In response to my post on the neo-Manicheans, Ben Henshaw attempted to contrive a parallel set of invidious comparisons in relation to Calvinism. But his attempt suffers from both general and specific problems.
The general problem is that he doesn’t know the difference between invidious comparisons and harmless comparisons. If both an orthodox and unorthodox belief-system share something in common, that is not inherently invidious. For the unorthodox belief-system may, in that respect, share something good in common with the orthodox belief-system.
For example, a number of Christian heresies and cults endorse the Protestant canon. But that’s a harmless comparison rather than an invidious comparison. It isn’t bad that Protestants share something good in common with a cult or heresy, or vice versa.
To take another example, what makes Manichean/Zoroastrian dualism bad is not that it’s Manichean or Zoroastrian. Rather, it’s because their dualistic outlook is bad on its own terms that it’s bad for them to endorse that outlook.
And if another belief-system shares something bad in common with Manichaeanism or Zoroastrianism, then that’s what makes the comparison invidious.
Unfortunately, this is not the first time, and I daresay it’s not the last, that we have to explain the obvious to an Arminian epologist.
Beyond the generally fallacy are a number of specific equivocations as well as outright falsehoods in his presentation:
“On account of the fact that they [Calvinists and Manicheans] both teach determinism.”
This gets thrown around quite frequently. I’d like to see Ben spell out precisely what type of determinism was taught in Zoroastrianism and Manichaeism, then compare that to the type of determinism taught in Calvinism.
“A single God with a contradictory will who irresistibly causes his creatures to do both good and evil.”
i) He needs to show how the God of Calvinism has a contradictory will. For example, does Paul Helm’s understanding of God involve a contradictory will? Likewise, can he show where my own understanding of God involves a contradictory will?
ii) According to Arminianism, God causes his creatures to do both good and evil by creating a world in which they do both good and evil. Is the Arminian God conflicted?
“Calvinists believe that they alone are the spiritually mature Christians who have gained special insight into the ‘doctrines of grace’ and the secret counsels of God (so secret that no Christian writers prior to Augustine ever heard of them).”
i) Can Ben quote any Reformed creeds or representative Reformed theologians who take the position that Calvinists alone are the spiritually mature Christians? For that matter, can he even quote me to that effect?
ii) Likewise, can he quote any representative Reformed theologians who take the position that it requires “special insight” to find the doctrines of grace in the pages of Scripture? For that matter, can he even quote me to that effect?
iii) Finally, it’s very imprudent for him to discredit Calvinism in case no Christian writers prior to Augustine ever taught it. After all, Catholic and Orthodox apologists level the same basic charge against Evangelicalism in general and the Protestant Reformers in particular. They’d say the same thing about Arminian or Wesleyan theology.
“On account of the fact that they [Calvinism and Hinduism] both maintain a spiritual caste system.”
Once again, let’s see the specifics. What Ben is doing here is to shift the onerous connotations of the Hindu caste system onto Calvinism. But before he can draw that comparison, he first needs to strip away everything that’s distinctive to the Hindu caste-system.
“They provide the tragedy that makes the comedy that much more funny for the elect.”
"Funny"? Here Ben advertises his literary as well as theological illiteracy. For some reason, Arminian epologists can’t resist indulging in glib, facile, superficial caricatures of Calvinism. They think that’s clever. But since the caricature is easy to spot, they end exposing their own shallow, callow grasp of theology. Taking cheap shots makes them look cheap.
Since Ben doesn’t know what he’s talking about, which doesn’t prevent him from talking, here’s a corrective:
“Comedy means two distinct things in literary criticism. One category is the humorous or laughable. But comedy also denotes a type of story pattern. In fact, it is one of the four phases of the monomyth. A full-fledged comic plot is a U-shaped story that descends into potential tragedy and then rises to a happy ending as obstacles to fulfillment are gradually overcome. Some comic plots record only the upward movement from bondage to freedom. The progression of a comic plot is from problem to solution, from less than ideal experience to prosperity and wish fulfillment. The comic plot is the story of the happy ending par excellence. The plot consists of a series of obstacles that must be overcome en route to the happy ending…Several Biblical stories are virtual case studies in comic plots…The truth is that comedy is the dominant narrative form in the Bible…The comic plot is the deep structure of biblical narrative…the overall plot of the Bible is a U-shaped comic plot,” Dictionary of Biblical Imagery, 160-61.
The editor illustrates his point by citing the stories of Ruth and Job, the Joseph cycle, the life of Christ, and the book of Revelation.
Continuing with Ben:
“Even though the elect never actually experience the ‘tragedy’ of eternal torment, nor were they ever in any real danger of experiencing it).”
Does Ben think there’s something inherently wrong with shielding people from “real dangers”? Does Ben think that guardrails are immoral?
“All that is left is a theology where God is the only real thinker and actor in the universe, all of His creatures merely being passive conduits through which God’s thoughts and actions are expressed, or ‘instantiated’ (even sinful and contradictory thoughts).”
i) That’s long on assertion and short on argument.
ii) Doesn’t the Arminian God instantiate his preconception of the world–a world containing sinful thoughts? The Arminian God instantiates the world he foresaw, complete with all the sinful thoughts and actions of the finite agents–thereby reifying their sinful thoughts an actions.
Why do Arminians constantly act as if they can evade the moral and metaphysical implications of their own belief-system?
“On account of the fact that Calvinists represent the master race unconditionally (arbitrarily?) favored by God above everyone else from all eternity.”
Since Calvinists don’t belong to any particular race, they hardly view their religious identity in racial terms.
Moreover, Calvinists don’t equate the elect with Calvinists.
Is Ben even trying to be accurate? Or is he so intoxicated by his animosity towards Calvinism that he’s incapable of even giving a sober description. The poor bloke can’t see it straight through his blurry-eyed vision. He needs to spend some quality time in detox to dry out.
Monday, September 21, 2009
The Achilles heel of Arminianism
By way of background, I did a couple of posts in which I juxtaposed two different statements by Billy Birch:
“First, notice that God is said not to control the actions and passions of his creatures (as is explicitly admitted by Calvinists), but that he governs such. The difference is paramount for a faithful, appropriate, and correct understanding of God as revealed throughout the tenor of Scripture.”
