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Saturday, August 15, 2009

Belial's consigliere

VICTOR REPPERT SAID:

“So, if there are six people trapped in a mine, it is better that four be rescued than all six, because then the ones who were rescued can appreciate their rescue more knowing that there were two that didn't make it?”

The power of an illustration depends on what the example is chosen to illustrate, as well as the emotional connotations of a given illustration.

If, instead of trapped miners, you used SS officers who fled to Latin America after the fall of the Third Reich, then that illustration would not evoke the same sympathy.

Or say it was a case of 4 college students who gang-raped a coed, then murdered her to dispose of the evidence. For 30 years their crime goes undetected. For 30 years they make a good life for themselves–the life they denied to their victim. Until the case is reopened due to advances in forensic science.

In a fallen world, all of us are evil to some degree. As such, we’re fairly desensitized to evil. And, indeed, it’s in our self-interest to be pretty tolerant of evil. Finally, because we’re fellow human beings, it’s natural for us to empathize with our own kind.

“That's a serious question. It's called the argument from evil. It is the best argument for atheism out there, and numerous Christian philosophers have taken it with the utmost seriousness.”

And the argument from evil applies to your own solution, Victor. You solve the problem by saving everyone. By compensating for evil through a happy ending. But given your libertarian view of human freedom, why must there be evil in the first place, from which God delivers us? If human beings are free to do otherwise, then there’s a possible world which samples our good choices and a possible world which samples our bad choices. Why, according to you, didn’t God instantiate the world which samples our good choices rather than our bad choices?

Even if you invoke transworld depravity (an ad hoc arbitrary restriction on libertarian freedom), surely, if human agents are free in the libertarian sense, there is a possible world where fewer evil choices are made.

If the only possible world is a world in which human beings commit evil as often as they do in our world, then it’s hard to believe that we really have the freedom to do otherwise.

“Look, people in heaven are in fellowship with God. They know what fellowship with God is like. They know what it was like to lack that fellowship with God, since they experienced that before conversion. And they can tell the difference between the degree of fellowship with God they now experience and the more limited fellowship with God they experienced on earth. I mean, these are people who are seeing God face-to-face. What they once saw through a glass darkly, but now they know fully. These people need everlastingly suffering object lessons?”

Every time you attack reprobation, you tacitly admit that you don’t take evil seriously, or mercy seriously. You constantly whine about the fate of the damned as if they were undeserving victims. And mercy isn’t mercy if it’s obligatory.

“By the way, even on a Calvinist read of Rom. 9:22-23, this this doesn't emerge. What is supposed to show the riches of his glory to the objects of mercy is supposed to be God's bearing with great patience the vessels of wrath, not the punishment of the vessels of wrath.”

You disregard the purpose of God’s patience towards the vessels of wrath in Paul’s argument. Go back and read the material I posted by Piper, Schreiner, and Moo. Do the exegesis, Reppert.

But, of course, you have no incentive to work through the exegesis of Rom 9:22-23 since you don’t wish to be tied down to the results in case they turn out badly for your position.

“Look at what this is an attempt to justify. It is an attempt to justify the action on the part of God to commit millions of people to everlasting suffering of the worst kind, when a different choice on the part of God would have resulted in no such suffering at all.”

You’re moral priorities are skewed. Exacting justice on the wicked doesn’t require any special justification. To the contrary, the absence of judgment would be outrageous. Judging the wicked isn’t a miscarriage of justice, Victor. You’ve managed to reverse what is just and unjust. That, itself, is an evil thing to do, Victor.

“Nor can it be argued that God couldn't save everyone because that would be unjust, or that it would violate human freedom. And this is the justification we are given?”

i) Retributive justice is intrinsically good. An end it itself, not merely a means to an end. Even if it served no other purpose, justice is good in its own right.

ii) In Biblical eschatology, eternal retribution, in addition to being intrinsically good, also serves to underscore the true nature of mercy. By definition, mercy is gratuitous, not obligatory.

You know, Victor, you talk like a consigliere. You keep making excuses for the wicked. Do you belong to the law firm of Belial, Old Horny, & Associates?

12 comments:

  1. Steve, I'd like to ask a bit of an off-topic question if I may. This post touches on the subject of the glory of God. In the past, as I'm sure you know, skeptics claim that God is simply a big egomaniac who demands worship and glory from people. And Triablogue has pointed out (primarily in the dialog with Jim Lazarus a while back) that in Scripture, God glorifies the elect - they are the recipients and beneficiaries of God's glory.

