Friday, October 05, 2012
Grammatical "mistakes"
That seems like an “all or nothing” view to me. The internal testimony of the Holy Spirit points me to Jesus Christ, the center and purpose of Scripture. If there are factual errors of history and/or cosmology in the Bible, they are irrelevant to the Bible’s main purpose and don’t bother me. Evangelicals have always acknowledged that the Bible is both human and divine, that is, the authors were human beings. No evangelical author I know would contest that some of Paul’s grammar, for example, is not perfect. Why does imperfect grammar not bother you? It seems you want a “manuscript from heaven”–the traditional Islamic view of the Koran. Christians have never thought of the Bible that way. How can a few discrepancies damage or undermine your confidence in the Bible as the book of Jesus Christ and the medium of God’s will for our lives? I just don’t get that way of thinking.
This is just inept,
i) To begin with, Olson is assuming that Koine Greek
grammar was standardized by the 1C. But why assume there were ever uniform
rules for Koine Greek? Consider the regional and dialectical variations.
ii) But even if, for the sake of argument, we say Pauline
constructions sometimes depart from standard Koine Greek, that doesn’t
implicate the inerrancy of Scripture. Inerrancy concerns truth or falsehood.
What we call “incorrect” grammar isn’t factually incorrect. A grammatical “mistake”
is not a falsehood.
“Correct” grammar is simply a social convention. And what
constitutes correct grammar varies according to social class, geographical
regions, and ethnic subcultures.
For instance, there’s a tradition of “correcting”
working-class English. But working-class English is correct grammar for that
social class. Likewise, slang is correct in social settings where it’s natural
to use slang.
Of course, that is always the question that comes up. (It’s like pushing a button on a machine that always has the same result.) Surely you don’t think that if I say a person is “trustworthy” I mean every story he tells is absolutely accurate. I mean he doesn’t lie and you can depend on him to keep his word (promises). What is your answer to the dilemma about rooster and Peter’s denial (and David’s census as either inspired by God or Satan)?
What conservative commentaries or monographs has Olson read
on the subject? Has he engaged their arguments? Or is this a disingenuous question?
As Gary Dorrien says in his critique of conservative evangelicalism, it isn’t “inerrancy or the abyss!” That’s a false either-or. I hope your faith in Scripture is not based on its factual inerrancy but on the Spirit’s testimony that it is the unique and infallible witness to Jesus Christ.
Except that our knowledge of the person and work of the Holy
Spirit comes from the Bible. Moreover, the Holy Spirit is the primary author of the Bible. How does it honor the Holy Spirit to say he fell down on the job?
Kissin' cousins
Roger Olson admits that
Arminianism and open theism are kissin’ cousins:
I have often thought that the vehemence of the Calvinist response to open theism had something to do with fear that it might remove one of their main arguments against Arminianism (viz., that Arminianism cannot explain how God foreknows future free will decisions and actions). From where I sat (and still do) I was never able to figure out why else their reaction to it was so wild. What difference does it make, anyway? So long as God is omnipotent (which all open theists affirm), there’s nothing he cannot do, no situation he cannot respond to in the best way, no promise he cannot fulfill, etc. Then, when I read the books of the Calvinists against open theism, I noticed that MOST of their theological arguments against it would, if valid, undermine Arminianism as well. That’s one reason I rushed to the defense of open theism, because IF the Calvinists got their way (viz., expelling open theists from evangelicalism) based on their theological arguments (e.g., the open theist God could not have guaranteed the crucifixion of Jesus and cannot guarantee the return of Jesus) they would then turn those same arguments (which really depend on there being no free will as power of contrary choice) against evangelical Arminians. In other words, I saw myself and my fellow Arminians standing right behind the open theists being shot at by the evangelical Calvinist inquisitors.
Impugning God
I’m
going to comment on this article: Jerry Walls, “Why No Classical Theist, Let
Alone Orthodox Christian, Should Ever Be a Compatibilist,” Philosophia Christi
13/1 (Summer 2011), 75-104.
This
article is better than the book Walls recently coauthored with David Baggett,
for in this article, Walls at least attempts to argue for his position.
In §1 of
his article, Walls appeals to the experience of choice as empirical evidence
for libertarian freedom, quoting John Searle. To this I’d say several things:
i) In a
footnote (#3) Walls admits that:
A compatibilist, after all, who embraced a conditional analysis of what it means to say “I could have done otherwise” (“I would have done otherwise if I had wanted to do so”) might explain this experience in such a way that it would be consistent with compatibilism.”
But that
concession, all by itself, vitiates the argument for libertarian freedom in §1.
Brand Blanshard is a
philosopher who draws the opposite conclusion from the experience of choice. He
contends that introspection undermines the empirical argument for libertarian
freewill. In that sense, reflective experience undercuts the prereflective
impression of freewill:
The first reason is that when we are making a choice our faces are always turned toward the future, toward the consequences that one act or the other will bring us, never toward the past with its possible sources of constraint. Hence these sources are not noticed. Hence we remain unaware that we are under constraint at all. Hence we feel free from such constraint. The case is almost as simple as that. When you consider buying a new typewriter your thought is fixed on the pleasure and advantage you would gain from it, or the drain it would make on your budget. You are not delving into the causes that led to your taking pleasure in the prospect of owning a typewriter or to your having a complex about expenditure. You are too much preoccupied with the ends to which the choice would be a means to give any attention to the causes of which your choice may be an effect. But that is no reason for thinking that if you did preoccupy yourself with these causes you would not find them at work. You may remember that Sir Francis Galton was so much impressed with this possibility that for some time he kept account in a notebook of the occasions on which he made important choices with a full measure of this feeling of freedom; then shortly after each choice he turned his eye backward in search of constraints that might have been acting on him stealthily. He found it so easy to bring such constraining factors to light that he surrendered to the determinist view (p21).
iii) Psychologically
speaking, deliberation, in which we contemplate alternate possibilities, is the
same whether we’re contemplating the past or the future. For instance, many of
us, when we reach a certain age, look back over our lives and consider what
we’d do differently if we knew then what we know now. If I had it to do all
over again, what would I do that I didn’t do, and what would I not do that I
did?
The “sense” of alternate
possibilities, the experience of mentally comparing different courses of
action, is the same when we contemplate our past as when we contemplate our
future. But, of course, the past is accidentally necessary. The past is
unalterable. Over and done with.
So even though past and
future are psychologically symmetrical in that respect, they are metaphysically
asymmetrical. Time’s arrow only moves in one direction. Therefore, the argument
from experience proves too much. The same logic would prove the possibility of
time travel whenever we regret something we did or failed to do.
A Brief History of the Sacrament of Penance
Jason Stellman made the claim “There’s a rich case that has been made from Scripture and the early fathers about the sacrament of reconciliation, in case you’re interested”.
As a cradle Catholic, I knew it as “confession”. Only later did it become “reconciliation”. Of course, whatever it was, the Council of Trent was quite adamant about it:
[Council of Trent, 1551].
For a variety of reasons, I’ve decided to follow up with that. Bavinck noted that “It was the Roman Catholic penitential system that prompted Luther’s reformational activity” (Vol 3, pg 517).
Alister McGrath gives something of a brief history of the sacrament:
McGrath also notes that Peter Lombard’s inclusion of penance among the seven sacraments was “an inclusion which is of major significance to the development of the doctrine of justification within the sphere of the western church” (120-121). He also says, “It may be noted, however, that there was no general agreement upon the necessity of sacerdotal confession: in the twelfth century, for example, the [Peter] Abelardian school rejected its necessity, while the Victorine school insisted upon it (121). It was not until the Fourth Lateran Council (1215) that “penance” officially became a “sacrament”. That council “laid an obligation upon believers to confess their sins to their priest annually” (122).