“I was a youth pastor when 9/11 hit. Many of the kids wanted to know how to react to the situation as far as God was concerned. The first thing I let them know was that this did not take God by surprise. He is in control."
I then drew the conclusion that, according to classical Arminianism, God is in the business of controlling fanatical pilots who crash planes into buildings.
This is how Billy responds:
It never ceases to amaze me how some Calvinists can take what one conveys, on one's blog for example, and spin the meaning. For example, I have admitted that God does not “control” the desires and decisions of people, and yet he is “in control” of all things. A Calvinist, who shall remain nameless, decided that what I had written was a contradiction. So, to say that God is “in control” (or sovereign) is, for him, to say that God also “controls” the desires and decisions of people.
I have been arguing all along that the Calvinist's definition of sovereignty is his Achilles' heel. For to admit that God is in control of all things and yet does not control the desires and decisions of all people is to admit contradiction.
But my critic missed the point entirely, did he not? For to admit that God is “in control” of all events is to insist that nothing catches him by surprise. He foreknew every event long before it ever came to pass. But this does not necessitate the notion that he also “controls” the desires and decisions which people make. Neglecting to make this distinction is quite an elementary error in logic. The former judgment does not necessitate the latter.
In the comments section of this blog I related to a friend that during the events of 9/11 I was a youth pastor in my hometown. The kids wanted to know how we should relate the tragedy with God's sovereignty. I informed them that this horrific event did not take God by surprise. After all, God is “in control.” It is not as though God stood by helpless while evil men murdered thousands of people. On the other hand, it should not be thought that God is in the business of throwing planes into buildings. One critic noted, "So, according to classical Arminianism, God is in the business of controlling fanatical pilots who crash planes into buildings."
You read my statement clearly for yourself. Where in that account did I suggest that God is "in the business of controlling fanatical pilots"? "Nowhere," you answer. That is correct. The critic took my words and put his spin on them, stemming from his fatalistic, deterministic presuppositions. And this allegedly exposed my inconsistency? Actually, as any second-grade student could determine from any cursory reading of my comments, I was not at all suggesting that God influences the desires and decisions of people (as Wayne Grudem confesses), but just the exact opposite. Hence God did not influence those evil men to pilot planes to fly into the World Trade Center, killing thousands of people. While God remains in control, this fact does not necessitate that he influence evil men to act wickedly (as Calvinism insists). And yes, that makes all the difference.
Is God schizophrenic? Does he both command obedience and influence disobedience? He must if Calvinism is true! Watch how Calvinists will try to wriggle their way out of this truth. Suddenly they will affirm secondary causes, trying desperately not to make God culpable for bringing to pass that which he has forbidden.
http://classicalarminianism.blogspot.com/2009/09/how-much-does-god-control.html
Several problems with this response:
i) I didn’t incorporate Reformed presuppositions into my argument. How I happen to define sovereignty was no part of my argument. I didn’t say anything about “sovereignty.” I was simply responding to Birch on his own terms. Literally. I responded in his very own words. His use of the word “control.”
Is Birch so illiterate or obtuse that he can’t recognize when someone is merely responding to him on his own terms? It isn’t difficult to see.
ii) Birch regards the distinction between controlling x and being in control of x as nothing short of “paramount.” However, this distinction is far from self-explanatory. Yet if this distinction is “paramount” to the difference between Calvinism and Arminianism, then it needs to be explicated. Otherwise, Arminianism collapses into the dreaded Reformed alternative.
iii) He also says the Reformed definition of sovereignty is the Achilles heel of Calvinism. That being the case, the Arminian presumably has a way to finesse the concept of sovereignty which manages to avoid what he finds so objectionable in Calvinism.
iv) Before we proceed any further, let’s go back to the original statement. On the one hand, Birch said that God doesn’t control the actions or passions of his creatures. On the other hand, Birch said that God was in control of the 9/11 hijackers.
Deliberately ramming a plane into a building is a human action, with a corresponding passion. So, according to Birch, God was in control of the actions and passions of the 9/11 hijackers.
Therefore, if we limit ourselves to his own terminology, Birch denies that:
a) God controlled the actions and passions of the 9/11 hijackers.
But Birth affirms that:
b) God was in control of the actions and passions of the 9/11 hijackers.
Can anyone explain to me how that’s a “paramount” distinction?
Then you have his additional caveat: “in the business of.” So when Birch objects to my characterization of his position, where does the objection lie? Is it Birch’s position that while:
a) God was in control of the actions and passions of the 9/11 hijackers,
b) God was not in the business of being in control of the actions and passions of the 9/11 hijackers?
Does Birch mean that:
c) God was out of the business of being in control of the actions and passions of the 9/11 hijackers?
But unless God was in the business of being in control, then how could God be in control?
Remember that, for Birch, these distinctions are “paramount.” They save the Arminian from the Achilles heel of Calvinism.
He also says that “Neglecting to make this distinction is quite an elementary error in logic.”
If that’s the case, then I’d like to see him spell out the elementary logical distinction between controlling x and being in control of x.
v) Birch then defines “in control” as meaning that “nothing catches God by surprise” because God “foreknew every event long before it ever came to pass.”
But how does that definition capture the concept of what it means to be in control? For example, Birch demagogically attributes fatalism to Calvinism. But in the classic definition of fatalism, knowing the future and controlling the future are not only distinct, but they are opposed. The dilemma for the ill-fated individual is that he knows his future, but has no control over his future. So how can Birch characterize Calvinism as fatalistic, then define control in terms of foreknowledge?
In fatalism, the doom of the ill-fated individual doesn’t catch him by surprise. He knows it’s coming, and there’s nothing he can do to escape the dire outcome, right? Isn’t that the classic definition of fatalism?
vi) Apparently, Birch also tries to define controlling x as “influencing the desires and decisions” of x.
Keep in mind that I didn’t use the word “influence” in my original argument. Birch is introducing that word into the discussion, after the fact.
