What time is it? This is a common question, especially in the modern age. Not only do we have practical reasons for asking it, but we like to pose the same question in relation to the world around us and beyond us.
How does the scientific establishment arrive at a date for the age of the world? (I'm using the "world," inclusively, to include the earth, solar system, and universe as a whole.)
Now, at one level, I think I know the answer (correct me if I'm wrong). When a layman like me reads a high level popularization on the subject, I'm plastered with an array of dating techniques, viz., the rate of cosmic expansion, the scale of the universe in light years, the life-cycle of stars and constellations, radiometric decay rates, tree rings, the law of superposition, and so on.
Okay, I fine with this up to a point. But at a deeper level, it leaves me with a more fundamental question. For this line of appeal strikes me as circular.
For when I read about these dating techniques, I'm thinking to myself, It would take a clock to measure a clock; it would take a clock to calibrate a clock.
Essentially, as I understand it, the mainstream scientist is using various natural processes, especially cyclical processes, as chronometers. And he has a number of natural chronometers to use.
To Illustrate my question, suppose I walk into a clock shop. The clock shop is full of timepieces ticking away. Actually, the word 'ticking' is not quite accurate. For I also see a sundial, a water-clock, an hourglass, and so on.
Now, when I walk into the clock shop, I could be greeted by a number of different scenarios. Suppose that all the timepieces tell the same time? Would that tell me what time it is? Not really. It would let me know that they had all been set to tell the same time. But it would not tell me whether they had been set to GMT, or EST, or Pacific time, or daylight-saving time.
To vary the scenario, suppose that all the timepieces were electric clocks. And let us further suppose that the power had gone out and come back on. The clocks would all give the same time, but they would all be off by the duration of the power outage.
A scientists dates the world by running the clock backwards. But does that tell us when the clock was wound up, or when the clock was set?
To take another scenario, all the clocks give a rather different reading. Indeed, this is what I'd expect when I enter a clock shop.
Now, suppose I look at two different clocks. One has the time at 12:59 PM, and the other at 1:01 PM. Can I tell, by comparing the two clocks, if both are fast, or both are slow, or one is fast, or one is slow, or one is on time while the other is fast or slow? I don't think so.
What I really need, do I not, is not a lot of different clocks, even if they all give the same time, but a master clock. I need to know what they were set to.
And I need to know, do I not, that the reading on the master clock is measured in absolute time rather than relative time. (Of course, modern physics denies absolute time.)
But even the illustration of the clock shop is overly generous. When we're talking about natural chronometers, isn't this more like walking into a clock shop in which all of the timepieces are faceless? Instead, you'd have to infer the time from the machinery. From the rate at which the clock goes tick-tock.
For, strictly speaking, nature is not a clock, or a set of smaller clocks. We simply find it convenient to employ this or that natural process to monitor the passage of time. That's a secondary, man-made application of a natural process. It's not as though the natural process was designed to tell us the time. When guys like Hugh Ross say that young-earth creationism is deceptive, are they not committing an anthropomorphic fallacy?
Sorry to be so roundabout in getting to the point, but I'm trying to explain my process of reasoning. Dropping the metaphor, how does the scientific establishment synchronize all of these natural chronometers in order to arrive at a common age for the world? Is there a master clock?
Back to my original question: how do you measure one clock by another clock? It looks like we've come full circle in more ways that one.
Isn't any figure for the duration of the world bound to be rather selective and arbitrary?
In fairness, some schemes may be more arbitrary than others. In physics, as I understand it, if you change a constant or a variable, you need to make a corresponding adjustment to another constant or variable. If you convert a constant to a variable here, you need to convert a variable into a constant there, or vice versa. Something like that. So the trick is to balance everything out, to come up with a theory that is the most consistent, comprehensive, and simple overall.
Still, there seem to be so many free variables play that I don't know how anyone can get his bearings by looking at the raw data. It seems is though you could go anywhere by starting anywhere. Is there any privileged frame of reference?
But probability is a relative concept. Even probabilities assume a standard of comparison. Is one scheme more likely than another? More likely relative to what? More especially--relative to whom? To God?
Saturday, October 16, 2004
Thursday, October 14, 2004
Without a doubt
My maternal grandfather was a minister in the Church of God (Anderson). A long time ago the Church of God underwent a crisis over “the necktie controversy,” as it was called. For many years, Church of God ministers had preached against the wearing of neckties as a mark of worldliness, or as they put it, in the quaint King James phraseology, a “superfluity of naughtiness” (Jas 1:21).
This sort of thing will strike most Christians, not to mention most unbelievers, as the height of absurdity, as indeed it was.
Yet it goes to a perennial issue in the life of the church, and that is the assurance of salvation. Can I know that I am saved? And, if so, how can I know it?
Many distinctives of many denominations, sects, and cults function as strategies that map a short-cut to the assurance of salvation. Indeed, the list is almost endless, viz., glossolalia, snake-handling, tradition, apostolic succession, auricular confession, the altar call, sacraments and sacramentals, perfectionism, antinomianism, asceticism, the secret rapture, the regulative principle, the King James-only, the Filioque clause, the five fundamentals, creationism, literalism, inerrancy, papal infallibility, the Tridentine Mass, &c.
From this list we can all pick out some things we agree with, or disagree with, some things we can make fun of, but to the extent that we can find ourselves somewhere in the list, those we poke fun at can make fun of us in return.
Despite their superficial variety, all these things share one thing in common, which is how they can be deployed to supply the assurance of salvation.
A reader might object that some of the items I’ve listed are important, even all-important, to the faith. I don’t deny that. Certain beliefs and rituals are essential in their own right.
But the problem occurs when what is right and true is put to the wrong use. When men vest their assurance of salvation in the wrong object, it fosters a false assurance. It may or may not be a valid object of faith, but even if otherwise valid, it may not be valid as a form of assurance.
What all these differing strategies try to achieve is to eliminate the subjective dimension of assurance, and, instead, anchor it in something public, statable, datable, addressable, ordoable, in some external form of words or deeds; in sum: to achieve a state of certainty by process of eliminating any ambiguity.
But there are several things wrong with this:
i) Even if one or another of these strategies were to succeed, religious certainty, if it takes a false object, is of no avail to the believer.
ii) Many of these strategies merely swap objective for subjective uncertainties. When is a sacrament valid? Is apostolic succession unbroken? What are the criteria? Even if the criteria are objective, their application remains subjective.
In Scripture, our assurance of salvation comes from faith in Christ. It’s really that simple.
But many do not feel that it’s so simple. What about sin? What about doubt?
We must remember, though, that grace is subjective as well as objective, that God is sovereign over our heart no less than he is over the world around us. The God in whom we vest our faith is the God of faith--as object and origin in one.
A believer may sin, but his sins are the sins of a believer. A believer may doubt, but his doubts are the doubts of a believer.
Both believer and unbeliever sin, but although an unbeliever may regard his transgression as an evil, he does not regard it as a sin--a sin against God Almighty. And for that same reason, he doesn’t regard some sins as even an evil.
A believer may doubt, but his doubt normally takes the form, either of self-doubt, or of a faith perplexed. His doubt is parasitic upon his faith.
There is a difference between doubting your salvation simply because you can, and doubting because you ought. To doubt for the sake of doubting, just because you can imagine yourself to be self-deluded, is not a good reason to doubt.
This is a spiritual form of paranoia, like a man who suspects that he’s being followed. When he turns around, or glances at a store front window, he never sees a pursuer. Ah, but that may only be because his stealthy pursuer always manages to duck for cover just in the nick of time, right?
He enters a house, goes out the back door, and swings right around to prove that no one is following him. But maybe his pursuer backed out the front door and hid in the bushes, or maybe his pursuer went through the back door as well, and is circling around the house. Should he peek around the corner?
As you can see, constantly looking over your shoulder is an unhealthy state of mind, and can, spider-like, spin a sticky web out of its own substance. You become hopelessly entangled in the threads of your overheated imagination. But, of course, the way to become unstuck is to put your imaginary doubts back into their toy box.
Like a little boy who is deathly afraid of a monster lurking under his bed, his father may take him by the hand and show him that there is no monster under the bed. Ah, but what if the monster disappears every time his dad enters the room, and reappears as soon as he leaves? There is no answer, except to outgrow his childish fears.
This sort of thing will strike most Christians, not to mention most unbelievers, as the height of absurdity, as indeed it was.
Yet it goes to a perennial issue in the life of the church, and that is the assurance of salvation. Can I know that I am saved? And, if so, how can I know it?
Many distinctives of many denominations, sects, and cults function as strategies that map a short-cut to the assurance of salvation. Indeed, the list is almost endless, viz., glossolalia, snake-handling, tradition, apostolic succession, auricular confession, the altar call, sacraments and sacramentals, perfectionism, antinomianism, asceticism, the secret rapture, the regulative principle, the King James-only, the Filioque clause, the five fundamentals, creationism, literalism, inerrancy, papal infallibility, the Tridentine Mass, &c.
From this list we can all pick out some things we agree with, or disagree with, some things we can make fun of, but to the extent that we can find ourselves somewhere in the list, those we poke fun at can make fun of us in return.
Despite their superficial variety, all these things share one thing in common, which is how they can be deployed to supply the assurance of salvation.
A reader might object that some of the items I’ve listed are important, even all-important, to the faith. I don’t deny that. Certain beliefs and rituals are essential in their own right.
But the problem occurs when what is right and true is put to the wrong use. When men vest their assurance of salvation in the wrong object, it fosters a false assurance. It may or may not be a valid object of faith, but even if otherwise valid, it may not be valid as a form of assurance.
What all these differing strategies try to achieve is to eliminate the subjective dimension of assurance, and, instead, anchor it in something public, statable, datable, addressable, ordoable, in some external form of words or deeds; in sum: to achieve a state of certainty by process of eliminating any ambiguity.
But there are several things wrong with this:
i) Even if one or another of these strategies were to succeed, religious certainty, if it takes a false object, is of no avail to the believer.
ii) Many of these strategies merely swap objective for subjective uncertainties. When is a sacrament valid? Is apostolic succession unbroken? What are the criteria? Even if the criteria are objective, their application remains subjective.
In Scripture, our assurance of salvation comes from faith in Christ. It’s really that simple.
But many do not feel that it’s so simple. What about sin? What about doubt?
We must remember, though, that grace is subjective as well as objective, that God is sovereign over our heart no less than he is over the world around us. The God in whom we vest our faith is the God of faith--as object and origin in one.
A believer may sin, but his sins are the sins of a believer. A believer may doubt, but his doubts are the doubts of a believer.
Both believer and unbeliever sin, but although an unbeliever may regard his transgression as an evil, he does not regard it as a sin--a sin against God Almighty. And for that same reason, he doesn’t regard some sins as even an evil.
A believer may doubt, but his doubt normally takes the form, either of self-doubt, or of a faith perplexed. His doubt is parasitic upon his faith.
There is a difference between doubting your salvation simply because you can, and doubting because you ought. To doubt for the sake of doubting, just because you can imagine yourself to be self-deluded, is not a good reason to doubt.
This is a spiritual form of paranoia, like a man who suspects that he’s being followed. When he turns around, or glances at a store front window, he never sees a pursuer. Ah, but that may only be because his stealthy pursuer always manages to duck for cover just in the nick of time, right?
He enters a house, goes out the back door, and swings right around to prove that no one is following him. But maybe his pursuer backed out the front door and hid in the bushes, or maybe his pursuer went through the back door as well, and is circling around the house. Should he peek around the corner?
As you can see, constantly looking over your shoulder is an unhealthy state of mind, and can, spider-like, spin a sticky web out of its own substance. You become hopelessly entangled in the threads of your overheated imagination. But, of course, the way to become unstuck is to put your imaginary doubts back into their toy box.
Like a little boy who is deathly afraid of a monster lurking under his bed, his father may take him by the hand and show him that there is no monster under the bed. Ah, but what if the monster disappears every time his dad enters the room, and reappears as soon as he leaves? There is no answer, except to outgrow his childish fears.
Wednesday, October 13, 2004
Grace, faith, and freewill-2
Moving on to chapter 6, you say that “Berkhof’s statement of the issue is not correct. Arminians do not believe that God intended by the atonement to save all people” (103).
Yet on p106, you say that “universal atonement matches the plain Biblical assertion that God wills the salvation of all.” So, God wills the salvation of all, but God did not intend the atonement for the salvation of all. This is less than self-explanatory. Who is confused--you or Berkhof?
In attempting to reconcile a universal atonement which falls short of universal salvation, you say: “The answer is that the expression of God’s desire for all men to be saved must be understood in the light of his (more basic) desire that all men have, as created in his image, the freedom of choice to decide for or against him” (109).
This calls for quite a number of comments:
i) To begin with, you suddenly drop the “plain Biblical assertion” for something that is not plainly asserted in any of your Arminian prooftexts. And if you need to qualify the force of your own chosen prooftexts, then in what sense do they prove your point?
If they don’t assert universal atonement in distinction to universal salvation, then do you have a single direct prooftext for your distinctive position?
Unless you have some independent grounds for your position, your appeal assumes what it needs to prove. For if your prooftext, as it stands, cannot prove you position, but must be modified in light of your position, then you appeal is question-begging. It only proves your point on the assumption that it can be suitably retrofitted consistent with your assumption. Rather than proving universal atonement, you have glossed it in light of universal atonement. This is viciously circular.
ii) Apropos (i), you are no longer exegeting 1 Tim 2:4 or 2 Pet 3:9. You are, instead, glossing the verses in light of some harmonistic device that is extraneous to the text before you.
iii) Where does the Bible ever say that man’s will is more basic than God’s will?
iv) Where does the Bible ever unpack the imago Dei in terms of freewill?
v) You position boils down to the contention that God cannot save sinners. He can save the willing, but not the unwilling. But, of course, they are unwilling because they are sinners.
Like homeowners who keep the plastic wrapping on their lamps and sofas, you have a doctrine of the atonement that works just beautifully as long as it never comes into contact with an actual hard-bitten sinner. This is a theological system for the art museum, and not the mean streets of the world.
On p110, you cited a number of the standard prooftexts for your position. Some of these I’ve dealt with already, and others I will address at a later point.
But to comment on a few, how does 1 Jn 2:2 prove your point? Has our Lord adverted the wrath of God for everyone in the world?
How does Rom 5:18 prove you point? Have all men (without exception) been justified?
How does 2 Cor 5:14,18-19 prove your point? Has our Lord reconciled everyone in the world to God?
Oh, yes, you may drag in your potential/actual distinction to cut these verses down to size, but you cannot find that distinction in the verses themselves, or the surrounding context. Far from proving you point, it looks like you have to spend a certain amount of time defending your position against the otherwise unqualified force of the very verses you invoke. Each one must be cut-and-tailored for the Arminian to squeeze into while squeezing out the Calvinist and the universalist. Isn’t this special pleading from start to finish?
On p112, you bring up Mt 23:37. How is this incompatible with Calvinism? Mt 23:37 alludes to a conditional covenant with the house of Israel (v38; cf. Jer 12:7; 22:5). This is preceptive, not decretive.
On p113, you cite Rom 14:15 and 1 Cor 8:11 to prove that Christ died for the damned. Now, Paul is dealing here with cases of conscience. Do you really imagine a true believer is damned just because he suffers from an overly-scrupulous conscience? Is this what you think that Paul is saying here? Is that Paul’s idea of pastoral theology? Is that your idea of pastoral theology? Is that the sort of advice you give the weak brethren when they come to you for counseling? Do you confirm their worst fears by sending them home with the warning that they are teetering on the brink of hell? If anything, that admonition would push them right over the edge.
Boy, and people say that Calvinism is stern! Your Arminian theology is entirely too harsh for a hardnosed Calvinist like me! Seriously, I find much more sensible the interpretation offered by John Stott, Romans (IVP 1994), 365-66, and Craig Blomberg, 1 Corinthians (Zondervan 1994), 163. I should add that neither of them is going to bat for the cause of five-point Calvinism.
It is true that apollunai is commonly used with reference to the final judgment, but to read the eschatological context back into the bare meaning of the word when the controlling context is absent is simply fallacious.
In this same connection you bring in 2 Pet 2:1. Here, however, Peter is comparing false prophets in the OT to false teachers in the NT. The false teachers were “purchased” in the same generic sense that the false prophets were “redeemed” when God delivered the Exodus generation from Egyptian bondage.
“Agorazo” is not a technical term for Christian redemption. And it doesn’t bear the same specialized import as it would in Reformed dogmatics. You are committing yet another semantic anachronism.
Your argument would only work if Peter were using the word to denote the same concept as the doctrine of redemption in Reformed theology. But the Petrine usage is at several removes from Reformed usage.
It is also uncertain whether “despotes” has reference to the Father or the Son.
You recycle Sailer’s old argument that “unlimited atonement is the view that best accounts for the blame attached to men for rejection of Christ” (118). You and Sailer cite Jn 3:18; 8:24; 2 Cor 6:14; 2 Thes 2:11-12; 1 Jn 5:10-11; Rev 21:8.
This might have the makings of an impressive argument. Unfortunately, none of your prooftexts say as much as you need they to say to cinch the argument. None of them state that the unbelievers in view are guilty for failing to believe that Christ died for them.
To the extent that they even spell out the grounds of condemnation, they either have reference to the person of Christ (Jn 3:18; 8:24; 1 Jn 5:10), or his work on behalf of believers (1 Jn 5:11).
Both points go to the character of the opponents in 1 John. On the one hand, they deny that Jesus is the Anointed Son of God, come in the flesh. On the other hand, they deny that Christians are entitled to enjoy the assurance of salvation by the blood of Christ.
You cite Rom 3:22-25 to show that the provision is as broad as the sin. Once again, though, this either proves too much or too little. Paul doesn’t speak in terms of bare provision. He says that all are justified (v24).
Again, you fudge on the idea of provision. You fail to make provision for unbelief. Unbelief is sin. So you fail to make full provision for sin. A provisional atonement that is contingent on faith, where no provision is made for faith itself, or the absence thereof, is not a universal atonement, but a terribly truncated atonement. You might as well give a blind man a roadmap.
Moving on to chapter 7, you devote several pages to an analysis of the cosmic usage in 1 John. At one level, this marks an advance over the customary appeal, in which the meaning of kosmos is treated as self-evident.
To summarize your results, you say that in 1 John, kosmos is used as an antonym for believers, and a synonym for unbelievers. You also draw a distinction between a personal and impersonal import. To this I’d say the following:
i) This is quite uncharacteristic of Arminian theology, which ordinarily defines kosmos as “everyone.” I don’t say that as a criticism of your position. But it marks a wide departure from the usual appeal.
ii) You don’t show how the usage in 1 John compares with the usage in the Fourth Gospel.
iii) Are the personal and impersonal significations related in some more general way, or are these two distinct and independent senses of the word?
iv) What do the lexicographers have to say? Among another meanings, Loux & Nida define kosmos as the world-system or worldly standards (Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament, 41.38). This is similar to Cottrell & Turner, who give, as one meaning, human and supernatural rebels against God, along with the systems under their control (Linguistics & Biblical Interpretation, 176).
Both BDAG and the EDNT lay stress on this ethical dimension. In Johannine usage, the kosmos stands for the fallen world-order, and all that this entails.
Is this personal or impersonal, and is there a uniform meaning to which the usage of John and 1 John are correspondent?
Instead of the personal/impersonal, distinction, perhaps an abstract/concrete distinction would be more helpful. The personal/impersonal relation is disjunctive in a way that is not necessarily so with the abstract/concrete distinction. For an abstraction may be a generality based on a representative sampling of concrete instances.
The “fallen world order” is an abstract concept, but it derives from personal instances. Moreover, it carries an ethical connotation, which again, has a personal origin in the character of sinful agents.
Is there one word or word-group in English which best captures the abstract and moral overtones of kosmos? If we were to render kosmos as the “worldly” “worldling,” “worldliness,” and “worldly-minded,” I think that these variant forms of the basal noun (world) would offer a consistent and sensical meaning in most all of its Johannine--and not a few of its Pauline--occurrences. And this is quite compatible with Reformed theology.
You quote Nicole quoting Murray as taking kosmos in an exclusive rather than inclusive sense: “Christ is the only propitiation available to anyone in the whole world” (124).
You, however, draw the lines quite differently: “John’s purpose is to say that believers, even when discussing the benefits of Christ’s atonement death for themselves, must remember that he also died for the whole world, including the lost” (132).
But is that John’s purpose? D. A. Carson has a very different take, based on his reconstruction of the opponents: “John is confronting a crisis precipitated by the secession of some members who have been powerfully influenced by some form of protognosticism...In this light, the so-called tests are...[given] to reassure believers that their fidelity to the gospel, along the lines indicated, was itself reason enough to enable them to regain their quiet Christian assurance,” “Reflections on Assurance,” Still Sovereign, T. Schreiner & B. Ware, eds. (Baker 2000), 274.
On this view, John’s purpose is not to exhort believers on how they ought to view unbelievers, but rather, to reassure unsettled believers that, contrary to the protognostic heresy of the false teachers, Christ is the sole and all-sufficient Savior.
In good Arminian fashion, you discuss prevenient grace. But you only offer three prooftexts for your view (Jn 6:44; 16:8; Acts 16:14).
Yet none of them show that God’s grace is merely enabling, but resistible. In Acts 16:14, the divine action not merely enables Lydia to believe, but terminates in faith.
You quote the first clause of 6:44, but not the second, which assumes the success of the operation. You also disengage v44 from vv37,39.
You construe 16:8 as having subjective reference to the inner moral suasion of the Spirit, whereas it is far more likely to have reference to the objective witness of the inspired Apostles, who assume and resume the prophetic mantle of the covenantal law-suit.
Frankly, this whole sections is as a fine a specimen as any of someone who begins with his theological belief-system, then goes trolling about in search of a prooftext.
In chapter 10, you cite several Johannine verses to prove the priority of faith to regeneration.
As to Jn 1:12, the distinction between huios and tekna is that John reserves the former for Christ, and the latter for Christians.
