The hermeneutics of annihilationism

A friend and I were discussing annihilationism recently. I'm going to post my email statements:

In large part, the exegetical case for annihilationism is predicated on a fallacy.

The Bible often depicts eschatological punishment in terms of physical destruction or even total destruction. Why is that?

That's because it's using physical metaphors. Metaphors of physical objects undergoing a physical process. Like burning a city to the ground, or burning corpses on the battlefield. 

Burning is a reductive process. That, however, doesn't mean damnation is a reductive process. Rather, that's an incidental feature of a picturesque metaphor. The choice of metaphor dictates what's consistent with the metaphor. 

But that's an artifact of the chosen metaphor. And you can go very wrong if you overextend a theological metaphor. 

Some depictions of eschatological punishment aren't reductive because that's the inherent nature of the damned or the inherent nature of damnation, but because that's the nature of the metaphor.

It doesn't mean human nature is analogous to a burning building. It doesn't mean human nature is analogous to a physical composite like firewood. That confuses the figurative imagery with what it was meant to illustrate. 

Annihilationists naively draw metaphysical inferences from picture language. 

i) Obviously, a lot of what's driving annihilationism is reaction to the torture chamber model of hell. There's the intuition that never-ending torture is a fate worse than oblivion. And that intuition certainly has some appeal.

Mind you, it's striking how many people will endure years of torture, when they're in a position to kill themselves or provoke their summary execution, in the sometimes vain hope of liberation. The will to live is very strong.

And even those who are liberated after years of torture live with nightmares and chronic pain. Yet they still choose that over death. 

ii) I myself doubt that hell is any one thing. I doubt it's a torture chamber. Some of the damned may well suffer torture. And some of them richly deserve to be on the receiving end of what they inflicted on others. 

One ethical/philosophical problem I have is that I don't share annihilationist intuitions. I mean, I can see why annihilation might seem to be more humane than everlasting torture–if that's the comparison. 

Yet considered on its own terms, why does everlasting punishment reflect badly on God's character, but God zapping his enemies out of existence does not reflect badly on God's character? 

What about Damien (a la the Omen) zapping people out of existence, with a snap of his fingers. 

Another thing: it's just a historical accident that most folks don't commit atrocities. Consider German guards at concentration camps or Japanese guards at POW camps who take sadistic delight in torturing defenseless inmates. If the same guards were born a generation earlier or a generation later, they might never hurt a fly. They just happen to find themselves in a situation which smokes out their true character. 

A lot of people are closet sociopaths. It's just fear of reprisal that restrains them. So even though they never did anything horrendous in this life, that's quite deceptive. It doesn't tell you anything about their capacity for evil, which can emerge with terrifying ease if the conditions are right. 

I'd like to make a few comments on the finite crime/infinite punishment objection:

i) As I've said before, that's equivocal. It compares a qualitative property (culpability, demerit) with a qualitative property (duration).

ii) Moreover, it backfires. If everlasting misery is an infinite penalty for finite sin, then everlasting oblivion is an infinite penalty for finite sin. 

iii) Furthermore, what makes the transgressions finite? Let's revert to my illustration. Why did German/Japanese guards stop torturing inmates. Not because they got tired of torturing inmates. Not because they repented of their evil ways.

Rather, in some cases they stopped because they killed the inmate. If they could resuscitate him, they continue to torture him. Twice the fun for half the supply. 

More generally, they had to stop because they lost the war. They no longer had that power over other human beings.

Ultimately, they stopped because they died. So they commit finite atrocities because they have finite opportunities, not because they have a finite inclination to do so. They may have an insatiable inclination. They simply run out of time. 

Suppose you had an immortal serial killer. Suppose he's never caught. Or he pays off the authorities.

He never stops torturing victims to death. It's one after another after another. A potential infinite. 

iv) Finally, there's another exegetical challenge for annihilationism:

a) In crude annihilationism, oblivion itself is the punishment. Death is the ultimate punishment. God punishes them by never restoring them to life.

A stock objection to that sanction is that the penalty doesn't fit the crime. Attila the Hun and the small-time crook suffer the identical fate. And that's an ironic objection for a position that levels the same objection to everlasting punishment.

b) Hence, sophisticated annihilationism says God resurrects some (all?) of the wicked to make they suffer their finite just deserts before annihilating them.

However, that scenario requires a double oblivion:

Oblivion when you die.

Temporary resurrection.

A return to oblivion when God zaps them out of existence after they suffered enough retribution.

But where does Scripture teach post-postmortem oblivion? 

Postmortem oblivion followed by temporary resurrection followed by a second, permanent oblivion? 

I don't think it even teaches postmortem oblivion, much less post-postmortem oblivion? 