Not coincidentally, Thomas Doyle traces the advent of priestly sexual abuse to the practice of private confession around this time:
The first work mentioning anything resembling a “second plank” (which is what “the sacrament of reconciliation” was originally called) is Tertullians work “De paenitentia, or on repentence”. Tertullian.org gives this summary of the work:
Here is Tertullian’s practice in his own words.
This of course, was quite a public ceremony.
In the “rich tradition of the early church”, [instituted by Christ], a third-century Christian has the opportunity to go through this process precisely once, after which he is “cemented to contumacy”.
This no doubt is the “undeveloped” third-century view of the Catholic sacrament, instituted by Christ, “the manner of confessing secretly to a priest alone”, “as the Catholic Church has always understood them from the beginning”, according to Trent.
So what this shows is that maybe Tertullian actually “misunderstood” what Christ actually meant when he instituted that sacrament?
Now, let me ask, if Christ instituted this “sacrament”, what makes Trent think that the “developments” since this important early third-century “interpretation” are better than what Tertullian practiced? Isn’t this what Christ told the Apostles to practice? Or did Tertullian somehow get this wrong, only to have the later church get it right again? To have re-found the “original” apostolic practice?
McGrath follows up on this:
These are the ones who, upon further “reflection” on the practice that “Christ instituted”, softened the experience for our tender 21st century sensibilities, who think “penance” actually consists of saying three Hail Mary’s.
So it really seems that the ninth century church, thus having the authority to “develop” doctrines, developed it in such a way that removed some of the severity from the third-century doctrine (articulated by Tertullian presumably as it was “instituted by Christ” directly to the Apostles).
Or is there some step in “the Tradition” that maybe we don’t know about at this point, where Christ really did advocate the private confessional, and Tertullian somehow made the mistake of thinking it was that “one-time plank”, complete with “sackcloth and ashes”, after which time (“it is impossible to be brought to repentance”, Hebrews 6:6)?
As a cradle Catholic, I knew it as “confession”. Only later did it become “reconciliation”. Of course, whatever it was, the Council of Trent was quite adamant about it:
Canon 1. If anyone says that in the Catholic Church penance is not truly and properly a sacrament instituted by Christ the Lord for reconciling the faithful of God as often as they fall into sin after baptism, let him be anathema.
Canon 3. If anyone says that those words of the Lord Savior, “Receive ye the Holy Spirit, whose sins you shall forgive, they are forgiven, and whose sins you shall retain, they are retained” are not to be understood of the power of forgiving and retaining sins in the sacrament of penance, as the Catholic Church has always understood them from the beginning, but distorts them, contrary to the institution of this sacrament, as applying to the authority of preaching the gospel, let him be anathema.
Canon 6. If anyone denies that sacramental confession was instituted by divine law or is necessary to salvation; or says that the manner of confessing secretly to a priest alone, which the Catholic Church has always observe from the beginning and still observes, is at variance with the institution and command of Christ and is a human contrivance, let him be anathema.
[Council of Trent, 1551].
For a variety of reasons, I’ve decided to follow up with that. Bavinck noted that “It was the Roman Catholic penitential system that prompted Luther’s reformational activity” (Vol 3, pg 517).
Alister McGrath gives something of a brief history of the sacrament:
“The systematic development of sacramental theology is a major feature of the medieval period, particularly between the years 1050 and 1240” (Cited in Alister McGrath,Iustitia Dei, A History of the Christian Doctrine of Justification, Third Edition, Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, ©2005), pg. 117.
McGrath also notes that Peter Lombard’s inclusion of penance among the seven sacraments was “an inclusion which is of major significance to the development of the doctrine of justification within the sphere of the western church” (120-121). He also says, “It may be noted, however, that there was no general agreement upon the necessity of sacerdotal confession: in the twelfth century, for example, the [Peter] Abelardian school rejected its necessity, while the Victorine school insisted upon it (121). It was not until the Fourth Lateran Council (1215) that “penance” officially became a “sacrament”. That council “laid an obligation upon believers to confess their sins to their priest annually” (122).
Not coincidentally, Thomas Doyle traces the advent of priestly sexual abuse to the practice of private confession around this time:
With the advent of the private confession of sins came the abuse known as solicitation for sex in the act of sacramental confession. Unscrupulous priests began to use the intimacy of confession as an opportunity to seduce the penitent into some form of sexual contact. This abuse is particularly heinous because it takes advantage of a person when he or she is most vulnerable and susceptible to the abuse of priestly power. It is not known when the very first reports of solicitation became known, but by the 16th century the Church had begun to pass legislation to control and eradicate this vile form of abuse.
The first work mentioning anything resembling a “second plank” (which is what “the sacrament of reconciliation” was originally called) is Tertullians work “De paenitentia, or on repentence”. Tertullian.org gives this summary of the work:
A short work in 12 chapters discussing whether forgiveness for major public sins is available after conversion, and outlines the position generally held at that time - once only, with public repentance. (De pudicitia 3 tells us the penitent can still be saved; but cannot be received in the church).
Here is Tertullian’s practice in his own words.
The narrower, then, the sphere of action of this second and only (remaining) repentance, the more laborious is its probation; in order that it may not be exhibited in the conscience alone, but may likewise be carried out in some (external) act. This act, which is more usually expressed and commonly spoken of under a Greek name, is exomologesis whereby we confess our sins to the Lord, not indeed as if He were ignorant of them, but inasmuch as by confession satisfaction is settled, of confession repentance is born; by repentance God is appeased. And thus exomologesis is a discipline for man's prostration and humiliation, enjoining a demeanor calculated to move mercy. With regard also to the very dress and food, it commands (the penitent) to lie in sackcloth and ashes, to cover his body in mourning, to lay his spirit low in sorrows, to exchange for severe treatment the sins which he has committed; moreover, to know no food and drink but such as is plain,----not for the stomach's sake, to wit, but the soul's; for the most part, however, to feed prayers on fastings, to groan, to weep and make outcries unto the Lord your God; to bow before the feet of the presbyters, and kneel to God's dear ones; to enjoin on all the brethren to be ambassadors to bear his deprecatory supplication (before God). All this exomologesis (does), that it may enhance repentance; may honour God by its fear of the (incurred) danger; may, by itself pronouncing against the sinner, stand in the stead of God's indignation, and by temporal mortification (I will not say frustrate, but) expunge eternal punishments. Therefore, while it abases the man, it raises him; while it covers him with squalor, it renders him more clean; while it accuses, it excuses; while it condemns, it absolves. The less quarter you give yourself, the more (believe me) will God give you.
This of course, was quite a public ceremony.
In the “rich tradition of the early church”, [instituted by Christ], a third-century Christian has the opportunity to go through this process precisely once, after which he is “cemented to contumacy”.
This no doubt is the “undeveloped” third-century view of the Catholic sacrament, instituted by Christ, “the manner of confessing secretly to a priest alone”, “as the Catholic Church has always understood them from the beginning”, according to Trent.
So what this shows is that maybe Tertullian actually “misunderstood” what Christ actually meant when he instituted that sacrament?
Now, let me ask, if Christ instituted this “sacrament”, what makes Trent think that the “developments” since this important early third-century “interpretation” are better than what Tertullian practiced? Isn’t this what Christ told the Apostles to practice? Or did Tertullian somehow get this wrong, only to have the later church get it right again? To have re-found the “original” apostolic practice?
McGrath follows up on this:
The ninth century, however, saw the Anglo-Irish system of private penance become widespread in Europe of private penance become widespread in Europe, with important modifications to the theology of penance following in its wake.
These are the ones who, upon further “reflection” on the practice that “Christ instituted”, softened the experience for our tender 21st century sensibilities, who think “penance” actually consists of saying three Hail Mary’s.