You also ignore the relation of v12 to the relative clause in v13, the purpose of which is to trace the phenomena of v12 back to its wellsprings in the will of God.
I’d add that your interpretation also makes a hash of Jn 3:1-8, which is an expansive gloss on of Jn 1:12-13.
As to 1 Jn 5:1, the perfect participle could just as well be rendered, “whoever believes in God will have been begotten of God,” or, more idiomatically, “has already been begotten of God.” That is not the only possible rendering, but it’s grammatically unimpeachable.
At best, the verse is ambiguous, and therefore neutral on this question. And on the one occasion where John does clarify the causal relation, regeneration takes precedence (3:9).
Even I. H. Marshall, a doctrinaire Arminian who affirms the priority of faith, doesn’t share your interpretation of 5:1: “Faith is thus a sign of the new birth...Here...John is not trying to show how a person experiences the new birth; his aim is rather to indicate evidence which shows that a person stands in the continuing relationship of a child to his Father: that evidence is that he holds to the true faith about Jesus,” The Epistles of John (Eerdmans 1984), 226-27.
For a man who has taught NT Greek over the years, you are oddly insensitive to Greek grammar. And you are just as tone-deaf of spiritual metaphors. The point of procreative imagery is that we can do nothing to beget our own existence.
Death/resurrection imagery serves the same purpose as birth/rebirth imagery. The dead cannot bring themselves back to life.
Jesus, John, and Paul employ these metaphors because this transparent picture-language conveys an instantly and unmistakably clear idea.
You cite Jn 5:24 to prove the priority of faith to regeneration. But to redeploy Marshall’s own distinction, is faith a cause of regeneration, or a sign of regeneration?
Far from supporting the Arminian contention, this verse supports the inamissibility of grace. As Andreas Kostenberger observes, "Jesus' statement that believers 'have' eternal life in the here and now, having 'crossed over from death to life' already in the past (5:24; cf. 1 Jn 3:14), ran counter to contemporary Judaism, which considered the attainment of eternal life to be a future event," John (Baker 2004), 188.
You also cite Jn 12:46 to prove the priority of faith to regeneration. However, this conveniently ignores the predestinarian context of Jn 12, where unbelief is attributed to judicial hardening (vv37-41).
For the standard monograph on Isa 6 and its NT appropriation, cf. C. Evans, To See and Not Perceive (Sheffield: JSOT 1989).
Moving on to chapter 11, you say that the Calvinist is prying into the secret things of God when he infers the perseverance of the saints from the covenant of redemption (Jn 5:30,43; 6:38-40; 17:4-12). You also say that “nowhere is there direct indication that such a covenant was made, and even more important is the fact that the terms of such a covenant are not revealed--especially not whether those promises were or were not conditional” (189).
By way of reply,
i) Calvinists are not appealing to the secret will of God, but to the revealed will of God. You yourself cite some of the prooftexts, only to brandish the above disclaimer.
Well, what is your alternative interpretation of Jn 5:30,43; 6;38-40; 17:4-12?
And how could the promises be conditional if this is a covenant between the Father and the Son? Although it is possible for a covenant between God and man to be conditional, inasmuch as the human party may commit breach of contract--unless he is preserved by God’s grace-- yet how can a covenant between two divine parties ever be liable to nonperformance?
And you continue to assume, without benefit of argument, that conditionality implies uncertainty. That is a non-sequitur. It all depends. In contract law, you may have a surety (e.g. Heb 7:22!) to makes good on the contract if the second party defaults.
This represents a failure on your part to get inside the head of the opponent. For an Arminian, conditionality implies uncertainty because the outcome ultimately hinges on the weak reed of freewill. Of course, that is not the framework within which Reformed theology would embed conditionality.
You utterly maunder the meaning of Jn 17:11-12. The apostasy of Judas is no evidence that the prayers of Christ for his people are ineffectual. In this very verse (12) the reader is told that Judas’ betrayal was a prophetic necessity--referring back to 13:18-19. The Fourth Gospel is at pains to point out that Jesus chose Judas in full foreknowledge of his impending apostasy and treason (6:64,70-71; 13:10-11,21). It is essential to Johannine theology that Jesus, as the Good Shepherd, is faithful in keeping his spiritual charges from defection (Jn 6:37-39; chapter 10; 17:11-12a).
Moving on to chapter 12--by way of a general observation, Calvinism doesn’t deny that members of the covenant community can and may commit apostasy. Rather, Reformed theology distinguishes between a gracious remnant and a graceless mass of nominal believers. In addition, the NT letters are addressed to a mixed multitude of true believers, immature believers, and nominal believers.
Now, you may reject these distinctions, but for you to bring up examples of possible or actual apostasy (p200) is in no way incompatible with the Reformed doctrine of perseverance.
BTW, there is a parallel distinction, is there not, in Arminian theology--at least the Wesleyan variety? John and Charles did not think that all churchmen were true believers. To the contrary, they thought the Church of England was full of Pharisees. They preached the doctrine of the New Birth to baptized communicates of their own denomination. Indeed, they viewed themselves as having been gospel hypocrites before undergoing their own awakening, did they not?
On Gal 5:4, what the Galatians are in danger of defecting from is not the experience of justification, but the doctrine of justification.
On Jn 10:27-29, you say “it assumes that they remain his sheep” (201). Yes, and no. It assumes that they will, indeed, remain his sheep because he will preserve all those whom the Father entrusted to his safe-keeping. If the promise is conditional, it is conditional, not on the sheep, but the shepherd. That’s the whole point of the passage. Therein lies the assurance.
On Rom 8:29-30, you describe this as a “picture of what happens for those in whom God’s purpose is fully accomplished, without even discussing the question of whether any condition is required for any part of it to be accomplished” (202).
No, what it expressly says is that God’s purpose will be accomplished for the elect from start to finish. And if this carries a faith-condition, then that condition will be met in each and every case.
Moving on to chapter 13, you rest your objection to perseverance on two pillars: Heb 6:4-6 and 2 Pet 2:18-22.
On Heb 6:4-6,
i) The fundamental flaw in your reading of the text is the way in which you jump right into the middle of the letter (6:4-6), and therefore miss the comparison between OT and NT apostates.
But in order to understand this passage we must go back to where the author introduces the apostasy motif. Because the author is addressing Messianic Jews who are tempted to revert to Judaism, he draws a parallel between NT apostasy and OT apostasy. This comparison is introduced in the first of five apostasy passages (2:1-4). Then in 3:6-4:13 he elaborates on the character of the OT apostates. By the way in which our author structures his own argument, therefore, this precedent is paradigmatic for the case of NT apostasy. And his remarks in 6:4-6 will allude to this passage. If there were a radical discontinuity in the religious experience of OT and NT apostates, then our author’s analogy would break down at the critical point of comparison.
ii) What does the author mean by having a share in the Holy Spirit (6:4)? Before we can attempt a specific answer we must first ask about the general contours of our author’s pneumatology. He doesn’t have much to say on this subject, but what he does tell us is confined to the external rather than internal work of the Spirit (2:4; 3:7; 9:8; 10:15). There is a possible reference to his agency in the Resurrection (9:14).
The point, rather, is that both the Old and NT apostates had a share in the ministry of the Spirit by virtue of his agency in the inspiration of Scripture. More precisely, both groups had been evangelized (4:2,6).
When you cite verse like Gal 3:14, you are using Hebrews to channel Pauline theology. This is a category mistake. The author of Hebrews never penetrates beneath the phenomenology of faith and categories of cultic holiness. He does not share St. Paul’s interest in depth psychology, perhaps because that is not germane to the purpose of his letter, which is concerned with covenant theology and Messianic Judaism.
Likewise, regeneration is a Johannine category. You seem to be doing systematic theology under the guise of exegetical theology. But systematic theology is a higher-ordered discipline. Each author ought to be construed on his own terms, in light of his own chosen usage--both express and allusive. You need to break the habit of using one author as a prism through which to view another.
Likewise, again, the verb (metochoi), taken by itself, is theologically innocent. This is not a technical term for Christian experience.
iii) The author takes the rebellion at Kadesh as his test case (Num 14 via Ps 95). Having tasted the "goodness of God’s word" (6:5) echoes the experience of the OT apostates (4,2,6,12; cf. Num 14:43). Tasting the "powers of the coming age" has immediate reference to the sign-gifts (2:4), but this experience also has its OT analogue (Num 14:11,22).
I agree with you that the verb (geuomai) is not reducible to “tongue-tasting.” However, you commit a semantic fallacy in insinuating that the import of the verb is defined by the object it takes, and therefore varies with its variable object. Does geuomai have a humble human import in Jn 2:9, but take on a divine import in Mt 27:33?
iv) Appealing to 10:32 to explain 6:4 is an exercise in futility:
(a) If 6:4 is ambiguous, taken by itself, then that same ambiguity will infect the parallel passage;
(b) The question at issue is not whether the verb (photizomai) is a metaphor for conversion, but whether it denotes conversion in the dogmatic sense, such that you can invoke this verse to compare and contrast the doctrine of conversion in Hebrews with the doctrine of conversion in Arminian and Reformed theology. That is not something you can extract from a natural metaphor. Picture-language is too open-textured to speak with such precision.
v) On Heb 6:2,6, it is a mistake to import into the word "repentance" the full payload of later dogmatic usage. Moreover, it is evident from his usage elsewhere (12:17) that the author doesn’t use the word as a technical term for Christian conversion.
vi) As to Heb 10:29 (p115), it is anachronistic to construe "sanctify" as it has come to be used in systematic theology. The author tells us that the apostate was sanctified by blood of Christ rather than action of the Spirit. That automatically removes it from the dogmatic category. His usage is figurative and consciously cultic (9:13,20; cf. Exod 29:21; Lev 16:19, LXX). It is concerned with a status rather than a process. By taking it to mean what it would normally mean in Pauline theology, you are blending separate domains of discourse. Moreover, it also possible that the verb takes the "covenant" as its object.
I can only conclude that either you never read James Barr’s book on The Semantics of Biblical Language (Oxford 1961), or else it went right over your head, for you continually reproduce the word-study fallacies of Kittel and company.
vii) It is lopsided to center our analysis of Hebrews on the apostasy motif when, in fact, the letter pivots on the dual theme of threat and assurance. Moreover, the author rounds out his dire warnings on an optimistic note (cf. 6:9ff.; 10:30,39).
Furthermore, the author accentuates the efficacy of Christ’s atonement and intercession (4:14; 7:16,24-28; 8:6; 9:12,14-15,26-28; 10:12-18,22) in express contrast to the inadequacies and insecurities of the OT system (5:2-3; 7:18-29,27-28; 9:9-10,13; 10:1-4,11). He allows no room for a breach between redemption accomplished and redemption applied.
The reason that a member of the Old Covenant community could apostatize was due to the drag-factor of an evil heart (3:8,12; 7:18), whereas the New Covenant rests on the better promise of a new heart (8:10,12; 10:16).
viii) Finally, an Arminian is in no position to say that hypotheticals are meaningless. Sufficient grace is a hypothetical, often turned into counterfactual when resisted. A potential universal atonement is a hypothetical, often turned into counterfactual when resisted.
The metaphysical difference is that you, as an Arminian, index modality to the will of man whereas a Calvinist is indexing modality to the will of God.
On 2 Pet 2:18-22, the question at issue is not whether the apostates were one-time converts to the faith. Rather, the question turns on the content of conversion--on two divergent doctrines of conversion: the Reformed and the Arminian.
2 Pet 2:18-22 doesn’t address that specific contention. There is nothing said about the religious experience of the false teachers that rises above the level of their having been evangelized. So your appeal fails to even graze the opposing position.
By having offered such a thoroughgoing defense of Arminian theology, and attack upon Calvinism, Reformed theology is signally vindicated when the arguments for Arminian theology and Arminian counterarguments against Reformed theology are so impotent. For that we are all in your debt.
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Yet on p106, you say that “universal atonement matches the plain Biblical assertion that God wills the salvation of all.” So, God wills the salvation of all, but God did not intend the atonement for the salvation of all. This is less than self-explanatory. Who is confused--you or Berkhof?
In attempting to reconcile a universal atonement which falls short of universal salvation, you say: “The answer is that the expression of God’s desire for all men to be saved must be understood in the light of his (more basic) desire that all men have, as created in his image, the freedom of choice to decide for or against him” (109).
This calls for quite a number of comments:
i) To begin with, you suddenly drop the “plain Biblical assertion” for something that is not plainly asserted in any of your Arminian prooftexts. And if you need to qualify the force of your own chosen prooftexts, then in what sense do they prove your point?
If they don’t assert universal atonement in distinction to universal salvation, then do you have a single direct prooftext for your distinctive position?
Unless you have some independent grounds for your position, your appeal assumes what it needs to prove. For if your prooftext, as it stands, cannot prove you position, but must be modified in light of your position, then you appeal is question-begging. It only proves your point on the assumption that it can be suitably retrofitted consistent with your assumption. Rather than proving universal atonement, you have glossed it in light of universal atonement. This is viciously circular.
ii) Apropos (i), you are no longer exegeting 1 Tim 2:4 or 2 Pet 3:9. You are, instead, glossing the verses in light of some harmonistic device that is extraneous to the text before you.
iii) Where does the Bible ever say that man’s will is more basic than God’s will?
iv) Where does the Bible ever unpack the imago Dei in terms of freewill?
v) You position boils down to the contention that God cannot save sinners. He can save the willing, but not the unwilling. But, of course, they are unwilling because they are sinners.
Like homeowners who keep the plastic wrapping on their lamps and sofas, you have a doctrine of the atonement that works just beautifully as long as it never comes into contact with an actual hard-bitten sinner. This is a theological system for the art museum, and not the mean streets of the world.
On p110, you cited a number of the standard prooftexts for your position. Some of these I’ve dealt with already, and others I will address at a later point.
But to comment on a few, how does 1 Jn 2:2 prove your point? Has our Lord adverted the wrath of God for everyone in the world?
How does Rom 5:18 prove you point? Have all men (without exception) been justified?
How does 2 Cor 5:14,18-19 prove your point? Has our Lord reconciled everyone in the world to God?
Oh, yes, you may drag in your potential/actual distinction to cut these verses down to size, but you cannot find that distinction in the verses themselves, or the surrounding context. Far from proving you point, it looks like you have to spend a certain amount of time defending your position against the otherwise unqualified force of the very verses you invoke. Each one must be cut-and-tailored for the Arminian to squeeze into while squeezing out the Calvinist and the universalist. Isn’t this special pleading from start to finish?
On p112, you bring up Mt 23:37. How is this incompatible with Calvinism? Mt 23:37 alludes to a conditional covenant with the house of Israel (v38; cf. Jer 12:7; 22:5). This is preceptive, not decretive.
On p113, you cite Rom 14:15 and 1 Cor 8:11 to prove that Christ died for the damned. Now, Paul is dealing here with cases of conscience. Do you really imagine a true believer is damned just because he suffers from an overly-scrupulous conscience? Is this what you think that Paul is saying here? Is that Paul’s idea of pastoral theology? Is that your idea of pastoral theology? Is that the sort of advice you give the weak brethren when they come to you for counseling? Do you confirm their worst fears by sending them home with the warning that they are teetering on the brink of hell? If anything, that admonition would push them right over the edge.
Boy, and people say that Calvinism is stern! Your Arminian theology is entirely too harsh for a hardnosed Calvinist like me! Seriously, I find much more sensible the interpretation offered by John Stott, Romans (IVP 1994), 365-66, and Craig Blomberg, 1 Corinthians (Zondervan 1994), 163. I should add that neither of them is going to bat for the cause of five-point Calvinism.
It is true that apollunai is commonly used with reference to the final judgment, but to read the eschatological context back into the bare meaning of the word when the controlling context is absent is simply fallacious.
In this same connection you bring in 2 Pet 2:1. Here, however, Peter is comparing false prophets in the OT to false teachers in the NT. The false teachers were “purchased” in the same generic sense that the false prophets were “redeemed” when God delivered the Exodus generation from Egyptian bondage.
“Agorazo” is not a technical term for Christian redemption. And it doesn’t bear the same specialized import as it would in Reformed dogmatics. You are committing yet another semantic anachronism.
Your argument would only work if Peter were using the word to denote the same concept as the doctrine of redemption in Reformed theology. But the Petrine usage is at several removes from Reformed usage.
It is also uncertain whether “despotes” has reference to the Father or the Son.
You recycle Sailer’s old argument that “unlimited atonement is the view that best accounts for the blame attached to men for rejection of Christ” (118). You and Sailer cite Jn 3:18; 8:24; 2 Cor 6:14; 2 Thes 2:11-12; 1 Jn 5:10-11; Rev 21:8.
This might have the makings of an impressive argument. Unfortunately, none of your prooftexts say as much as you need they to say to cinch the argument. None of them state that the unbelievers in view are guilty for failing to believe that Christ died for them.
To the extent that they even spell out the grounds of condemnation, they either have reference to the person of Christ (Jn 3:18; 8:24; 1 Jn 5:10), or his work on behalf of believers (1 Jn 5:11).
Both points go to the character of the opponents in 1 John. On the one hand, they deny that Jesus is the Anointed Son of God, come in the flesh. On the other hand, they deny that Christians are entitled to enjoy the assurance of salvation by the blood of Christ.
You cite Rom 3:22-25 to show that the provision is as broad as the sin. Once again, though, this either proves too much or too little. Paul doesn’t speak in terms of bare provision. He says that all are justified (v24).
Again, you fudge on the idea of provision. You fail to make provision for unbelief. Unbelief is sin. So you fail to make full provision for sin. A provisional atonement that is contingent on faith, where no provision is made for faith itself, or the absence thereof, is not a universal atonement, but a terribly truncated atonement. You might as well give a blind man a roadmap.
Moving on to chapter 7, you devote several pages to an analysis of the cosmic usage in 1 John. At one level, this marks an advance over the customary appeal, in which the meaning of kosmos is treated as self-evident.
To summarize your results, you say that in 1 John, kosmos is used as an antonym for believers, and a synonym for unbelievers. You also draw a distinction between a personal and impersonal import. To this I’d say the following:
i) This is quite uncharacteristic of Arminian theology, which ordinarily defines kosmos as “everyone.” I don’t say that as a criticism of your position. But it marks a wide departure from the usual appeal.
ii) You don’t show how the usage in 1 John compares with the usage in the Fourth Gospel.
iii) Are the personal and impersonal significations related in some more general way, or are these two distinct and independent senses of the word?
iv) What do the lexicographers have to say? Among another meanings, Loux & Nida define kosmos as the world-system or worldly standards (Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament, 41.38). This is similar to Cottrell & Turner, who give, as one meaning, human and supernatural rebels against God, along with the systems under their control (Linguistics & Biblical Interpretation, 176).
Both BDAG and the EDNT lay stress on this ethical dimension. In Johannine usage, the kosmos stands for the fallen world-order, and all that this entails.
Is this personal or impersonal, and is there a uniform meaning to which the usage of John and 1 John are correspondent?
Instead of the personal/impersonal, distinction, perhaps an abstract/concrete distinction would be more helpful. The personal/impersonal relation is disjunctive in a way that is not necessarily so with the abstract/concrete distinction. For an abstraction may be a generality based on a representative sampling of concrete instances.
The “fallen world order” is an abstract concept, but it derives from personal instances. Moreover, it carries an ethical connotation, which again, has a personal origin in the character of sinful agents.
Is there one word or word-group in English which best captures the abstract and moral overtones of kosmos? If we were to render kosmos as the “worldly” “worldling,” “worldliness,” and “worldly-minded,” I think that these variant forms of the basal noun (world) would offer a consistent and sensical meaning in most all of its Johannine--and not a few of its Pauline--occurrences. And this is quite compatible with Reformed theology.
You quote Nicole quoting Murray as taking kosmos in an exclusive rather than inclusive sense: “Christ is the only propitiation available to anyone in the whole world” (124).
You, however, draw the lines quite differently: “John’s purpose is to say that believers, even when discussing the benefits of Christ’s atonement death for themselves, must remember that he also died for the whole world, including the lost” (132).
But is that John’s purpose? D. A. Carson has a very different take, based on his reconstruction of the opponents: “John is confronting a crisis precipitated by the secession of some members who have been powerfully influenced by some form of protognosticism...In this light, the so-called tests are...[given] to reassure believers that their fidelity to the gospel, along the lines indicated, was itself reason enough to enable them to regain their quiet Christian assurance,” “Reflections on Assurance,” Still Sovereign, T. Schreiner & B. Ware, eds. (Baker 2000), 274.
On this view, John’s purpose is not to exhort believers on how they ought to view unbelievers, but rather, to reassure unsettled believers that, contrary to the protognostic heresy of the false teachers, Christ is the sole and all-sufficient Savior.
In good Arminian fashion, you discuss prevenient grace. But you only offer three prooftexts for your view (Jn 6:44; 16:8; Acts 16:14).
Yet none of them show that God’s grace is merely enabling, but resistible. In Acts 16:14, the divine action not merely enables Lydia to believe, but terminates in faith.
You quote the first clause of 6:44, but not the second, which assumes the success of the operation. You also disengage v44 from vv37,39.
You construe 16:8 as having subjective reference to the inner moral suasion of the Spirit, whereas it is far more likely to have reference to the objective witness of the inspired Apostles, who assume and resume the prophetic mantle of the covenantal law-suit.
Frankly, this whole sections is as a fine a specimen as any of someone who begins with his theological belief-system, then goes trolling about in search of a prooftext.
In chapter 10, you cite several Johannine verses to prove the priority of faith to regeneration.
As to Jn 1:12, the distinction between huios and tekna is that John reserves the former for Christ, and the latter for Christians.
You also ignore the relation of v12 to the relative clause in v13, the purpose of which is to trace the phenomena of v12 back to its wellsprings in the will of God.
I’d add that your interpretation also makes a hash of Jn 3:1-8, which is an expansive gloss on of Jn 1:12-13.