But “influence” is weaker than control. You can influence (or have an influence on) someone without controlling (or being in control) of the their desires, decisions, and actions.
A father may have an influence on his son. That doesn’t mean he controls his son.
Birch is coming up with ad hoc definitions and ad hoc distinctions to salvage his position.
vii) Birch then says that God didn’t “influence” the 9/11 hijackers. And “that makes all the difference.”
So, according to Birch:
a) God didn’t influence the 9/11 hijackers,
But:
b) God was in control of the 9/11 hijackers.
And how does that “make all the difference”?
Control is a stronger concept than influence. A mere influence is resistible in a way that control is not.
viii) As for divine schizophrenia, according to Arminianism, God brings to pass what he has forbidden by creating a world in which rational creatures disobey his commands. So, by Birch’s own logic, God is culpable for that state of affairs. How does that avoid the Achilles heel of Calvinism? (Not that I accept his characterization of Calvinism.)
I get a whole lot of attitude from Arminians. But their reasoning skills leave much to be desired.
“First, notice that God is said not to control the actions and passions of his creatures (as is explicitly admitted by Calvinists), but that he governs such. The difference is paramount for a faithful, appropriate, and correct understanding of God as revealed throughout the tenor of Scripture.”
“I was a youth pastor when 9/11 hit. Many of the kids wanted to know how to react to the situation as far as God was concerned. The first thing I let them know was that this did not take God by surprise. He is in control."
I then drew the conclusion that, according to classical Arminianism, God is in the business of controlling fanatical pilots who crash planes into buildings.
This is how Billy responds:
It never ceases to amaze me how some Calvinists can take what one conveys, on one's blog for example, and spin the meaning. For example, I have admitted that God does not “control” the desires and decisions of people, and yet he is “in control” of all things. A Calvinist, who shall remain nameless, decided that what I had written was a contradiction. So, to say that God is “in control” (or sovereign) is, for him, to say that God also “controls” the desires and decisions of people.
I have been arguing all along that the Calvinist's definition of sovereignty is his Achilles' heel. For to admit that God is in control of all things and yet does not control the desires and decisions of all people is to admit contradiction.
But my critic missed the point entirely, did he not? For to admit that God is “in control” of all events is to insist that nothing catches him by surprise. He foreknew every event long before it ever came to pass. But this does not necessitate the notion that he also “controls” the desires and decisions which people make. Neglecting to make this distinction is quite an elementary error in logic. The former judgment does not necessitate the latter.
In the comments section of this blog I related to a friend that during the events of 9/11 I was a youth pastor in my hometown. The kids wanted to know how we should relate the tragedy with God's sovereignty. I informed them that this horrific event did not take God by surprise. After all, God is “in control.” It is not as though God stood by helpless while evil men murdered thousands of people. On the other hand, it should not be thought that God is in the business of throwing planes into buildings. One critic noted, "So, according to classical Arminianism, God is in the business of controlling fanatical pilots who crash planes into buildings."
You read my statement clearly for yourself. Where in that account did I suggest that God is "in the business of controlling fanatical pilots"? "Nowhere," you answer. That is correct. The critic took my words and put his spin on them, stemming from his fatalistic, deterministic presuppositions. And this allegedly exposed my inconsistency? Actually, as any second-grade student could determine from any cursory reading of my comments, I was not at all suggesting that God influences the desires and decisions of people (as Wayne Grudem confesses), but just the exact opposite. Hence God did not influence those evil men to pilot planes to fly into the World Trade Center, killing thousands of people. While God remains in control, this fact does not necessitate that he influence evil men to act wickedly (as Calvinism insists). And yes, that makes all the difference.
Is God schizophrenic? Does he both command obedience and influence disobedience? He must if Calvinism is true! Watch how Calvinists will try to wriggle their way out of this truth. Suddenly they will affirm secondary causes, trying desperately not to make God culpable for bringing to pass that which he has forbidden.
http://classicalarminianism.blogspot.com/2009/09/how-much-does-god-control.html
Several problems with this response:
i) I didn’t incorporate Reformed presuppositions into my argument. How I happen to define sovereignty was no part of my argument. I didn’t say anything about “sovereignty.” I was simply responding to Birch on his own terms. Literally. I responded in his very own words. His use of the word “control.”
Is Birch so illiterate or obtuse that he can’t recognize when someone is merely responding to him on his own terms? It isn’t difficult to see.
ii) Birch regards the distinction between controlling x and being in control of x as nothing short of “paramount.” However, this distinction is far from self-explanatory. Yet if this distinction is “paramount” to the difference between Calvinism and Arminianism, then it needs to be explicated. Otherwise, Arminianism collapses into the dreaded Reformed alternative.
iii) He also says the Reformed definition of sovereignty is the Achilles heel of Calvinism. That being the case, the Arminian presumably has a way to finesse the concept of sovereignty which manages to avoid what he finds so objectionable in Calvinism.
iv) Before we proceed any further, let’s go back to the original statement. On the one hand, Birch said that God doesn’t control the actions or passions of his creatures. On the other hand, Birch said that God was in control of the 9/11 hijackers.
Deliberately ramming a plane into a building is a human action, with a corresponding passion. So, according to Birch, God was in control of the actions and passions of the 9/11 hijackers.
Therefore, if we limit ourselves to his own terminology, Birch denies that:
a) God controlled the actions and passions of the 9/11 hijackers.
But Birth affirms that:
b) God was in control of the actions and passions of the 9/11 hijackers.
Can anyone explain to me how that’s a “paramount” distinction?
Then you have his additional caveat: “in the business of.” So when Birch objects to my characterization of his position, where does the objection lie? Is it Birch’s position that while:
a) God was in control of the actions and passions of the 9/11 hijackers,
b) God was not in the business of being in control of the actions and passions of the 9/11 hijackers?
Does Birch mean that:
c) God was out of the business of being in control of the actions and passions of the 9/11 hijackers?
But unless God was in the business of being in control, then how could God be in control?
Remember that, for Birch, these distinctions are “paramount.” They save the Arminian from the Achilles heel of Calvinism.