Although earlier writers considered that penance could be undertaken only once in a lifetime, as a ‘second plank after a shipwreck’ (tabula secunda post naufragiam -- see Jerome Epistola 130) this opinion was gradually abandoned, rather than refuted, as much for social as for pastoral reasons. Thus the eighth-century bishop Chrodegang of Metz recommended regular confession to a superior at least once a year, while Paulinus of Aquileia advocated confession and penance before each mass. Gregory the Great’s classification of mortal sins [sixth century] became incorporated into the penitential system of the church during the ninth century, so that private penance in the presence of a priest became generally accepted. Penitential books began to make their appearance throughout Europe, similar in many respects to those which can be traced back to sixth-century Wales.
The spread of the practice in the Carolingian [French] church appears to have been due to the formidable influence of Alcuin, who has greater claim than any to be considered the founder of the Carolingian renaissance [ninth century]. It is therefore of considerable significance that Alcuin specifically links penance with justification….
A further development of this idea may be found in the works of Rabanus Maurus, who became the leading proponent of private confession in the Frankish church after Alcuin; justification here is linked, not merely with the act of penance, but specifically with sacerdotal confession. The relationship between justification, baptism and penance was defined with particular clarity in the ninth century by Haimo of Auxerre:
Our redemption, by which we are redeemed, and through which we are justified, is the passion of Christ, which, joined with baptism, justifies humanity through faith, and subsequently through penance. These two are joined together in such a way that it is not possible for humanity to be justified by one without the other.
McGrath, pgs. 117-118.
So it really seems that the ninth century church, thus having the authority to “develop” doctrines, developed it in such a way that removed some of the severity from the third-century doctrine (articulated by Tertullian presumably as it was “instituted by Christ” directly to the Apostles).
Or is there some step in “the Tradition” that maybe we don’t know about at this point, where Christ really did advocate the private confessional, and Tertullian somehow made the mistake of thinking it was that “one-time plank”, complete with “sackcloth and ashes”, after which time (“it is impossible to be brought to repentance”, Hebrews 6:6)?
Thursday, October 04, 2012
Revive us again
I’m going to piggyback on
this post:
I’m not qualified to comment
on Keller’s ministry. I don’t keep up with his ministry. About the only thing I’ve
read of his is The Reason for God. I don’t listen to his sermons or interviews.
However, Matthew draws
attention to some larger issues, and I’d like to expand on that:
1) There have been some
towering Reformed missionaries and evangelists (e.g. William Carey, George
Whitefield). More recently, Presbyterian missionaries have had a tremendous
impact in S. Korea, and–by extension–Korean-Americans.
2) However, there’s a strain
of Calvinists who are hostile to evangelism and revivalism. Historic examples
are the Old Light/New Light and Old Side/New Side controversies. More recently,
D. G. Hart is the reincarnation of Charles Chauncy–nemesis of Jonathan Edwards.
In the same vein, Martyn
Lloyd-Jones makes the following observation:
I would say that this change of outlook on the part of Calvinists came in the U.S.A., somewhere between Archibald Alexander and Charles Hodge. Charles Hodge, as you know, was the successor of Archibald Alexander in the theological seminary at Princeton. Now Archibald Alexander had had experience of revival in his early days. Charles Hodge knew something about it, but not to the same extent as Alexander, who was an older man and who belonged partly to the previous century.
“Revival: An Historical and
Theological Survey,” The Puritans (Banner of Truth 1987), 8.
As the heir to Welsh Calvinist
Methodism (e.g. Daniel Rowland, Howell Harris, William Williams, Christmas
Evans), Lloyd-Jones avidly supported revival.
I’m also reminded of an essay
Robert Lewis Dabney wrote critiquing Dwight Moody (“Lay-Preaching”). Now, Moody
was no match for Dabney’s theological acumen. The problem, though, is that at
the time of writing there was no Reformed counterparty to Moody.
It’s not enough to criticize
the efforts of others. If their efforts are seriously deficient, we need to
lead by example. Do it better. Provide a constructive alternative.
3) Apropos (2), in some
Reformed circles there appears to a knee-jerk hostility towards The Gospel Coalition
and megachurch Reformed pastors. It seems as if they regard success as an
infallible sign of compromise. This fosters a defeatist attitude, where we
should always lower our expectations. Proudly content ourselves to be small,
ingrown, and irrelevant.
We need to avoid the
temptation of becoming cranky reactionaries who sit in the cheap seats, jeering and
hurling rotten tomatoes at those who are in the trenches, doing the hard work.
The Roman Catholic Bait-and-Switch on Justification
Over at Green Baggins, Jason Stellman is making the argument that, “under the New Covenant” (Galatians 3), “disobedience brings death”, and that Protestants and Roman Catholics “believe in exactly the same phenomenon but call it different things”:
The problem here is that because of our different paradigms, we both believe in exactly the same phenomenon but call it different things.
You believe that if a baptized person who professes to be a Christian lives a life characterized by disobedience and sin, that he, despite his profession, will most likely be condemned on the last Day.
So do I.
Cultural Blindfire
Rachel Miller has made a post critiquing Keller's discussion of homosexuality during the 2008 Veritas Forum at Columbia University:
http://adaughterofthereformation.wordpress.com/2012/09/26/tim-keller-sin-hell-and-homosexuality/
I'm going to use this as an opportunity to write about both the specific critique and some broader issues related to Reformed bloggers analyzing the evangelistic efforts of other ministers.
The Question Beneath the Question
Miller writes:
Whether this is incorrect depends on what Keller means in this context.
Recall the question Keller is addressing. David Eisenbach wants to know if being gay by itself sends someone to hell. His question is predicated on certain secular, liberal assumptions about identity and practice, assumptions I have yet to see any critic of Keller appreciate. If Eisenbach is an informed liberal, and I have every reason to believe this is the case, he likely believes that the oppression of homosexuals by Christianity is due to their belief in their own superiority as the saved over against damned gay people. This is the assumption that Keller has to untangle in answering the question. If he just answers the question as it is stated, he falls into the trap (whether set intentionally or not) of being tarred as another oppressor.
This is one of the problems with addressing the elite university system. Words and beliefs are often perceived as power plays. If you answer "with Biblical truth" in the manner some are recommending, you will not be heard for saying anything other than "here are the reasons I will continue to oppress others," even if it is clearly false. So you need to think of creative ways to defeat this linguistic challenge to show the audience that true freedom is available.
In many ways, the university is right. Without Christ, claims of objectivity and inner/outer social demarcation based on set standards of behavior very often reduce to oppressive power claims. In fact, this is one of the major failings of the modernist project and the impetus for so much of the diversity fillings we see across American society.
That is why, if I were answering the question, I would be more explicit that Christianity can provide objective truth about sin without being oppressive. However, I've written about this elsewhere in my critiques of the Emergent Church, so I won't get into this here.
I understand that such defenses of Keller usual elicit some sort of joke about Bill Clinton's prevarications under oath--as if the negative association with a dishonest politician of an opposing party is useful or edifying. Yet it is entirely appropriate to ask how someone is using terms and methods in a cultural context that is alien to your own. Many people who critique Keller come from rural or suburban South. Having been raised and educated in the urban North and having spent several years in the South for seminary, the cultural differences are real--people simply do not speak the same way, and this leads to all sorts of misinterpretations and clashes.
Many conservatives rightly characterize and critique the university as an ivory tower. They need to be consistent in this application and realize that it is an unique and isolated cultural phenomenon. This means that it requires a good deal of time--even immersion--in that culture to understand it. Critics need to stop treating evangelism in these contexts as modernist affairs, where the truth is obvious and you just preach it--as if it were that simple!
Maybe Reading Comprehension Would Help?