As to 1 Jn 5:1, the perfect participle could just as well be rendered, “whoever believes in God will have been begotten of God,” or, more idiomatically, “has already been begotten of God.” That is not the only possible rendering, but it’s grammatically unimpeachable.
At best, the verse is ambiguous, and therefore neutral on this question. And on the one occasion where John does clarify the causal relation, regeneration takes precedence (3:9).
Even I. H. Marshall, a doctrinaire Arminian who affirms the priority of faith, doesn’t share your interpretation of 5:1: “Faith is thus a sign of the new birth...Here...John is not trying to show how a person experiences the new birth; his aim is rather to indicate evidence which shows that a person stands in the continuing relationship of a child to his Father: that evidence is that he holds to the true faith about Jesus,” The Epistles of John (Eerdmans 1984), 226-27.
For a man who has taught NT Greek over the years, you are oddly insensitive to Greek grammar. And you are just as tone-deaf of spiritual metaphors. The point of procreative imagery is that we can do nothing to beget our own existence.
Death/resurrection imagery serves the same purpose as birth/rebirth imagery. The dead cannot bring themselves back to life.
Jesus, John, and Paul employ these metaphors because this transparent picture-language conveys an instantly and unmistakably clear idea.
You cite Jn 5:24 to prove the priority of faith to regeneration. But to redeploy Marshall’s own distinction, is faith a cause of regeneration, or a sign of regeneration?
Far from supporting the Arminian contention, this verse supports the inamissibility of grace. As Andreas Kostenberger observes, "Jesus' statement that believers 'have' eternal life in the here and now, having 'crossed over from death to life' already in the past (5:24; cf. 1 Jn 3:14), ran counter to contemporary Judaism, which considered the attainment of eternal life to be a future event," John (Baker 2004), 188.
You also cite Jn 12:46 to prove the priority of faith to regeneration. However, this conveniently ignores the predestinarian context of Jn 12, where unbelief is attributed to judicial hardening (vv37-41).
For the standard monograph on Isa 6 and its NT appropriation, cf. C. Evans, To See and Not Perceive (Sheffield: JSOT 1989).
Moving on to chapter 11, you say that the Calvinist is prying into the secret things of God when he infers the perseverance of the saints from the covenant of redemption (Jn 5:30,43; 6:38-40; 17:4-12). You also say that “nowhere is there direct indication that such a covenant was made, and even more important is the fact that the terms of such a covenant are not revealed--especially not whether those promises were or were not conditional” (189).
By way of reply,
i) Calvinists are not appealing to the secret will of God, but to the revealed will of God. You yourself cite some of the prooftexts, only to brandish the above disclaimer.
Well, what is your alternative interpretation of Jn 5:30,43; 6;38-40; 17:4-12?
And how could the promises be conditional if this is a covenant between the Father and the Son? Although it is possible for a covenant between God and man to be conditional, inasmuch as the human party may commit breach of contract--unless he is preserved by God’s grace-- yet how can a covenant between two divine parties ever be liable to nonperformance?
And you continue to assume, without benefit of argument, that conditionality implies uncertainty. That is a non-sequitur. It all depends. In contract law, you may have a surety (e.g. Heb 7:22!) to makes good on the contract if the second party defaults.
This represents a failure on your part to get inside the head of the opponent. For an Arminian, conditionality implies uncertainty because the outcome ultimately hinges on the weak reed of freewill. Of course, that is not the framework within which Reformed theology would embed conditionality.
You utterly maunder the meaning of Jn 17:11-12. The apostasy of Judas is no evidence that the prayers of Christ for his people are ineffectual. In this very verse (12) the reader is told that Judas’ betrayal was a prophetic necessity--referring back to 13:18-19. The Fourth Gospel is at pains to point out that Jesus chose Judas in full foreknowledge of his impending apostasy and treason (6:64,70-71; 13:10-11,21). It is essential to Johannine theology that Jesus, as the Good Shepherd, is faithful in keeping his spiritual charges from defection (Jn 6:37-39; chapter 10; 17:11-12a).
Moving on to chapter 12--by way of a general observation, Calvinism doesn’t deny that members of the covenant community can and may commit apostasy. Rather, Reformed theology distinguishes between a gracious remnant and a graceless mass of nominal believers. In addition, the NT letters are addressed to a mixed multitude of true believers, immature believers, and nominal believers.
Now, you may reject these distinctions, but for you to bring up examples of possible or actual apostasy (p200) is in no way incompatible with the Reformed doctrine of perseverance.
BTW, there is a parallel distinction, is there not, in Arminian theology--at least the Wesleyan variety? John and Charles did not think that all churchmen were true believers. To the contrary, they thought the Church of England was full of Pharisees. They preached the doctrine of the New Birth to baptized communicates of their own denomination. Indeed, they viewed themselves as having been gospel hypocrites before undergoing their own awakening, did they not?
On Gal 5:4, what the Galatians are in danger of defecting from is not the experience of justification, but the doctrine of justification.
On Jn 10:27-29, you say “it assumes that they remain his sheep” (201). Yes, and no. It assumes that they will, indeed, remain his sheep because he will preserve all those whom the Father entrusted to his safe-keeping. If the promise is conditional, it is conditional, not on the sheep, but the shepherd. That’s the whole point of the passage. Therein lies the assurance.
On Rom 8:29-30, you describe this as a “picture of what happens for those in whom God’s purpose is fully accomplished, without even discussing the question of whether any condition is required for any part of it to be accomplished” (202).
No, what it expressly says is that God’s purpose will be accomplished for the elect from start to finish. And if this carries a faith-condition, then that condition will be met in each and every case.
Moving on to chapter 13, you rest your objection to perseverance on two pillars: Heb 6:4-6 and 2 Pet 2:18-22.
On Heb 6:4-6,
i) The fundamental flaw in your reading of the text is the way in which you jump right into the middle of the letter (6:4-6), and therefore miss the comparison between OT and NT apostates.
But in order to understand this passage we must go back to where the author introduces the apostasy motif. Because the author is addressing Messianic Jews who are tempted to revert to Judaism, he draws a parallel between NT apostasy and OT apostasy. This comparison is introduced in the first of five apostasy passages (2:1-4). Then in 3:6-4:13 he elaborates on the character of the OT apostates. By the way in which our author structures his own argument, therefore, this precedent is paradigmatic for the case of NT apostasy. And his remarks in 6:4-6 will allude to this passage. If there were a radical discontinuity in the religious experience of OT and NT apostates, then our author’s analogy would break down at the critical point of comparison.
ii) What does the author mean by having a share in the Holy Spirit (6:4)? Before we can attempt a specific answer we must first ask about the general contours of our author’s pneumatology. He doesn’t have much to say on this subject, but what he does tell us is confined to the external rather than internal work of the Spirit (2:4; 3:7; 9:8; 10:15). There is a possible reference to his agency in the Resurrection (9:14).
The point, rather, is that both the Old and NT apostates had a share in the ministry of the Spirit by virtue of his agency in the inspiration of Scripture. More precisely, both groups had been evangelized (4:2,6).
When you cite verse like Gal 3:14, you are using Hebrews to channel Pauline theology. This is a category mistake. The author of Hebrews never penetrates beneath the phenomenology of faith and categories of cultic holiness. He does not share St. Paul’s interest in depth psychology, perhaps because that is not germane to the purpose of his letter, which is concerned with covenant theology and Messianic Judaism.
Likewise, regeneration is a Johannine category. You seem to be doing systematic theology under the guise of exegetical theology. But systematic theology is a higher-ordered discipline. Each author ought to be construed on his own terms, in light of his own chosen usage--both express and allusive. You need to break the habit of using one author as a prism through which to view another.
Likewise, again, the verb (metochoi), taken by itself, is theologically innocent. This is not a technical term for Christian experience.
iii) The author takes the rebellion at Kadesh as his test case (Num 14 via Ps 95). Having tasted the "goodness of God’s word" (6:5) echoes the experience of the OT apostates (4,2,6,12; cf. Num 14:43). Tasting the "powers of the coming age" has immediate reference to the sign-gifts (2:4), but this experience also has its OT analogue (Num 14:11,22).
I agree with you that the verb (geuomai) is not reducible to “tongue-tasting.” However, you commit a semantic fallacy in insinuating that the import of the verb is defined by the object it takes, and therefore varies with its variable object. Does geuomai have a humble human import in Jn 2:9, but take on a divine import in Mt 27:33?
iv) Appealing to 10:32 to explain 6:4 is an exercise in futility:
(a) If 6:4 is ambiguous, taken by itself, then that same ambiguity will infect the parallel passage;
(b) The question at issue is not whether the verb (photizomai) is a metaphor for conversion, but whether it denotes conversion in the dogmatic sense, such that you can invoke this verse to compare and contrast the doctrine of conversion in Hebrews with the doctrine of conversion in Arminian and Reformed theology. That is not something you can extract from a natural metaphor. Picture-language is too open-textured to speak with such precision.
v) On Heb 6:2,6, it is a mistake to import into the word "repentance" the full payload of later dogmatic usage. Moreover, it is evident from his usage elsewhere (12:17) that the author doesn’t use the word as a technical term for Christian conversion.
vi) As to Heb 10:29 (p115), it is anachronistic to construe "sanctify" as it has come to be used in systematic theology. The author tells us that the apostate was sanctified by blood of Christ rather than action of the Spirit. That automatically removes it from the dogmatic category. His usage is figurative and consciously cultic (9:13,20; cf. Exod 29:21; Lev 16:19, LXX). It is concerned with a status rather than a process. By taking it to mean what it would normally mean in Pauline theology, you are blending separate domains of discourse. Moreover, it also possible that the verb takes the "covenant" as its object.
I can only conclude that either you never read James Barr’s book on The Semantics of Biblical Language (Oxford 1961), or else it went right over your head, for you continually reproduce the word-study fallacies of Kittel and company.
vii) It is lopsided to center our analysis of Hebrews on the apostasy motif when, in fact, the letter pivots on the dual theme of threat and assurance. Moreover, the author rounds out his dire warnings on an optimistic note (cf. 6:9ff.; 10:30,39).
Furthermore, the author accentuates the efficacy of Christ’s atonement and intercession (4:14; 7:16,24-28; 8:6; 9:12,14-15,26-28; 10:12-18,22) in express contrast to the inadequacies and insecurities of the OT system (5:2-3; 7:18-29,27-28; 9:9-10,13; 10:1-4,11). He allows no room for a breach between redemption accomplished and redemption applied.
The reason that a member of the Old Covenant community could apostatize was due to the drag-factor of an evil heart (3:8,12; 7:18), whereas the New Covenant rests on the better promise of a new heart (8:10,12; 10:16).
viii) Finally, an Arminian is in no position to say that hypotheticals are meaningless. Sufficient grace is a hypothetical, often turned into counterfactual when resisted. A potential universal atonement is a hypothetical, often turned into counterfactual when resisted.
The metaphysical difference is that you, as an Arminian, index modality to the will of man whereas a Calvinist is indexing modality to the will of God.
On 2 Pet 2:18-22, the question at issue is not whether the apostates were one-time converts to the faith. Rather, the question turns on the content of conversion--on two divergent doctrines of conversion: the Reformed and the Arminian.
2 Pet 2:18-22 doesn’t address that specific contention. There is nothing said about the religious experience of the false teachers that rises above the level of their having been evangelized. So your appeal fails to even graze the opposing position.
By having offered such a thoroughgoing defense of Arminian theology, and attack upon Calvinism, Reformed theology is signally vindicated when the arguments for Arminian theology and Arminian counterarguments against Reformed theology are so impotent. For that we are all in your debt.
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Grace, faith, & freewill-1
Dear Dr. Picirilli,
Over the years I’ve made an effort to read all the leading critics of Calvinism, viz., Cottrell, Craig, Duty, Douty, Erickson, Forster/Marston, Grider, Gromacki, Hodges, Hughes, Kendall, Klein, Leightner, Marshall, McNight, Osborne, Pinnock, Ryrie, Sailer, Scaer, Shank, Strehle.
More recently, I’ve read Geisler (Chosen but Free) and Walls (Why I am not a Calvinist). And now I’ve just finished your book: Grace, Faith, Freewill (Randall House 2002).
I don’t read this material because I’m Arminian. In fact, I’m a Calvinist. But I like to keep up with the competition. Of the recent entries, yours is the best. You also get bonus points for affirming the authenticity of 2 Peter.
Let me begin by saying that I appreciate the good faith effort you’ve made to understand and acquaint yourself with the opposing position. You’re better read than most.
Another strong point of you treatment is that you generally avoid the popularizers (a la Sproul), and focus your fire on the heavy-weights.
It is also nice to see someone who knows the difference between the Reformed doctrine of perseverance and the antinomian doctrine of eternal security (p193ff.).
For future reference, I would point out that you’ve overlooked a number of major spokesmen for the Reformed position, viz., Baugh, Beale, Carson, Cunningham, Edwards, Frame, Hoekema, Owen, Schreiner, Turretin, Vos, Ware.
I’d add that you give pretty short shrift to some of those whom you do cite (e.g., Helm, Murray, Piper, Warfield).
In generally, the older generation tend to be better at polemical and systematic theology, while the younger generation are better at exegetical theology.
I’ll confine my comments to what I regard as the most relevant portions of your book. I’ll ignore some arguments, not because they’re unimportant, but because I’ve addressed these points in the course of reviewing Geisler and Walls.
1. In chapter 3 you try to square freedom and foreknowledge by indexing certainty to futurity or factuality. I fail to see how this comes any distance towards solving the problem.
If the human agent is free in the libertarian sense, then he is the fact-maker. There is no fact to be known in advance of the fact. The human agent makes it happen. And if the choice is truly indeterminate, then it cannot be known before its eventuation, for it could go either way.
You have made God’s knowledge contingent on the choice of the human agent. God’s knowledge is the effect of the human agent’s decision. The future is only certain when the future moves into the past.
Incidentally, you assuming the A-theory of time. To make good on you case you’d also need to rebut the B-theory of time (a la Helm, Mellor, Le Poindevin).
On p55, you resort to the old Boethean compromise, popularized by C. S. Lewis. But if God’s foreknowledge is contingent on the creature, then God is, indeed, limited by time. God’s knowledge of free choice is contingent on its futurition. If the event is indeterminate, then the event cannot be known until it eventuates. So God is now enmeshed in the traditional divisions of time. This is hindsight rather than foresight.
If you were to confine your monograph to exegesis, you could avoid the philosophical complexities, but since, in chapter 3, you do delve into metaphysics, then this cannot be avoided.
Moving on to chapter 4, you say that Eph 1:4 is neutral on the question of whether election is conditional or unconditional. To the contrary, the very notion of predestination and eternal election takes it out of the temporal sphere of human action or reaction, and places it squarely within the sphere of divine action alone.
In addition, there is no discrepancy, in Eph 1, between the plan, execution, and application of the atonement. It is a seamless garment.
On p70, you confound the notion of conditional salvation and conditional election. These are not at all the same thing. To say that faith is a condition of salvation does not mean that faith is a condition of election.
We also need to distinguish between an objective and a subjective condition. There is quite a difference between saying that election is contingent on faith, and saying that faith is contingent on election.
To say that only believers are chosen (71) is fatally ambitious. Are they chosen because they are believers, or are they believers because they are chosen? You palter with a double sense.
Election is timeless, salvation--temporal. Salvation has its conditions, but conditions that are a consequence of the decree. Moreover, the sovereign grace of God supplies and satisfies the necessary and sufficient conditions of salvation with respect to the elect.
Of course, you may disagree, but that is a coherent cause-effect model, whereas your alternative is a muddle.
On Rom 9-11, you try to treat unbelief as the ultimate explanation. However, you anticipate a couple of objections: (i) the twins (9:11), and (ii) divine hardening (9:18; 11:7).
As to (i), you say that this disproves the principle of election by works. True, but it does more than that. It also disproves the principle of election by faith. The unborn twins could no more exercise personal faith than they could do good works.
In addition, you are assuming that Paul’s faith/works antithesis will hold up under an Arminian theory of faith. But if the act of faith is a merely human act, the product of our freewill, then faith is just another manmade work. The faith/works antithesis is only tenable along as it is expressive of the more fundamental grace/works antithesis. Faith is a token of grace. When, however, faith is elevated to the status of an autonomous factor rather the reflexive effect of a divine dynamic, then faith is parallel to works rather than grace. Synergism returns with a vengeance.
As to (ii), the problem which this poses for conditional election is that hardening is a divine impediment to faith. God hardens Pharaoh so that he cannot repent. God hardens Israel so that she cannot repent (Isa 6).
All you say to this is that hardening is the absence of mercy rather than the presence of some positive impediment.
But, to begin with, that hardly does justice to the hardening of Pharaoh. According to the narrative, there were occasions when Pharaoh, if left to his own devices, would have relented under the pressure of the plagues, but God stiffened his resistance, in the furtherance of a long-range objective (Rom 9:17; Exod 9:16; 14:4,17-18).
Likewise, God hardened Israel to precipitate the Exile, in the furtherance of another long-range objective (6:9-13). Israel’s repentance would be premature at this point, serving to frustrate rather than facilitate God’s overarching goal.
And this carries over to Rom 9-11, with its doctrine of the remnant and in-grafting of the Gentiles. Sorry, but your shallow analysis misses the big picture.
Incidentally, I think that you are talking at cross purposes with Piper. Spiritual inability has reference to evangelical repentance. In this sense, “nothing more active is necessary.” The unregenerate may be left in their unregenerate state.
It does not follow, however, that the unregenerate are incapable of repenting of a course of action that, left unchecked, will result in a temporal chastisement or catastrophe.
At the same time, there is some degree of coordination between grace and the means of grace. “Faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.” If a people-group are cut-off from the mainstream of redemptive history (e.g., Mal 1:1-4; Isa 35:5,9ff.; Ezk 35:9; Obadiah 10,18; Jn 4:24; Eph 2:12), then that has the preemptive effect of severing any spiritual opportunities and advantages that they might otherwise enjoy.
The atonement is a double-edged sword. It is not merely a means of salvation, but also an instrument of condemnation by exposing the inexcusable character of unbelief and even aggravating the guilt of the unbeliever (Jn 9:39; 12:37-40; 15:22). The atonement is a polarizing event (Lk 12:51f. Jn 3:19-21; 6:60-71). Christ was destined for the downfall of many (Lk 2:34). The reprobate were set up for the fall (1 Pet 2:8), while Christ was set out to trip them up (2:6f.). God will display the folly of the proud through the stumbling block of Calvary (1 Cor 1:18-29; 2:6-8).
On Rom 8:28-30, it’s true that Pauline usage is not strictly parallel to dogmatic usage. In Reformed dogmatics, predestination is inclusive of election, whereas in Rom 8:29, “predestination” is instrumental to “election” (proginosko=to choose beforehand).
That, however, doesn’t invalidate the Reformed construction. It just means that we need to distinguish between words and concepts, and pair them up at their equitable level of abstraction.
In 8:28, proginosko is an idiomatic expression for prior choice. It carries a predestinarian force. For its part, proorizein carries a teleological force. They are chosen--chosen for what? To what end? To be conformed to the image of Christ.
So they didn’t choose themselves, and they didn’t choose God. God did the choosing. And God chose them, not for the sake of choosing, and left it at that, as if election were an end in itself, but in order to bless them with a particular destiny. Election is a precondition for something else. Election is instrumental to a certain destiny, and predestination is instrumental to election as a means of attaining that end. “In the second step he uses proorizein, which means ‘decide beforehand, predestine’ (BAGD, 709a), referring to God’s gratuitous election (to the status to be described in the next phrase,” J. Fitzmyer, Romans (Doubleday 1993), 525.
Moving on to 1 Pet 1:1-2, you ask, “Foreknowledge of what?” (78). But this is a prejudicial way of framing the question, for it presupposes the answer. If we render proginosko as “foreknowledge,” then that naturally invites the question, “Foreknowledge of what.” But such a rendering begs the question. On the next page you run through four different semantic options, but the way you’ve have chosen to cast the question on p78 tilts the playing field in advance of the game.
I think that proginosko bears the same elective sense here as it does in Rom 8:29 & 11:2. You reject this rendering on the grounds that it would be tautologous. But this objection is invalid on a couple of grounds:
i) Even if the construction were tautologous, that wouldn’t rule out the elective sense. The Bible is an emphatic book--given to a certain amount of redundancy to drive home the same point. In Eph 1-2, for example, Paul says the same thing in more than one way.
ii) It is not tautologous. For the compound form adds a conceptual element not present in the bare idea of choice, viz., “chosen according to the prior choice of God.” The two terms are not synonymous. Rather, proginosko advances the original thought. Christians are a chosen people. Not only so, but they were chosen beforehand. They own their favored status to divine initiative.
But another problem is the way in which you combine more than one sense: “prescience, with a hint of wise foreplanning” (79).
What justification do you offer for the idea that more than one sense is in play in the very same occurrence? Certain authors like James Joyce trade on polysemy, but this is rather artful and artificial. Except when a writer is deliberately indulging in a double entendre for ironic effect, I don’t see any linguistic grounds for asserting semantic simultaneity.
You seem to be falling into the semantic fallacy of treating words as though they had a primary meaning, which carries through all of their secondary and tertiary senses. Thus, the primary meaning is always operative, but one can layer on a secondary or tertiary sense.
That is not my conception of how a natural language works. A word may have more than one sense, but it doesn't’ have more than one sense in the same occurrence. Rather, it may have one meaning in one occurrence, and another in another, depending on which meaning is serviceable to the context at hand.
Again, when you talk about the “added notion of foresight,” you seem to be confounding the meaning of words with concepts. But a concept may be present where the word is not, or vice versa.
Let us not forget that 1:2 occurs in the same writing in which Peter presents a doctrine of double predestination. Election and reprobation stand side by side as correlative truths (2:6-9).
Moving on to Acts 2:23 & 4:28, you say that “If, in fact, those who crucified Jesus had to do so...then they were not free to do otherwise--could not do otherwise, and were therefore not responsible” (80).
