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Friday, March 11, 2011

"I take no pleasure in the death of the wicked"

I. Introduction

We understand that God is not obligated to save anyone. But this truth does not diminish in the least the fact that God takes "no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but rather that the wicked turn from his way and live" (Ezekiel 33:11 NASB). Infralapsarian Calvinists (by far the majority of Calvinists today, in my estimate) would have us believe that God proclaims, "Turn back, turn back from your evil ways! Why then will you die . . . ? (Ezekiel 33:11 NASB), but has no intention of enabling those sinners to turn from their evil ways.


II. Selective Logic

I assume Birch is suggesting that Reformed reprobation is logically inconsistent with the intent of passages like Ezk 18:23 & 33:11. However, unless you have steady hands, logic is a dangerous weapon. If (arguendo) Ezk 33:11 is logically inconsistent with Calvinism, then by the same token it’s logically inconsistent with Arminianism as well–just in a different way.

In Arminianism, God knows ahead of time who will believe and who will disbelieve. Who will go to heaven and who will go to hell. If God takes no pleasure in the outcome, then God can preempt that undesirable outcome by never making hellbound sinners in the first place. It’s not as if God was acting at gunpoint when he made the world. Arminians presumably don’t think anybody was forcing God’s hand when he made the world.

The undesirable outcome is both foreseeable and avoidable. Yet by making them, God seals their fate. God had that outcome in mind when he made them. So he had no intention of saving them. That’s the Arminian dilemma.

III. Anthropopathism

Unless we’re Mormons or open theists, we must make allowance for the fact that Scripture uses anthropopathic expressions (e.g. "pleasure") for God.

IV. Context

It’s exegetically unsound to jump straight into passages like Ezk 18:23 & 33:11 and then draw inferences about God’s ulterior intentions. For these passages have their background in Ezekiel’s commission (Ezk 2-3). That’s the proper place to start:

4The descendants also are impudent and stubborn: I send you to them, and you shall say to them, 'Thus says the Lord GOD.' 5And whether they hear or refuse to hear (for they are a rebellious house) they will know that a prophet has been among them (Ezk 2:4-5).
7But the house of Israel will not be willing to listen to you, for they are not willing to listen to me: because all the house of Israel have a hard forehead and a stubborn heart (Ezk 3:7).

In these programmatic passages, God discloses his expectations and intentions. God does not issue these warnings with the expectation or intention that Israel in general will respond favorably. To the contrary, Israel in general will spurn the warning.

However, that very reaction serves God’s purpose, for that confirms the prophetic judgment. They were duly warned. They flouted the warning. (For detailed exegesis, consult the commentaries by Allen, Block, and Duguid.)

So one of God’s primary reasons for issuing these warnings is to aggravate their culpability. Ezekiel succeeds by failing.

V. The Remnant

Although these warnings won’t result in national repentance, the OT has a doctrine of the remnant, and that motif is also present in Ezekiel. As one scholar explains:

Ezekiel pleads with God to mix mercy with well-deserved judgment so that some Israelites might survive (Ezk 9:8; 17:13). Indeed, a historical remnant will survive national destruction (6:7-9; 7:16; 14:22f.; 24:26f) and be scattered among the nations (5:10-12; 12:15f.; 17:21). From these Yahweh will gather those who by His grace will receive a “new heart” and a “new spirit” (11:16-21; cf. 36:26) so that He can call them “my people” (11:20). This faithful remnant will constitute the nucleus of a religious rather than political community, “Remnant,” ISBE 4:133.

Likewise, Ezk 37 is a locus classicus of remnant theology–where God promises to restore the exilic community.

So passages like Ezk 18:23 & 33:11 are directly effective in reference to the remnant. The remnant will heed the warning. And it’s ultimately for the benefit of remnant Israel. Therefore, that’s another reason that God issues these warnings. A divine command or warning can serve more than one purpose.