Commenting on Keller's view of hell:
Her statements are born either out of an inability to read and comprehend Keller's position or a kind of malicious bias set on casting Keller as a liberal heretic out to ruin the purity of the Church.
If that seems harsh, it is. Watch bloggers hold themselves and others to high standards. If they fail those standards, so much the worse for them. I think here not only of Rachel Miller but of Wes White's comments on this subject (linked by Miller in the original critique), which have been irresponsible at best and poisonous at worst, all the while lowering the discourse of the Reformed world to that of petulant children. If the watch bloggers see fit to call others to repentance, so too should they be prepared to receive the same call in return.
As for the Westminster Standards, Miller is going to need to do a more serious job of explaining just how these contradict Keller's position. It is not merely enough to place them side-by-side, since there is no prima facie case to be made that they are in contradiction.
Continuing:
Keller's position is not without Biblical precedent either. Recall how God describes the specific sin of Israel rejecting the words of Samuel and choosing a king to be like the other nations. There the specific sin of rejecting the prophet's position was tied directly to an overall rejection of God.
Whether it is ultimately Biblical in all the senses Keller sees is another question entirely, one that would require a strong look at Keller's Counterfeit Gods. But either way Miller needs to do the heavy duty exegetical work, both from Scripture and the confession, to demonstrate her position on the matter. Simply quoting the WCF is insufficient, not the least because it's not clear how the WCF directly contradicts Keller's statements on sin.
A Central Moral Issue of Our Day
Miller also links to Robert Gagnon's critique of Keller's comments. Gagnon's critique is useful in some respects, unhelpful in others. Like many experts, I think because of his focus on the issue he tends toward a myopic approach, even if he offers useful statements on the subject from time to time. Rather than address the whole of it, I'm going to focus on a larger issue:
An obvious question is to ask what Scripture considers the central issue. But even this is incomplete and subject to simplistic, self-serving answers. The question is complicated since the central issues of Scripture, as applied to its social milieu through the prophets and apostles, do not necessarily map onto our social issues. This is the standard question of application, but I don't think has been addressed enough in our context and is what likely drives visceral reactions to ministers who say anything that even seems out of line on this subject.
I don't think our extended critiques of homosexuality are useful as a theological, apologetic or political emphasis. (The emphasis is on the word emphasis. Since people tend to misread such statements as saying we should never speak of homosexuality, or even that it is compatible with Christian life, even though that's an impossible reading of my words, I'll just state that it is appropriate, right and good to discuss it in some or even many contexts.) Such critiques only attack the surface manifestations of a deeper problem. When we are left writing about gay marriage, the battle has already been lost. The metaphysical premises that fuel a defense of homosexuality are taught at the university and perpetuated by the entertainment industry and news media. Until Christians can regain a voice at the university and teach a generation or two of students who understand, hold and apply a Christian perspective to public life, we will never "win" the culture wars on this front.
The modern ethos is one which begins without a creator. Without a creator there is no design. Without design, there are no demands on a person's life. Without demands, we are free to create our own identity and fulfillment. What is true is what works for the community. What works for the community is whatever affirms back onto it its self-identity.
This is especially true for urban New York. How you go about effectively addressing homosexuality in this context is not entirely clear, since most attempts to speak about homosexuality will be interpreted as denying someone's very fulfillment and identity and have you silenced before you can even speak about the beauty of Christ. For Keller to relate sin to selfishness is actually a radically precise strike at the very ethos of our pluralistic pragmatism, one that is understandable to a society steeped in the rituals of self-fulfillment and lays the foundation necessary to address homosexuality in a meaningful fashion.
This wouldn't work in the conservative South since the cultural ideals are different, and I think this is where a lot of the unwarranted alarm arises.
To address another issue raised in this context, this is also why discussions of greed have more traction and Keller can speak more easily to them, since greedy behavior has a much more tangible effect on others and a Northern audience will see greed in terms of how it destroys others' access to a self-fulfilled life.
I don't buy the sharp delineation between private behavior and public practice--the kind that asserts it does not matter at all what two consenting adults do in private, since that is demonstrably false--but I do think it has less an effect on society than either the practice of soul-withering materialism or the underlying teaching of self-fulfillment that occasionally finds its expression in homosexual practice. Materialism--especially the American kind where we do so little to help others, give very little (just look at the PCA tithing rates), and would rather spend our evenings with our televisions and computer games than other people--is a pernicious evil that involves the exploitation of the poor. These poor include not only many Christians in the inner cities, but also the poor around the world, often oppressed so we can enjoy cheap clothing and electronics.
Contrast this with homosexual practice, which occurs in perhaps 1-3% of the population. Even if we ignored the overwhelming Biblical emphasis on money and material possessions, as a moral issue materialism affects far more Christians than homosexuality does, whether we speak of Christian practice alone or include the liberal agenda to normalize homosexuality. And New York City, probably more than anywhere in the United States, struggles enormously with materialism.
Proclaiming and Applying Christ in Context: Nathan and David
Miller writes:
Indeed, there's a large difference between carefully thinking of ways to best present the application of Biblical narrative to an hostile, self-satisfied audience and merely watering it down so it is more palatable. Consider Nigel Biggar on a similar issue:
http://adaughterofthereformation.wordpress.com/2012/09/26/tim-keller-sin-hell-and-homosexuality/
I'm going to use this as an opportunity to write about both the specific critique and some broader issues related to Reformed bloggers analyzing the evangelistic efforts of other ministers.
The Question Beneath the Question
Miller writes:
For me, while Dr. Keller’s remarks on homosexuality are disappointing, it is his redefinition of sin and hell that I find much more troubling. Dr. Keller states that sin doesn’t send a person to hell, but rather self-righteousness does and that sin is just what is bad for “human flourishing.”
Whether this is incorrect depends on what Keller means in this context.
Recall the question Keller is addressing. David Eisenbach wants to know if being gay by itself sends someone to hell. His question is predicated on certain secular, liberal assumptions about identity and practice, assumptions I have yet to see any critic of Keller appreciate. If Eisenbach is an informed liberal, and I have every reason to believe this is the case, he likely believes that the oppression of homosexuals by Christianity is due to their belief in their own superiority as the saved over against damned gay people. This is the assumption that Keller has to untangle in answering the question. If he just answers the question as it is stated, he falls into the trap (whether set intentionally or not) of being tarred as another oppressor.
This is one of the problems with addressing the elite university system. Words and beliefs are often perceived as power plays. If you answer "with Biblical truth" in the manner some are recommending, you will not be heard for saying anything other than "here are the reasons I will continue to oppress others," even if it is clearly false. So you need to think of creative ways to defeat this linguistic challenge to show the audience that true freedom is available.
In many ways, the university is right. Without Christ, claims of objectivity and inner/outer social demarcation based on set standards of behavior very often reduce to oppressive power claims. In fact, this is one of the major failings of the modernist project and the impetus for so much of the diversity fillings we see across American society.
That is why, if I were answering the question, I would be more explicit that Christianity can provide objective truth about sin without being oppressive. However, I've written about this elsewhere in my critiques of the Emergent Church, so I won't get into this here.
I understand that such defenses of Keller usual elicit some sort of joke about Bill Clinton's prevarications under oath--as if the negative association with a dishonest politician of an opposing party is useful or edifying. Yet it is entirely appropriate to ask how someone is using terms and methods in a cultural context that is alien to your own. Many people who critique Keller come from rural or suburban South. Having been raised and educated in the urban North and having spent several years in the South for seminary, the cultural differences are real--people simply do not speak the same way, and this leads to all sorts of misinterpretations and clashes.