Mission to Ethiopia

I'm going to post some anecdotes from Dave and Becky Black's experiences in Ethiopia. I take these with a grain of salt. I think they could well be true, but I make allowance for the unreliability of their witnesses:

I grew up in the midst of those who practiced "African religion." I know first-hand the horror of such a religion. I've watched as twins are set out for the hyenas to eat because of the bad omen that they represented. I've seen persons possessed of evil spirits, as they turn mad  and live as animals. 

http://www.daveblackonline.com/roots.htm

Let me tell you one story that we witnessed while we were there in November. A young lady had declared Jesus as her Savior, but her brother had not.  Someone cast a curse upon her brother, saying “If your sister does not reject Jesus, then you will die soon.”  Imagine the strain on this young lady! Surrendering to the pressure of her parents and family, she renounced Jesus.  Within days she herself became very, very sick. She was brought to the clinic with a high fever and active seizing.  Her oxygenation level was only 67 percent.  Immediately our nurses started IV fluids and gave her seizure medicines and antibiotics. Simultaneously, all the staff gathered to pray over her. But the matter was clear – apart from Jesus she would die! As the staff pled with her and her parents, they decided to come back to Jesus, surrendering their souls to Him and trusting Him to care for them. Over the next 2 days they continued prayer and medical care. She slept in the clinic observation room with her parents. And on the third day, she was discharged home; everyone was rejoicing that the Lord Jesus had shown mercy once again, and had taken back another of His wayward children. On the fourth day, Gezaheen (our senior nurse) and Solomon (our chaplain) visited her in her home. She was walking around, serving her visitors, and rejoicing in the Lord Jesus! And already the leaders of the local church had been to pray with her. 

http://www.daveblackonline.com/report_on_galana_clinic.htm

The second church to be built is called Bedene. I met with one of the leaders of this church for about an hour over breakfast, as he quickly told me the story of his conversion. His name is Kadir. He had been a strong fundamentalist Muslim, highly dedicated to the beliefs of Islam. Coming out of Koran school one day he spotted a young lady. He went to talk with her and then declared, “By the name of Allah, you will be my wife.” She promptly retorted, “By the name of Jesus, NEVER!” To make a long story short, he kidnapped her, forcing the marriage. She refused to leave Jesus, despite his beatings.  After about 2 years, he was lifting his face from the earth during his prayer ritual, and a person in shining light said to him, “To whom are you praying? I am the One who made you.” He knew immediately that this person was Jesus. But he resisted the claim of Jesus on his life. The story of his eventual conversion is amazing! I wish you could have been with me as he was telling me. Such animation! Such drama! What a wondrous story of grace and redemption! Let me tell you, NO ONE is beyond the grace of our Lord Jesus!!!  Absolutely no one! (My father and several others have told me that I need to write a book with some of these stories; please pray for me as I consider this.)

http://www.daveblackonline.com/ethiopian_spring2.htm

How do these leaders come to our Lord? Most of these Muslim leaders give testimony that Jesus came to them in a vision. Their visions are very clear; there is no doubt that it is Jesus. His message is the same: it is a call to follow Him, and the call is given with love and authority. The converts know the price of obedience to Christ; it may cost them everything!

MN was a wealthy man from a powerful family in the area of Alaba. Four years ago he had a vision. He related his vision to me. “I was lying on the ground, and Jesus was standing over me, with His foot on my chest.  Jesus was a shining light, so bright that I could not see His face. He told me that I was living in a cave, and I should come out of the cave, follow Him, and bring others out also.” I asked MN, what did you do after the vision? He replied “Nothing. I just told my mother.” I asked, what did your mother say? “She told me that it was Mohammed in my vision. But I knew it was Jesus.” 

A full year later, exactly to the day, MN had another vision. Again, Jesus was standing over him, but this time Jesus was angry. His eyes were like flames of fire. MN said, “Jesus was angry, and He said to me, ‘I told you to come out. But you have not come out.  Now you will come out with trouble.’ Immediately I got very sick and all my cattle died. I told my mother about this dream also, and she told me to depart from the family because trouble was my destiny.” So MN called an evangelist from the town church and made a decision to follow Christ.

http://www.daveblackonline.com/ethiopia_report5a.htm

Here’s one story. About 4-5 years ago, a man came from Saudi Arabia and built a nice, large home in Alaba town. The day that he held an Open House for all his friends was the same day that the church next door held a conference. The sound of singing in the church floated over to his house, and he became very angry.  “This is a Muslim town!” he told the town leaders. “What are Christians doing here?” He told the leaders, “I will bring lots of money into this town and make it very beautiful if you will remove all the Christians.” He then left the town to wait for the Christians to be removed. However, en route back to Addis, his car overturned and he was severely injured in the accident. As is so often the case in third world countries, he drew a direct line of cause-and-effect between his threat against the Christians and his car accident. He quickly retracted his offer to the leaders, sold his home, and returned to Saudi Arabia.

Similar stories have been repeated over and over in the past 10 years, so that now the Muslim leaders have a “hands off” attitude toward the Christians. They have a measure of fear that something bad will happen to them if they hurt the Christians. (Unfortunately, this is not the case in the rural churches, as we will report next time.)  So, today the town churches have a good measure of religious freedom.

http://www.daveblackonline.com/ethiopia_report4.htm

Soon after his release from prison, he was walking down the street, and he came to visit the witchdoctor. Immediately the evil spirit in the witchdoctor recognized a son of the Most Holy One. So the witchdoctor called down a swarm of bees to attack MU. In the street this show-down of power played out before all the townsfolk. Men, women, and children stopped their errands and watched as hundreds of bees came out of nowhere and began to descend upon MU. Without batting an eye, MU raised his hand toward the bees and commanded, "In the Name of Jesus, stop!"