There are two things wrong with this claim:
i) It assumes what it needs to prove. It appeals to a popular, common sense notion of justice. But it simply takes that for granted. No supporting argument is offered.
Now you, as an Arminian, can take this as a given if you like, but that is no way of persuading someone who is not already a card-carrying Arminian. Indeed, it is possible for someone to be theological indeterminist, but a philosophical determinist (e.g., John Locke). By ignoring all of the counterarguments, you beg the very question at issue.
ii) Your little gloss does not constitute an interpretation of Acts 2:23 or 4:28. What you’ve done is to superimpose on the text what you think to be a necessary condition of moral responsibility. Now even if you were right about that, the text itself has nothing at all to say about the necessary conditions of incumbency. Your claims do not arise from exegeting the text. You have read out of the text what you read into it. This is only convincing to the firmly convinced. But there is nothing in the text to generate your conclusion.
Moving on to Lk 7:30, you apparently cite this to show that grace is not irresistible. But you seem to be forgetting the position you’ve chosen to oppose.
The Pharisees rejected the prophetic preaching of John the Baptist. In this verse, “God’s will” is synonymous with John’s baptism of repentance. But Calvinism has never said that unregenerate men are unable to reject the preaching of the prophets, or Apostles, or missionaries, or what have you. Indeed, Calvinism affirms that unregenerate men naturally resist the Gospel unless they are graced with the gift of faith. This verse is entirely compatible with spiritual inability.
I’d add that even in the case of God’s preceptive will, even though it may be resisted, it may never be thwarted, for it serves to expose and aggravate the guilt of the unbeliever (Jer 7:16; 11:14; 18:11-12; Ezk 2:3-7; 20:25-27; Isa 6:1-13; 63:17; Jn 12; Rom 3:20; 5:20; 7:7,13; Heb 10:3). So at no level, whether decretive or preceptive, is the will of God ever frustrated by man’s intransigence.
Moving on to 2 Pet 3:9, the key issue here is not the force of the verb, but the object of the verb. It is odd that you quote Bauckham’s commentary on 2:18-22, but not on 3:9. As Bauckham explains, the language is stereotypical of OT usage with reference to the covenant community. Just as God was longsuffering towards stiff-necked Israel (for the sake of the remnant), so is he to backslidden believers under the New Covenant.
I’d add that your allusion to Ezk 33:11 commits the same anachronism. To universalize an oracle that was addressed to the covenant community flies in the face of the context. Israel was not the world. Indeed, Israel went wrong whenever she lost her distinct identity and become indistinguishable from the world at large.
Moving on to 1 Tim 2:4, You say that “ the meaning of the ‘all’ is crucial to the interpretation of the verse, and it cannot be separated from the entire context (vv1-7),” (82). You also say that this passage makes the same point as 2 Pet 3:9. Really?
We need to administer several correctives:
i) The “meaning” of pantos is not at issue. The universal quantifier has a uniform, abstract meaning. That is not the sticking point between Arminian and Calvinist.
ii) Rather, the issue turns on the referent. Not: what does the word connote?; but, whom does the word denote?
iii) Actually, the “entire context” is broader than 2:1-7. The entire context must take into account the identity of Paul’s opponents. To judge by 1:4,7 (cf. Tit 1:10,14; 3:9), Paul is dealing with the perennial Judaizers, or even hyper-Judaizers. At best, a Gentile had to become a Jew before he could become at Christian; at worse, he could never convert because the New Covenant was limited, like the Old Covenant, to the seed of Abraham.
This, of course, is untrue, but it appears to represent the viewpoint of Paul’s opponents. So Paul’s universalism is ethnic rather than soteric. Salvation is not limited to Jews.
iv) So the passage does not make the same point as 2 Pet 3:9. They are giving different answers to different questions. You have plucked out a few isolated verses without regard to the concrete situation which occasioned these letters. Their respective circumstances are entirely diverse.
Turning to chapter 5, you say that although “limited atonement follows logically from the doctrine of unconditional election,” yet “teaching about the extent of the atonement should be determined by Biblical exegesis rather than by the logic of one’s system” (90).
Well, that all depends. If doctrine A is well-attested in Scripture, and doctrine B is directly deducible from doctrine A, then doctrine A does not demand independent attestation. I would say that special redemption enjoys both direct and indirect lines of support.
Next, you claim that when Christ is said to die for a particular group, this does not imply that he died for that group alone.
True, but only true at a very abstract level of discourse. For not all of the designations of Scripture are that generic and neutral-gray. Some designations have come, in OT usage, to denote the covenant community, such as “the sheep” (Jn 10:11; Acts 20:28), the “seed of Abraham” (Heb 2:16), the people of God (Mt 1:21; Tit 2:14; Heb 2:17; 9:15), the Diaspora (Jn 11:52), the “children of God” (Heb 2:13-14), as well as those that are called (9:15) and consecrated (Jn 17:19; Heb 10:14). This usage stands in implicit contrast to the world at large.
We need to read the NT through Jewish eyes and ears. And in some cases the contrast is even more explicit: “having loved his own who were in the world” (Jn 13:1); having laid down his life for the sheep (10:11)--as over against the goats (Jn 10:26); having laid down his life for his friends (15:13; cf. Isa 41:8; 2 Chron 20:7)--as over against his enemies (15:19).
BTW, notice that Jn 10:26 affirms unconditional rather than conditional election. The unbelievers are not his sheep because they disbelieve; rather, they disbelieve because they are not his sheep.
You drive a wedge between redemption accomplished and applied by saying that “in fact the Bible speaks of Christians as having lived under the wrath of God and in a state of estrangement from him before their conversion; see Eph 2:3,13, for example,” 94.
But this is a very careless reading of Eph 2:3. The contrast there is not between “then” and “now,” but between being “in Adam” and being “in Christ.” As all the standard commentaries point out (Bruce, Hoehner, Lincoln, O’Brien), the modifier (“by nature”) has reference to original sin. Put another way, the contrast is not temporal, but federal.
You next object that if the atonement is, in and of itself, a satisfaction for the sin of the elect only, then that denies the sufficiency of the atonement, contrary to the view of Nicole and others.
This objection calls for a number of comments:
1. The sufficient/efficient distinction is not a Reformed distinctive. Both Reformed and Arminian theologians deploy this distinction, although in different ways.
This is, at most, a supporting argument. It is not essential to Reformed theology. It is, rather, a Scholastic refinement which predates Calvin and postdates Augustine.
2. The distinction is somewhat misleading. For in philosophical usage, a sufficient condition is a condition which, if satisfied, invariably yields a certain result.
When theologians talk about the sufficiency of the atonement, what they have in mind is closer to the notion of a necessary condition rather than a sufficient condition.
3. Having said all that, I really don’t see the difficulty. Let us go back to the OT template of our redemptive terminology. If an Israelite went into debt, he could become an indentured servant for seven years to make amends to his creditors. However, a wealthy relative could intervene to pay the price of his manumission.
Suppose that several clansmen became indentured servants. The kinsman-redeemer might have sufficient funds to redeem them all. Yet his wealth is only efficient to redeem those, and only those, whom he intends to redeem, and chooses to redeem by paying the asking price for any given servant. It may be all or some or none.
On 2 Cor 5:18-19, you say that “only tortured exegesis...will give ‘world” a meaning that is as narrow as the elect” (95).
To the contrary, Paul’s range of reference is self-limiting. According to the symmetry of the v14, the first quantifier coincides with the second: Christ died for all who died in Christ. So the scope of each quantifier is limited to the union between the Redeemer and the redeemed. As F.F. Bruce remarks, in his commentary on 1-2 Cor, "One has died as the representative of all his people, and therefore all of them are deemed to have died in the person of their representative." This interpretation is confirmed by the non-imputation of sin in v19, which hardly applies to humanity as a whole.
You are lifting vv18-19 out of context. They need to be considered in relation to the whole flow of the argument.
In reply to the double jeopardy argument, you say that this “depends on seeing Christ’s redemptive work as actually accomplishing its intended results, for those it was designed for, without faith on their part” (97).
But you reply is inadequate on several grounds:
i) There is a difference between saying that faith is a condition of salvation, and saying that faith is a free variable. A Calvinist would readily grant that faith is an element in the application of the atonement. But if justification is contingent on faith, faith is contingent on grace--irresistible grace. It is one thing to distinguish between redemption accomplished and applied, quite another to drive a wedge between the two.
ii) To treat unbelief as the deal-breaker does nothing to defuse the double-jeopardy argument. If their sins were atoned for, then for what are they punished?
iii) It would be miscarriage of justice to the Redeemer as well as the redeemed if he did not get what he paid for.
To the contention that Christ could not have died to saved the damned, you reply that “this, too, is mere human logic, and poor logic at that. One may as quickly respond that when he died there were many already in heaven; did he die for them?” (99).
But this replies fails in several respects:
i) When, in chapter 3, you try to harmonize freedom and foreknowledge, and when, in chapter four, you stipulate the conditions of moral responsibility, you yourself resort to mere human logic.
ii) Actually, the Calvinist is not resorting to mere human logic. Rather, he is drawing an inference on the basis of several lines of Biblical data: When people die, they either go to heaven or hell; some people died before Christ came; some of the damned died before Christ came; faith in Christ is a prerequisite of salvation.
iii) The case of those in heaven is not at all analogous. It was possible for an Israelite to exercise saving faith in Christ by believing in the types and prophecies of Christ.
Indeed, there’s no qualitative difference between the faith of a Christian and the faith of pre-Christian Messianic Jew. For, in this life, both of us know Christ by description rather than acquaintance.
But it was not possible for a pagan, who lived and died outside the faith of Israel, to come to a saving knowledge of God.
iv) You can only get around this by either alleging that general revelation is sufficient for saving faith, in which event no one need ever believe in Christ to be saved; or else resorting to postmortem evangelism--which is inconsistent with the classic Arminian theology you espouse.
Next, you say: “the Arminian view is that Christ died to provide salvation for all, a provision that is effective only when applied to those who believe” (100).
But, to reiterate the prior objection, how is it possible for those who died outside the pale of the gospel to believe? There would not even be a faith to foresee, for they would lack an object of faith. So how is this a “live option” (106)?
Unless the provision of revelation is coincident with the provision of redemption, your claim comes apart at the seams. If you take refuge in general revelation, then we have a hiatus between Christian redemption and non-Christian revelation. The revelation in question is not a revelation of redemption.
This is your dilemma. Your commitment to universal atonement tugs in one direction, while your faith-condition tugs in the opposing direction. Want to talk about tortured exegesis? Your Arminian theology is drawn-and-quartered!
If you stick to your faith-condition, then the provision is only opportune for a subset of humanity--those that have been evangelized.≤
Over the years I’ve made an effort to read all the leading critics of Calvinism, viz., Cottrell, Craig, Duty, Douty, Erickson, Forster/Marston, Grider, Gromacki, Hodges, Hughes, Kendall, Klein, Leightner, Marshall, McNight, Osborne, Pinnock, Ryrie, Sailer, Scaer, Shank, Strehle.
More recently, I’ve read Geisler (Chosen but Free) and Walls (Why I am not a Calvinist). And now I’ve just finished your book: Grace, Faith, Freewill (Randall House 2002).
I don’t read this material because I’m Arminian. In fact, I’m a Calvinist. But I like to keep up with the competition. Of the recent entries, yours is the best. You also get bonus points for affirming the authenticity of 2 Peter.
Let me begin by saying that I appreciate the good faith effort you’ve made to understand and acquaint yourself with the opposing position. You’re better read than most.
Another strong point of you treatment is that you generally avoid the popularizers (a la Sproul), and focus your fire on the heavy-weights.
It is also nice to see someone who knows the difference between the Reformed doctrine of perseverance and the antinomian doctrine of eternal security (p193ff.).
For future reference, I would point out that you’ve overlooked a number of major spokesmen for the Reformed position, viz., Baugh, Beale, Carson, Cunningham, Edwards, Frame, Hoekema, Owen, Schreiner, Turretin, Vos, Ware.
I’d add that you give pretty short shrift to some of those whom you do cite (e.g., Helm, Murray, Piper, Warfield).
In generally, the older generation tend to be better at polemical and systematic theology, while the younger generation are better at exegetical theology.
I’ll confine my comments to what I regard as the most relevant portions of your book. I’ll ignore some arguments, not because they’re unimportant, but because I’ve addressed these points in the course of reviewing Geisler and Walls.
1. In chapter 3 you try to square freedom and foreknowledge by indexing certainty to futurity or factuality. I fail to see how this comes any distance towards solving the problem.
If the human agent is free in the libertarian sense, then he is the fact-maker. There is no fact to be known in advance of the fact. The human agent makes it happen. And if the choice is truly indeterminate, then it cannot be known before its eventuation, for it could go either way.
You have made God’s knowledge contingent on the choice of the human agent. God’s knowledge is the effect of the human agent’s decision. The future is only certain when the future moves into the past.
Incidentally, you assuming the A-theory of time. To make good on you case you’d also need to rebut the B-theory of time (a la Helm, Mellor, Le Poindevin).
On p55, you resort to the old Boethean compromise, popularized by C. S. Lewis. But if God’s foreknowledge is contingent on the creature, then God is, indeed, limited by time. God’s knowledge of free choice is contingent on its futurition. If the event is indeterminate, then the event cannot be known until it eventuates. So God is now enmeshed in the traditional divisions of time. This is hindsight rather than foresight.
If you were to confine your monograph to exegesis, you could avoid the philosophical complexities, but since, in chapter 3, you do delve into metaphysics, then this cannot be avoided.
Moving on to chapter 4, you say that Eph 1:4 is neutral on the question of whether election is conditional or unconditional. To the contrary, the very notion of predestination and eternal election takes it out of the temporal sphere of human action or reaction, and places it squarely within the sphere of divine action alone.
In addition, there is no discrepancy, in Eph 1, between the plan, execution, and application of the atonement. It is a seamless garment.
On p70, you confound the notion of conditional salvation and conditional election. These are not at all the same thing. To say that faith is a condition of salvation does not mean that faith is a condition of election.
We also need to distinguish between an objective and a subjective condition. There is quite a difference between saying that election is contingent on faith, and saying that faith is contingent on election.
To say that only believers are chosen (71) is fatally ambitious. Are they chosen because they are believers, or are they believers because they are chosen? You palter with a double sense.
Election is timeless, salvation--temporal. Salvation has its conditions, but conditions that are a consequence of the decree. Moreover, the sovereign grace of God supplies and satisfies the necessary and sufficient conditions of salvation with respect to the elect.
Of course, you may disagree, but that is a coherent cause-effect model, whereas your alternative is a muddle.
On Rom 9-11, you try to treat unbelief as the ultimate explanation. However, you anticipate a couple of objections: (i) the twins (9:11), and (ii) divine hardening (9:18; 11:7).
As to (i), you say that this disproves the principle of election by works. True, but it does more than that. It also disproves the principle of election by faith. The unborn twins could no more exercise personal faith than they could do good works.
In addition, you are assuming that Paul’s faith/works antithesis will hold up under an Arminian theory of faith. But if the act of faith is a merely human act, the product of our freewill, then faith is just another manmade work. The faith/works antithesis is only tenable along as it is expressive of the more fundamental grace/works antithesis. Faith is a token of grace. When, however, faith is elevated to the status of an autonomous factor rather the reflexive effect of a divine dynamic, then faith is parallel to works rather than grace. Synergism returns with a vengeance.
As to (ii), the problem which this poses for conditional election is that hardening is a divine impediment to faith. God hardens Pharaoh so that he cannot repent. God hardens Israel so that she cannot repent (Isa 6).
All you say to this is that hardening is the absence of mercy rather than the presence of some positive impediment.
But, to begin with, that hardly does justice to the hardening of Pharaoh. According to the narrative, there were occasions when Pharaoh, if left to his own devices, would have relented under the pressure of the plagues, but God stiffened his resistance, in the furtherance of a long-range objective (Rom 9:17; Exod 9:16; 14:4,17-18).
Likewise, God hardened Israel to precipitate the Exile, in the furtherance of another long-range objective (6:9-13). Israel’s repentance would be premature at this point, serving to frustrate rather than facilitate God’s overarching goal.
And this carries over to Rom 9-11, with its doctrine of the remnant and in-grafting of the Gentiles. Sorry, but your shallow analysis misses the big picture.
Incidentally, I think that you are talking at cross purposes with Piper. Spiritual inability has reference to evangelical repentance. In this sense, “nothing more active is necessary.” The unregenerate may be left in their unregenerate state.
It does not follow, however, that the unregenerate are incapable of repenting of a course of action that, left unchecked, will result in a temporal chastisement or catastrophe.
At the same time, there is some degree of coordination between grace and the means of grace. “Faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.” If a people-group are cut-off from the mainstream of redemptive history (e.g., Mal 1:1-4; Isa 35:5,9ff.; Ezk 35:9; Obadiah 10,18; Jn 4:24; Eph 2:12), then that has the preemptive effect of severing any spiritual opportunities and advantages that they might otherwise enjoy.
The atonement is a double-edged sword. It is not merely a means of salvation, but also an instrument of condemnation by exposing the inexcusable character of unbelief and even aggravating the guilt of the unbeliever (Jn 9:39; 12:37-40; 15:22). The atonement is a polarizing event (Lk 12:51f. Jn 3:19-21; 6:60-71). Christ was destined for the downfall of many (Lk 2:34). The reprobate were set up for the fall (1 Pet 2:8), while Christ was set out to trip them up (2:6f.). God will display the folly of the proud through the stumbling block of Calvary (1 Cor 1:18-29; 2:6-8).
On Rom 8:28-30, it’s true that Pauline usage is not strictly parallel to dogmatic usage. In Reformed dogmatics, predestination is inclusive of election, whereas in Rom 8:29, “predestination” is instrumental to “election” (proginosko=to choose beforehand).
That, however, doesn’t invalidate the Reformed construction. It just means that we need to distinguish between words and concepts, and pair them up at their equitable level of abstraction.
In 8:28, proginosko is an idiomatic expression for prior choice. It carries a predestinarian force. For its part, proorizein carries a teleological force. They are chosen--chosen for what? To what end? To be conformed to the image of Christ.
So they didn’t choose themselves, and they didn’t choose God. God did the choosing. And God chose them, not for the sake of choosing, and left it at that, as if election were an end in itself, but in order to bless them with a particular destiny. Election is a precondition for something else. Election is instrumental to a certain destiny, and predestination is instrumental to election as a means of attaining that end. “In the second step he uses proorizein, which means ‘decide beforehand, predestine’ (BAGD, 709a), referring to God’s gratuitous election (to the status to be described in the next phrase,” J. Fitzmyer, Romans (Doubleday 1993), 525.
Moving on to 1 Pet 1:1-2, you ask, “Foreknowledge of what?” (78). But this is a prejudicial way of framing the question, for it presupposes the answer. If we render proginosko as “foreknowledge,” then that naturally invites the question, “Foreknowledge of what.” But such a rendering begs the question. On the next page you run through four different semantic options, but the way you’ve have chosen to cast the question on p78 tilts the playing field in advance of the game.
I think that proginosko bears the same elective sense here as it does in Rom 8:29 & 11:2. You reject this rendering on the grounds that it would be tautologous. But this objection is invalid on a couple of grounds:
i) Even if the construction were tautologous, that wouldn’t rule out the elective sense. The Bible is an emphatic book--given to a certain amount of redundancy to drive home the same point. In Eph 1-2, for example, Paul says the same thing in more than one way.
ii) It is not tautologous. For the compound form adds a conceptual element not present in the bare idea of choice, viz., “chosen according to the prior choice of God.” The two terms are not synonymous. Rather, proginosko advances the original thought. Christians are a chosen people. Not only so, but they were chosen beforehand. They own their favored status to divine initiative.
But another problem is the way in which you combine more than one sense: “prescience, with a hint of wise foreplanning” (79).
What justification do you offer for the idea that more than one sense is in play in the very same occurrence? Certain authors like James Joyce trade on polysemy, but this is rather artful and artificial. Except when a writer is deliberately indulging in a double entendre for ironic effect, I don’t see any linguistic grounds for asserting semantic simultaneity.
You seem to be falling into the semantic fallacy of treating words as though they had a primary meaning, which carries through all of their secondary and tertiary senses. Thus, the primary meaning is always operative, but one can layer on a secondary or tertiary sense.
That is not my conception of how a natural language works. A word may have more than one sense, but it doesn't’ have more than one sense in the same occurrence. Rather, it may have one meaning in one occurrence, and another in another, depending on which meaning is serviceable to the context at hand.
Again, when you talk about the “added notion of foresight,” you seem to be confounding the meaning of words with concepts. But a concept may be present where the word is not, or vice versa.
Let us not forget that 1:2 occurs in the same writing in which Peter presents a doctrine of double predestination. Election and reprobation stand side by side as correlative truths (2:6-9).
Moving on to Acts 2:23 & 4:28, you say that “If, in fact, those who crucified Jesus had to do so...then they were not free to do otherwise--could not do otherwise, and were therefore not responsible” (80).
There are two things wrong with this claim:
i) It assumes what it needs to prove. It appeals to a popular, common sense notion of justice. But it simply takes that for granted. No supporting argument is offered.
Now you, as an Arminian, can take this as a given if you like, but that is no way of persuading someone who is not already a card-carrying Arminian. Indeed, it is possible for someone to be theological indeterminist, but a philosophical determinist (e.g., John Locke). By ignoring all of the counterarguments, you beg the very question at issue.
ii) Your little gloss does not constitute an interpretation of Acts 2:23 or 4:28. What you’ve done is to superimpose on the text what you think to be a necessary condition of moral responsibility. Now even if you were right about that, the text itself has nothing at all to say about the necessary conditions of incumbency. Your claims do not arise from exegeting the text. You have read out of the text what you read into it. This is only convincing to the firmly convinced. But there is nothing in the text to generate your conclusion.
Moving on to Lk 7:30, you apparently cite this to show that grace is not irresistible. But you seem to be forgetting the position you’ve chosen to oppose.