Many conservatives rightly characterize and critique the university as an ivory tower. They need to be consistent in this application and realize that it is an unique and isolated cultural phenomenon. This means that it requires a good deal of time--even immersion--in that culture to understand it. Critics need to stop treating evangelism in these contexts as modernist affairs, where the truth is obvious and you just preach it--as if it were that simple!
Maybe Reading Comprehension Would Help?
Commenting on Keller's view of hell:
This annihilistic view of hell does not seem to fit with the picture of torment that the Scriptures teach and that the Westminster Standards describeThe use of "annihilistic" in this context, and the emphasis given later to eternal torments in the WCF as it to suggest Keller does not believe this, is either misinformed or approaching slanderous. Keller has often discussed the eternal suffering of hell. For example, he has an article where he states that it constitutes eternal suffering worse than the most painful physical sufferings on earth. He has made similar statements in public as well. I have not seen any indication in his writings that he believes the suffering will end in annihilation or some such thing, or even that it will diminish at all. In fact, the material I've read seems to suggest it continues to get worse over time as a person removes himself from more and more of the relational aspects so necessary to human flourishing (or, to put it in language the watch bloggers will understanding: "righteous and holy living"). This can be seen even from the material Miller quotes to criticize Keller, where sin is an addiction that creates increasing amounts of disorder and suffering.
Her statements are born either out of an inability to read and comprehend Keller's position or a kind of malicious bias set on casting Keller as a liberal heretic out to ruin the purity of the Church.
If that seems harsh, it is. Watch bloggers hold themselves and others to high standards. If they fail those standards, so much the worse for them. I think here not only of Rachel Miller but of Wes White's comments on this subject (linked by Miller in the original critique), which have been irresponsible at best and poisonous at worst, all the while lowering the discourse of the Reformed world to that of petulant children. If the watch bloggers see fit to call others to repentance, so too should they be prepared to receive the same call in return.
Continuing:
Dr. Keller also gives his definition of sin in The Reason for God:
Sin is the despairing refusal to find your deepest identity in your relationship and service to God. Sin is seeking to become oneself, to get an identity, apart from him. …
So, according to the Bible, the primary way to define sin is not just the doing of bad things, but the making of good things into ultimate things (162, emphasis original).
This redefinition of sin also seems different from the Biblical descriptions of sin. The Westminster Standards define sin as:Unfortunately, I think the use of the words primary and just deflate this attempt to paint Keller as redefining Biblical terms, at least as Miller seems to be using the term.
Keller's position is not without Biblical precedent either. Recall how God describes the specific sin of Israel rejecting the words of Samuel and choosing a king to be like the other nations. There the specific sin of rejecting the prophet's position was tied directly to an overall rejection of God.
Whether it is ultimately Biblical in all the senses Keller sees is another question entirely, one that would require a strong look at Keller's Counterfeit Gods. But either way Miller needs to do the heavy duty exegetical work, both from Scripture and the confession, to demonstrate her position on the matter. Simply quoting the WCF is insufficient, not the least because it's not clear how the WCF directly contradicts Keller's statements on sin.
A Central Moral Issue of Our Day
Miller also links to Robert Gagnon's critique of Keller's comments. Gagnon's critique is useful in some respects, unhelpful in others. Like many experts, I think because of his focus on the issue he tends toward a myopic approach, even if he offers useful statements on the subject from time to time. Rather than address the whole of it, I'm going to focus on a larger issue:
For a pastor who has no trouble talking about greed and social justice issues, Rev. Keller’s refusal to discuss a Christian position on “gay rights and gay marriage,” one of the central moral issues of our day, is both striking and disturbing.Whether it is one of the central moral issues of our day is questionable. What I mean by this is of course it is a serious moral issue. There is also a very real sense in which it is central, although this centrality is as much due to the issue being a politicized power struggle than anything else. Rather, I question whether it should have a place as a central issue given all the many serious problems that currently attend the church.
An obvious question is to ask what Scripture considers the central issue. But even this is incomplete and subject to simplistic, self-serving answers. The question is complicated since the central issues of Scripture, as applied to its social milieu through the prophets and apostles, do not necessarily map onto our social issues. This is the standard question of application, but I don't think has been addressed enough in our context and is what likely drives visceral reactions to ministers who say anything that even seems out of line on this subject.
I don't think our extended critiques of homosexuality are useful as a theological, apologetic or political emphasis. (The emphasis is on the word emphasis. Since people tend to misread such statements as saying we should never speak of homosexuality, or even that it is compatible with Christian life, even though that's an impossible reading of my words, I'll just state that it is appropriate, right and good to discuss it in some or even many contexts.) Such critiques only attack the surface manifestations of a deeper problem. When we are left writing about gay marriage, the battle has already been lost. The metaphysical premises that fuel a defense of homosexuality are taught at the university and perpetuated by the entertainment industry and news media. Until Christians can regain a voice at the university and teach a generation or two of students who understand, hold and apply a Christian perspective to public life, we will never "win" the culture wars on this front.
The modern ethos is one which begins without a creator. Without a creator there is no design. Without design, there are no demands on a person's life. Without demands, we are free to create our own identity and fulfillment. What is true is what works for the community. What works for the community is whatever affirms back onto it its self-identity.
This is especially true for urban New York. How you go about effectively addressing homosexuality in this context is not entirely clear, since most attempts to speak about homosexuality will be interpreted as denying someone's very fulfillment and identity and have you silenced before you can even speak about the beauty of Christ. For Keller to relate sin to selfishness is actually a radically precise strike at the very ethos of our pluralistic pragmatism, one that is understandable to a society steeped in the rituals of self-fulfillment and lays the foundation necessary to address homosexuality in a meaningful fashion.
This wouldn't work in the conservative South since the cultural ideals are different, and I think this is where a lot of the unwarranted alarm arises.
To address another issue raised in this context, this is also why discussions of greed have more traction and Keller can speak more easily to them, since greedy behavior has a much more tangible effect on others and a Northern audience will see greed in terms of how it destroys others' access to a self-fulfilled life.
I don't buy the sharp delineation between private behavior and public practice--the kind that asserts it does not matter at all what two consenting adults do in private, since that is demonstrably false--but I do think it has less an effect on society than either the practice of soul-withering materialism or the underlying teaching of self-fulfillment that occasionally finds its expression in homosexual practice. Materialism--especially the American kind where we do so little to help others, give very little (just look at the PCA tithing rates), and would rather spend our evenings with our televisions and computer games than other people--is a pernicious evil that involves the exploitation of the poor. These poor include not only many Christians in the inner cities, but also the poor around the world, often oppressed so we can enjoy cheap clothing and electronics.
Contrast this with homosexual practice, which occurs in perhaps 1-3% of the population. Even if we ignored the overwhelming Biblical emphasis on money and material possessions, as a moral issue materialism affects far more Christians than homosexuality does, whether we speak of Christian practice alone or include the liberal agenda to normalize homosexuality. And New York City, probably more than anywhere in the United States, struggles enormously with materialism.
Proclaiming and Applying Christ in Context: Nathan and David
Miller writes:
I understand the desire to explain Biblical concepts in new and fresh ways to gain a hearing with an especially jaded culture. However, we must be careful that our explanations are consistent with Scripture and that we aren’t simply softening the truth to make it easier to accept.This is a common theme among critics of Keller. Somehow there exists an assumption that Keller is softening the material. It is a reflexive assumption, one often unjustified (or "justified" in the manner Miller attempts above). Consider that Keller himself attempts to approach hell in order to scare people into its realities:
If we really want skeptics and non-believers to be properly frightened by hell, we cannot simply repeat over and over that 'hell is a place of fire.' We must go deeper into the realities that the Biblical images represent. When we do so, we will find that even secular people can be affected.That does not seem like someone who is trying to "soften" his message or blunt the realities of hell.
