbishop goes on to invoke the Koran as well. This is deeply ironic, for the God of Islam is a macho God for macho men. The dainty divinity of liberal churchmen is no match for Muslim machismo.
And why does the Archbishop take it upon himself to defend the religion of the child-killers? Jihadist theology is fixture of Islamic tradition. Cf. Paul Fregosi, Jihad in the West; Mark Gabriel, Islam & Terrorism.
I'm not saying that a Christians is immune to a crisis of faith. But to define faith by the presence of doubt instead of its absence is to found faith in faithlessness--which is not how the Bible defines it.
And although some in the saints of Scripture suffer from bouts of uncertainty, it's hard to think of any instance in which they doubt the very existence of God. Rather, they are simply perplexed. It is because they believe in God that they find certain situations to be perplexing.
And what are we to make of freedom as a fundamentum of human nature? One obvious problem with this appeal is that some "free" agents have a lot more freedom than others. The child-killers had a lot more freedom than the childish victims. That outcome was not, after all, the choice which the children would have made.
And how persuasive is it to say that God dare not lift a finger to intervene lest his interference infringe on the freedom of the human agents? Here was a case in which one party is completely violating the freedom of another party. Why respect the freedom of the child-killers over the freedom of their childish victims?
Suppose our clergymen were walking one of their own children through the park when their kid was jumped by a murderous assailant? Would they just stand there, crying their eyes out, as the assailant murdered their child? Would they refuse to defend their child on the grounds that any intervention on their part would rob the assailant of his freewill?
I pose this as a rhetorical question, but I'm unsure how rhetorical it really is. Not one of the clergymen has even suggested that we ought to fight back. Fr. Johnes says that all we can do in the face of terrorism is to weep and pray, forgive and seek reconciliation, while Morgan says that "there has to be a refusal to take revenge…[just] as Jesus wept over Jerusalem, so we can only weep over this"
But, of course, there's a lot more that we can do than burst into tears, is there not? We can defend ourselves, can't we? We can kill the killers before the kill again, can we not?
That would be the manly thing to do, but their theology has become so effeminate that the use of lethal force is apparently out of question.
The Archbishop tells us that we ought not destroy our enemy, but imprison him instead. But, to begin with, how is the threat of jail time any sort of deterrent to suicide-bombers? If they're prepared to kill themselves, will they really be impressed by the prospect of imprisonment?
And there's yet another little difficulty. Before you can imprison them, you must take them into custody. It's not as though they're turning themselves in to the authorities. Short of force, how does the Archbishop suppose that we can apprehend the a band of armed assailants?
How do we avoid a shootout, with a lot of bloodshed on either side? And how does this differ from conventional warfare, where we kill the enemy unless and until he surrenders?
And observe, for just a moment, the squint-eyed logic of all this. Having banished God from his own universe, and having disarmed all the men of good will, our clergymen then express their shock and dismay at how it is that evil-doers can do evil. Well, don't you suppose it might possibly have something to do with the fact that in a world one part Deism to two parts pacificism, evil-doers feel free to commit atrocities with utter impunity?
For that matter, why are libertarians so appalled by the slaughter of the innocents? Did they choose to be appalled? Did they will themselves to be appalled?
Fr. Johnes says that all we can do is to pray. Pray for what? Pray that God do something? Yet his God is not allowed to do anything. Why does a Deist pray to a God in exile?
One wonders, too, where all this Deism and pacifism is coming from. Not only is the God of the Bible not locked away in a broom-closet, but the God of the Bible is, among other things, a warrior God. And this is not only true of the OT, for the capstone of the NT canon is all about holy war, with Jesus in the lead (cf. Rev 19).
Again, there's nothing new about the doctrine of preemption. The Book of Esther is a classic case of a first strike, as the Jews strike the first blow to advert genocide. If the fate of the Jews were in the hands of such soft-hearted churchmen, rather than Mordecai's, they would stand by as Haman massacred the chosen people, then hold a teary-eyed vigil in memory of the victims.
There is a lot in life to cry about. But grief is no substitute for action. Jesus was more than a mourner; he was a doer.