The Pharisees rejected the prophetic preaching of John the Baptist. In this verse, “God’s will” is synonymous with John’s baptism of repentance. But Calvinism has never said that unregenerate men are unable to reject the preaching of the prophets, or Apostles, or missionaries, or what have you. Indeed, Calvinism affirms that unregenerate men naturally resist the Gospel unless they are graced with the gift of faith. This verse is entirely compatible with spiritual inability.
I’d add that even in the case of God’s preceptive will, even though it may be resisted, it may never be thwarted, for it serves to expose and aggravate the guilt of the unbeliever (Jer 7:16; 11:14; 18:11-12; Ezk 2:3-7; 20:25-27; Isa 6:1-13; 63:17; Jn 12; Rom 3:20; 5:20; 7:7,13; Heb 10:3). So at no level, whether decretive or preceptive, is the will of God ever frustrated by man’s intransigence.
Moving on to 2 Pet 3:9, the key issue here is not the force of the verb, but the object of the verb. It is odd that you quote Bauckham’s commentary on 2:18-22, but not on 3:9. As Bauckham explains, the language is stereotypical of OT usage with reference to the covenant community. Just as God was longsuffering towards stiff-necked Israel (for the sake of the remnant), so is he to backslidden believers under the New Covenant.
I’d add that your allusion to Ezk 33:11 commits the same anachronism. To universalize an oracle that was addressed to the covenant community flies in the face of the context. Israel was not the world. Indeed, Israel went wrong whenever she lost her distinct identity and become indistinguishable from the world at large.
Moving on to 1 Tim 2:4, You say that “ the meaning of the ‘all’ is crucial to the interpretation of the verse, and it cannot be separated from the entire context (vv1-7),” (82). You also say that this passage makes the same point as 2 Pet 3:9. Really?
We need to administer several correctives:
i) The “meaning” of pantos is not at issue. The universal quantifier has a uniform, abstract meaning. That is not the sticking point between Arminian and Calvinist.
ii) Rather, the issue turns on the referent. Not: what does the word connote?; but, whom does the word denote?
iii) Actually, the “entire context” is broader than 2:1-7. The entire context must take into account the identity of Paul’s opponents. To judge by 1:4,7 (cf. Tit 1:10,14; 3:9), Paul is dealing with the perennial Judaizers, or even hyper-Judaizers. At best, a Gentile had to become a Jew before he could become at Christian; at worse, he could never convert because the New Covenant was limited, like the Old Covenant, to the seed of Abraham.
This, of course, is untrue, but it appears to represent the viewpoint of Paul’s opponents. So Paul’s universalism is ethnic rather than soteric. Salvation is not limited to Jews.
iv) So the passage does not make the same point as 2 Pet 3:9. They are giving different answers to different questions. You have plucked out a few isolated verses without regard to the concrete situation which occasioned these letters. Their respective circumstances are entirely diverse.
Turning to chapter 5, you say that although “limited atonement follows logically from the doctrine of unconditional election,” yet “teaching about the extent of the atonement should be determined by Biblical exegesis rather than by the logic of one’s system” (90).
Well, that all depends. If doctrine A is well-attested in Scripture, and doctrine B is directly deducible from doctrine A, then doctrine A does not demand independent attestation. I would say that special redemption enjoys both direct and indirect lines of support.
Next, you claim that when Christ is said to die for a particular group, this does not imply that he died for that group alone.
True, but only true at a very abstract level of discourse. For not all of the designations of Scripture are that generic and neutral-gray. Some designations have come, in OT usage, to denote the covenant community, such as “the sheep” (Jn 10:11; Acts 20:28), the “seed of Abraham” (Heb 2:16), the people of God (Mt 1:21; Tit 2:14; Heb 2:17; 9:15), the Diaspora (Jn 11:52), the “children of God” (Heb 2:13-14), as well as those that are called (9:15) and consecrated (Jn 17:19; Heb 10:14). This usage stands in implicit contrast to the world at large.
We need to read the NT through Jewish eyes and ears. And in some cases the contrast is even more explicit: “having loved his own who were in the world” (Jn 13:1); having laid down his life for the sheep (10:11)--as over against the goats (Jn 10:26); having laid down his life for his friends (15:13; cf. Isa 41:8; 2 Chron 20:7)--as over against his enemies (15:19).
BTW, notice that Jn 10:26 affirms unconditional rather than conditional election. The unbelievers are not his sheep because they disbelieve; rather, they disbelieve because they are not his sheep.
You drive a wedge between redemption accomplished and applied by saying that “in fact the Bible speaks of Christians as having lived under the wrath of God and in a state of estrangement from him before their conversion; see Eph 2:3,13, for example,” 94.
But this is a very careless reading of Eph 2:3. The contrast there is not between “then” and “now,” but between being “in Adam” and being “in Christ.” As all the standard commentaries point out (Bruce, Hoehner, Lincoln, O’Brien), the modifier (“by nature”) has reference to original sin. Put another way, the contrast is not temporal, but federal.
You next object that if the atonement is, in and of itself, a satisfaction for the sin of the elect only, then that denies the sufficiency of the atonement, contrary to the view of Nicole and others.
This objection calls for a number of comments:
1. The sufficient/efficient distinction is not a Reformed distinctive. Both Reformed and Arminian theologians deploy this distinction, although in different ways.
This is, at most, a supporting argument. It is not essential to Reformed theology. It is, rather, a Scholastic refinement which predates Calvin and postdates Augustine.
2. The distinction is somewhat misleading. For in philosophical usage, a sufficient condition is a condition which, if satisfied, invariably yields a certain result.
When theologians talk about the sufficiency of the atonement, what they have in mind is closer to the notion of a necessary condition rather than a sufficient condition.
3. Having said all that, I really don’t see the difficulty. Let us go back to the OT template of our redemptive terminology. If an Israelite went into debt, he could become an indentured servant for seven years to make amends to his creditors. However, a wealthy relative could intervene to pay the price of his manumission.
Suppose that several clansmen became indentured servants. The kinsman-redeemer might have sufficient funds to redeem them all. Yet his wealth is only efficient to redeem those, and only those, whom he intends to redeem, and chooses to redeem by paying the asking price for any given servant. It may be all or some or none.
On 2 Cor 5:18-19, you say that “only tortured exegesis...will give ‘world” a meaning that is as narrow as the elect” (95).
To the contrary, Paul’s range of reference is self-limiting. According to the symmetry of the v14, the first quantifier coincides with the second: Christ died for all who died in Christ. So the scope of each quantifier is limited to the union between the Redeemer and the redeemed. As F.F. Bruce remarks, in his commentary on 1-2 Cor, "One has died as the representative of all his people, and therefore all of them are deemed to have died in the person of their representative." This interpretation is confirmed by the non-imputation of sin in v19, which hardly applies to humanity as a whole.
You are lifting vv18-19 out of context. They need to be considered in relation to the whole flow of the argument.
In reply to the double jeopardy argument, you say that this “depends on seeing Christ’s redemptive work as actually accomplishing its intended results, for those it was designed for, without faith on their part” (97).
But you reply is inadequate on several grounds:
i) There is a difference between saying that faith is a condition of salvation, and saying that faith is a free variable. A Calvinist would readily grant that faith is an element in the application of the atonement. But if justification is contingent on faith, faith is contingent on grace--irresistible grace. It is one thing to distinguish between redemption accomplished and applied, quite another to drive a wedge between the two.
ii) To treat unbelief as the deal-breaker does nothing to defuse the double-jeopardy argument. If their sins were atoned for, then for what are they punished?
iii) It would be miscarriage of justice to the Redeemer as well as the redeemed if he did not get what he paid for.
To the contention that Christ could not have died to saved the damned, you reply that “this, too, is mere human logic, and poor logic at that. One may as quickly respond that when he died there were many already in heaven; did he die for them?” (99).
But this replies fails in several respects:
i) When, in chapter 3, you try to harmonize freedom and foreknowledge, and when, in chapter four, you stipulate the conditions of moral responsibility, you yourself resort to mere human logic.
ii) Actually, the Calvinist is not resorting to mere human logic. Rather, he is drawing an inference on the basis of several lines of Biblical data: When people die, they either go to heaven or hell; some people died before Christ came; some of the damned died before Christ came; faith in Christ is a prerequisite of salvation.
iii) The case of those in heaven is not at all analogous. It was possible for an Israelite to exercise saving faith in Christ by believing in the types and prophecies of Christ.
Indeed, there’s no qualitative difference between the faith of a Christian and the faith of pre-Christian Messianic Jew. For, in this life, both of us know Christ by description rather than acquaintance.
But it was not possible for a pagan, who lived and died outside the faith of Israel, to come to a saving knowledge of God.
iv) You can only get around this by either alleging that general revelation is sufficient for saving faith, in which event no one need ever believe in Christ to be saved; or else resorting to postmortem evangelism--which is inconsistent with the classic Arminian theology you espouse.
Next, you say: “the Arminian view is that Christ died to provide salvation for all, a provision that is effective only when applied to those who believe” (100).
But, to reiterate the prior objection, how is it possible for those who died outside the pale of the gospel to believe? There would not even be a faith to foresee, for they would lack an object of faith. So how is this a “live option” (106)?
Unless the provision of revelation is coincident with the provision of redemption, your claim comes apart at the seams. If you take refuge in general revelation, then we have a hiatus between Christian redemption and non-Christian revelation. The revelation in question is not a revelation of redemption.
This is your dilemma. Your commitment to universal atonement tugs in one direction, while your faith-condition tugs in the opposing direction. Want to talk about tortured exegesis? Your Arminian theology is drawn-and-quartered!
If you stick to your faith-condition, then the provision is only opportune for a subset of humanity--those that have been evangelized.≤
Saturday, October 09, 2004
One man's passion
I waited for The Passion of the Christ to come out on DVD before seeing it. In terms of psychology, there is probably some difference between viewing the film in a dark crowded movie theater, where you see it through the eyes of your fellow moviegoers, and viewing it by yourself in the privacy of your own bedroom.
Never did a movie enjoy more pre-release publicity. Movies on the life and passion of Christ are a cinematic tradition. One is made every decade or so. So there was no reason for Mel to anticipate the opposition.
However, the liberal establishment has been gaining ground over the years, and becoming ever more audacious and self-confident. Liberals really believed that by staging a preemptive campaign they could shut the project down before it ever hit the screen. As usual, this only illustrated how out of touch they were with the general public.
But the film not only came under fire from the far left. It also drew fire from one wing of the Reformed community.
However, the result of the attacks and counter-attacks meant that one comes to the viewing of the film with a preconception of what one’s going to see. And I was rather surprised see that the film I saw so often described by others was not the film I actually saw with my own eyes.
Critics told me that the film depicted the Jewish authorities as hook-nosed Shylocks. But I didn’t see any aquiline actors. All I saw were a lot of bearded Italian actors.
Critics told me that the film depicted the Sanhedrin as unanimous in its condemnation. But I saw a couple of characters-presumably Joseph and Nicodemus-denounce the proceedings-before they were hustled out of the chambers.
Critics told me that the film demonized the Jewish authorities. But if anyone was demonized, it was the Roman soldiers.
Critics told me that the film was a commercial for Catholicism. But although there were some Catholic undercurrents, about which I’ll have more to say, these were rather oblique. Or course, something can be all the more influential by operating below the radar.
Critics told me that the flogging went on too long. But it’s not especially lengthy-either in terms of absolute duration (measured in minutes) or in proportion to the whole. If it seems to go on forever and a day, that’s an artistic triumph. Gibson has succeeded in fostering an impression that exceeds what is actually on film. Our imagination fills in the rest.
I cannot watch the film without drawing constant parallels between the Mideast of Jesus' day and the Mideast today. The same blind brutality is on display whenever we turn on the TV set.
I. What did I like about the film?
1. The moonlight garden of Gethsemane works at several levels.
i) It is historically and theologically accurate, inasmuch as the Passion took place around the Sabbath, on a full-moon.
ii) It simulates the illusion of natural lighting.
iii) It also evokes a spooky lighting effect that fits in well with the introduction of the Devil.
iv) The lunar eclipse in the garden forms a natural inclusio to the solar eclipse on at Golgotha.
The ragged torchlight also has a nice menacing quality as the Temple guards approach to arrest our Lord.
2. Gibson’s depiction of the Devil is fairly successful. Filmmakers have difficulty in the portrayal of pure good and evil. They do well enough with the garden varieties of virtue and vice, because that is a commonplace of human experience, but the limiting-cases challenge their imagination. Are absolute good and evil merely an unadulterated extension of ordinary shades of gray, like the primary colors? Or are the extremes of the spectrum sui generis?
The danger in visualizing the devil is to present a villain who is so operatic in his gleeful iniquity that the character becomes unwittingly comic.
Mel’s androgynous devil, which is emblematic of moral ambiguity, manages to thread the needle. The point is not that Satan really is ambiguous, but although he is too evil to project virtue, he can at least conceal his vicious nature.
Later in the movie, the Devil’s gloating over the ordeal of Christ strikes just the right note. This is primordial payback. This is sweet revenge. He has succeeded-or so he believes-in foisting his hurt feelings back onto God, like a spiteful, malicious child who delights in inflicting pain on its parents.
Of course, the viewer knows something he doesn’t-that he has set a trap for himself. The devil loses by winning.
3. I like the Aramaic. For years we’ve been subjected to actors lining out the King James Version with a crisp aristocratic accent. This destroys all credibility.
The use of Aramaic reminds the modern viewer that Jesus is a concrete universal. He is, on the one hand, the eternal Son and the timeless Savior. And in that respect, Christ is ubiquitous in time and place. He is no more distant to a 21C Christian that he is to a 1C Christian.
But in our focus on his universality, we can lose the particularity of the Incarnation. He did not merely become man, but became a man-a man of a particular time and place.
I also like the Aramaic because it has rough, rich, full-throated quality. All-too-often in Christian iconography and Hollywood movies, Jesus comes across as something of a pantywaist. But the guttural resonance of Aramaic exudes a muscular and manly vigor.
4. The scene of Judas groveling to scrounge up the fallen pieces of silver, coin-by-coin, is effective as an unspoken emblem of his moral and spiritual debasement.
5. The healing of Malchus draws attention to divinity of Christ. This is a man, but more than a man. In a film which has left most of his ministry out of view, this divine insignia is a needed counterweight.
6. I like the way in which the Temple guards seize our Lord. They are like a fearful wolf-pack encircling a bear. The bear is more powerful. It can kill with one swipe.
7. Although the role of Christ is humanly impossible to play, Caviezel turns in far and away the best performance I’ve ever seen in this role.
8. His mother is played a wonderful Romanian actress-with a firm, winsome, empathetic face. And this is a film in which an expressive face goes a long ways, for much of it is a throwback to the silent film era.
9. Critics have said that the message of the Gospels gets lost in the myopic focus on the final hours of Christ. However, Gibson uses flashbacks to bring in more of the teaching and preaching of Christ.
Due to widespread Bible illiteracy, many critics miss the Biblical allusions. A viewer conversant with the Gospels can instantly separate the canonical material from the padding. Among other things, we are treated to brief excerpts from the Sermon on the Mount, the Bread of Life Discourse, the Good Shepherd Discourse, the Upper Room Discourse, Isa 66, Ps 22, Palm Sunday, Maundy-Thursday, and so on.
10. The shot of Mary clawing the gravel sticks in the mind.
11. Although I think that the movie is sometimes graphic to a fault, it makes every other film on the subject look like watching the world through smudgy stained-glass windows.
12. Some critics complain that the cameo scene of the Resurrection lacks balance. However, the contrast between the bloody pulp on Good Friday and the Risen Lord on Easter Sunday is quite powerful. The shot of his winding-sheet collapsing like a snakeskin, followed by a brief shot of his renewed figure, offers yet another forceful contrast. The open, but bloodless, wound in his palm bears mute witness to the reality of the Resurrection. This is no docetic ghost.
13. The shot of the soldiers gambling beneath the cross is both Biblical and dramatically effective as it exposes their spiritual blindness. Likewise, their terrified reaction to the eclipse and the earthquake awakens their moral apprehension. They got the wrong man-and more than a man!
The treatment of the two thieves is fine as far as it goes, but somewhat conventional. Having a raven peck out the eye of the blasphemous thief is a bit of black humor, but sheer fiction.
II. What did I not like about the film?
1. If Aramaic is a plus, Latin is a minus. The Latin is sonorous to the ear, especially when intoned in the cantabile lilt of the actors. But the use of Latin as a 1C lingua franca is anachronistic. The choice of Latin is likely a genuflection (pun intended) to the Tridentine Mass and Gregorian chant.
2. Some Evangelicals were critical of the scene in Gethsemane because the formal temptation of our Lord occurred in the wilderness.
However, Luke says that the devil departed until a more opportune season (4:13). So we should not limit his activity to the wilderness. Strictly speaking, the opportune season more likely has reference to the possession of Judas (22:3). I would prefer if Gibson had developed that line of thought.
Because the director isn’t shooting a life of Christ, he brings the temptation forward in time, so that the Passion narrative recapitulates key moments in the life of Christ. Gibson usually does this through flashbacks. This is artistic license, and valid up to a point.
That does, however, have a way of skewing the theology of the original scene, which is not about Christ and the devil, but about the Father and the Son. In particular, it’s about the covenant of redemption, which unites them in purpose, but drives them apart in practice as the Father must smite him who is Son and sin-bearer in one.
It would have been more dramatically and doctrinally effective if Gibson had been able to exploit this tension. But he is not that theologically astute.
3. In the garden, the subtitles have Jesus denote the bitter cup as a "chalice." This is a Catholic touch, and quite out of place, for the cup in question has nothing to do with the Last Supper or Lord’s Supper. Rather, it is an OT allusion to the cup of divine wrath and judgment (Ps 11:6; 60:3; 75:8; Isa 29:9-10; 51:17,21-23; 63:6; Jer 25:15-29; Lam 4:21; Zech 12:2).
Likewise, the scene of Jesus "elevating" the unleavened bread is an anachronistic allusion to the elevation of the "Host" by a priest at Mass.
4. I can’t help noticing that the snake looks like a small boa constrictor. Not only don’t these inhabit Palestine, but they are non-venomous. It would be better to use a viper, which is more malevolent than a baby boa.
5. The suicide of Judas is overwrought. I don’t know the point of the juvenile furies who torment him-like something that walked right out of Hieronymous Bosch painting. Are these his inner demons? As a demoniac, the phrase might apply to Judas with startling literality. Still, it leaves the viewer scratching his head.
6. The scene with Herod is also overwrought-a little too reminiscent of Charles Laughton as Nero.
7. The Roman soldiers are overwrought. No doubt some soldiers had a sadistic streak, but I expect that many were too callous to take pleasure in the infliction of pain and suffering. Killing was routine. They went about their job in the most efficient and businesslike way availble.
In addition, Christ could not have made it all the way to Golgotha if he were whipped like a back-broken mule every step of the way-especially when made to shoulder that absurdly huge and heavy cross.
8. The film has far too many reaction shots. These serve a couple of purposes:
i) They cut away from the figure of Christ, so that we are not always looking at this same thing. This is a legitimate device. It breaks the tedium.
ii) They function as a prompter’s box, tacitly cueing the audience as to how it should feel about what it sees. This is not a legitimate device. Rather, that’s an artistic defect.
A reaction shot is the cinematic equivalent of an editorial narrator who tells the reader what to think. Resorting to this gimmick reflects a lack of trust on the part of the director. He doesn’t trust the audience to react the right way. And he doesn’t trust his presentation sufficiently to do the job on its own.
This is a pity, because Gibson's treatment has more than enough dramatic power to work on the audience and evoke the desired response. Plastering the viewer with reaction shots weakens rather than augments the effect. He should let his presentation do the work without intrusive cues.
9. Another problem with reaction shots is that they turn Jesus into an object of pity. This is a piece of false piety. Christ is not a pitiful victim.
10. There is much too much of Mary. We see her in almost every scene. Wherever we see Jesus, Mary is never far behind.
Here we arrive at a theological divide. For Gibson, there is a dramatic and doctrinal parity between the Mother of God and the Son of God, the Mater Dolorosa and the Via Dolorosa, Redeemer and Redemptrix.
In one scene, Gibson also draws a parallel between the Madonna and child-now a grown child-on one side, with Satan and the Antichrist child, on the other.
That gives the movie a certain aesthetic symmetry. But from an Evangelical standpoint, this is a dramatic distraction and a doctrinal disaster. If Jesus is the only way (Jn 14:6; 1 Tim 2:5; 2 Jn 2:2), then any other way is in the way.
In fact, it even goes beyond parity. In one scene, Peter confesses to Mary; while there are also times when Jesus seems to renew his strength from the inspiration of his mother. At one level, this is rather infantile, while at another level it foments a theological inversion of values.
All these points are made at a tacit, nearly subliminal level. It is possible for this to pass right over the head of the average viewer. So I speak only for myself.
The Pieta scene that rounds out the crucifixion, just before the Resurrection, is another plug for Catholic iconography.
11. There is too much on the idea of unconditional absolution. This involves the combination of selective, one-sided citations, along with a couple of apocryphal addenda as well. However popular the scene of the woman taken in adultery (Jn 7:53-8:11) may be in the Christian imagination, it is a spurious scribal addition. Likewise, Lk 23:34 is of dubious authenticity.
When the theme of forgiveness is sheared from the corollary theme of judgment, and when forgiveness is also decoupled from the redemption of the elect, it becomes a lame and limp-wristed gesture.
12. Many critics have accused Gibson of turning Pilate into a sympathetic character, contrary to the Biblical and extra-Biblical depiction of Pilate.
There’s some truth to this charge. Gibson has made the figure of Pilate into a more complex character than he was in real life.
However, I don’t see him as a sympathetic character. Rather, he comes across as a man who feels superior to the people he must govern. He is so reasonable, but they are so unreasoning. They are unworthy of a man of his fine intelligence. They leave him no choice. What can you do with people like this? His hands are tied.