Indeed, there's a large difference between carefully thinking of ways to best present the application of Biblical narrative to an hostile, self-satisfied audience and merely watering it down so it is more palatable. Consider Nigel Biggar on a similar issue:
The question of how best to tell it [the application of the narrative of an historical Jesus to life practice], however -- the question of how to communicate effectively what one believes to be true -- is another, distinct question. The art of successful persuasion might advise Christians against telling the whole truth at once or at first. It might advise against referring to theological premises before they have made efforts to explain what they mean and why those premises matter. It might advise an oblique approach, avoiding the use of theological cliches that incline listeners to yawn rather than startle them into reflection. Such rhetorical tactics need not be a symptom of a lack of nerve. On the contrary, they can be an expression of sensitivity to the otherness of others and of a readiness to place oneself in their shoes, in order to discern how best to walk them into one's own vision of things. Sequence matters: an assertion that makes no sense at the beginning of an argumentative journey can make good sense at the end. Rhetorical canniness need not be a sign of evasion. It can be an expression of love -- both for the neighbor and for the truth that one would have the neighbor see. (Behaving in Public: How to Do Christian Ethics [Eerdmans, 2011], 7)
Much of the breakdown here is that many critics of Keller come from the rural and suburban South while Keller is a product of the North and immersed in the elite academic environment of an urban city. (This relationship is even more the case when we consider his talk at Columbia, where many of its journalists go on to work for organs of liberalism, such as the New York Times, which is required reading for a minister to the Upper East Side). Just because we share the same English language does not mean we share the same manner of speaking about issues nor do we share the same cultural perspectives. All cultural perspectives color our interpretation and application of Scripture to evangelism, often in highly complex ways. In some ways it would be better if the North and the South spoke different languages, so that it could be apparent just how different each culture is from the other.
Once we recognize the large cultural differences, then we can appreciate and apply the fact that Christianity is expressed in different ways to different people in different times, and that this reality is present in the variation expressions of Paul's letters to a wide variety of audiences and his multiple, differing accounts of his personal story in Acts.
This is clear even in narratives that involve members born into and raised within the same covenant community. Consider the way in which Nathan approaches David after his adultery, conspiracy and murder. Nathan is rather creative in dealing with David. He does not merely state the law and tell him to repent. He traps David by his own standards of indignation, which lays the foundation necessary for Nathan to speak of the moral failings. If this was necessary for two members of the covenant community--already deeply familiar with the law and its demands--how much more so for speaking to the sin of those outside of the covenant community?
People often pay lip-service to effective methods of evangelism. Yet when they see them in practice in alien contexts, they assume capitulation rather than asking whether something more sophisticated is going on. If the underlying method cannot be properly identified and its purpose understood within its social context, a critic has no business discussing whether an evangelism opportunity succeeds or not. We hold New Atheists to the same standards when it comes to their asinine objections to Old Testament ethics. It should be no different for uniformed Reformed critics of Reformed ministers.
Once we recognize the large cultural differences, then we can appreciate and apply the fact that Christianity is expressed in different ways to different people in different times, and that this reality is present in the variation expressions of Paul's letters to a wide variety of audiences and his multiple, differing accounts of his personal story in Acts.
This is clear even in narratives that involve members born into and raised within the same covenant community. Consider the way in which Nathan approaches David after his adultery, conspiracy and murder. Nathan is rather creative in dealing with David. He does not merely state the law and tell him to repent. He traps David by his own standards of indignation, which lays the foundation necessary for Nathan to speak of the moral failings. If this was necessary for two members of the covenant community--already deeply familiar with the law and its demands--how much more so for speaking to the sin of those outside of the covenant community?
People often pay lip-service to effective methods of evangelism. Yet when they see them in practice in alien contexts, they assume capitulation rather than asking whether something more sophisticated is going on. If the underlying method cannot be properly identified and its purpose understood within its social context, a critic has no business discussing whether an evangelism opportunity succeeds or not. We hold New Atheists to the same standards when it comes to their asinine objections to Old Testament ethics. It should be no different for uniformed Reformed critics of Reformed ministers.
Wednesday, October 03, 2012
Disinterested love
As William Hasker writes, “All sorts of experiences and relationships acquire a special value because they involve love, trust, and affection that are freely bestowed. The love potions that appear in many fairy stories (and in the Harry Potter series) can become a trap; the one who has used the potion finds that he wants to be loved for his own sake and not because of the position, yet fears the loss of the beloved’s affection if the potion is no longer used,” D. Baggett & J. Walls, Good God: The Theistic Foundations of Morality (Oxford 2011), 242n14.
i) Does
the Arminian God love us for our own sake? In classical Arminianism, election
is conditional rather than unconditional. In that case, God’s love has strings
attached. God’s response is contingent on our foreseen response to him.
By
contrast, unconditional election is a paradigmatic example of disinterested
love. Indeed, God loves us in spite of ourselves.
ii)
Also, while this illustration is very romantic, it’s not very realistic. No
doubt it’s flattering to think a woman simply loves a man for his own sake, but
in many cases, isn’t there a pragmatic consideration?
Take two
versions of Jerry Walls as a bachelor. In both versions, Jerry has the same
appearance and personality. But in one version, Jerry is the heir to a great
fortune. In another version, Jerry works at a 7/11. Which version do you think a
woman is more likely to marry? The version who works a dead-end, low-wage
job–or the independently wealthy version?
The Roman Noumenal Church
Jed Paschall said: This is why the matters of Rome’s practice must come into question – would the “church that Christ founded” really handle the repeated and egregious cases of sexual abuse by it’s clergy perpetrated upon the most vulnerable in the communion in such a ham-fisted and clandestine way? Would the “church that Christ founded” have any justification for utilizing a laundering racket…err, bank, that rivals the most powerful on the planet in terms of it’s balance sheet?
Jeremy Tate said: The Catholic Church does not claim to be free from scandal or sin. CtC has never made such an argument. This is a straw man. Individuals are responsible for their sin and sin does not invalidate a divinely established office.
Actually, the Roman Catholic Church does claim a form of perfection in this sense:
Catholic epologists bifurcate The One True Church® into a phenomenal church and a noumenal church. They conveniently relegate all the bad stuff to the phenomenal church. That’s just a shell. A simulacrum.
No matter how bad the church becomes, that can never impinge on the real church. For the real church is an inner, ethereal, indetectible, unfalsifiable quintessence of one true churchliness.
The real church is a suprahistorical entity which requires no historical evidence commensurate with the scope of its historical claims. The real church is impervious to historical counterevidence. The real church is a timeless, spaceless, airtight ideal.
For instance, the True church is one, holy, catholic, and apostolic. However, under no circumstances should the marks of the True church be confused with concrete, identifiable properties.
It doesn’t matter how much actual disunity you have in the church of Rome. That can never count as evidence against the unity of the church. Rather, any degree of disunity, however, wide and deep, is shunted off to the phenomenal shell of the church. That can never penetrate the essence of what makes the church “one.”
Likewise, it doesn’t matter how unholy the Roman church may be in practice. However corrupt, in time and space, from top to bottom, that only pertains to the outer shell of the church. For the True church remains spotless underneath the accumulated layers of turpitude.
Even though no amount of turpentine will ever be able to peel away the accumulated layers of turpitude to expose the hidden holiness of the church, buried beneath centuries of corruption, the faithful know in their heart of hearts that at the inaccessible core of the church there resides a pristine essence of sanctity.
The True church is indefectible. But not for a minute should that be connected with the actual performance of the church. No matter how error-ridden the Roman church may be in the actual administration of its internal affairs, each and every declension, however large or small, is automatically reassigned to the accidental shell of the church, while the unseen substance of The One True Church® remains intact and inviolate.