VI. Speech-Act Theory

In assessing the intended force of passages like Ezk 18:23 & 33:11, we need to be sensitive to different types of discourse. In particular, we need to draw a broad distinction between illocutionary discourse, which is primarily intended to furnish factual information, and perlocutionary discourse, which is primarily directive rather than assertive. Hortatory passages like Ezk 18:23 & 33:11 are performative language, designed to have a perlocutionary effect. To persuade, deter, elicit a response.

It’s not meant to unveil God’s psychological state, but to induce a psychological state in the listener.

Lest this be dismissed as special pleading in the interests of Calvinism, notice how Arminian commentator Ben Witherington interprets the warnings in Heb 6 as perlocutionary discourse rather than illocutionary discourse:

The wise rhetor will pull out the emotional stops, use more colorful language, engage in rhetorical hyperbole, up the volume on “amplification”…One of the issues that many commentators misunderstand, because of failure to read the rhetorical signals, is that our author to some degree is being ironic here and engaging in a preemptive strike. That is, we should not read this text as a literal description of the present spiritual condition of the audience…One of the key factors in analyzing this section is to realize that our author is trying to put the “fear of God” into his audience by using rhetoric to prevent defections, and so one is not sure how far to press the specifics here, since it is possible to argue that some of this involves dramatic hyperbole…our author is deliberately engaging in dramatic rhetorical statements for the purpose of waking up the audience…In other words, these words were intended to have a specific emotional effect, not comment in the abstract about what is impossible, Letters and Homilies for Jewish Christians (IVP 2007), 203-214.

I’m proposing that we take the same basic approach to Ezk 18:23 & 33:11.

10 comments:

  1. Hi Steve,

    I'd like to ask what you see as wrong with Piper and Spurgeon's view (http://www.spurgeon.org/sermons/1516.htm) that God does actually desire all to be saved, that you go for this alternative?

    Since I don't see a problem with Piper's view, what is the need to have this alternative?

    Thanks

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  2. i) For reasons I've cited in this post, I don't think that's the most exegetically satisfactory interpretation. It neglects other contextual delimiters.

    ii) On the face of it, I don't know why God would be frustrated with the way things turn out. Surely God can have exactly the world he wants.

    iii) I think the two-wills rubric is a makeshift explanation.

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  3. point ii) is interesting, but since you (I presume) can allow that God is grieved at times in scripture, that he ordains things that consequently make Him extremely angry at other times etc.., then why is it so out of place that he would see fit to ordain things that cause him to feel the emotion of frustration?

    It is not necessary that this is an eternal frustration, I think J.Edwards believed that after death believers would no longer feel love or pity for unbelievers in hell, perhaps a similar thing may be so with the part of God's desires that may feel (self-ordained) frustration.

    Are there not verses that suggest this - such as Jeremiah 48:31-36 which describes God weeping over people he deliberately decided to judge.

    Other passages such as Isaiah 15:5-9 and Isaiah 16:9-11 communicate the same.

    I don't think the two-wills approach necessitates a diminishing of God's sovereignty, i.e. what He ultimately wants to happen.

    Could be wrong, but I confess I still don't see the big problem.

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  4. That's why I also had a brief section on anthropopathisms.

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  5. sure, but what do the anthropopathisms of God weeping over those He nevertheless exercises judgement upon communicate?

    - that God does not have any feeling about the fact of their destruction?

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  6. That's why I had a section on speech-act theory.

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  7. That leaves me thinking that those passages are quite misrepresenting of God if in fact he does not really weep (metaphorically) over them, or have the strength of feeling communicated towards them. It was just a rhetorical ploy not representative of the truth. Why could this not be going on in any number of other passages? Passages where it says God is angry at sin for example, maybe he is not and it is not intended to 'unveil God's psychological state', likewise with the passages about God's love for the elect. Why are they not also merely a rhetorical ploy?

    If, on the other hand, you say He does have those feelings but only with respect to the elect amongst them, then:

    1) to many that is less than obvious from the passages, at least less obvious than the 2-wills approach

    2) it does not explain the weeping that seems to be post judgement - i.e. they were not elect

    Please understand I am not meaning this in an unfriendly tone, I am just trying to see how your view is coherent.