To the amazement of all the townspeople, the bees stopped in mid-air and dispersed! There was no doubt as to the winner of this showdown of power. The Lord Jesus Himself trumped the spirit of evil in the witchdoctor. And as His representative, MU now commanded a respect in the community. Immediately he preached the Gospel. "You are spiritually dead in your sins. You cannot help yourself. No one can help you except the Lord Jesus Christ! He came from Heaven.  He willingly laid Himself down as a sacrifice for you; He paid the price before God for your sins. He was buried in the earth for 3 days, but God raised Him up. He was seen by hundreds of witnesses in His resurrected body. And today He lives by the Throne of God. Unless you forsake this witchdoctor and your wicked ways, unless you come and yield yourself to the Lord Jesus Christ, you cannot have spiritual life. You cannot have power."

Within a few months many came to MU and WO to declare their commitment to the Lord Jesus Christ.  Word of the show-down spread through us to the American believers. We all began to pray for the salvation of the witchdoctor. God heard our prayer, and 4 months from the show-down this witchdoctor destroyed his witchcraft paraphernalia and change allegiances. We had the joy of visiting their congregation....about 40-50 people of all ages, and on the right side against the wall was the ex-witchdoctor sitting beside the ex-Muslim leader.

In our interview, we asked them for specific praise and prayer items. As a praise mention, FA told me this story. Last June, when they were constructing their home, they were collecting tall grass for the roof. FA was barefoot and a poisonous snake bit him. 

He became VERY sick; there was no medical facility...only a witchdoctor was used for issues of sickness. When this option was offered to him, he replied, "I will not go to a witchdoctor, even if I die!"  (To have gone to a witchdoctor is the equivalent of denying Christ and His power.) He lay unconscious for many days, but God healed him completely! We did not know anything about this story until we interviewed him; this is always the challenge of communication with Ethiopia...they are way out in the boonies...I doubt that even their sending church knew in a timely fashion of the situation. But God clearly had people praying for him, and God chose to heal him in response to those prayers! So we don't need to know the situations....we just need to follow the Spirit in faithful praying!

http://www.daveblackonline.com/evangelists_of_gondar.htm

Why freewill theism logically denies the verbal inspiration of Scripture

Arminian theologian Roger Olson gives us yet another reason to reject freewill theism:

I believe Calvinism is riddled with such distinctions without differences. But such pop up all over the place in theology; it’s not a problem confined to Calvinism. One that never ceases to befuddle me is that made by many conservative evangelicals—between “dictation” and “plenary verbal inspiration” of the Bible. Many conservative evangelicals (such as Millard Erickson) go to great lengths to attempt to demonstrate that “plenary verbal inspiration” is not the same as dictation inspiration. At the end of their explanations I’m left scratching my head because this appears to be a distinction without a difference no matter what they say. They say, for example, that in the process we call “divine inspiration of Scripture” God directed the human authors to the very words he wanted them to use without over riding their personalities or using them mechanically. Millard Erickson, for example, in Christian Theology, appeals to a form of compatibilism to explain how plenary verbal inspiration is different from dictation. God, he says, prepared Paul (for example) to be the kind of person who would freely choose to write the very words he wanted Paul to use in writing his inspired epistles. To me, the typical conservative evangelical explanation of the “difference” between verbal plenary inspiration and dictation inspiration disappears once inspected closely. It’s a distinction without a difference. 

Read more: http://www.patheos.com/blogs/rogereolson/2015/01/a-problem-in-theology-distinctions-without-differences/#ixzz3NuQtZmYL

How “Pope Liberius” (352 AD – 366 AD) adopted, but “did not teach ex cathedra”, Arianism, thus rescuing “papal infallibility”

Liberius is the second most notorious “pope”, whose adoption of heresy Rome had to deal with while trying to wriggle out some form of “infallibility” (following Honorius, 625-638).

This question came in an email: “I wonder if you might point me to some scholarly materials on pope Liberius. I know that it is standard Protestant apologetic to argue against the papacy by pointing out that this pope succumbed to Arian pressure. Of course the standard Catholic reply is that those materials are forgeries. If you have some time would you mind recommending some sources?”

Johnann Joseph Ignaz von Dollinger, who was a Roman Catholic historian prior to Vatican I (and who argued strenuously against “Infallibility”), described it this way:

Game of chicken

Radicals sometimes play a game of chicken to get their way. This includes hunger strikes. Or standing in front of trains (Trident submarine base protestors) or bulldozers (Rachel Corrie), thereby daring the political establishment to kill them. Some Buddhist monks set themselves on fire to protest the Vietnam war. On a less dramatic note are protesters who chain themselves to doors, gates, and fences.

We see an analogous strategy in how homosexual and transgender activists play the suicide card. Unless you capitulate to our demands, you are to blame for those who kill themselves. 

A functional society cannot allow social policy to be exhorted by a game of chicken. If you play that game, be prepared to lose. A functional society cannot permit itself to be shutdown by tactics like that. 

If you chain yourself to a door, the authorities should leave you there and use a side door. If you stand in front of an oncoming train, expect to be run over. 

The world shouldn't come to a screeching halt just because individuals make demands. You don't have the right to gridlock a metropolis, or endanger everyone else.