This is a valid characterization. Surely there are men in power who think this way. This is how they excuse their actions.
But, of course, it’s no excuse at all. They look down on the people they govern, but no one was forcing them into this position in the first place. If, at the end of the day, you do the bidding of your moral and intellectual inferiors-as you deem them-then you are no better than they. Indeed, you are worse, for in your own estimate, you know better, without doing better. You make yourself the pawn of those you despise.
Having said all that, the movie would be better if Gibson stuck with the original-both because it’s true to history, and because it is dramatically effective. Pilate is a conflicted character, not because his conscience is at odds with his pragmatism, but because he is torn between two opposing fears. On the one hand, he is afraid that the political situation will get out of hand. There will be an insurrection. Caesar doesn’t like a Procurator who can’t keep the peace. Worse, Pilate might be denounced to Caesar as disloyal.
On the other hand, Pilate finds the charge against Christ to be unnervingly plausible. His fear is not that the charge is false, but that the charge may be true. What if Jesus really is the Son of God? He has a certain aura about him.
To be sure, Pilate’s theology is not especially rarified, but even a pagan god is more formidable than any mere mortal. It would be decidedly imprudent to get on the wrong side of a god!
In the end, Pilate chooses short-term expediency over long-term expediency.
13. Critics complain that all the nonstop bloodshed is numbing. The spirit of the Gospel disappears under a thick coat of purple gore.
This charge is a little tricky to sort out. The scourging, crowning, nailing, and impaling, are gory events. That’s a fact. Up to a point, it’s good to see this. The printed page does not pack the same punch as an image on the big screen. It is ugly and brutal, but it happened.
In addition, the principle of blood atonement is a fixture in Scripture. This is the Gospel. It is foreshadowed in the OT, and fulfilled in the New. It is ugly and brutal, but sin is ugly and brutal, and the exaction of justice is also ugly and brutal. No getting around this. Sin has no admission fee-you pay on the way out.
Also, how we react to violence is high subjective and person-variable. Women tend to be more sensitive to this than men. I myself have been exposed to so much simulated violence on TV and film that I'm pretty well inured to it all.
But there were a few moments when I could not help but wince. There is one point in the flogging where the scourge becomes wedged in his tissues like fishhooks, to be dislodged with a savage jerk, ripping free bleeding chunks of living flesh. Another was when his flayed epidermis is dragged across the bare pavement. Yet another was when the nails were pounded into his palms, with the wood shuddering under each blow and amplifying the overall effect.
The spectacle of Jesus falling down, as well as the cross falling on top of him, would have the same effect if it were more real to me, but these are legendary details derived from the traditional iconography of the fourteen Stations of the Cross.
Again, the crowning with thorns might also have the same effect except that we've seen this sort of thing in many Jesus films before. What makes the difference is when Gibson brings a new touch to an old story.
It also makes a difference who you think is undergoing this torture. If you believe it to be the divine Redeemer, who chooses to endure this torment in your place, that, too, makes a world of difference.
The shot of the blood-bespattered face of his tormentors is appropriate inasmuch as it speaks to their hard-hearted depravity.
However, there are limits. When Mary kisses his bloodied feet, her lips are smeared with blood. When Christ is impaled, the soldier is drenched in a shower of baptismal blood. She and the Magdalene-whom the director, following a venerable but unscriptural tradition, equates with the woman caught in adultery-also mop up the blood after his flogging. None of this is Scriptural.
To Gibson, thought, this is a metaphor for the Mass. It also has a history in the tradition of Catholic martyriology.
Once again we reach a theological impasse. In Scripture, the theological significance of blood serves two or three related functions:
i) Bloodshed was one way of sealing a covenant (e.g., Gen 15; 17; Exod 24; Mt 26:28). This carries over into our modern notion of a blood-pact.
ii) Bloodshed was emblematic of life given over to death (e.g. Lev 17:11; Heb 12:24).
iii) Bloodshed was emblematic of vicarious atonement, as the victim was slaughtered in lieu of the suppliant (e.g., Lev 16).
To the extent that Mel’s movie degenerates into a splatter-film, drenched in buckets of indiscriminate bloodletting, it loses the true significance of blood atonement in Scripture.
14. Caviezel intones Ps 22:1 as a cry of despair. However, in the days before chapter and verse division, one way of referring to a literary unit was to cite the first sentence. Although Ps 22 begins on a despairing note, it ends on a note of victory. The Psalm is a statement of faith and resignation to the will of God, rather than an expression of spiritual doubt.
15. Mel makes heavy use of the subjective camera. One especially striking instance is the God’s-eye view of cross, reminiscent of Dali’s famous painting, follow by a teardrop from heaven as our Lord expires. On an artistic plane, this is brilliant.
For me, however, the movie only works when history and artistry work in tandem. Since this detail is unscriptural, it fails to edify, for faith must have a factual object.
Likewise, the shot of the dove along the Via Dolorosa, recalling the Baptism of Christ, is another artistic stroke that works well at an imaginative level, but being imaginary, fails to reverberate within the soul.
In sum, I would say that The Passion is a great film, but a flawed film. Gibson is an erratic moviemaker, by turns subtle and heavy-handed. What Gibson does well, he does very well indeed-which is most of the time. The film is well-worth watching, although some scenes repel repeated viewing.
Never did a movie enjoy more pre-release publicity. Movies on the life and passion of Christ are a cinematic tradition. One is made every decade or so. So there was no reason for Mel to anticipate the opposition.
However, the liberal establishment has been gaining ground over the years, and becoming ever more audacious and self-confident. Liberals really believed that by staging a preemptive campaign they could shut the project down before it ever hit the screen. As usual, this only illustrated how out of touch they were with the general public.
But the film not only came under fire from the far left. It also drew fire from one wing of the Reformed community.
However, the result of the attacks and counter-attacks meant that one comes to the viewing of the film with a preconception of what one’s going to see. And I was rather surprised see that the film I saw so often described by others was not the film I actually saw with my own eyes.
Critics told me that the film depicted the Jewish authorities as hook-nosed Shylocks. But I didn’t see any aquiline actors. All I saw were a lot of bearded Italian actors.
Critics told me that the film depicted the Sanhedrin as unanimous in its condemnation. But I saw a couple of characters-presumably Joseph and Nicodemus-denounce the proceedings-before they were hustled out of the chambers.
Critics told me that the film demonized the Jewish authorities. But if anyone was demonized, it was the Roman soldiers.
Critics told me that the film was a commercial for Catholicism. But although there were some Catholic undercurrents, about which I’ll have more to say, these were rather oblique. Or course, something can be all the more influential by operating below the radar.
Critics told me that the flogging went on too long. But it’s not especially lengthy-either in terms of absolute duration (measured in minutes) or in proportion to the whole. If it seems to go on forever and a day, that’s an artistic triumph. Gibson has succeeded in fostering an impression that exceeds what is actually on film. Our imagination fills in the rest.
I cannot watch the film without drawing constant parallels between the Mideast of Jesus' day and the Mideast today. The same blind brutality is on display whenever we turn on the TV set.
I. What did I like about the film?
1. The moonlight garden of Gethsemane works at several levels.
i) It is historically and theologically accurate, inasmuch as the Passion took place around the Sabbath, on a full-moon.
ii) It simulates the illusion of natural lighting.
iii) It also evokes a spooky lighting effect that fits in well with the introduction of the Devil.
iv) The lunar eclipse in the garden forms a natural inclusio to the solar eclipse on at Golgotha.
The ragged torchlight also has a nice menacing quality as the Temple guards approach to arrest our Lord.
2. Gibson’s depiction of the Devil is fairly successful. Filmmakers have difficulty in the portrayal of pure good and evil. They do well enough with the garden varieties of virtue and vice, because that is a commonplace of human experience, but the limiting-cases challenge their imagination. Are absolute good and evil merely an unadulterated extension of ordinary shades of gray, like the primary colors? Or are the extremes of the spectrum sui generis?
The danger in visualizing the devil is to present a villain who is so operatic in his gleeful iniquity that the character becomes unwittingly comic.
Mel’s androgynous devil, which is emblematic of moral ambiguity, manages to thread the needle. The point is not that Satan really is ambiguous, but although he is too evil to project virtue, he can at least conceal his vicious nature.
Later in the movie, the Devil’s gloating over the ordeal of Christ strikes just the right note. This is primordial payback. This is sweet revenge. He has succeeded-or so he believes-in foisting his hurt feelings back onto God, like a spiteful, malicious child who delights in inflicting pain on its parents.
Of course, the viewer knows something he doesn’t-that he has set a trap for himself. The devil loses by winning.
3. I like the Aramaic. For years we’ve been subjected to actors lining out the King James Version with a crisp aristocratic accent. This destroys all credibility.
The use of Aramaic reminds the modern viewer that Jesus is a concrete universal. He is, on the one hand, the eternal Son and the timeless Savior. And in that respect, Christ is ubiquitous in time and place. He is no more distant to a 21C Christian that he is to a 1C Christian.
But in our focus on his universality, we can lose the particularity of the Incarnation. He did not merely become man, but became a man-a man of a particular time and place.
I also like the Aramaic because it has rough, rich, full-throated quality. All-too-often in Christian iconography and Hollywood movies, Jesus comes across as something of a pantywaist. But the guttural resonance of Aramaic exudes a muscular and manly vigor.
4. The scene of Judas groveling to scrounge up the fallen pieces of silver, coin-by-coin, is effective as an unspoken emblem of his moral and spiritual debasement.
5. The healing of Malchus draws attention to divinity of Christ. This is a man, but more than a man. In a film which has left most of his ministry out of view, this divine insignia is a needed counterweight.
6. I like the way in which the Temple guards seize our Lord. They are like a fearful wolf-pack encircling a bear. The bear is more powerful. It can kill with one swipe.
7. Although the role of Christ is humanly impossible to play, Caviezel turns in far and away the best performance I’ve ever seen in this role.
8. His mother is played a wonderful Romanian actress-with a firm, winsome, empathetic face. And this is a film in which an expressive face goes a long ways, for much of it is a throwback to the silent film era.
9. Critics have said that the message of the Gospels gets lost in the myopic focus on the final hours of Christ. However, Gibson uses flashbacks to bring in more of the teaching and preaching of Christ.
Due to widespread Bible illiteracy, many critics miss the Biblical allusions. A viewer conversant with the Gospels can instantly separate the canonical material from the padding. Among other things, we are treated to brief excerpts from the Sermon on the Mount, the Bread of Life Discourse, the Good Shepherd Discourse, the Upper Room Discourse, Isa 66, Ps 22, Palm Sunday, Maundy-Thursday, and so on.
10. The shot of Mary clawing the gravel sticks in the mind.
11. Although I think that the movie is sometimes graphic to a fault, it makes every other film on the subject look like watching the world through smudgy stained-glass windows.
12. Some critics complain that the cameo scene of the Resurrection lacks balance. However, the contrast between the bloody pulp on Good Friday and the Risen Lord on Easter Sunday is quite powerful. The shot of his winding-sheet collapsing like a snakeskin, followed by a brief shot of his renewed figure, offers yet another forceful contrast. The open, but bloodless, wound in his palm bears mute witness to the reality of the Resurrection. This is no docetic ghost.
13. The shot of the soldiers gambling beneath the cross is both Biblical and dramatically effective as it exposes their spiritual blindness. Likewise, their terrified reaction to the eclipse and the earthquake awakens their moral apprehension. They got the wrong man-and more than a man!
The treatment of the two thieves is fine as far as it goes, but somewhat conventional. Having a raven peck out the eye of the blasphemous thief is a bit of black humor, but sheer fiction.
II. What did I not like about the film?
1. If Aramaic is a plus, Latin is a minus. The Latin is sonorous to the ear, especially when intoned in the cantabile lilt of the actors. But the use of Latin as a 1C lingua franca is anachronistic. The choice of Latin is likely a genuflection (pun intended) to the Tridentine Mass and Gregorian chant.
2. Some Evangelicals were critical of the scene in Gethsemane because the formal temptation of our Lord occurred in the wilderness.
However, Luke says that the devil departed until a more opportune season (4:13). So we should not limit his activity to the wilderness. Strictly speaking, the opportune season more likely has reference to the possession of Judas (22:3). I would prefer if Gibson had developed that line of thought.
Because the director isn’t shooting a life of Christ, he brings the temptation forward in time, so that the Passion narrative recapitulates key moments in the life of Christ. Gibson usually does this through flashbacks. This is artistic license, and valid up to a point.
That does, however, have a way of skewing the theology of the original scene, which is not about Christ and the devil, but about the Father and the Son. In particular, it’s about the covenant of redemption, which unites them in purpose, but drives them apart in practice as the Father must smite him who is Son and sin-bearer in one.
It would have been more dramatically and doctrinally effective if Gibson had been able to exploit this tension. But he is not that theologically astute.
3. In the garden, the subtitles have Jesus denote the bitter cup as a "chalice." This is a Catholic touch, and quite out of place, for the cup in question has nothing to do with the Last Supper or Lord’s Supper. Rather, it is an OT allusion to the cup of divine wrath and judgment (Ps 11:6; 60:3; 75:8; Isa 29:9-10; 51:17,21-23; 63:6; Jer 25:15-29; Lam 4:21; Zech 12:2).
Likewise, the scene of Jesus "elevating" the unleavened bread is an anachronistic allusion to the elevation of the "Host" by a priest at Mass.
4. I can’t help noticing that the snake looks like a small boa constrictor. Not only don’t these inhabit Palestine, but they are non-venomous. It would be better to use a viper, which is more malevolent than a baby boa.
5. The suicide of Judas is overwrought. I don’t know the point of the juvenile furies who torment him-like something that walked right out of Hieronymous Bosch painting. Are these his inner demons? As a demoniac, the phrase might apply to Judas with startling literality. Still, it leaves the viewer scratching his head.
6. The scene with Herod is also overwrought-a little too reminiscent of Charles Laughton as Nero.
7. The Roman soldiers are overwrought. No doubt some soldiers had a sadistic streak, but I expect that many were too callous to take pleasure in the infliction of pain and suffering. Killing was routine. They went about their job in the most efficient and businesslike way availble.
In addition, Christ could not have made it all the way to Golgotha if he were whipped like a back-broken mule every step of the way-especially when made to shoulder that absurdly huge and heavy cross.
8. The film has far too many reaction shots. These serve a couple of purposes:
i) They cut away from the figure of Christ, so that we are not always looking at this same thing. This is a legitimate device. It breaks the tedium.
ii) They function as a prompter’s box, tacitly cueing the audience as to how it should feel about what it sees. This is not a legitimate device. Rather, that’s an artistic defect.
A reaction shot is the cinematic equivalent of an editorial narrator who tells the reader what to think. Resorting to this gimmick reflects a lack of trust on the part of the director. He doesn’t trust the audience to react the right way. And he doesn’t trust his presentation sufficiently to do the job on its own.
This is a pity, because Gibson's treatment has more than enough dramatic power to work on the audience and evoke the desired response. Plastering the viewer with reaction shots weakens rather than augments the effect. He should let his presentation do the work without intrusive cues.
9. Another problem with reaction shots is that they turn Jesus into an object of pity. This is a piece of false piety. Christ is not a pitiful victim.
10. There is much too much of Mary. We see her in almost every scene. Wherever we see Jesus, Mary is never far behind.
Here we arrive at a theological divide. For Gibson, there is a dramatic and doctrinal parity between the Mother of God and the Son of God, the Mater Dolorosa and the Via Dolorosa, Redeemer and Redemptrix.
In one scene, Gibson also draws a parallel between the Madonna and child-now a grown child-on one side, with Satan and the Antichrist child, on the other.
That gives the movie a certain aesthetic symmetry. But from an Evangelical standpoint, this is a dramatic distraction and a doctrinal disaster. If Jesus is the only way (Jn 14:6; 1 Tim 2:5; 2 Jn 2:2), then any other way is in the way.
In fact, it even goes beyond parity. In one scene, Peter confesses to Mary; while there are also times when Jesus seems to renew his strength from the inspiration of his mother. At one level, this is rather infantile, while at another level it foments a theological inversion of values.
All these points are made at a tacit, nearly subliminal level. It is possible for this to pass right over the head of the average viewer. So I speak only for myself.
The Pieta scene that rounds out the crucifixion, just before the Resurrection, is another plug for Catholic iconography.
11. There is too much on the idea of unconditional absolution. This involves the combination of selective, one-sided citations, along with a couple of apocryphal addenda as well. However popular the scene of the woman taken in adultery (Jn 7:53-8:11) may be in the Christian imagination, it is a spurious scribal addition. Likewise, Lk 23:34 is of dubious authenticity.
When the theme of forgiveness is sheared from the corollary theme of judgment, and when forgiveness is also decoupled from the redemption of the elect, it becomes a lame and limp-wristed gesture.
12. Many critics have accused Gibson of turning Pilate into a sympathetic character, contrary to the Biblical and extra-Biblical depiction of Pilate.
There’s some truth to this charge. Gibson has made the figure of Pilate into a more complex character than he was in real life.
However, I don’t see him as a sympathetic character. Rather, he comes across as a man who feels superior to the people he must govern. He is so reasonable, but they are so unreasoning. They are unworthy of a man of his fine intelligence. They leave him no choice. What can you do with people like this? His hands are tied.
This is a valid characterization. Surely there are men in power who think this way. This is how they excuse their actions.
But, of course, it’s no excuse at all. They look down on the people they govern, but no one was forcing them into this position in the first place. If, at the end of the day, you do the bidding of your moral and intellectual inferiors-as you deem them-then you are no better than they. Indeed, you are worse, for in your own estimate, you know better, without doing better. You make yourself the pawn of those you despise.
Having said all that, the movie would be better if Gibson stuck with the original-both because it’s true to history, and because it is dramatically effective. Pilate is a conflicted character, not because his conscience is at odds with his pragmatism, but because he is torn between two opposing fears. On the one hand, he is afraid that the political situation will get out of hand. There will be an insurrection. Caesar doesn’t like a Procurator who can’t keep the peace. Worse, Pilate might be denounced to Caesar as disloyal.
On the other hand, Pilate finds the charge against Christ to be unnervingly plausible. His fear is not that the charge is false, but that the charge may be true. What if Jesus really is the Son of God? He has a certain aura about him.
To be sure, Pilate’s theology is not especially rarified, but even a pagan god is more formidable than any mere mortal. It would be decidedly imprudent to get on the wrong side of a god!
In the end, Pilate chooses short-term expediency over long-term expediency.
13. Critics complain that all the nonstop bloodshed is numbing. The spirit of the Gospel disappears under a thick coat of purple gore.
This charge is a little tricky to sort out. The scourging, crowning, nailing, and impaling, are gory events. That’s a fact. Up to a point, it’s good to see this. The printed page does not pack the same punch as an image on the big screen. It is ugly and brutal, but it happened.
In addition, the principle of blood atonement is a fixture in Scripture. This is the Gospel. It is foreshadowed in the OT, and fulfilled in the New. It is ugly and brutal, but sin is ugly and brutal, and the exaction of justice is also ugly and brutal. No getting around this. Sin has no admission fee-you pay on the way out.
Also, how we react to violence is high subjective and person-variable. Women tend to be more sensitive to this than men. I myself have been exposed to so much simulated violence on TV and film that I'm pretty well inured to it all.
But there were a few moments when I could not help but wince. There is one point in the flogging where the scourge becomes wedged in his tissues like fishhooks, to be dislodged with a savage jerk, ripping free bleeding chunks of living flesh. Another was when his flayed epidermis is dragged across the bare pavement. Yet another was when the nails were pounded into his palms, with the wood shuddering under each blow and amplifying the overall effect.
The spectacle of Jesus falling down, as well as the cross falling on top of him, would have the same effect if it were more real to me, but these are legendary details derived from the traditional iconography of the fourteen Stations of the Cross.
Again, the crowning with thorns might also have the same effect except that we've seen this sort of thing in many Jesus films before. What makes the difference is when Gibson brings a new touch to an old story.
It also makes a difference who you think is undergoing this torture. If you believe it to be the divine Redeemer, who chooses to endure this torment in your place, that, too, makes a world of difference.
The shot of the blood-bespattered face of his tormentors is appropriate inasmuch as it speaks to their hard-hearted depravity.
However, there are limits. When Mary kisses his bloodied feet, her lips are smeared with blood. When Christ is impaled, the soldier is drenched in a shower of baptismal blood. She and the Magdalene-whom the director, following a venerable but unscriptural tradition, equates with the woman caught in adultery-also mop up the blood after his flogging. None of this is Scriptural.
To Gibson, thought, this is a metaphor for the Mass. It also has a history in the tradition of Catholic martyriology.
Once again we reach a theological impasse. In Scripture, the theological significance of blood serves two or three related functions:
i) Bloodshed was one way of sealing a covenant (e.g., Gen 15; 17; Exod 24; Mt 26:28). This carries over into our modern notion of a blood-pact.
ii) Bloodshed was emblematic of life given over to death (e.g. Lev 17:11; Heb 12:24).
iii) Bloodshed was emblematic of vicarious atonement, as the victim was slaughtered in lieu of the suppliant (e.g., Lev 16).
To the extent that Mel’s movie degenerates into a splatter-film, drenched in buckets of indiscriminate bloodletting, it loses the true significance of blood atonement in Scripture.
14. Caviezel intones Ps 22:1 as a cry of despair. However, in the days before chapter and verse division, one way of referring to a literary unit was to cite the first sentence. Although Ps 22 begins on a despairing note, it ends on a note of victory. The Psalm is a statement of faith and resignation to the will of God, rather than an expression of spiritual doubt.
15. Mel makes heavy use of the subjective camera. One especially striking instance is the God’s-eye view of cross, reminiscent of Dali’s famous painting, follow by a teardrop from heaven as our Lord expires. On an artistic plane, this is brilliant.
For me, however, the movie only works when history and artistry work in tandem. Since this detail is unscriptural, it fails to edify, for faith must have a factual object.