The pope is infallible when he speaks ex cathedra. No matter how many mistakes the pope may make in thought, word, and deed, that can never count as evidence against the infallible charism of the pope. Never confound the visible job performance of the pope with his invisible attribute of infallibility.
Roman Catholics like Jeremy have an air-tight excuse for any and every Roman flaw that they refuse to admit to themselves.
Jeremy Tate said: The Catholic Church does not claim to be free from scandal or sin. CtC has never made such an argument. This is a straw man. Individuals are responsible for their sin and sin does not invalidate a divinely established office.
Actually, the Roman Catholic Church does claim a form of perfection in this sense:
Catholic epologists bifurcate The One True Church® into a phenomenal church and a noumenal church. They conveniently relegate all the bad stuff to the phenomenal church. That’s just a shell. A simulacrum.
No matter how bad the church becomes, that can never impinge on the real church. For the real church is an inner, ethereal, indetectible, unfalsifiable quintessence of one true churchliness.
The real church is a suprahistorical entity which requires no historical evidence commensurate with the scope of its historical claims. The real church is impervious to historical counterevidence. The real church is a timeless, spaceless, airtight ideal.
For instance, the True church is one, holy, catholic, and apostolic. However, under no circumstances should the marks of the True church be confused with concrete, identifiable properties.
It doesn’t matter how much actual disunity you have in the church of Rome. That can never count as evidence against the unity of the church. Rather, any degree of disunity, however, wide and deep, is shunted off to the phenomenal shell of the church. That can never penetrate the essence of what makes the church “one.”
Likewise, it doesn’t matter how unholy the Roman church may be in practice. However corrupt, in time and space, from top to bottom, that only pertains to the outer shell of the church. For the True church remains spotless underneath the accumulated layers of turpitude.
Even though no amount of turpentine will ever be able to peel away the accumulated layers of turpitude to expose the hidden holiness of the church, buried beneath centuries of corruption, the faithful know in their heart of hearts that at the inaccessible core of the church there resides a pristine essence of sanctity.
The True church is indefectible. But not for a minute should that be connected with the actual performance of the church. No matter how error-ridden the Roman church may be in the actual administration of its internal affairs, each and every declension, however large or small, is automatically reassigned to the accidental shell of the church, while the unseen substance of The One True Church® remains intact and inviolate.
The pope is infallible when he speaks ex cathedra. No matter how many mistakes the pope may make in thought, word, and deed, that can never count as evidence against the infallible charism of the pope. Never confound the visible job performance of the pope with his invisible attribute of infallibility.
Roman Catholics like Jeremy have an air-tight excuse for any and every Roman flaw that they refuse to admit to themselves.
Tuesday, October 02, 2012
The Parables of Savonarola
Earlier I cited a sermon given by Savonarola, a Reformer Before Luther, detailing his view of the state of the church just prior to the Reformation (1495).
Here are some more descriptions of what the Roman church was like during that period, in the form of some parables he gave in that same sermon:
The Parables of Savonarola: #1: The Two Fields
The Parables of Savonarola: #2: The Fig Trees
The Parables of Savonarola: #3: The Mother and the Daughters
From John C. Olin, The Catholic Reformation: Savonarola to Ignatius Loyola, New York, NY: Fordham University Press ©1969, 1992, pgs 7-9.
Here are some more descriptions of what the Roman church was like during that period, in the form of some parables he gave in that same sermon:
The Parables of Savonarola: #1: The Two Fields
Now I shall speak to you of the parables which signify the renovation of the Church.
The first parable is about a citizen who has a farm in which there are two pieces of land, one adjoining the other. One of them is full of stones, thorns and weeds, and of everything else that does not bear fruit. That citizen does not plow or cultivate this field; the other field he plows and cultivates every year, and he tends it with every care because it looks like land good enough to produce fruit. Nevertheless he sees that which looks like good land produces little or no fruit. What do you think that this citizen will do who owns these two fields? Certainly, if he is prudent, he will take all those stones and thorns that are in the first field and throw all of them in that other field, and he will begin to plow and cultivate this other field. The citizen is Christ who became a citizen, that is, a man similar to you who has a rocky and thorny field, that is, a land of infidels full of hardness similar to stones and heresies similar to thorns, and He also has the other field, that is, a land of Christians which He has cultivated until now, but which nevertheless does not bear fruit at all. He will, however, convert the infidels and will sow in that land His law, and this land that He has cultivated so much He will abandon, and it will be left full of heresies.
Therefore, the renovation of the Church will come about, and many who are present here at this sermon will see it.
The Parables of Savonarola: #2: The Fig Trees
The second parable. A fig-tree was planted which in the first year bore many figs without a single leaf, the second year it again bore many figs and a few leaves but very few, the third year it bore as many figs as it did leaves, the fourth year it bore more leaves than figs, the fifth year it bore very few figs and very many leaves, and so it came about that it bore nothing but leaves, so that not only did it not produce fruit, but moreover because of its many leaves it overshadowed other plants so that they could not grow. What do you think the gardener should do with this fig-tree? Certainly he will cut it down and throw it into the fire. This fig-tree is the tree of the Church, which though in the beginning it bore and abundance of fruit and no leaves, nevertheless it is at the point today where it bears no fruit at all, but only leaves, that is, ceremonies and shows and superfluities whereby it overshadows the other plants of the earth—which means that the prelates of the Church because of their bad example are responsible for other men falling into very many sins. The gardener will come, that is, Christ, and will cut down this fig-tree which is fruitless. Therefore the Church will renew itself.
The Parables of Savonarola: #3: The Mother and the Daughters
The third parable. There was a king who had an only son. He came upon a poor, ragged woman, spattered with mud. Moved to compassion he took her and brought her into his house, and made her his lawful bride, and had two daughters by her whom he gave in marriage to his only begotten son. This king’s wife, having lived thus for some time, began falling in love and creating a great deal of trouble with commoners and servants. The king came to know of it, and he took her and cast her out, returning her to poverty and to mud, as she had been at first. Afterwards, one of her daughters began to sin in ways similar to her mother’s and even worse, whereby the angry king sent her away, and drove her from himself and from his son, and ordered that no bread be given to her. The other daughter, not admonished by the sin and the punishment of her mother and her sister, began to sin in a like manner and was even worse than her mother and her sister had been. Tell me, what does this one deserve? Certainly, she deserves much more punishment than the mother and the sister.
I would like now to expound this parable. This king is God, who took that poor woman for His bride, that is, the synagogue of the Jews for His Church, which sinned; and you know how God drove her away from Him and sent her back into the mud where she first had been, that is, He placed her in servitude and misery and her original blindness. Two daughters are the Church of the East, of the Greeks, and the Roman Church, given as brides by God to His only begotten son Christ Jesus crucified, in which we must serve. The Church of the East sinned because of its heresies, and God ordered that she be banished from Him and from His Son Christ Jesus, and commanded that no bread be given her, that no preachers go there anymore, that none give her spiritual food or enlighten her. The other Church is the Roman one, full of simony and evils, which has sinned more than the first or the second. What do you think that she deserves? Do you not think that God wants to punish her? Of course you think so, and even more harshly than the mother and the sister, for they might justly complain to God saying: “If we have sinned, you have made us penitent, but this other one who has sinned more than we; why do you not punish her?” However, believe that the Church will soon be renewed.
From John C. Olin, The Catholic Reformation: Savonarola to Ignatius Loyola, New York, NY: Fordham University Press ©1969, 1992, pgs 7-9.
Monday, October 01, 2012
The Arminian funhouse
In their
recent book Good God: The Theistic Foundations of Morality (Oxford 2011), David
Baggett and Jerry Walls have a chapter attacking Calvinism on allegedly
philosophical grounds. Jerry Walls may well be the leading Arminian philosopher
of his generation. So this chapter presumably represents the best philosophical
case against Calvinism from an Arminian perspective.