The ending of Mark

i) Some scholars (e.g. Evans, Edwards, Gundry, Stein, Wright) think the original ending was lost. I myself don't think there's any compelling reason to believe the ending we have (16:1-8) is not the original ending.

To be sure, Mark's account gives the Resurrection somewhat short-shrift compared to Matthew and Luke. However, that's a misleading comparison. After all, his Gospel is much briefer to begin with. 

ii) More to the point, the ending may be briefer simply because Mark had less information than Matthew, Luke, and John. He may not have seen the risen Christ, unlike Matthew and John. Likewise, he may not have interviewed as many people as Luke. He just wrote what he knew, based on personal observation, without conducting the kind of extensive investigations that Luke did. 

To take a comparison, consider the Civil War. You have foot-soldiers writing home. Their accounts are based on personal experience. What they saw. It may include anecdotes from comrades. 

Then you have accounts written by the generals. That's based in part on firsthand observation. But they also have a much broader sense of the war. They are in communication with other commanders. They know what's going on elsewhere. 

Then you have Civl War historians. They comb through a wide range for primary source material. They didn't witness the events, but their account is based on eyewitness material. And it covers much more ground precisely because they aren't confined to their personal experience.  

On this analogy, Mark is like letters by a foot-soldier in the Civil War. He writes about what he's seen in theater, as well as information he's garnered from campfire conversations with his comrades.

Matthew and John are like Civil War generals. They write from firsthand experience as well. But they are privy to things the foot-soldier is not.  

Luke is like a Civil War historian, who collects oral histories from veterans. 

iii) But assuming, for the sake of argument, that the ending is less than we'd expect, here's another possibility: what if Mark saw that he was running out of room on his scroll, and had to present an abbreviated account of the Resurrection?

It's usually said that Luke's Gospel pushes the limits of a scroll. Admitted, Mark is much shorter, but was there a standard length scroll back in the 1C? It's not like you had mass production.

For that matter, I assume longer scrolls were more expensive. What if Mark couldn't afford a full-length scroll, so he had to skimp a bit towards the end? It's hard to estimate how much space you will need to say what you want. 

The Biblical Creator/creature distinction vs “Chain of Being” metaphysics

I found this discussion this morning about the Biblical Creator/creature distinction, and its absolute contrast with “chain of being” or “continuity of being” metaphysics found in ancient pagan and some Medieval writers (such as Thomas Aquinas). The author refers to pagan creation texts, and then contrasts these with Genesis:

In the Genesis text, however, God is wholly separate from the universe. He is prior to all things. All else originates from Him. They come into existence, not by transformation from His Being, but by His spoken Word they come into existence from nothing (creatio ex-nihilo). There is thus an absolute, transcendental distinction between the Creator and all else.  

Over against the Bible’s Creator-creature distinction, paganism insists upon the unity of creator(s) and creations. Gods, men, animals, and rocks are all part of the same existence or being. This is the doctrine of the Chain of Being or Continuity of Being, a doctrine you will find lurking in all forms of paganism from ancient times through New Testament times (where it was related to the Gnostic heresy) to modern cosmic evolution. You will hear about this false doctrine again and again in the following chapters. It is spiritual poison.

Implied by the Continuity of Being idea and overtly present in some pagan origin-myths, is the concept of spontaneous generation. Since the universe basically is of one kind, everything within it differs only in degree. Thus the universe has power to bring forth life from non-life all by itself. Man is just a part of Nature. Contrast this situation with the Bible’s teaching about non-transgressable boundaries between man, each kind of animal, and each kind of plant (Gen. 1:11-12, 21, 24-25, 27).

An apparent corollary to the Continuity of Being is that the spontaneous transformations take vast amounts of time. Note the line in Enuma elish, “They lived many days, adding years (to days).” Contrast this slowness with the suddenness of God’s creative work (Ps. 33:9) done in six days (Exod. 20:11).

The first fundamental contrast between Genesis and ancient paganism, then, is between the Creator-creature distinction and the gradually self-transforming Continuity of Being.

Here is more along these lines:

http://www.bibleframework.com/

http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2014/04/aquinas-existence-and-failure-to.html

http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2014/12/a-new-pagan-era.html

Loving masochism

Daphne Maddox  

You say you’re offering the love you wish to offer, and doing it in the name of Christianity, but to not accept someone’s gender identity is to persecute their soul. There is nothing loving about torturing transgender people until they throw themselves in front of a truck! 

Stop loving people as you wish to love them. Just don’t do it. Love them as they ask, or if you can’t find it in your heart to do that, please just walk away and mind your own business. Lives are at stake here. I’d say you are playing with fire, but really your pouring gasoline on it. Just stop. 

http://www.dennyburk.com/how-to-think-and-pray-about-the-suicide-of-a-transgender-teen/#comment-150085

What if somebody’s a masochist. What if they suffer from deep self-loathing, and feel they deserve to be hurt. Would Daphne “love” them as they ask (by whipping them)? Or would she treat they as they ought to be loved, despite their request to be brutalized?

Iconic deaths

Historically, a culturally-iconic death is the death of a soldier on a foreign battlefield, dying to defend the folks back home. But the liberal opinion-makers have replaced that with iconic deaths that are politically useful to further their social agenda, viz. Matthew Shepard, Bobby Griffith ("gay rights") Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown (black civil rights), Brittany Maynard ("right to die"), and now Josh "Leelah" Alcorn ("transgender rights").