Likewise, the shot of the dove along the Via Dolorosa, recalling the Baptism of Christ, is another artistic stroke that works well at an imaginative level, but being imaginary, fails to reverberate within the soul.
In sum, I would say that The Passion is a great film, but a flawed film. Gibson is an erratic moviemaker, by turns subtle and heavy-handed. What Gibson does well, he does very well indeed-which is most of the time. The film is well-worth watching, although some scenes repel repeated viewing.
Who wrote the Bible?-3
4. Pauline epistles.
All of the NT writings are either by first or second generation Christians. The Apostolate had an inbuilt time limit (Acts 1:21-22). Paul is a partial exception, but an exception that proves the rule, for he is acutely sensitive to his anachronistic status, like the issue of a miscarriage (1 Cor 15:1). Paul is a paradigm of grace, and not Apostleship (1 Tim 1:15-16). As such, this special case sets no precedent for an open canon, and indeed militates against pseudonymity. When someone tried to palm off a letter under an assumed name, the alias was shot down by the fact that Paul was still on the scene (2 Thes 2:2; 3:17).
If Paul, as a relative latecomer to the faith, could begin a theological correspondence in the 40s (e.g. Galatians; 1-2 Thessalonians), why assume that we have to late-date the Gospels to the 60s (conservative estimate) or 80s (liberal estimate)?
The differences, such as they are, between various letters are only to be expected given the changes in occasion, setting, subject-matter, purpose, audience adaptation and so on. If we took any single letter of Paul’s and divided it down the middle, performing word counts and thematic analysis, we could draw up an impressive list of statistical anomalies and shifting emphases between the A section and the B section. We could write up a learned monograph on the theology of deutero-B. The very contrast between genuine and deutero-Paulines assumes a circular standard of comparison inasmuch as it identifies a core corpus of "authentic" letters in advance of the comparison. It then selects a set of letters that falls outside this control group, and which are related in style and subject-matter (Colossians/Ephesians; the Pastorals). By definition, this set is more dissimilar to the core corpus than it is to the set since its members were singled out on account of their similarity.
On the one hand, liberals classify the Prison Epistles (especially Ephesians & Colossians as deutero-Pauline because they are too much alike; on the other hand, they classify the Pastorals as deutero-Pauline because they are too like Romans or Galatians. The entire spectacle is clownish without being funny.
Another objection of the Pauline authorship of the Pastorals is the alleged difficulty of squeezing them into a Lucan chronology. That, however, is mainly a matter of omission. If Paul was released and rearrested, there would be time to accommodate the Pastorals. But beyond getting Paul to Rome, in fulfillment of Luke’s programmatic plan (Acts 1:8), it is not to Luke’s purpose to peg St. Paul’s every move. The Pauline letters contain personal tidbits not recorded in Acts. Lucan historiography is essentially theological rather than biographical: biography is instrumental to theology.
The abrupt ending of Acts is open-ended, and the usual explanation is, in fact, that the trials of Paul had not reached their final disposition.
Scholars like Robinson have also shown that it is possible fit the Pastorals into the timeframe of Acts without extending the timeline. This calls for certain adjustments, but every opposing position, be it liberal or conservative, lines up the variables in its own chosen way.
Ironically, the liberal position can only take a liberal view of the Pastorals by taking a conservative view of Acts. It employs the history of Acts as the point of reference. This is only valid if you assume that Acts is historical. If so, then why be so sceptical of the Pastoral Epistles?
There is no evidence that the early church ever accepted a letter under an assumed name except when laboring under the false impression that it was really written by the designated writer. Indeed, the idea that the Pastorals are forgeries represents the reductio ad absurdum of liberal scepticism.
The liberal would have us assume that the forger pretended to write a private letter in the name of a dead Apostle, known to be dead. What would such a transparent imposture accomplish?
And who was the recipient of the letter? Is Timothy a real person? If so, he’d hardly be receptive to such a letter. Or is Timothy part of the pretense? If so, what church or Christian community would accept it? To whom was it written? What happens when I mail a letter with a nonexistent return address to nonexistent address? Isn’t that the perfect way to lose a letter?
Some of the liberals suppose that Timothy wrote a letter to himself in the name of Paul. Really? Would a liberal write himself a letter in the name of a deceased professor? This sort of theorizing best belongs in a padded cell.
Given that we have anonymous letters in the NT canon (Hebrews; 1-3 John), what would be the incentive of writing under a pseudonym except to secure a respectful hearing by trading on someone else’s good name, such as the writer could not secure in his own name?
But this is unethical. It would secure a deferential hearing under false pretenses. One wonders if commentators who are so tolerant of forgeries would be as tolerant if one of their students wrote a book or article in the name of the professor.
To attribute a letter to an anonymous forger, the critic bears some burden to postulate the occasion, purpose, and life-setting of the forger. This takes him deep into the realm of the unknown—where a hundred hypotheticals could be equally true or false, where one conjecture builds upon another in a vanishing regress of retreating probabilities.
This is not to deny an important place for detecting forgeries, but there needs to be clear-cut evidence, e.g., blatant anachronisms, ill-gotten gain, inexplicable differences in style.
Paul expressly disapproves of pseudonymity (2 Thes 2:2; 3:17). As far as I can see, the category of canonical pseudepigrapha is a modern makeshift of scholars too liberal to accept the self-witness of Scripture and too spineless to sever their nominal ties with the Christian faith. See the pointed remarks by Ellis, The Making of the New Testament Documents, 322-24.
Honesty aside, there’s a deeper reason for Paul’s stance. He has premised the truth of his gospel on personal revelation (cf. Gal 1-2; 2 Cor 12:1ff.). A forger would lack the revelatory qualifications to present the Pauline gospel on his own authority. This is not the sort of task that can be delegated to a second party. Paul claims apostolic authority for his message. Normally, an Apostle had to be an eyewitness to the ministry of Christ (Acts 1:21-22). Paul is a quasi-exception inasmuch as he’s a virtual eyewitness—having seen and heard the Risen Lord in a vision. A forger cannot lay claim to this inspired backing—any more than I could. Again, the epistles are critical of fantastic and fanciful claims (1 Tim 1:4; 2 Tim 4:4; Tit 1:14; 2 Pet 1:16).
Yet the liberals are not through, for their fallback is to declare 2 Thessalonians unauthentic. In other words, what we really have in 2 Thes 2:2; 3:17 is a forger warning against forgery! But what’s the point of getting into an argument with a conspiracy theorist? In reading liberal literature one can’t help thinking of Gen. Ripper and his bottled water. Everything becomes grist for the cosmic cover-up. Again, though, if pseudonymity had been such an accepted practice, why is Paul at pains to distinguish his words from the ipsissima verba of Christ (1 Cor 7:10, 12,25; 1 Thes 4:15)? Why is Luke so scrupulous about distinguishing the "we-sections" (in Acts) from the scenes in which he was not a participant? Why is the author of Hebrews so conscientious about distancing himself from the eyewitnesses? Why is the author of the Fourth Gospel so indirect about identifying himself?
5. 2 Pet-Jude
2 Peter is the favorite target of attack due to the dramatic difference in style between it and 1 Peter. This calls for several replies:
i) Many of the same critics also deny the authenticity of 1 Peter. But unless 1 Peter supplies the standard of comparison, how would a deviation from the style of 1 Peter prejudice the authenticity of 2 Peter?
ii) As a general proposition, a different style may indicate a different author, although this is hard to quantify, and turns on other factors as well, such as genre, subject-matter, stylistic evolution, audience adaptation and so on. In the case of forgery, however, the presumption is reversed insofar as we expect the counterfeit to imitate as closely as possible the style of the exemplar.
iii) It may be objected that use of loaded terms like "forgery," "fraud," "fabrication," "counterfeit," &c., poison the well. Since pseudonymity was an accepted literary device, as one can witness in the testamentary literature—of which 2 Peter is a specimen—these pejorative characterizations make a morally charged issue out of an innocent practice.
But was pseudonymity just a literary device? And was it acceptable by the standard of Scriptural ethics? Comparisons with the testamentary literature assume that OT farewell speeches were also fictitious. It is tendentious to argue from the alleged pseudonymity of the OT genre to the alleged pseudonymity of the NT genre. And the appeal to Jewish pseudepigrapha (e.g. 1 Enoch; The Testament of the Twelve Patriarchs) is counter-productive, for writers only resorted to this "device" because the OT canon was already closed. So it can hardly furnish a precedent for the NT canon.
Moreover, the death of Moses and the Apostles really would mark a transitional phase in the life of the religious community which they have established, so that their final instructions (e.g. Deut 30-33; 2 Peter; Pastorals) are inevitably preoccupied with the orderly transfer of power, custodianship of the message and forewarnings regarding future threats to the community of faith. All this follows from the concrete life-setting. The fact that forgers imitated this form no more validates pseudepigrapha than the fact that Gnostics penned pseudonymous gospels validates the NT apocrypha. Only a critic who is utterly out of touch with the down-to-earth dynamics of a nascent religious movement would attribute all this to literary artifice.
iv) It is reductionistic to equate the epistolary genre with the testamentary genre. We only have to contrast 2 Peter with, say, Gen 49, to see how overstated the comparison is. For a critique of this identification and its bearing on pseudonymity, cf. J. Charles, Virtue Admidst Vice: The Catalog of Virtues in 2 Peter 1 (Sheffield, 1997), 49-75.
v) The logical motive for a literary forgery is to secure a respectful hearing, which the true author could not hope for in his own identity, by deceiving the prospective reader into supposing that it was written by an authoritative figure. To say this is not primarily to characterize the morality of the motive, but merely to describe the motive. It is, first of all, a statement of fact and not a value-judgment. And this ought not to be in dispute.
However, scholars who believe that the canon includes pseudepigrapha are defensive about this description. They don’t like the word "forgery" because it carries an odious connotation. Lying behind this reaction is their own theological positioning. They don’t believe the self-attributions of Scripture, but they also don’t wish to remove a book from the canon just because it’s pseudonymous.
Put another way, they don’t want their position branded as "liberal." They view themselves as Christian believers who honor the authority of Scripture. And they try to show that there is a faithful middle-ground between traditional orthodoxy and liberal infidelity. To this end, they argue that pseudonymity was a morally innocuous convention. But there are two problems with that line of approach:
a) It confounds the viewpoint of the scholar with the viewpoint of the text. He is coming to the text with a personal agenda. He objects to the judgmental connotation of a "forgery," not only because that would reflect on the book, but because that would also reflect on his own theological compromise. But this intrudes a concern that is extraneous to the text. A commentator should assume a more disinterested stance. Critical detachment is a prerequisite in historical studies. This doesn’t mean that a scholar either cannot or should not have a personal stake in the debate. What it does mean, rather, is that he should observe enough distance between his own views and the text before him that he allows the text to speak for itself. Whether or not "forgery" is an invidious characterization is irrelevant to the factual identification of a document. To classify the False Decretals as Medieval forgeries is not, in the first instance, to render a moral judgment, but merely to identify their literary genre.
Because moderate scholars are so sensitive to a loaded word like "forgery," they shy away from it and attempt to justify the practice. But whatever the independent merits of their argument, they can’t take this classification out of play simply because it is charged with disreputable overtones. For that would prejudge the genre. Are we saying that an ancient writer would never operate under an assumed identity in order to ingratiate himself with the reader by trading on the good name of the ostensive author? Should we rule out dishonest motives in advance? This is obviously irresponsible.
b) By trying to neutralize the suspect reputation of pseudonymity, these scholars have destroyed the very rationale for pseudonymity. For if pseudonymity were an accepted literary device, so that the reader took its attribution to be a patent pretence, then why the pretense? In that event, why wouldn’t the author issue the document in his own name? If no one is taken in by the pose, why not drop the pose? What is to be gained by assuming a pose that everyone can see through? The traditional motive for penning a forgery supplies a perfectly coherent rationale—you get something that you could not otherwise obtain by honest means. But in their efforts to remove the ethical sting of forgery, moderate scholars have made the whole exercise self-defeating.
The idea of innocent forgeries is one of the many armchair theories offered by mediating scholars to justify their fence-straddling faith. It mirrors the motives of the scholar rather than forger. The strategy is always the same: take something from real life and then modify it in a direction favorable to the current version of mediating theology. But the modification puts it at one or more removes from real life.
There is another straightforward way of accounting for the stylistic differences between 1-2 Peter. If Silvanus was the amanuensus for 1 Peter, then he may have given Peter some stylistic advice. As Peter dictated a phrase, Silvanus might say, "Wouldn’t this be a more idiomatic way of expressing the same idea?" If Peter approved, that then wording would then be committed to writing.
But since Peter makes no reference to a possible amanuensis in 2 Peter, it is reasonable to assume that he penned that himself. (One might add that if 2 Peter were a forgery, why didn’t the forger finish with another reference to Silvanus for the sake of verisimilitude?) And, as is not uncommon in official or literary settings, he may well have tried to write it in a tonier style that he could really command. One thinks of a courtroom setting where a working-class witness is in the dock. Made self-conscious by his surroundings, he will often strive for a more formal standard of English than he has mastery of.
This still preserves the inerrancy of the document, for inerrancy is concerned with the veracity of the original. Fine-points of grammar and style are devoid of truth- value. Although we are accustomed to speak of "incorrect" grammar, grammatical mistakes merely break conventional rules of discourse rather than violating the veracity of a statement. They aren’t the same as factual errors. We don’t say that bad grammar is "false." God can inspire bad grammar without committing falsehood. But the self-witness of a document (e.g. authorship) is a truth-valued claim.
Although this reconstruction involves an element of conjecture, it is less speculative than pseudonymous schemes. It has the virtue of operating on the basis of internal pointers (5:12), our general knowledge of Peter’s background (Gospels & Acts), as well as common sense—the last named item being a rare commodity in higher criticism.
2 Pet-Jude are also synoptic. Either one uses the other or both make use of a common source. There would be nothing unsuitable about an Apostle making use of Jude, for Jude was a half-brother of the Lord. Conversely, there would be nothing unsuitable about Jude making use of a leading Apostle. Their literary interrelationship is sometimes attributed to a common oral source. This requires some independent basis of comparison to assess the range of continuity and discontinuity we might expect under that scenario. What would count as an external check?
To take one such example, the proclamation of the First Crusade by Urban II comes down to us in four independent accounts by contemporary witnesses. But when we compare the summary of Urban’s speech by Fulcher of Chartres with the version by Robert the Monk (Cf. Translations and Reprints from the Original Sources of European History 1/2 [University of Pennsylvania, 1897], 2-8.) there is nothing by way of imagery, sequence, or subject-matter to match the parallels we encounter between 2 Pet-Jude. This suggests to me that a common oral source cannot account for the literary interrelation of 2 Peter to Jude. Now perhaps my choice of examples is defective. My problem is that NT scholars don’t offer any external controls on their appeal to an oral source. An alternative is to suppose that Peter and Jude both made use of a common written source. While this can’t be ruled out, it is unsound scholarly method to postulate unverifiable sources when the extant sources can account for the phenomena in question.
There is no intelligent reason to doubt the authenticity of Jude. If it were pseudonymous, it would identify the author as the Lord’s brother—trading on that matchless association. Instead it identifies the author as the brother of James. That relationship carried a certain prestige as well, but modest when compared with direct dominical affinity.
Some scholars have identified Jude with Judas Barsabbas (Acts 15:22,27,32). Since, however, James already had a blood-brother by that name (Mt 13:55; Mk 6:3) this would be a confusing self-designation--absent further contextual clues. Use of the surname ("Barsabbas") would have been more intelligible.
The fact that Jude refers to a couple of extracanonical writings has left its own canonical status suspect in some quarters. But this is nothing new. Moses quotes from the Book of Wars and Song of Heshbon (Num 21:14,27-30; cf. Jer 48:45-46), and the Book of Jashar is quoted in Joshua (10:12?-13) and Samuel (2 Sam 1:18ff.), while the author of Hebrews draws on Intertestamental sources (Heb 11:34ff.).
But the real problem, it may be objected, is not so much that Jude quotes from extracanonical writings, as that he doesn’t distinguish between historical sources and pious fictions. This is more an issue of inerrancy than canonicity. The fact, however, that a sacred author quotes from an extracanonical source doesn’t commit him to accepting it at face value. Moses offers a subversive reading of the Song of Heshbon. It was originally an Amorite taunt-song. Now the tables are turned as Israel bests the Amorites and makes them eat their own words! The irony trades on a conspicuous contrast between the original context and its recontextualization.
For his part, Jeremiah preserves the original referent (Moab), but time-shifts the terms fulfillment from past to future. In other words, he recycles it. So Moses and Jeremiah both disregard original intent as they reorient the material to score points. No doubt it’s precisely because they’re dealing with uninspired and, indeed, "uncircumcised" sources, that they exercise such license. Here, inerrancy extends to an inspired adaptation of the primary source, and not necessarily to the primary source itself, considered in its life-setting. The application is authoritative, and not the original viewpoint.
1 Enoch is a sectarian document of Essene pedigree. Cf. R. Beckwith, "The Earliest Enoch Literature and its Calendar," Revue de Qumran 39 (Feb 1981), 365-403.
It would never have found its way into the Temple archive alongside the canonical scrolls or from there into the synagogal lectionaries (cf. Lk 4:17; Acts 13:15,27; 15:21). Cf. J. Mann, The Bible as Read and Preached in the Old Synagogue, vol. 1 (Ktav, 1971).
Josephus, a Pharisee who accompanied Vespasian and Titus when they captured Jerusalem and despoiled the Temple, indicates that the Temple was the repository for holy books of Judaism (Life 75; War 5,7.). That would comport with OT precedent (cf. Exod 25:16; Deut 10:5; 17:18; 31:9,26; 1 Sam 10:25; 2 Chron 29:30). This official registry presumably set the standard for lectionary usage as well. Nor do we find Jude employing standard scriptural citation formulas (e.g. "it is written," "scripture says"). Hence, there is no positive reason to suppose that Jude ranked this material with Holy Writ.
The Assumption of Moses betrays Essene and Pharisaic traits. Cf. R. Beckwith, "Daniel 9 and the Date of Messiah’s Coming," Revue de Qumran 40 (Dec 1981), 521-542. A number of his essays are reprinted in Calendar & Chronology: Jewish & Christian (Leiden: Brill 1996).
Based on its studied allusion to the 34 year reign of Herod (6:6; cf. Josephus, Ant. 17.8.1.), the Testament of Moses dates at the earliest to the turn of the 1C AD. It is extremely far-fetched to suppose that a mid-1C author like Jude would be appealing to such a novel document—with no representation in the Temple archives or synagogal lectionaries—as canonical writ. Indeed, R. Bauckham has proposed that the Assumption may be itself dependent on Jude, who is—in turn—dependent on the Testament of Moses. Jude and the Relatives of Jesus in the Early Church (T&T Clark, 1990), 235ff.
From what we can tell, Jude viewed this material as inspirational literature (a la 1 Maccabees) rather than inspired literature. As judged by Protestant standards, his usage is somewhat incautious, but that’s because he didn’t have to guard against contemporary misunderstanding, whereas the conflict with Rome has forced us to spell out our canonical commitments (e.g. WCF 1:1-3; cf. Trent, session 4).
If 2 Peter either adapted Jude or else a source common to both, then that
would color his vocabulary and phrasing. As such, I don’t see that stylistic differences between 1-2 Peter prejudice the case for the apostolicity of either. Only if, in each case, Peter were starting from scratch would a direct stylistic comparison be meaningful. For unless he had a completely free hand in the composition of both, his personal prose style, such as it was, would be sublimated to his sources. One should expect the influence of source on style to figure more forcefully in the debate, yet it’s oddly overlooked. Although the priority of Jude is no more certain than the reverse order of dependence, yet for that very reason it introduces a wild card into the deck of our stylistic calculations.
Guthrie notes a number of verbal parallels between the Petrine speeches in Acts and 2 Pet: "for instance, the words 'receive' (2 Pet 1:1; cf. Acts 1:17), 'godliness' (1:6; cf. 3;12), 'day of the Lord' (3:10; cf. Acts 2:20) and 'punishment' (2:9; cf. Acts 4:21) all occur in both books," New Testament Introduction (IVP 1990), 838. When you consider the extreme brevity of the Petrine speeches, it's statistically improbable that we'd find any verbal commonalities barring common authorship.
In addition, E.F. Harrison has drawn up a list of verbal parallels between 1-2 Peter, on the one hand, and 2 Peter and the Petrine speeches in Acts, on the other. Cf. Introduction to the New Testament (Eerdmans, 1982), 424-425.
B.B.Warfield has also drawn up a list of verbal and doctrinal parallels. Cf. Selected Shorter Writings of Benjamin B. Warfield (P&R, 1973), 2:71. These strike me as too distinctive to be coincidental, yet too unassuming to be contrived.
The assumption that every NT author had a personal style is overdrawn. None of the NT authors were professional writers, so that, as a rule, we wouldn’t expect them to cultivate a distinctive prose style. The author of Hebrews is the only NT writer with a consistent and conscious literary sense. To a lesser degree, Luke is stylistically self-conscious. The personal stamp of a forceful personality may also impress itself on the medium. Insofar as Paul and John can command an arresting style, that is due to their tremendous intellectual and temperamental energy. What comes through is the man behind the prose. But most of the NT authors lack such a powerful presence. So unless an author is either a calculated stylist or a charismatic personality, the literary critics are measuring the NT documents by a nonexistent yardstick.
In judging Jude’s estimate of Jewish pseudepigrapha, we must remember that his brother was a very traditional Jew, as is evident from his letter, his administration of the Jerusalem church (e.g. Acts 15), and his ultraist disciples (Gal 2:12ff.). Given this establishmentarian emphasis, it is unlikely in the extreme that he would have ranked sectarian (=Essene) literature on par with Scripture. Now it is no doubt possible that his kid brother was less conservative, but to assume that Jude was way out of the mainstream isn’t very plausible given the impact and position of his elder brother. This was a society in which primogeniture mattered. What’s more, the leadership of James over the Jerusalem church was such that his kid brother could never have functioned in that body unless he enjoyed big brother’s approval. There would have been no receptive constituency for the very letter under review.