    But there are obviously also passages where God is the recipient of glory (for example, John 9:24, Acts 12:23, Romans 4:20, 1 Corinthians 10:31, Philippians 2:11, 1 Peter 4:11, Revelation 4:9, Revelation 11:13)...so does this have any effect on the original assertion by skeptics? If so, what would be your response to it?

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  2. I don’t know whether John is Anita B Day under a different screen name, but the nature of his posts is similar. I doubt that you’re deceiving many people, John. Your posts aren’t an accurate representation of Calvinists, those who believe in a traditional view of Hell, or whoever it is you’re criticizing (by pretending to agree with them while presenting their views in a disreputable manner). How many advocates of a traditional view of Hell, for example, would say that God’s “wrath envelops the body and soul of the reprobate in fire that will serve as their shroud for all time”? We’ve argued against such a simplistic view of Hell, so you aren’t accurately criticizing our position. If you were aiming for Steve or anybody else on the Triablogue staff, then you missed your target. And the idea that “God is pleased to consign the vast majority of humanity to never-ending torment” has already been addressed in a recent thread and elsewhere on this blog. Why should anybody be impressed by your ability to make straw man positions seem disreputable by pretending to agree with them? And if you’re the same person who previously used the Anita B Day screen name, then why don’t you choose one screen name and keep using it?

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  3. First, John looks like an anti-Calvinist troll to me who asserts an unvarnished view of Calvinism free of the sorts of distinctions Calvinists like to make. He holds to Calvinism in the form Arminians think it leads to in the final analysis.

    Steve, what I have a problem with is what God did before the foundation of the world, given Calvinism. He could have created us in such a way that we none of us ever did anything to deserve damnation, and he didn't. He could have chosen World A, in which no one is damned, but chose world B, in which people are damned. And he did this before any of the sinners in world B ever existed.

    Even if Moo, Schreiner, and Piper were right about the exegesis of Romans, that would not give me any reason to suppose that a being who did that was worthy of worship, a being who gives his creatures a moral and not just a prudential reason for worshipping Him. It would not show that Yahweh has a justifying reason for actualizing world B, when world A could have been actualized.

    Yahweh could have created the world, inspired the Bible, and still not be worthy of worship.

    I still think it absurd that someone who is enjoying the immediate presence of God needs people suffering eternal punishment to show them the graciousness of God's salvation.

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  4. Victor: "Steve, what I have a problem with is what God did before the foundation of the world, given Calvinism. He could have created us in such a way that we none of us ever did anything to deserve damnation, and he didn't."

    The Dude: But then we would have an unredeemed world. A world at which redemption occurs is better than a world at which it doesn't. Didn't Jesus say that "the greatest love" happens when a man lays down his life for his friends? The context and point here is redemption and salvation. A world where all do right and none fall implies a world without redemption and salvation, which implies a world without the greatest loving being instrantiated. Calvinists are all about having the most loving world, ironic that Arminians would disagree here. To twist something Victor once said: This makes me want to ask the Arminian, "What part of the word 'love' don't you understand?" ;-)

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  5. Victor Reppert said:
    ---
    First, John looks like an anti-Calvinist troll to me....
    ---

    Let it never be said that I disagree with EVERYTHING Reppert writes :-)

    Reppert said:
    ---
    Steve, what I have a problem with is what God did before the foundation of the world, given Calvinism. He could have created us in such a way that we none of us ever did anything to deserve damnation, and he didn't. He could have chosen World A, in which no one is damned, but chose world B, in which people are damned. And he did this before any of the sinners in world B ever existed.
    ---

    Isn't this exactly what God did no matter which view you take (other than the Open Theist view)? As Steve wrote in his post, surely there's got to be a world God could have selected that has LESS evil in it then this current world we've got, even if we accept Plantinga's transworld depravity scenario.

    In any case, I think one of the greatest ironies found in your original post that Steve responded to was your following quote:
    ---
    Look, people in heaven are in fellowship with God. They know what fellowship with God is like. They know what it was like to lack that fellowship with God, since they experienced that before conversion. And they can tell the difference between the degree of fellowship with God they now experience and the more limited fellowship with God they experienced on earth.
    ---

    But the only way that the sinner could tell that there was a difference between life without God on Earth and life in heaven is...IF THERE WAS A FALLEN WORLD.

    In other words, on the one hand you say that the fallen world is sufficient for us to know who God is in heaven without having to worry about Hell, but on the other hand you say that it was unjust for God to have selected for the very world! In short, you seem to be saying, "This world is evil enough so God can save everyone without Hell being used to demonstrate His justice, but God is evil for having decided to make this world in the first place."