He also says that “Neglecting to make this distinction is quite an elementary error in logic.”
If that’s the case, then I’d like to see him spell out the elementary logical distinction between controlling x and being in control of x.
v) Birch then defines “in control” as meaning that “nothing catches God by surprise” because God “foreknew every event long before it ever came to pass.”
But how does that definition capture the concept of what it means to be in control? For example, Birch demagogically attributes fatalism to Calvinism. But in the classic definition of fatalism, knowing the future and controlling the future are not only distinct, but they are opposed. The dilemma for the ill-fated individual is that he knows his future, but has no control over his future. So how can Birch characterize Calvinism as fatalistic, then define control in terms of foreknowledge?
In fatalism, the doom of the ill-fated individual doesn’t catch him by surprise. He knows it’s coming, and there’s nothing he can do to escape the dire outcome, right? Isn’t that the classic definition of fatalism?
vi) Apparently, Birch also tries to define controlling x as “influencing the desires and decisions” of x.
Keep in mind that I didn’t use the word “influence” in my original argument. Birch is introducing that word into the discussion, after the fact.
But “influence” is weaker than control. You can influence (or have an influence on) someone without controlling (or being in control) of the their desires, decisions, and actions.
A father may have an influence on his son. That doesn’t mean he controls his son.
Birch is coming up with ad hoc definitions and ad hoc distinctions to salvage his position.
vii) Birch then says that God didn’t “influence” the 9/11 hijackers. And “that makes all the difference.”
So, according to Birch:
a) God didn’t influence the 9/11 hijackers,
But:
b) God was in control of the 9/11 hijackers.
And how does that “make all the difference”?
Control is a stronger concept than influence. A mere influence is resistible in a way that control is not.
viii) As for divine schizophrenia, according to Arminianism, God brings to pass what he has forbidden by creating a world in which rational creatures disobey his commands. So, by Birch’s own logic, God is culpable for that state of affairs. How does that avoid the Achilles heel of Calvinism? (Not that I accept his characterization of Calvinism.)
I get a whole lot of attitude from Arminians. But their reasoning skills leave much to be desired.
Sunday, September 20, 2009
Why Twinkies disprove God's existence
In a mislabeled post, Reppert presents the following claim:
What is coercion? In simple cases of coercion, one wants to do x, but through threat of force (a gun to the head), or maybe through the presence of a computer hooked up to one's brain, one does y instead.
But is there another type of coercion, in which another person uses motives that may be in place in order to bring it about that that person does what is contrary to their own best interests?
I saw a show (one of the 60 Minutes clones, can't remember which) in which an FBI agent or Lebanese was running a sting operation where he posed as an Al-Queda operative, got some teenagers to sign up for terrorist activity in exchange for money, and then had them arrested. The young kids agreed that they had been seduced by their own greed. But were they still coerced in some significant sense, because they were persuaded to act against their own best interests? Were they truly free even in the compatibilist sense?
http://dangerousidea.blogspot.com/2009/09/coercion.html
What Reppert is describing is not coercion. To say that acting against your self-interest is coerced behavior is a completely tendentious and idiosyncratic definition of the term.
What Reppert is really describing is something which borders on “entrapment,” not “coercion”–although the definition of entrapment is a bit fuzzy.
One can think of good cases and bad cases of entrapment. To offer a recovering alcoholic a drink to induce him to commit a crime would be evil.
However, to lure a terrorist out of hiding by something you know he finds very tempting would not be evil.
True to his bleeding-heart credentials, Reppert is resorting to the Twinkie defense. The Twinkies made me do it!
By his standard, you could never prosecute looting or shoplifting. The accused could always plead that he (or she) was induced to commit theft because the merchandise was appealing, and he was acting contrary to his self-interest by committing a crime with so little to gain–so he should be acquitted.
And, indeed, if Reppert were on the jury, I suppose there’s not a looter or shoplifter he wouldn’t tearfully acquit and hug on the way out the courtroom door. They are the true victims, not the evil shopkeeper.
What is coercion? In simple cases of coercion, one wants to do x, but through threat of force (a gun to the head), or maybe through the presence of a computer hooked up to one's brain, one does y instead.
But is there another type of coercion, in which another person uses motives that may be in place in order to bring it about that that person does what is contrary to their own best interests?
I saw a show (one of the 60 Minutes clones, can't remember which) in which an FBI agent or Lebanese was running a sting operation where he posed as an Al-Queda operative, got some teenagers to sign up for terrorist activity in exchange for money, and then had them arrested. The young kids agreed that they had been seduced by their own greed. But were they still coerced in some significant sense, because they were persuaded to act against their own best interests? Were they truly free even in the compatibilist sense?
http://dangerousidea.blogspot.com/2009/09/coercion.html
What Reppert is describing is not coercion. To say that acting against your self-interest is coerced behavior is a completely tendentious and idiosyncratic definition of the term.
What Reppert is really describing is something which borders on “entrapment,” not “coercion”–although the definition of entrapment is a bit fuzzy.
One can think of good cases and bad cases of entrapment. To offer a recovering alcoholic a drink to induce him to commit a crime would be evil.
However, to lure a terrorist out of hiding by something you know he finds very tempting would not be evil.
True to his bleeding-heart credentials, Reppert is resorting to the Twinkie defense. The Twinkies made me do it!
By his standard, you could never prosecute looting or shoplifting. The accused could always plead that he (or she) was induced to commit theft because the merchandise was appealing, and he was acting contrary to his self-interest by committing a crime with so little to gain–so he should be acquitted.
And, indeed, if Reppert were on the jury, I suppose there’s not a looter or shoplifter he wouldn’t tearfully acquit and hug on the way out the courtroom door. They are the true victims, not the evil shopkeeper.
A prophet has arisen!
“This means, from beginning to end, evil is involved as a necessary opposite to God, where each other's character is measured and definable in terms of the other. This is a classical unbiblical dualism akin to what you are charging arminianism to entail. In calvinism, evil is eternally necessary to realize God's innate properties! Therefore, the dualism charge you raise against arminianism cuts both ways.”