In sum, there are many reasonable grounds for reaffirming the traditional authorship of Scripture, but none for disaffirming it.
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All of the NT writings are either by first or second generation Christians. The Apostolate had an inbuilt time limit (Acts 1:21-22). Paul is a partial exception, but an exception that proves the rule, for he is acutely sensitive to his anachronistic status, like the issue of a miscarriage (1 Cor 15:1). Paul is a paradigm of grace, and not Apostleship (1 Tim 1:15-16). As such, this special case sets no precedent for an open canon, and indeed militates against pseudonymity. When someone tried to palm off a letter under an assumed name, the alias was shot down by the fact that Paul was still on the scene (2 Thes 2:2; 3:17).
If Paul, as a relative latecomer to the faith, could begin a theological correspondence in the 40s (e.g. Galatians; 1-2 Thessalonians), why assume that we have to late-date the Gospels to the 60s (conservative estimate) or 80s (liberal estimate)?
The differences, such as they are, between various letters are only to be expected given the changes in occasion, setting, subject-matter, purpose, audience adaptation and so on. If we took any single letter of Paul’s and divided it down the middle, performing word counts and thematic analysis, we could draw up an impressive list of statistical anomalies and shifting emphases between the A section and the B section. We could write up a learned monograph on the theology of deutero-B. The very contrast between genuine and deutero-Paulines assumes a circular standard of comparison inasmuch as it identifies a core corpus of "authentic" letters in advance of the comparison. It then selects a set of letters that falls outside this control group, and which are related in style and subject-matter (Colossians/Ephesians; the Pastorals). By definition, this set is more dissimilar to the core corpus than it is to the set since its members were singled out on account of their similarity.
On the one hand, liberals classify the Prison Epistles (especially Ephesians & Colossians as deutero-Pauline because they are too much alike; on the other hand, they classify the Pastorals as deutero-Pauline because they are too like Romans or Galatians. The entire spectacle is clownish without being funny.
Another objection of the Pauline authorship of the Pastorals is the alleged difficulty of squeezing them into a Lucan chronology. That, however, is mainly a matter of omission. If Paul was released and rearrested, there would be time to accommodate the Pastorals. But beyond getting Paul to Rome, in fulfillment of Luke’s programmatic plan (Acts 1:8), it is not to Luke’s purpose to peg St. Paul’s every move. The Pauline letters contain personal tidbits not recorded in Acts. Lucan historiography is essentially theological rather than biographical: biography is instrumental to theology.
The abrupt ending of Acts is open-ended, and the usual explanation is, in fact, that the trials of Paul had not reached their final disposition.
Scholars like Robinson have also shown that it is possible fit the Pastorals into the timeframe of Acts without extending the timeline. This calls for certain adjustments, but every opposing position, be it liberal or conservative, lines up the variables in its own chosen way.
Ironically, the liberal position can only take a liberal view of the Pastorals by taking a conservative view of Acts. It employs the history of Acts as the point of reference. This is only valid if you assume that Acts is historical. If so, then why be so sceptical of the Pastoral Epistles?
There is no evidence that the early church ever accepted a letter under an assumed name except when laboring under the false impression that it was really written by the designated writer. Indeed, the idea that the Pastorals are forgeries represents the reductio ad absurdum of liberal scepticism.
The liberal would have us assume that the forger pretended to write a private letter in the name of a dead Apostle, known to be dead. What would such a transparent imposture accomplish?
And who was the recipient of the letter? Is Timothy a real person? If so, he’d hardly be receptive to such a letter. Or is Timothy part of the pretense? If so, what church or Christian community would accept it? To whom was it written? What happens when I mail a letter with a nonexistent return address to nonexistent address? Isn’t that the perfect way to lose a letter?
Some of the liberals suppose that Timothy wrote a letter to himself in the name of Paul. Really? Would a liberal write himself a letter in the name of a deceased professor? This sort of theorizing best belongs in a padded cell.
Given that we have anonymous letters in the NT canon (Hebrews; 1-3 John), what would be the incentive of writing under a pseudonym except to secure a respectful hearing by trading on someone else’s good name, such as the writer could not secure in his own name?
But this is unethical. It would secure a deferential hearing under false pretenses. One wonders if commentators who are so tolerant of forgeries would be as tolerant if one of their students wrote a book or article in the name of the professor.
To attribute a letter to an anonymous forger, the critic bears some burden to postulate the occasion, purpose, and life-setting of the forger. This takes him deep into the realm of the unknown—where a hundred hypotheticals could be equally true or false, where one conjecture builds upon another in a vanishing regress of retreating probabilities.
This is not to deny an important place for detecting forgeries, but there needs to be clear-cut evidence, e.g., blatant anachronisms, ill-gotten gain, inexplicable differences in style.
Paul expressly disapproves of pseudonymity (2 Thes 2:2; 3:17). As far as I can see, the category of canonical pseudepigrapha is a modern makeshift of scholars too liberal to accept the self-witness of Scripture and too spineless to sever their nominal ties with the Christian faith. See the pointed remarks by Ellis, The Making of the New Testament Documents, 322-24.
Honesty aside, there’s a deeper reason for Paul’s stance. He has premised the truth of his gospel on personal revelation (cf. Gal 1-2; 2 Cor 12:1ff.). A forger would lack the revelatory qualifications to present the Pauline gospel on his own authority. This is not the sort of task that can be delegated to a second party. Paul claims apostolic authority for his message. Normally, an Apostle had to be an eyewitness to the ministry of Christ (Acts 1:21-22). Paul is a quasi-exception inasmuch as he’s a virtual eyewitness—having seen and heard the Risen Lord in a vision. A forger cannot lay claim to this inspired backing—any more than I could. Again, the epistles are critical of fantastic and fanciful claims (1 Tim 1:4; 2 Tim 4:4; Tit 1:14; 2 Pet 1:16).
Yet the liberals are not through, for their fallback is to declare 2 Thessalonians unauthentic. In other words, what we really have in 2 Thes 2:2; 3:17 is a forger warning against forgery! But what’s the point of getting into an argument with a conspiracy theorist? In reading liberal literature one can’t help thinking of Gen. Ripper and his bottled water. Everything becomes grist for the cosmic cover-up. Again, though, if pseudonymity had been such an accepted practice, why is Paul at pains to distinguish his words from the ipsissima verba of Christ (1 Cor 7:10, 12,25; 1 Thes 4:15)? Why is Luke so scrupulous about distinguishing the "we-sections" (in Acts) from the scenes in which he was not a participant? Why is the author of Hebrews so conscientious about distancing himself from the eyewitnesses? Why is the author of the Fourth Gospel so indirect about identifying himself?
5. 2 Pet-Jude
2 Peter is the favorite target of attack due to the dramatic difference in style between it and 1 Peter. This calls for several replies:
i) Many of the same critics also deny the authenticity of 1 Peter. But unless 1 Peter supplies the standard of comparison, how would a deviation from the style of 1 Peter prejudice the authenticity of 2 Peter?
ii) As a general proposition, a different style may indicate a different author, although this is hard to quantify, and turns on other factors as well, such as genre, subject-matter, stylistic evolution, audience adaptation and so on. In the case of forgery, however, the presumption is reversed insofar as we expect the counterfeit to imitate as closely as possible the style of the exemplar.
iii) It may be objected that use of loaded terms like "forgery," "fraud," "fabrication," "counterfeit," &c., poison the well. Since pseudonymity was an accepted literary device, as one can witness in the testamentary literature—of which 2 Peter is a specimen—these pejorative characterizations make a morally charged issue out of an innocent practice.
But was pseudonymity just a literary device? And was it acceptable by the standard of Scriptural ethics? Comparisons with the testamentary literature assume that OT farewell speeches were also fictitious. It is tendentious to argue from the alleged pseudonymity of the OT genre to the alleged pseudonymity of the NT genre. And the appeal to Jewish pseudepigrapha (e.g. 1 Enoch; The Testament of the Twelve Patriarchs) is counter-productive, for writers only resorted to this "device" because the OT canon was already closed. So it can hardly furnish a precedent for the NT canon.
Moreover, the death of Moses and the Apostles really would mark a transitional phase in the life of the religious community which they have established, so that their final instructions (e.g. Deut 30-33; 2 Peter; Pastorals) are inevitably preoccupied with the orderly transfer of power, custodianship of the message and forewarnings regarding future threats to the community of faith. All this follows from the concrete life-setting. The fact that forgers imitated this form no more validates pseudepigrapha than the fact that Gnostics penned pseudonymous gospels validates the NT apocrypha. Only a critic who is utterly out of touch with the down-to-earth dynamics of a nascent religious movement would attribute all this to literary artifice.
iv) It is reductionistic to equate the epistolary genre with the testamentary genre. We only have to contrast 2 Peter with, say, Gen 49, to see how overstated the comparison is. For a critique of this identification and its bearing on pseudonymity, cf. J. Charles, Virtue Admidst Vice: The Catalog of Virtues in 2 Peter 1 (Sheffield, 1997), 49-75.
v) The logical motive for a literary forgery is to secure a respectful hearing, which the true author could not hope for in his own identity, by deceiving the prospective reader into supposing that it was written by an authoritative figure. To say this is not primarily to characterize the morality of the motive, but merely to describe the motive. It is, first of all, a statement of fact and not a value-judgment. And this ought not to be in dispute.
However, scholars who believe that the canon includes pseudepigrapha are defensive about this description. They don’t like the word "forgery" because it carries an odious connotation. Lying behind this reaction is their own theological positioning. They don’t believe the self-attributions of Scripture, but they also don’t wish to remove a book from the canon just because it’s pseudonymous.
Put another way, they don’t want their position branded as "liberal." They view themselves as Christian believers who honor the authority of Scripture. And they try to show that there is a faithful middle-ground between traditional orthodoxy and liberal infidelity. To this end, they argue that pseudonymity was a morally innocuous convention. But there are two problems with that line of approach:
a) It confounds the viewpoint of the scholar with the viewpoint of the text. He is coming to the text with a personal agenda. He objects to the judgmental connotation of a "forgery," not only because that would reflect on the book, but because that would also reflect on his own theological compromise. But this intrudes a concern that is extraneous to the text. A commentator should assume a more disinterested stance. Critical detachment is a prerequisite in historical studies. This doesn’t mean that a scholar either cannot or should not have a personal stake in the debate. What it does mean, rather, is that he should observe enough distance between his own views and the text before him that he allows the text to speak for itself. Whether or not "forgery" is an invidious characterization is irrelevant to the factual identification of a document. To classify the False Decretals as Medieval forgeries is not, in the first instance, to render a moral judgment, but merely to identify their literary genre.
Because moderate scholars are so sensitive to a loaded word like "forgery," they shy away from it and attempt to justify the practice. But whatever the independent merits of their argument, they can’t take this classification out of play simply because it is charged with disreputable overtones. For that would prejudge the genre. Are we saying that an ancient writer would never operate under an assumed identity in order to ingratiate himself with the reader by trading on the good name of the ostensive author? Should we rule out dishonest motives in advance? This is obviously irresponsible.
b) By trying to neutralize the suspect reputation of pseudonymity, these scholars have destroyed the very rationale for pseudonymity. For if pseudonymity were an accepted literary device, so that the reader took its attribution to be a patent pretence, then why the pretense? In that event, why wouldn’t the author issue the document in his own name? If no one is taken in by the pose, why not drop the pose? What is to be gained by assuming a pose that everyone can see through? The traditional motive for penning a forgery supplies a perfectly coherent rationale—you get something that you could not otherwise obtain by honest means. But in their efforts to remove the ethical sting of forgery, moderate scholars have made the whole exercise self-defeating.
The idea of innocent forgeries is one of the many armchair theories offered by mediating scholars to justify their fence-straddling faith. It mirrors the motives of the scholar rather than forger. The strategy is always the same: take something from real life and then modify it in a direction favorable to the current version of mediating theology. But the modification puts it at one or more removes from real life.
There is another straightforward way of accounting for the stylistic differences between 1-2 Peter. If Silvanus was the amanuensus for 1 Peter, then he may have given Peter some stylistic advice. As Peter dictated a phrase, Silvanus might say, "Wouldn’t this be a more idiomatic way of expressing the same idea?" If Peter approved, that then wording would then be committed to writing.
But since Peter makes no reference to a possible amanuensis in 2 Peter, it is reasonable to assume that he penned that himself. (One might add that if 2 Peter were a forgery, why didn’t the forger finish with another reference to Silvanus for the sake of verisimilitude?) And, as is not uncommon in official or literary settings, he may well have tried to write it in a tonier style that he could really command. One thinks of a courtroom setting where a working-class witness is in the dock. Made self-conscious by his surroundings, he will often strive for a more formal standard of English than he has mastery of.
This still preserves the inerrancy of the document, for inerrancy is concerned with the veracity of the original. Fine-points of grammar and style are devoid of truth- value. Although we are accustomed to speak of "incorrect" grammar, grammatical mistakes merely break conventional rules of discourse rather than violating the veracity of a statement. They aren’t the same as factual errors. We don’t say that bad grammar is "false." God can inspire bad grammar without committing falsehood. But the self-witness of a document (e.g. authorship) is a truth-valued claim.
Although this reconstruction involves an element of conjecture, it is less speculative than pseudonymous schemes. It has the virtue of operating on the basis of internal pointers (5:12), our general knowledge of Peter’s background (Gospels & Acts), as well as common sense—the last named item being a rare commodity in higher criticism.
2 Pet-Jude are also synoptic. Either one uses the other or both make use of a common source. There would be nothing unsuitable about an Apostle making use of Jude, for Jude was a half-brother of the Lord. Conversely, there would be nothing unsuitable about Jude making use of a leading Apostle. Their literary interrelationship is sometimes attributed to a common oral source. This requires some independent basis of comparison to assess the range of continuity and discontinuity we might expect under that scenario. What would count as an external check?
To take one such example, the proclamation of the First Crusade by Urban II comes down to us in four independent accounts by contemporary witnesses. But when we compare the summary of Urban’s speech by Fulcher of Chartres with the version by Robert the Monk (Cf. Translations and Reprints from the Original Sources of European History 1/2 [University of Pennsylvania, 1897], 2-8.) there is nothing by way of imagery, sequence, or subject-matter to match the parallels we encounter between 2 Pet-Jude. This suggests to me that a common oral source cannot account for the literary interrelation of 2 Peter to Jude. Now perhaps my choice of examples is defective. My problem is that NT scholars don’t offer any external controls on their appeal to an oral source. An alternative is to suppose that Peter and Jude both made use of a common written source. While this can’t be ruled out, it is unsound scholarly method to postulate unverifiable sources when the extant sources can account for the phenomena in question.
There is no intelligent reason to doubt the authenticity of Jude. If it were pseudonymous, it would identify the author as the Lord’s brother—trading on that matchless association. Instead it identifies the author as the brother of James. That relationship carried a certain prestige as well, but modest when compared with direct dominical affinity.
Some scholars have identified Jude with Judas Barsabbas (Acts 15:22,27,32). Since, however, James already had a blood-brother by that name (Mt 13:55; Mk 6:3) this would be a confusing self-designation--absent further contextual clues. Use of the surname ("Barsabbas") would have been more intelligible.
The fact that Jude refers to a couple of extracanonical writings has left its own canonical status suspect in some quarters. But this is nothing new. Moses quotes from the Book of Wars and Song of Heshbon (Num 21:14,27-30; cf. Jer 48:45-46), and the Book of Jashar is quoted in Joshua (10:12?-13) and Samuel (2 Sam 1:18ff.), while the author of Hebrews draws on Intertestamental sources (Heb 11:34ff.).
But the real problem, it may be objected, is not so much that Jude quotes from extracanonical writings, as that he doesn’t distinguish between historical sources and pious fictions. This is more an issue of inerrancy than canonicity. The fact, however, that a sacred author quotes from an extracanonical source doesn’t commit him to accepting it at face value. Moses offers a subversive reading of the Song of Heshbon. It was originally an Amorite taunt-song. Now the tables are turned as Israel bests the Amorites and makes them eat their own words! The irony trades on a conspicuous contrast between the original context and its recontextualization.
For his part, Jeremiah preserves the original referent (Moab), but time-shifts the terms fulfillment from past to future. In other words, he recycles it. So Moses and Jeremiah both disregard original intent as they reorient the material to score points. No doubt it’s precisely because they’re dealing with uninspired and, indeed, "uncircumcised" sources, that they exercise such license. Here, inerrancy extends to an inspired adaptation of the primary source, and not necessarily to the primary source itself, considered in its life-setting. The application is authoritative, and not the original viewpoint.
1 Enoch is a sectarian document of Essene pedigree. Cf. R. Beckwith, "The Earliest Enoch Literature and its Calendar," Revue de Qumran 39 (Feb 1981), 365-403.
It would never have found its way into the Temple archive alongside the canonical scrolls or from there into the synagogal lectionaries (cf. Lk 4:17; Acts 13:15,27; 15:21). Cf. J. Mann, The Bible as Read and Preached in the Old Synagogue, vol. 1 (Ktav, 1971).
Josephus, a Pharisee who accompanied Vespasian and Titus when they captured Jerusalem and despoiled the Temple, indicates that the Temple was the repository for holy books of Judaism (Life 75; War 5,7.). That would comport with OT precedent (cf. Exod 25:16; Deut 10:5; 17:18; 31:9,26; 1 Sam 10:25; 2 Chron 29:30). This official registry presumably set the standard for lectionary usage as well. Nor do we find Jude employing standard scriptural citation formulas (e.g. "it is written," "scripture says"). Hence, there is no positive reason to suppose that Jude ranked this material with Holy Writ.
The Assumption of Moses betrays Essene and Pharisaic traits. Cf. R. Beckwith, "Daniel 9 and the Date of Messiah’s Coming," Revue de Qumran 40 (Dec 1981), 521-542. A number of his essays are reprinted in Calendar & Chronology: Jewish & Christian (Leiden: Brill 1996).
Based on its studied allusion to the 34 year reign of Herod (6:6; cf. Josephus, Ant. 17.8.1.), the Testament of Moses dates at the earliest to the turn of the 1C AD. It is extremely far-fetched to suppose that a mid-1C author like Jude would be appealing to such a novel document—with no representation in the Temple archives or synagogal lectionaries—as canonical writ. Indeed, R. Bauckham has proposed that the Assumption may be itself dependent on Jude, who is—in turn—dependent on the Testament of Moses. Jude and the Relatives of Jesus in the Early Church (T&T Clark, 1990), 235ff.
From what we can tell, Jude viewed this material as inspirational literature (a la 1 Maccabees) rather than inspired literature. As judged by Protestant standards, his usage is somewhat incautious, but that’s because he didn’t have to guard against contemporary misunderstanding, whereas the conflict with Rome has forced us to spell out our canonical commitments (e.g. WCF 1:1-3; cf. Trent, session 4).
If 2 Peter either adapted Jude or else a source common to both, then that
would color his vocabulary and phrasing. As such, I don’t see that stylistic differences between 1-2 Peter prejudice the case for the apostolicity of either. Only if, in each case, Peter were starting from scratch would a direct stylistic comparison be meaningful. For unless he had a completely free hand in the composition of both, his personal prose style, such as it was, would be sublimated to his sources. One should expect the influence of source on style to figure more forcefully in the debate, yet it’s oddly overlooked. Although the priority of Jude is no more certain than the reverse order of dependence, yet for that very reason it introduces a wild card into the deck of our stylistic calculations.
Guthrie notes a number of verbal parallels between the Petrine speeches in Acts and 2 Pet: "for instance, the words 'receive' (2 Pet 1:1; cf. Acts 1:17), 'godliness' (1:6; cf. 3;12), 'day of the Lord' (3:10; cf. Acts 2:20) and 'punishment' (2:9; cf. Acts 4:21) all occur in both books," New Testament Introduction (IVP 1990), 838. When you consider the extreme brevity of the Petrine speeches, it's statistically improbable that we'd find any verbal commonalities barring common authorship.
In addition, E.F. Harrison has drawn up a list of verbal parallels between 1-2 Peter, on the one hand, and 2 Peter and the Petrine speeches in Acts, on the other. Cf. Introduction to the New Testament (Eerdmans, 1982), 424-425.
B.B.Warfield has also drawn up a list of verbal and doctrinal parallels. Cf. Selected Shorter Writings of Benjamin B. Warfield (P&R, 1973), 2:71. These strike me as too distinctive to be coincidental, yet too unassuming to be contrived.
The assumption that every NT author had a personal style is overdrawn. None of the NT authors were professional writers, so that, as a rule, we wouldn’t expect them to cultivate a distinctive prose style. The author of Hebrews is the only NT writer with a consistent and conscious literary sense. To a lesser degree, Luke is stylistically self-conscious. The personal stamp of a forceful personality may also impress itself on the medium. Insofar as Paul and John can command an arresting style, that is due to their tremendous intellectual and temperamental energy. What comes through is the man behind the prose. But most of the NT authors lack such a powerful presence. So unless an author is either a calculated stylist or a charismatic personality, the literary critics are measuring the NT documents by a nonexistent yardstick.
In judging Jude’s estimate of Jewish pseudepigrapha, we must remember that his brother was a very traditional Jew, as is evident from his letter, his administration of the Jerusalem church (e.g. Acts 15), and his ultraist disciples (Gal 2:12ff.). Given this establishmentarian emphasis, it is unlikely in the extreme that he would have ranked sectarian (=Essene) literature on par with Scripture. Now it is no doubt possible that his kid brother was less conservative, but to assume that Jude was way out of the mainstream isn’t very plausible given the impact and position of his elder brother. This was a society in which primogeniture mattered. What’s more, the leadership of James over the Jerusalem church was such that his kid brother could never have functioned in that body unless he enjoyed big brother’s approval. There would have been no receptive constituency for the very letter under review.
In sum, there are many reasonable grounds for reaffirming the traditional authorship of Scripture, but none for disaffirming it.
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