However, I didn't elect the liberal opinion-makers to decide for me which deaths are important to me. There are about 7 billion people on the planet. About a quarter million people die every day. 

Speaking for myself, the deaths that are defining events for me are the death of Christ as well as the death of some close relatives. And that's it. 

You, the liberal opinion-makers, don't get to dictate to me what deaths I deem to be defining deaths for me. I will make that value judgment for myself, thank you very much.  

I had a younger cousin (second cousin, to be precise) who was diagnosed with bone cancer in junior high. He died in high school. He didn't die from cancer, but from complications due to cancer therapy. Radiation did so much damage to his lungs that he died of respiratory failure. 

The last specialist his desperate parents took him to see told him he had about a year to live. That's quite something for a teenager to have to hear. Imagine being told that if you were a teenager. To be given that death sentence. No hope. No reprieve. Prepare to die. And, in fact, he succumbed less than a year later. 

My cousin never had the chance that Josh Alcorn threw away. 

There are teenagers who die waiting for an organ transplant. They ran out of time. They never had the chance that Josh Alcorn threw away.

Or take the 2012 Aurora shooting. Three young men died shielding their girlfriends from the shooter. They never had the chance that Josh Alcorn threw away.

Some kids are born with degenerative conditions, like cystic fibrosis. They never had the chance that Josh Alcorn threw away. 

It's a pity that Josh Alcorn killed himself. I'm sorry that he did that to himself, his parents, and his siblings. 

But don't turn him into a martyr for social justice. Don't make him a hero. And don't presume to tell me whose death should be significant to me. Like most folks, I have very short, very personal list. 

Birth-pangs

I will surely multiply your pain in childbearing; in pain you shall bring forth children (Gen 3:16).

This post is primarily about the cursing of Eve, but I will make some preliminary observations before getting to the main point:

i) Unbelievers think this reflects the mythological character of Genesis. Just as 3:14-15 is an etiological fable about how snakes lost their legs, 3:16 is an etiological fable about the historical source of birth-pangs. 

ii) There's a grain of truth to that allegation insofar as Genesis is certainly a book of origins. It explains, in part, how events in the past gave rise to the present status quo. Of course, saying that doesn't mean I agree with how unbelievers construe the text.

iii) In addition, some interpreters think that all three curses involve a physical transformation. Because the cursing of Adam and the "snake" are physically transformative, the cursing of Eve is physically transformative. I'd just point out that there's no antecedent reason why if one or two are physical, all three must be physical. There's no moral or logical principle that demands physical punishment in all three cases. Punishment needn't be symmetrical in that respect.

iv) Moreover, I disagree with their interpretation. Cursing Adam didn't transform conditions in the Garden. To the contrary, it's because the Garden remained unchanged that Adam and Eve were banished from the Garden, so that they could no longer benefit from that idyllic setting. Likewise, they were banished to the wilderness precisely because conditions outside the garden were naturally less hospitable. 

Likewise, Walton has argued that cursing the "snake" trades on familiar imprecations. Due to the prevalence of venomous snakes in the ancient Near East, there were customary imprecations to render them harmless or docile. A cobra raises itself to strike. By contrast, a cobra that's flat on the ground is not in a hostile posture. So he thinks 3:14 plays on that symbolism. And it's plausible that that's how ancient readers, accustomed to such formulas, would understand it. 

v) Strictly speaking, it's not men, women, and "snakes" generally that are cursed in Gen 3, but Adam, Eve, and the Tempter. We move too quickly if we simply assume that this refers to men, women, and "snakes" in general. The curses are specific to Adam, Eve, and the Tempter. 

Now, one might argue that since Adam and Eve are prototypical, what happens to them happens to their male and female counterparts down the line. That's worth considering in terms of the continuing narrative. My point that we shouldn't jump to that conclusion. Tradition has conditioned us to automatically universalize the curses in Gen 3, but you don't get that from Gen 3 itself.

vi) It's often say that Christians opposed sedating women in labor because that subverted the divine punishment. But from what I've read, that's a malicious urban legend:

http://bedejournal.blogspot.com/2008/12/deep-sleep-of-adam.html

vii) Apropos (vi), many readers assume the cursing of Eve refers to the origin of birth-pangs. Apart from the Fall, childbirth would have been painless. Unbelievers then attack this  as prescientific nonsense. Childbirth is inherently painful. Unless the heads of babies were smaller, or the cervix was larger, before the fall, that's bound to be a tight squeeze. 

Now, I'm going to question that interpretation, but even on its own terms it's theoretically possible for the body to secrete a natural sedative that anesthetizes pain. In principle, there wouldn't need to be morphological changes for childbirth to be fairly painless. 

viii) Like the English word, the Hebrew word can denote either physical or psychological pain. The word itself doesn't select for labor pains.

As, moreover, one scholar points out:

The Hebrew that stands behind the NIV's "pains" ('tsp) is never used in the OT to refer to pain experienced during the process of giving birth. Birth pangs are referred to using quite different terms. Moreover, the Hebrew word translated in the NIV as "childbearing" (herayon) clearly refers elsewhere in the OT to conception or pregnancy, not birth. I. Provan, Seriously Dangerous Religion (Baylor U Press 2014), 117. 

ix) The original audience for Gen 3 had extensive, personal experience with infant mortality. Mothers expected some or many of their children to die before adulthood. When pregnant, there was always the apprehension that the baby you bore might be the baby you bury. This could happen in many ways. Miscarriage. Accident. Disease. Malnutrition. An infected wound. Pregnancy was full of foreboding. Mothers were used to outliving their children. 