In supralapsarianism, evil is not necessary to “realize” God’s attributes. Rather, it’s (conditionally) necessary to reveal God’s attributes.
And that’s quite different than treating good and evil as eternal, autonomous principles.
In Calvinism, fallen agents are creatures, not gods. Evil has no subsistence apart from God’s will. That’s very different from Manichean/Zoroastrian dualism.
In dualism, evil doesn’t exist for a good reason. And it has a subsistence independent of the good.
There is, I’d add, a fundamentally difference between saying that God eternally willed something to be, and saying that something eternally coexisted with God.
Hence, Kröger’s attempted parallel is shot full of equivocations.
But one of the problems with Arminianism is that it does treat evil as though it were an autonomous force. Arminians want to have it both ways. Say that God is still in control, yet ascribe autonomy to fallen agents. Say that god allows evil without willing evil.
“In calvinism, good cannot exist without evil!”
False. In Calvinism, good can exist without evil. Both finite (creaturely) goods and infinite (divine) goods can exist without evil.
What cannot exist without evil are certain second-order goods.
“No, these two are completely different things. In christianity God can exist without a creation, but calvinism's greater good defense makes evil a necessity.”
A conditional necessity. God is a liberty to create a world with or without second-order goods. And he’s at liberty to create no world at all.
“That's right and without sin there'd be no grounds for mercy.”
True. So what?
“Right, but God's creation was very good. He could have renounced creation and stayed alone. Then he would not be a creator. But he would still be fully God.”
Which is equally the case in Calvinism.
“According to the Greater Good Defense, mercy and wrath in response to evil are ultimately better than no evil.”
True. So what?
Mind you, I don’t think a Reformed theodicy even requires a greater good defense.
It’s sufficient to say that a world which is fallen and redeemed exemplifies certain incommensurable goods. Goods which remain unexemplified in a sinless world.
“Wouldn't it be better if there were no evil to begin with?”
If a world without evil is a better world, then why did God create a world with evil? If there are no compensatory benefits to redemption (which presupposes sin), then why did God allow it?
“And the bible nowhere suggests such a thing. In fact, it doesn't make much sense in light of the biblical view of sin and evil which portrays the culpability of evil. Nowhere does the bible suggest a good outcome of evil.”
I’ve already corrected Kröger on that demonstrably false statement. So why is he repeating the same discredited claim?
“If evil served a greater good, it would be good!--simple.”
Simple-minded, you mean. To reiterate an illustration I used with another commenter: Suppose my younger brother and I may not get along very well until a traffic accident leaves him in a wheelchair. That brings us closer together. His disability is not intrinsically good. But it’s instrumentally good.
“So if God's glorious mercy and justice are in any way real, then their basis, that is, human guilt must likewise be real. But on what basis is there a real culpability of man??! You may say there is no real guilt of man, however then there cannot be a real display of God's mercy and wrath.”
A non sequitur. God’s good intentions in decreeing the Fall are distinguishable from the evil intentions of fallen creatures.
“You cannot think of mercy without thinking of evil.”
And how is that an objection to Calvinism? In our world, we have mercy and evil. That’s the actual state of affairs.
“Yet the greater good defense puts the cart before the horse. There's sin in order to respond to it, either mercifully or angry.”
Which confuses ontology with teleology.
“The mere concept of evil isn't even part of God.”
So God has no concept of evil? God is ignorant of evil?
“By reading a helmet's book (the key) on the theodicy problem (the lock), the many, many obstacles and stumbling stones (the pins) being encountered during that quest, are moved in various ways. But when you reach the end of the book, all the questions and problems regarding theodicy will have fallen into their places and been satisfiably answered--you can unlock and open the door!”
I take it that Kröger’s forthcoming book is the lost book of the Bible. We can’t get the answers we need from Scripture. We need to add his book to the canon. A new prophet has arisen!
In supralapsarianism, evil is not necessary to “realize” God’s attributes. Rather, it’s (conditionally) necessary to reveal God’s attributes.
And that’s quite different than treating good and evil as eternal, autonomous principles.
In Calvinism, fallen agents are creatures, not gods. Evil has no subsistence apart from God’s will. That’s very different from Manichean/Zoroastrian dualism.
In dualism, evil doesn’t exist for a good reason. And it has a subsistence independent of the good.
There is, I’d add, a fundamentally difference between saying that God eternally willed something to be, and saying that something eternally coexisted with God.
Hence, Kröger’s attempted parallel is shot full of equivocations.
But one of the problems with Arminianism is that it does treat evil as though it were an autonomous force. Arminians want to have it both ways. Say that God is still in control, yet ascribe autonomy to fallen agents. Say that god allows evil without willing evil.
“In calvinism, good cannot exist without evil!”
False. In Calvinism, good can exist without evil. Both finite (creaturely) goods and infinite (divine) goods can exist without evil.
What cannot exist without evil are certain second-order goods.
“No, these two are completely different things. In christianity God can exist without a creation, but calvinism's greater good defense makes evil a necessity.”
A conditional necessity. God is a liberty to create a world with or without second-order goods. And he’s at liberty to create no world at all.
“That's right and without sin there'd be no grounds for mercy.”
True. So what?
“Right, but God's creation was very good. He could have renounced creation and stayed alone. Then he would not be a creator. But he would still be fully God.”
Which is equally the case in Calvinism.
“According to the Greater Good Defense, mercy and wrath in response to evil are ultimately better than no evil.”
True. So what?
Mind you, I don’t think a Reformed theodicy even requires a greater good defense.
It’s sufficient to say that a world which is fallen and redeemed exemplifies certain incommensurable goods. Goods which remain unexemplified in a sinless world.
“Wouldn't it be better if there were no evil to begin with?”
If a world without evil is a better world, then why did God create a world with evil? If there are no compensatory benefits to redemption (which presupposes sin), then why did God allow it?
“And the bible nowhere suggests such a thing. In fact, it doesn't make much sense in light of the biblical view of sin and evil which portrays the culpability of evil. Nowhere does the bible suggest a good outcome of evil.”