Yes, Jesus wept, but Jesus was one of us. To say that God incarnate weeps over evil is not to say that God the Father weeps over evil. And let us remember that Christ restrained his omnipotence in the furtherance of his redemptive ends.
The idea that we need a heavenly sob sister is another mark of a sissified theology. And what good does that do anyone anyway? If I'm drowning, I want a lifeguard who can save me, not weep for me as I flail about.
A God who can only weep over the work of his hands is a pretty pitiful excuse for a God. This is not the God of Isaiah (40-48) or Job (39-41). This is not the God who redeemed the Israelites from Egypt and sustained them in the wilderness. A hapless, helpless crybaby God is not a real God, but a baby-doll for little girls to play with and put in their toy box.
And while we're at it, where goes Fr. Johnes get his notion of forgiveness? Why must there be forgiveness in every situation? To begin with, not every evil can be healed--not in this life, at least. What is the cure for a father or mother who loses a child to a terrorist? This is not like popping a pill or setting a broken bone. To speak of healing in a situation such as this is to indulge in cheap talk of the worst kind.
In addition, many victims find justice far more therapeutic than remission and reconciliation. The word "revenge" has come to be an easy fire-extinguisher for dowsing every faint flicker of righteous indignation. But there is nothing wrong with a wish to see justice done, to see justice exacted upon the unjust. The God of the Bible is, among other things, a just Judge. Even vengeance--yes, vengeance--has its proper place in Christian ethics (cf. Rev 6:10; 16:5-6; chap. 18).
Who is Fr. Johnes to forgive the child-killers on behalf of the victims and their parents? Where does Scripture ever authorize the idea of third-party absolution?
There are no doubt times when forgiveness is better than bitterness. But absolution is contingent on contrition. If the offender is impenitent, then there is no obligation to absolve him (cf. Mt 18:15-20; Lk 17:3-4).
And even if reconciliation were preferable, reconciliation is a two-way street. How can you be reconciled with a bunch of irreconciliables? Reconciliation cannot be stipulated on behalf of an unwilling party.
One of the striking things in all this is the loss of indignation among many men of the cloth. This was on full display during the Catholic sex-scandal. The clergy were ever so sorrowful and apologetic, but they were incapable of mustering any feeling of outrage. They felt pity for everyone alike, whether molester or acolyte. The tonal difference between the clergy and the laity was downright deafening.
There is, however, a further distinction between revenge, on the one hand, and retaliation, on the other, to deter further aggression, or preemption--to nip a looming threat in the bud. There is nothing punitive about self-defense.
And let us remember that you cannot be merciful to everyone. If you're merciful to the merciless, you are merciless to their victims. The victims have the first claim upon our mercies.
But if the freewill defense is no defense, then what is the answer? God's greatest gift to man is not man's freedom from God; no, God's greatest gift to man is the God made man; is God giving himself to man in revelation and redemption; For God is the highest good and the heavenly die in which all earthly goods are cast. And some goods are higher goods because the supervene upon the abuse of lower goods.
To know the Redeemer God is a greater good than knowing Creator God. That is the theodicy of Scripture, whereas the freewill defense is the philosophy of the Snake. (Cf. Gen 45:7; 50:20; Exod 7:3-5; 20:12; 1 Kg 8:37-40; Ps 51:4; 130:4; Prov 21:18; Eccl 3:11,14; Isa 6:9-13; 43:3-4; Ezk 20:25-26; Lk 2:34; Jn 3:16-21; 9:3,39; 15:22; Acts 2:23; 4:28; Rom 9:17,22-23; 11:32; 2 Cor 4:7-12; 12:9-10; Gal 3:22; Eph 3:9-10; 1 Tim 1:12-16; 1 Pet 1:12; 2:6-9; Rev 11:13).
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These excerpts are taken from "So where was God at Beslan?," by
Aled Blake.
http://www.virtuosityonline.org/portal/modules/news/article.php?storyid=1283&com_id=2472&com_rootid=2472&com_mode=flat&com_order=0#comment2472
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