    Seems you've got an internal contradiction going on there.

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  6. MATHETES SAID:

    “Steve, I'd like to ask a bit of an off-topic question if I may. This post touches on the subject of the glory of God. In the past, as I'm sure you know, skeptics claim that God is simply a big egomaniac who demands worship and glory from people.”

    To take an example, suppose you love opera. Suppose the world’s greatest soprano is your personal friend. She gives you free tickets to all her performances. Is that egotistical?

    Well, if she really is the world’s greatest opera singer, then she’s doing you a favor.

    “But there are obviously also passages where God is the recipient of glory (for example, John 9:24, Acts 12:23, Romans 4:20, 1 Corinthians 10:31, Philippians 2:11, 1 Peter 4:11, Revelation 4:9, Revelation 11:13)...so does this have any effect on the original assertion by skeptics? If so, what would be your response to it?”

    It simply means that we ought to acknowledge God for what he is and does. Our beliefs and attitudes should conform to reality.

    For example, if a man is a good husband and father, we should honor him as a good husband and father. We should acknowledge what he is and does.

    It’s a good thing to acknowledge goodness. If someone does you a good turn, it’s a good thing to thank him for what he did. We have an obligation to value the good. To value goodness.

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  7. Peter: You are leaving out one of the relevant positions, and that is that God has simple foreknowledge but not middle knowledge.

    Yes, I understand that on a Molinist view it seems likely God could have actualized a better world. But, we don't know what the counterfactuals of freedom are, do we?

    On another matter, this type of logic leads to the conclusion that my love for my wife would be greater than it is if she were to have an affair and I were to forgive her for it.

    It seems to me that someone who knows God face to face would be able to see not only God's actual characteristics, but also those characteristics God would have if circumstances had been different. It seems to me that God can and will reveal everything he wants to reveal at that point. God could easily make someone see that He would be very angry if we were to do what is wrong, even if we did no wrong.

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  8. I whine about the fate of the damned as if they were undeserving victims because I am an incompatibilist, and think, ex hypothesi, that they are not responsible for their actions. Their deeds are, of course, evil, but punishing them, on the assumption of theological determinism, makes about as much sense as Basil Fawlty punishing his car for failing to start.

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  9. Victor: "On another matter, this type of logic leads to the conclusion that my love for my wife would be greater than it is if she were to have an affair and I were to forgive her for it."

    The Dude: Not sure if this was meant to be directed toward The Dude, if so, I simply cited Jesus' own words. Do Jesus's words only count when he speaks of "God so loved the world"?

    Victor: "It seems to me that someone who knows God face to face would be able to see not only God's actual characteristics, but also those characteristics God would have if circumstances had been different. It seems to me that God can and will reveal everything he wants to reveal at that point. God could easily make someone see that He would be very angry if we were to do what is wrong, even if we did no wrong."

    The Dude: I for one wonder why the fall ever happened. God couldn't perform these tricks with Adam, or what?

    Victor: "I whine about the fate of the damned as if they were undeserving victims because I am an incompatibilist"

    The Dude: So your objection to Calvinism is to say that if we assume a non-Calvinistic world then Calvinism has problems? I must say, the logic is quite compelling. Uninteresting. But compelling.

    Victor: "Their deeds are, of course, evil, but punishing them, on the assumption of theological determinism, makes about as much sense as Basil Fawlty punishing his car for failing to start."

    The Dude: I think punishing people for actions they didn't have the proper kind of control over is more faulty than that, and I think libertarianism doesn't provide agents with the control needed. I also think omniscience rules out genuine indeterminisms, and its either open theism or theological fatalism. So I guess two can play your game.

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  10. VICTOR REPPERT SAID:

    "Yes, I understand that on a Molinist view it seems likely God could have actualized a better world. But, we don't know what the counterfactuals of freedom are, do we?"

    So you're opting for open theism. God can't know in advance what our free choices will be.

    But in that case you can't very well combine open theism with universalism. To be a universalist you must believe that sooner or later everyone winds up choosing God. But if the countefactuals of freedom can't be known, then that outcome is unknownable.

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  11. VICTOR REPPERT SAID:

    "On another matter, this type of logic leads to the conclusion that my love for my wife would be greater than it is if she were to have an affair and I were to forgive her for it."

    Actually, the theme of God as the cuckold husband who takes his wife back is one of the master metaphors of Scripture. Reppert must regard the canonicity of Hosea as a major reason to reject the inerrancy of Scripture.

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