I’ve already corrected Kröger on that demonstrably false statement. So why is he repeating the same discredited claim?
“If evil served a greater good, it would be good!--simple.”
Simple-minded, you mean. To reiterate an illustration I used with another commenter: Suppose my younger brother and I may not get along very well until a traffic accident leaves him in a wheelchair. That brings us closer together. His disability is not intrinsically good. But it’s instrumentally good.
“So if God's glorious mercy and justice are in any way real, then their basis, that is, human guilt must likewise be real. But on what basis is there a real culpability of man??! You may say there is no real guilt of man, however then there cannot be a real display of God's mercy and wrath.”
A non sequitur. God’s good intentions in decreeing the Fall are distinguishable from the evil intentions of fallen creatures.
“You cannot think of mercy without thinking of evil.”
And how is that an objection to Calvinism? In our world, we have mercy and evil. That’s the actual state of affairs.
“Yet the greater good defense puts the cart before the horse. There's sin in order to respond to it, either mercifully or angry.”
Which confuses ontology with teleology.
“The mere concept of evil isn't even part of God.”
So God has no concept of evil? God is ignorant of evil?
“By reading a helmet's book (the key) on the theodicy problem (the lock), the many, many obstacles and stumbling stones (the pins) being encountered during that quest, are moved in various ways. But when you reach the end of the book, all the questions and problems regarding theodicy will have fallen into their places and been satisfiably answered--you can unlock and open the door!”
I take it that Kröger’s forthcoming book is the lost book of the Bible. We can’t get the answers we need from Scripture. We need to add his book to the canon. A new prophet has arisen!
Scripture, Reppert, and racism
At September 19, 2009 4:01 PM , steve said...
Victor Reppert said...
"I am using examples related to racism because I think it's something most of us would agree is morally wrong, and our conviction on this is going to be pretty tough to shake."
The empirical problem with that statement, Victor, is that the constituency for Dangerous Idea is hardly a representative sampling of world opinion throughout history.
At just about all times and places, various ethnicities and nationalities have practiced racism. And they felt justified in so doing.
So rather than ask yourself what we'd do if we thought the Bible endorsed racism, a better question to ask yourself is how you'd condemn racism without the Bible.
At September 19, 2009 6:10 PM , steve said...
Victor Reppert said...
"How would you argue against racism using the Bible?"
Victor Reppert said...
How would you argue against racism w/o using the Bible (on purely intuitive grounds)?
At September 19, 2009 6:11 PM , steve said...
Victor Reppert said...
"How would you argue against racism using the Bible?"
You could start with the unity and continuity of the human race in Adam.
At September 19, 2009 6:25 PM , Victor Reppert said...
The wrongness of racism doesn't follow from that. We could all be unified in Adam, but one race might have been hit with a divine curse. I take it Cain's children and Seth's are all descendants of Adam, but Cain's were punished in a way that Seth's were not.
At September 19, 2009 6:51 PM , steve said...
Victor Reppert said...
"The wrongness of racism doesn't follow from that. We could all be unified in Adam, but one race might have been hit with a divine curse. I take it Cain's children and Seth's are all descendants of Adam, but Cain's were punished in a way that Seth's were not."
i) Even if, ad arguendo, we accept that interpretation, the distinction between an accursed brother and a brother who is not accursed is hardly a racial distinction. They have the same parents. Their posterity belong to the same tribe or clan. So how would that justify *racial* discrimination?
So you're equivocating.
ii) Likewise, assuming, for the sake of argument, that a brother and his posterity are accursed, how would that justify a policy of discrimination unless the terms of the curse prescribed some form of discrimination?
Suppose, for example, they are cursed to suffer a genetic defect, like color-blindness. How would that justify a general policy of discrimination?
At best, that would only justify discrimination in those cases where color vision is a relevant consideration.
iii) Finally, either you (Victor Reppert) think the Bible is racist or not. If you think a racist interpretation is incorrect, then why am I under some obligation to disprove an interpretation which both of us agree is incorrect?
That's just a ploy.
Victor Reppert said...
"I am using examples related to racism because I think it's something most of us would agree is morally wrong, and our conviction on this is going to be pretty tough to shake."
The empirical problem with that statement, Victor, is that the constituency for Dangerous Idea is hardly a representative sampling of world opinion throughout history.
At just about all times and places, various ethnicities and nationalities have practiced racism. And they felt justified in so doing.
So rather than ask yourself what we'd do if we thought the Bible endorsed racism, a better question to ask yourself is how you'd condemn racism without the Bible.
At September 19, 2009 6:10 PM , steve said...
Victor Reppert said...
"How would you argue against racism using the Bible?"
Victor Reppert said...
How would you argue against racism w/o using the Bible (on purely intuitive grounds)?
At September 19, 2009 6:11 PM , steve said...
Victor Reppert said...
"How would you argue against racism using the Bible?"
You could start with the unity and continuity of the human race in Adam.
At September 19, 2009 6:25 PM , Victor Reppert said...
The wrongness of racism doesn't follow from that. We could all be unified in Adam, but one race might have been hit with a divine curse. I take it Cain's children and Seth's are all descendants of Adam, but Cain's were punished in a way that Seth's were not.
At September 19, 2009 6:51 PM , steve said...
Victor Reppert said...
"The wrongness of racism doesn't follow from that. We could all be unified in Adam, but one race might have been hit with a divine curse. I take it Cain's children and Seth's are all descendants of Adam, but Cain's were punished in a way that Seth's were not."
i) Even if, ad arguendo, we accept that interpretation, the distinction between an accursed brother and a brother who is not accursed is hardly a racial distinction. They have the same parents. Their posterity belong to the same tribe or clan. So how would that justify *racial* discrimination?
So you're equivocating.
ii) Likewise, assuming, for the sake of argument, that a brother and his posterity are accursed, how would that justify a policy of discrimination unless the terms of the curse prescribed some form of discrimination?
Suppose, for example, they are cursed to suffer a genetic defect, like color-blindness. How would that justify a general policy of discrimination?