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  8. HALO SAID:

    “That leaves me thinking that those passages are quite misrepresenting of God if in fact he does not really weep (metaphorically) over them, or have the strength of feeling communicated towards them. It was just a rhetorical ploy not representative of the truth.”

    It’s only misrepresentative if it was meant to be illocutionary rather than perlocutionary. If, by contrast, it was not intended to reveal God’s mental state, but rather, to elicit a certain type of response, then that’s hardly misrepresentative unless God didn’t intend to elicit a certain type of response.

    So your objection doesn’t even engage the argument.

    We’re dealing with hortatory language. That’s not designed to tell you what the speaker’s ulterior motives may be. Rather, it’s designed to persuade or deter. Trigger a suitable reaction. It’s not self-revelatory; rather, it’s directed at a second-party.

    A field commander will use hortatory language to inspire his troops, but that’s not designed to convey the commander’s game plan. They don’t know the ultimate purpose of the orders. They don’t know how taking the bridge contributes to the strategic objective.

    You also disregard the complexities of intent, although I discussed that under points IV-V.

    “Why could this not be going on in any number of other passages? Passages where it says God is angry at sin for example, maybe he is not and it is not intended to 'unveil God's psychological state', likewise with the passages about God's love for the elect. Why are they not also merely a rhetorical ploy?”

    i) Well, for one thing, you fail to distinguish between different types of discourse. It is primarily informative or performative? That’s something you must judge from the context. The genre.

    ii) We must also make allowance for what is or isn’t congruent with an omniscient, omnipotent speaker. Otherwise, you’re suggesting a God who’s at the mercy of his creation. A bipolar God prone to violent mood swings. A God whose buttons we can push. It gives us power over God if we can make him angry. Make him sad. Such a God loses control. Instead of controlling us, we control God by provoking him, by yanking his chain–as if we were teasing a dog.

    You don’t really believe that, do you?

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  9. It gives us power over God if we can make him angry.

    I don't think that just because we can do things that make God angry that this means we are controlling Him, I was careful to state that God ordains those things that anger Him, thus He is the one ultimately pulling the strings.

    i) Well, for one thing, you fail to distinguish between different types of discourse. It is primarily informative or performative? That’s something you must judge from the context.

    And it seems the most straightforward judgement to many people is that the texts do intend to communicate what they seem to say about how God feels. I don't really think it had ever occurred to me that those kind of passages were not actually a true portrait of aspects of God's psychological state.

    Perhaps I am not understanding your argument fully because it does not seem as subjectively persuasive to me as it seems to be to you.

    Regards,
    halo

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  10. HALO SAID:

    “I don't think that just because we can do things that make God angry that this means we are controlling Him, I was careful to state that God ordains those things that anger Him, thus He is the one ultimately pulling the strings.”

    For someone who’s interested in divine psychology, you’re not offering a psychologically plausible explanation. It’s like saying a novelist invents characters who make him mad, then invents other characters who pacify his rage. The whole exercise becomes a charade.

    If you wish to make literal sense of divine wrath, the way to do it is to say that God disapproves of sin, in and of itself, but sin can also serve a larger purpose in the plan of God, and God approves of his own plan.

    “And it seems the most straightforward judgement to many people is that the texts do intend to communicate what they seem to say about how God feels.”

    Well, many readers are naïve. They don’t consider the implications of their interpretation. Many readers view Yahweh like a comic book superhero. A figure with human foibles and feelings who is simply more knowledgeable and powerful than mere mortals.

    “I don't really think it had ever occurred to me that those kind of passages were not actually a true portrait of aspects of God's psychological state.”

    “True portrait” is misleading, inasmuch as that implies a contrast with a false portrait. But that misses the point. The truth or falsity of the passage depends on the intent of the speaker.

    “Perhaps I am not understanding your argument fully because it does not seem as subjectively persuasive to me as it seems to be to you.”

    You don’t understand it because you operate with a completely different paradigm. When you wear tinted-glasses, everything looks amber.

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