Likewise, it was not uncommon for women to die in childbirth, leaving their children motherless. That's another maternal apprehension. And unless wet-nurse was available, a motherless newborn would quickly die of malnutrition. 

Dread of watching your children die. Dread of leaving your children orphaned. Dread of dying in childbirth. 

x) In addition, Eve did, in fact, experience the grief of outliving Abel. And he died under the worst imaginable circumstances. One son murdering another son. In a sense, she lost both sons. One was murdered, while the murderer was banished. Even if Cain hadn't been banished, there'd be the alienation of affections. She could never look at him the same way again.  

xi) Because many modern readers benefit from modern medical science, I think we overlook the possibility or probability that the curse in 3:16 concerns psychological pain rather than physical pain. There are, of course, many Third World mothers who experience all the forbidding that original audience knew all too well. 

Furthermore, in cultures where girls are married off before they are physically mature, childbirth can be physically destructive. 

Suicide blackmail

In the wake of Josh Alcorn's suicide, it's important for parents to keep in mind that sometimes doing everything you can is not enough. There's nothing more you could have done. 

That's true of life in general. We can do everything within our power, but sometimes that's just not enough. We can do all the right things, and it will still turn out badly. We don't have the power to prevent some things from ending badly. We have very limited influence over the conduct of others. Try as we might, there's only so much we can do. We're not in control. 

Of course, even the best parents make mistakes. But kids should realize that even well-meaning parents are fallible and shortsighted, and cut them some slack. After all, parents generally cut their kids a lot of slack. 

We can't afford to create a culture in which kids can blackmail their parents with threats of suicide. That's the abdication of parenting. Kids need boundaries. Tragically, some kids will carry through with the threat, but the parents didn't wrong them–they wronged the parents. A revenge suicide. 

Responsible parents must be able to say "no." That's an essential word in the parental vocabulary. 

A tale of two suicides

Josh Alcorn and Brittany Maynard both committed suicide for the same stated reason: they had nothing to live for, nothing to look forward to. Look at Alcorn's suicide note:

I’m never going to transition successfully, even when I move out. I’m never going to be happy with the way I look or sound. I’m never going to have enough friends to satisfy me. I’m never going to have enough love to satisfy me. I’m never going to find a man who loves me. I’m never going to be happy. Either I live the rest of my life as a lonely man who wishes he were a woman or I live my life as a lonelier woman who hates herself. There’s no winning. There’s no way out.  

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2891267/Transgender-teenager-leaves-heartbreaking-suicide-note-blaming-Christian-parents-walking-tractor-trailer-highway.html

Notice, he doesn't think "transitioning" (e.g. undergoing a sex-change operation, hormone therapy, cosmetic therapy) will make him happy. 

Many unbelievers defended Maynard's right to commit suicide. They were mad a Christians for attempting to dissuade her from ending her life.

Now many unbelievers are mad at Christians because Alcorn did commit suicide. But why don't they apply the same logic to both cases? Isn't that an informed decision? A consensual exercise in personal autonomy? Your life is your own, to do with as you see fit–including suicide?

Yes, you may say Alcorn committed a rash act. I agree. But isn't that imposing your own standards on his action? How's that different from attempting to dissuade Maynard? If we're supposed to respect Maynard's decision, why not Alcorn's? Is it their outlook that ought to be decisive, or our outlook on their life? 

You can't just blame it on the parents, even if you're so inclined. For in his suicide note he admitted that even if he got what he wanted ("transitioning"), it wouldn't be enough. Even if he got what he wanted, he'd still be miserable. 

How Did The Earliest Christians Interpret John 3:5?

The subject recently came up on Paul Manata's Facebook page. Here's a discussion of the issue that took place several years ago. The principles addressed there are applicable to scripture interpretation in general, including other cases in which people often appeal to how scripture was interpreted in antiquity (John 6:53, Titus 3:5, etc.).

You can find an archive of many of our posts on baptismal issues here. On eucharistic issues, see here.

Trouble In Transtopia: Murmurs Of Sex Change Regret

http://thefederalist.com/2014/11/11/trouble-in-transtopia-murmurs-of-sex-change-regret/

Die Juden sind unser Unglück!

This post is about Josh Alcorn. But before I get to that I have a general observation:

I) Never before have unbelievers been so culturally dominant. Yet despite the enormous strides they've made under Obama, they are in a state of chronic rage. And the target of their rage is Christians. They exhibit this pathological antipathy towards Christians, as if all social ills are traceable to Christians. Frankly, it's the mirror image of how Germans blamed all their problems on the Jews: "Die Juden sind unser Unglück!" Some of these folks will find out the hard way what it's like to live under a secular regime. 

ii) Obvious, Alcorn struggled with being a normal boy. However, Alcorn would never have been a successful girl or successful woman. "Accepting" him "just as he was" would not have given him a happy life. Hard as it was for him to be a boy, he was never cut out to be a woman. 