At best, that would only justify discrimination in those cases where color vision is a relevant consideration.
iii) Finally, either you (Victor Reppert) think the Bible is racist or not. If you think a racist interpretation is incorrect, then why am I under some obligation to disprove an interpretation which both of us agree is incorrect?
That's just a ploy.
Wooden kimono
Robert Hamilton wrote an article a few years back which is getting a lot of buzz among Arminians in the blogosphere. It’s about 60 pages long, so I’m not going to comment on the whole thing right now.
Instead, I want to focus on the ironic character of his article. Although it’s a critique of Calvinism, we also find that, to make room for his own interpretation, Hamilton has to either debunk a number of other Arminian interpretations of Rom 9 or debunk some standard Arminian assumptions.
So I think his article presents a dilemma for Arminians. It’s like a protection racket. Arminians have to pay protection money to Hamilton to keep the Calvinists out of their neighborhood. Even if his article were successful in refuting Calvinism, Hamilton collects his share of the pizzo from his fellow Arminians. How much are the beleaguered Arminians willing to fork over for his services?
1. To take a few examples, Hamilton, in agreement with Reformed exegetes, treats proginosko as synonymous with “choosing beforehand” rather than “foreknowing”:
Speaking of those ‘who love God’ (8:28), Paul states that God has ‘foreknown’ them (i.e., loved and chosen them beforehand)...This is true both of the election through Jacob of physical Israel (who are said to be ‘foreknown’ as a people; i.e., corporately chosen beforehand by God; Romans 11:2) and of the election through Christ of his Body, who are similarly said to be ‘foreknown’ here in Romans 8:29 and ‘chosen in Him [i.e., Christ], before the foundation of the world’ in Ephesians 1:4.
2. Likewise, he makes a key concession on the hardening of Pharaoh:
In regard to the hardening of Pharaoh’s heart, Reformed theologian Robert Reymond has astutely pointed out a weakness in the argument commonly pressed in Arminian circles to the effect that God hardened Pharaoh’s heart only in response to Pharaoh’s prior hardening of his own heart in Exodus 8:15, 32 and 9:34. As Reymond notes, ‘God twice declared to Moses, even before the series of confrontations between Moses and Pharaoh began, that he would harden Pharaoh’s heart ‘and [thereby] multiply my signs and wonders in the land of Egypt’ (Exodus 4:21; 7:3). The first time then that it is said that Pharaoh’s heart was hard, the text expressly declares that it was so ‘just as the Lord had spoken’ (Exodus 7:13), clearly indicating that Pharaoh’s hardness of heart had [come] about due to God’s previous promise to harden it. And the first time it is said that Pharaoh ‘made his heart hard,’ again we are informed that it was so ‘just as the Lord had spoken’ (8:15; see also 8:19; 9:12, 35).
3. He apparently makes yet another key concession regarding the incompatibility of divine foreknowledge and libertarian freewill:
The reader may be wondering why I do not simply adopt one of the existing Arminian accounts of Romans chapter nine. While I agree with the basic tenets of Arminianism (most importantly for present purposes, that election to salvation is contingent upon an authentic faith-response on the part of man), I have not felt satisfied with any of the existing exegeses of Romans chapter nine by Arminian theologians with which I am familiar. Arminius himself interprets Romans nine as teaching a contingent election of individuals to salvation based on faith foreseen by God (‘Analysis of the Ninth Chapter of St. Paul’s Epistle to the Romans,’ The Works of James Arminius, London Ed., Vol. 3, trans. William Nichols, Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 1986, pp. 485-519). This position in my opinion leads to certain intractable problems of a philosophical nature concerning the nature of divine foreknowledge, problems that are avoided if one instead adopts a corporate view of election to salvation as primary.
4. He takes issue with Shank’s “crucial exegetical claim” on the nature of election:
Though there are important insights in Robert Shank’s analysis (Elect in the Son, Minneapolis, MN: Bethany House Publishers, 1970, 1989; pp. 115ff), in my opinion Shank fails to provide sufficient evidence for what is perhaps the crucial exegetical claim of his analysis, namely, that there is a shift in the Apostle Paul’s train of thought between Romans 9:29 and 9:30, from the hypothetical case (that God could deal with us in absolute, unconditional terms if he so wished) to the actual case (in which, according to Shank, Paul teaches that God does not deal with us so; cf. p.120). Paul’s statement in 9:24 (‘even us, whom He also called . . .’) seems to firmly root Paul’s preceding comments regarding God’s unilateral election in historical reality, not merely in a hypothetical sphere; hence, I find Shank’s analysis unconvincing in this regard.
5. He also takes issue with Cottrell’s non-soteric interpretation of election in Rom 9-11:
I have been similarly dissatisfied with other Arminian accounts of Romans nine that I have encountered, such as Cottrell’s view that the election in Romans nine is merely an unconditional election to ‘service’ without relevance to one’s salvation (Jack Cottrell, ‘The Nature of the Divine Sovereignty,’ in The Grace of God and the Will of Man, ed. by Clark Pinnock, Minneapolis, MN: Bethany House Publishers, 1989, pp. 97-119; see especially p. 114). Though I agree with Cottrell that the election in view in much of Romans nine, though unconditional in nature, is not an election to salvation, it seems clear to me that the grace said to be extended by God to the Jews in this passage does not relate merely to their service, but instead to something more directly preparatory to their participation (or nonparticipation) in the covenant of grace (cf. my treatment of the notions of particular prevenient grace and hardening in my essay below).
6. Then there’s his position on the fate of the Jews. While he thinks that God will save the end-time generation of Jews, God has hardened every Jewish generation between the time of Christ as the end-time generation. So, by his own admission, God unilaterally deprives them of the opportunity to be saved:
Without delving into competing eschatological views here, this salvation of ‘all Israel’ I take simply to refer to a future generation of Jews before the end of history who will turn en masse to faith in Christ, the Deliverer, who will at that time ‘remove ungodliness from Jacob’ (11:26)...The salvation of “all Israel” is clearly not yet a reality in history, for it is beyond disagreement than many Jews since the time of Christ have died without faith in him.