Some critics here might wish to suggest that Arminians face an equally big problem because God chose to instantiate this among other possible worlds, a wold in which some would freely reject him, and God knew in another possible world they would have accepted him. To begin with, though, such a challenge requires something closer to middle knowledge rather than mere foreknowledge–as does the common challenge to Arminians of why God would create someone he knows will reject him and go to hell. Even supposing such an ambitious modal picture is accurate… (244n27).
i) It
wouldn’t require middle knowledge. Rather, it would require counterfactual
knowledge. Even Craig distinguishes between middle knowledge and counterfactual
knowledge. Middle knowledge is just a particular theory of counterfactual
knowledge.
ii) It’s
true that this isn’t equivalent to foreknowledge inasmuch as foreknowledge concerns
the actual future, not a possible future. What will be, not what might have
been.
iii)
It’s unclear why the authors think this picture is “ambitious.” They themselves
define libertarian freedom as the freedom to do otherwise. And the only way to
cash that out is by recourse to alternate possible worlds or world segments. So
their model of libertarian freedom commits them to this “ambitious modal
picture.”
iv) So
it’s not clear what they are questioning. Are they questioning the existence of
possible worlds, or God’s knowledge thereof? Even open theists believe God
knows hypothetical scenarios.
…it presumably involves people’s genuinely free choices and their consequences. Just because God foreknows the content of our decisions doesn’t mean he’s responsible for determining that content, nor does it preclude the ability to do otherwise…God happened to know how they’d respond, but that isn’t his determining anything (244n27).
But
that’s a red herring. Those who level this charge against Arminianism aren’t
claiming that it’s identical to Calvinism. The immediate question at issue
isn’t whether the Arminian God can justly damn them (granting Arminian
assumptions about the preconditions of moral responsibility), but whether the
Arminian God is loving. Whether he is acting in their best interests. Is he
good to them? That’s the point of the analogy. For the authors repeatedly say
things like:
For God to choose to consign persons to such a fate when he could have just as easily determined them to joy and happiness is even more morally obnoxious than the behavior of the earthly dictator. God’s behavior toward the non-elect, if the Calvinists are right, strikes us as a paradigmatic example of hateful behavior, not loving behavior. Those who share our judgment will agree that this leaves Calvinists saddled with Ockhamism, which alone constitutes a powerful reason to reject Calvinism (74).So what they are suggesting is that we can, in all good conscience and intellectual integrity, characterize God’s unconditional choice of some for eternal misery and reprobation as loving behavior, and this despite the fact that he could have saved them without in any way violating their freedom…this behavior they attribute to God seems about as paradigmatic of unloving behavior as anything imaginable, as we have argued already (78-79).
Yet
that’s the very point at which, by their own grudging admission, Arminianism is
comparable to Calvinism. For if there are other possible worlds where someone
who freely rejects Jesus in this world freely accepts him in another, then the
Arminian God is consigning someone to eternal perdition whom he could just as
easily have saved without violating his libertarian freedom.
As they
themselves have framed the case against Calvinism, Arminianism falls prey to
the very same indictment. No wonder they try to downplay this fatal concession
by relegating it to a footnote.
The
issue of determinism is beside the point at this juncture, for determinism is
only germane to the question of whether God can justly damn the lost. Even if
we grant that contention for the sake of argument, that won’t salvage the
Arminian position when the issue turns to God’s goodness, especially divine
love. By their own lights, the Arminian God is “morally hideous.”
By the way it’s been suggested by some Arminians and Molinists that hell is reserved for those who freely reject Christ in this and all possible worlds, an interesting conjecture that, if true, would entirely dispel doubts about God’s goodness (244n27).
How can
that conjecture be reconciled with the authors’ repeated definition of freedom
as the freedom to do otherwise? If a man has the freedom to do otherwise, then
that means he’s free to either accept Christ or reject Christ. In which case
there’s at least one possible world corresponding to each outcome. A possible
world in which he freely accepts Christ, as well as another possible world in
which he freely rejects Christ. That’s what it means to say he could do
otherwise. That alternative is embedded in a different possible world. An
unexemplified timeline.
By
contrast, to say he rejects Christ in every possible world is to say, by
definition, that his rejection of Christ is necessary. So Arminians and
Molinists who espouse this conjecture are necessitarians about the fate of the
damned. That’s an ironic way to attack predestination! For that’s even more
deterministic than predestination!
Miracles And My Father's Death
I haven't posted for several weeks. In early August, my
father was diagnosed with cancer and was given weeks to live. The diagnosis and
prognosis were startling. The symptoms leading up to his diagnosis didn't
suggest cancer, much less cancer in such an advanced stage. Earlier this year,
I had thought my father could easily live another decade, maybe two decades or
more. He was only in his sixties, and he hadn't even retired yet. He died on
September 19.
When I left in August, I was in the middle of a series of
posts about Craig Keener's recent book on miracles. (For those not familiar
with the series, you can read my introduction to it here.)
I'm continuing with that series, and I've decided to include this post about my
father as part of it. I'm doing so for a few reasons. For one thing, healings
often don't occur when we want them to, and that subject is worth considering
in a discussion of miracles. Secondly, my father's case does involve some
miracles, even though he wasn't healed of his cancer. Third, I still intend to
post an index to this series when I'm finished with it. If this post is
included in that index, then the post should get more readers than it would in
isolation. I love my father. I want his story to get a wider audience.
Shortly after my Dad's death, a cousin (who's significantly
older than me) wrote the following to me in an email about my father:
Sunday, September 30, 2012
The Star Trek head tilt game
http://www.gophoto.it/view.php?i=http://i.imgur.com/mypHG.gif#.UGhtlBir95F
Hours of mindless fun.
HT: Nate
Hours of mindless fun.
HT: Nate
Saturday, September 29, 2012
Divine intervention and evil
One of
the stock objections to Christian theism is the claim that if God existed, he’d
prevent many of the (allegedly) gratuitous evils we see in the world around us.
But other issues to one side,
this speculation raises an intriguing conundrum. Most of us have grown up on
science fiction stories–in books, movies, and TV dramas. One popular SF plot
involves time travel. A catastrophe in the recent past has blighted human
existence. It’s too late to undo the damage, but it’s not too early to undo the
damage. The protagonist travels back in time to a time before the catastrophe,
to prevent it.
However, a paradoxical effect
of his mission is that, if successful, changing the timeline will instantly and
utterly erase the record of the previous timeline. No one will remember the
catastrophe he averted. Even he won’t remember what he did, for the counterpart
who went back in time doesn’t exist in the new timeline that takes the place of
the old timeline. He saves the world, but he gets no credit of his feat.
By analogy, for each
(allegedly) gratuitous evil that God prevents, there will be no historical
record of his intervention (or contravention). So, for all the infidel knows,
God has, in fact, preempted many (allegedly) gratuitous evils. In the nature of
the case, doing so will leave no trace of the preempted evil.
Inerrancy again!
I’m going to comment on this
post:
Bill Vallicella is a
brilliant philosopher, as well as an astute critic of liberal ideologues.
However, whenever he turns to the Bible, his objections are amateurish.
The following is from a reader who wishes to remain anonymous but who wants me "to hear a different perspective on the matter than that of the Calvinists who comment on your blog: I don't want you thinking they are the ones rightly interpreting the Christian texts."
It’s flattering to think
Calvinists have cornered the market on the inerrancy of Scripture, but that’s
not quite fair to some other theological traditions. For instance, confessional
Lutherans (e.g. WELS; LCMS) also affirm the inerrancy of Scripture. So do “fundamentalists.”
It’s true, though, that other
groups like Arminians are not committed to the inerrancy of Scripture.
Friday, September 28, 2012
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)