Biology matters. Male body. Male brain. Male hormones. Male DNA. That's not imaginary. 

iii) I suspect our urban, hitech culture makes it harder for some, maybe many, boys to get in touch with their manhood. I'm not suggesting that you should put a boy like Alcorn on the hockey team or football team. He's too psychologically fragile for that. 

But imagine a century or so ago a boy like Josh hunting, chopping wood, riding horses. I expect that would be good for boys like him. Indeed, good for boys in general. 

iv) We can't let the suicide threat keep parents from parenting. Imagine a drug-addicted son or daughter who threatens suicide unless their parents allow them to shoot up at home or even demand that their parents subside their habit. 

Imagine a budding psychopath who likes to torture small animals in the basement. He threatens suicide if his parents take him to a psychologist. What about a teenage daughter who threatens suicide unless her parents allow her boyfriend to move into her bedroom. 

v) In a fallen world, there are just some things we can't fix. For some people, life will always been more of a struggle. 

vi) By the way, he was not a "transgender teen." He was a teenage boy–really a young man. He was clearly disturbed, but let's not dehumanize him by calling him a "transgender teen." 

There are people who suffer from boanthropy. That doesn't make them bovines. And treating them like bovines doesn't help. They merit our sympathy, but not our endorsement. 

Vos on the descent into hell

Personally speaking, I agree with Grudem on this issue. However, here's a useful comparison and contrast for those who care:

http://feedingonchrist.com/jesus-descend-hell/

All the gnus that's fit to print

I'm going to post some comments I left at Michael Kruger's blog in response to Eichenwald and other gnu atheist commenters:

I think some commenters miss the point of Kruger’s critical review when they dismiss it as a “waste of time.” I doubt that Dr. Kruger is attempting to persuade Eichenwald or the Newsweek editors that they are mistaken. That’s not his objective or target audience.

Rather, he’s writing this for the benefit of fellow Christians–as well as non-Christian lurkers who may be unaware of the other side of the argument.

Likewise, the point is at issue is not how many people happen to read Newsweek. Rather, this Newsweek article is representative of stock objections to the historical Jesus. So Kruger’s rebuttal is generally relevant to those kinds of objections, which unbelievers recycle ad nauseum.

Christian parents are naive if they think these sort of objections can be safely ignored. Many kids raised in evangelical churches lose their faith when they go to college or read a book by an atheist because they were not forearmed to deal with these objections.

Doggy couples

Increasingly, there are couples who have cats and dogs instead of kids. That's not because one partner is infertile, or because they are postponing kids until they achieve financial security. Instead, they never intend to have kids, even though they are physically and financially able to start a family. 

I can't help thinking to myself that this is a way of never having to grow up emotionally or psychologically. Raising kids is a maturing experience in a way that having dogs is not. Kids are demanding and challenging in a way that dogs are not. 

But beyond that, I wonder if what motivates some of them is the subliminal or in some case conscious denial of their mortality. Having kids reminds you of your own mortality. To some extent, having kids is a way of reliving your childhood. You do with them or for them what your parents did with you or for you. You see them doing what you used to do at that age. They get into the same arguments with you that you had with your own parents. 

Due to family resemblance, you can literally see a part of yourself in your kids. A reminder of what you looked like at that age. If fact, they reach the age you were when you had them.

Take a father who played football in junior high or high school. Now he's in the bleachers, watching his son. He swells with pride. Yet there's a twinge of wistful recollection. Time is passing him by. That was you, just twenty years ago. That's now forever behind you.

It's like training your replacement. You must move out before they can move up. 

You see the lifecycle repeating itself. You're just one car-length of ahead of your kids, and your parents (if they're still alive) are just one car-length ahead of you–approaching the dark tunnel of death.  

From a secular standpoint, that's unnerving. Having dogs and cats doesn't remind you of your long-lost youth the way raising kids does. You were never a puppy or a kitten. So you don't see the grim reaper gaining on you in the rearview mirror by having pets. 

It's understandable if godless couples avoid that depressing, fearful prospect by substituting pets for kids. 

G.K. Beale Lectures on iTunes

I’ve been listening to Dr. Greg Beale’s New Testament Biblical Theology lecture series on iTunes, which seems to be the lecture series upon which his New Testament Biblical Theology: The Unfolding of the Old Testament In the New was based. (It seems to me that the lectures occurred prior to the release of the book, but it’s the same subject matter).

It’s a strongly exegetical treatment, and he emphasizes the “inaugurated” components of the Old Testament’s “last days” all throughout the New Testament. Beale stresses that Christ has a “back story” that extends all through the entire sweep of the Old Testament back to Adam, what he calls “the Old Testament background”.

The book may be found here: G.K. Beale, A New Testament Biblical Theology: The Unfolding of the Old Testament in the New, (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic ©2011).

Do we have a duty to protect terrorists?

Critics of "torture" typically alleged that supporters of "torture" defend "torture" on utilitarian or consequentialist grounds. Let's briefly consider this argument for "torture":

In this case study there is also a substantial moral justification for torture, albeit one that many moral absolutists do not find compelling. Consider the following points: (1) The police reasonably believe that torturing the terrorist will probably save thousands of innocent lives; (2) the police know that there is no other way to save those lives; (3) the threat to life is more or less imminent; (4) the thousands about to be murdered are innocent—the terrorist has no good, let alone decisive, justificatory moral reason for murdering them; (5) the terrorist is known to be (jointly with the other terrorists) morally responsible for planning, transporting, and arming the nuclear device and, if it explodes, he will be (jointly with the other terrorists) morally responsible for the murder of thousands. 

In addition to the above set of moral considerations, consider the following points. The terrorist is culpable on two counts. Firstly, the terrorist is forcing the police to choose between two evils, namely, torturing the terrorist or allowing thousands of lives to be lost. Were the terrorist to do what he ought to do, namely, disclose the location of the ticking bomb, the police could refrain from torturing him. This would be true of the terrorist, even if he were not actively participating in the bombing project. Secondly, the terrorist is in the process of completing his (jointly undertaken) action of murdering thousands of innocent people. He has already undertaken his individual actions of, say, transporting and arming the nuclear device; he has performed these individual actions (in the context of other individual actions performed by the other members of the terrorist cell) in order to realise the end (shared by the other members of the cell) of murdering thousands of Londoners. In refusing to disclose the location of the device the terrorist is preventing the police from preventing him from completing his (joint) action of murdering thousands of innocent people.[14] To this extent the terrorist is in a different situation from a bystander who happens to know where the bomb is planted but will not reveal its whereabouts, and in a different situation from someone who might have inadvertently put life at risk (Miller (2005); Hill (2007)). 

In particular, it is difficult to see how torturing (but not killing) the guilty terrorist and saving the lives of thousands could be morally worse than refraining from torturing him and allowing him to murder thousands—torturing the terrorist is a temporary infringement of his autonomy, whereas his detonating of the nuclear device is a permanent violation of the autonomy of thousands. 

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/torture/#CasStuTerTicBom

Seems to me that this is not an essentially utilitarian or consequentialist argument. The argument isn't based primarily on results or the end justifying the means. Rather, it draws two key distinctions:

i) It distinguishes between guilt and innocence. By his murderous intent, the terrorist has forfeited the prima facie right not to be harmed. Conversely, his targets are innocent civilians.

ii) It distinguishes between lesser and greater harm. Temporary harm and permanent harm. The degree of unjust harm inflicted on the innocent. 

In sum, it frames the issue as a choice between temporarily harming a culpable party and permanently harming an innocent party–by failure to take the necessary means to protect the innocent party. 

Now, a critic could still object to the argument on other grounds, but I don't see that the argument is reducible to consequentialism, utilitarianism, or the end-justifies-the-means. The innocent party has a right not to suffer harm at the hands of the guilty party. It's morally relevant who suffers the consequences. Moreover, the innocent party has the right not to suffer greater harm to protect the guilty party from suffering lesser harm. These distinctions respect intrinsic justice.

i) Does a terrorist have a right to commit mass murder against Americans?

ii) Assuming that it’s immoral to murder Americans, does a terrorist have a moral right to withhold information (e.g. time, place, operatives) about a plot to murder Americans?

If it’s wrong to murder Americans, then it’s wrong to conspire to murder Americans. And it’s wrong to withhold information regarding the murderous conspiracy. Wrong to withhold information which would help authorities thwart the plot.

iii) Do the authorities have a duty to protect Americans against mass murder?

iv) Do the authorities have right (and duty) to obtain information about an impending terrorist attack from a captured terrorist?

Assuming they have a duty to protect Americans, then isn’t (iv) part of their duty?

v) If it’s a choice between hurting (i.e. coercing) the terrorist to obtain actionable intel, or allowing the terrorist to hurt (i.e. murder) innocent Americans, where does our duty lie? Should we protect the terrorist or protect the innocent targets of the plot?

One the one hand you “traumatize” the terrorist. So maybe he has nightmares for the rest of his life. Big deal. Why should terrorism be a risk-free occupation?

On the other hand, you save the lives of, let’s say, dozens of innocent men, women, and children. Is the priority to protect the terrorist from harm or the innocent from harm?

vi) A captured terrorist is always at liberty to volunteer what he knows. Coercion is only applied if he refuses to divulge what he knows. Absent an adequate motivation, he may have no incentive to say anything at all.

A terrorist informant has information which we have a right to know. Since he won’t volunteer that information, we have a right to squeeze it out of him.

We shouldn’t employ gratuitously harsh methods to obtain the information. If we can coax the information out of him by kinder, gentler methods, fine. But if he will only divulge what he knows under duress, then we have a right to put him under duress.

It’s no different, in principle, than interrogating a murder suspect. Yes, he may lie to the homicide detectives. But if he gives them a false lead, and they follow up on the lead, they will find out that it’s a false lead. That he lied. They can then go back and question him again.

If, on the other hand, it’s true, then they will have ways of corroborating its veracity. In which case they will know something they didn’t otherwise know.

If a terrorist says something, there are ways to either verify or falsify his statement. But if he’s allowed to keep mum, you can never test it one way or the other.

The Geneva accords are predicated on reciprocity. The Geneva accords distinguish between lawful and unlawful combatants in order to reward those who abide by the laws of warfare while penalizing those who flout the laws of warfare. If such protections are extended to unlawful combatants, then that removes any incentive to ever abide by the laws of warfare.