7. If that were not enough, he broadens this out into a general principle, according to which God doesn’t have to be equitable in his treatment of sinners. Yet it’s hard to see how this is any improvement over what Arminians find so objectionable in Calvinism. For them, Calvinism is unjust because it’s unfair, and it’s unfair because it’s inequitable–especially in the unequal opportunities to be saved. Yet Hamilton allows for that:
The central theological lesson to be gleaned from Romans chapter nine, then, is that God may sovereignly discriminate in the dispensing of particular prevenient grace. That is, God maintains an absolute, sovereign right to either extend, withhold, or diminish the opportunities for any unbeliever (i.e., one who suppresses the truth revealed by universal prevenient grace) to access further truth and have the ability to freely respond in faith to that truth in a way leading to salvation. God has sole discretion to decide if and when he will extend particular prevenient grace to any unbeliever or conversely harden any unbeliever.
…This may be a conclusion hard for some Arminians to accept, who are accustomed to thinking of God as always taking every available opportunity to draw each individual toward salvation (see Note 9 for one indication that Arminius himself would have objected to such thinking). My exegesis of Paul’s teaching in this chapter leads me to conclude that God does not necessarily act in this way. Though God’s genuine desire to see all people saved indeed constrains him to extend universal prevenient grace to all people, the teaching of Romans chapter nine is that God is under no obligation to extend grace beyond that point, but instead may be selective in the dispensing of additional, particular prevenient grace…God’s holiness requires that only condemnation, not grace, be considered obligatory to one who has suppressed God’s truth and violated the Law of God. It is to God’s unending glory that in his wisdom he devised a way for those who merit such condemnation to become the recipients of saving grace by faith in Christ. Yet, God is not bound to draw all persons in the same measure or in the same manner toward this free gift of salvation, though all persons do have sufficient means (through the dispensing of universal prevenient grace) to draw near to God in faith (cf. my earlier discussion of Romans 1:21 and 2:4).
Instead, I want to focus on the ironic character of his article. Although it’s a critique of Calvinism, we also find that, to make room for his own interpretation, Hamilton has to either debunk a number of other Arminian interpretations of Rom 9 or debunk some standard Arminian assumptions.
So I think his article presents a dilemma for Arminians. It’s like a protection racket. Arminians have to pay protection money to Hamilton to keep the Calvinists out of their neighborhood. Even if his article were successful in refuting Calvinism, Hamilton collects his share of the pizzo from his fellow Arminians. How much are the beleaguered Arminians willing to fork over for his services?
1. To take a few examples, Hamilton, in agreement with Reformed exegetes, treats proginosko as synonymous with “choosing beforehand” rather than “foreknowing”:
Speaking of those ‘who love God’ (8:28), Paul states that God has ‘foreknown’ them (i.e., loved and chosen them beforehand)...This is true both of the election through Jacob of physical Israel (who are said to be ‘foreknown’ as a people; i.e., corporately chosen beforehand by God; Romans 11:2) and of the election through Christ of his Body, who are similarly said to be ‘foreknown’ here in Romans 8:29 and ‘chosen in Him [i.e., Christ], before the foundation of the world’ in Ephesians 1:4.
2. Likewise, he makes a key concession on the hardening of Pharaoh:
In regard to the hardening of Pharaoh’s heart, Reformed theologian Robert Reymond has astutely pointed out a weakness in the argument commonly pressed in Arminian circles to the effect that God hardened Pharaoh’s heart only in response to Pharaoh’s prior hardening of his own heart in Exodus 8:15, 32 and 9:34. As Reymond notes, ‘God twice declared to Moses, even before the series of confrontations between Moses and Pharaoh began, that he would harden Pharaoh’s heart ‘and [thereby] multiply my signs and wonders in the land of Egypt’ (Exodus 4:21; 7:3). The first time then that it is said that Pharaoh’s heart was hard, the text expressly declares that it was so ‘just as the Lord had spoken’ (Exodus 7:13), clearly indicating that Pharaoh’s hardness of heart had [come] about due to God’s previous promise to harden it. And the first time it is said that Pharaoh ‘made his heart hard,’ again we are informed that it was so ‘just as the Lord had spoken’ (8:15; see also 8:19; 9:12, 35).
3. He apparently makes yet another key concession regarding the incompatibility of divine foreknowledge and libertarian freewill:
The reader may be wondering why I do not simply adopt one of the existing Arminian accounts of Romans chapter nine. While I agree with the basic tenets of Arminianism (most importantly for present purposes, that election to salvation is contingent upon an authentic faith-response on the part of man), I have not felt satisfied with any of the existing exegeses of Romans chapter nine by Arminian theologians with which I am familiar. Arminius himself interprets Romans nine as teaching a contingent election of individuals to salvation based on faith foreseen by God (‘Analysis of the Ninth Chapter of St. Paul’s Epistle to the Romans,’ The Works of James Arminius, London Ed., Vol. 3, trans. William Nichols, Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 1986, pp. 485-519). This position in my opinion leads to certain intractable problems of a philosophical nature concerning the nature of divine foreknowledge, problems that are avoided if one instead adopts a corporate view of election to salvation as primary.
4. He takes issue with Shank’s “crucial exegetical claim” on the nature of election:
Though there are important insights in Robert Shank’s analysis (Elect in the Son, Minneapolis, MN: Bethany House Publishers, 1970, 1989; pp. 115ff), in my opinion Shank fails to provide sufficient evidence for what is perhaps the crucial exegetical claim of his analysis, namely, that there is a shift in the Apostle Paul’s train of thought between Romans 9:29 and 9:30, from the hypothetical case (that God could deal with us in absolute, unconditional terms if he so wished) to the actual case (in which, according to Shank, Paul teaches that God does not deal with us so; cf. p.120). Paul’s statement in 9:24 (‘even us, whom He also called . . .’) seems to firmly root Paul’s preceding comments regarding God’s unilateral election in historical reality, not merely in a hypothetical sphere; hence, I find Shank’s analysis unconvincing in this regard.
5. He also takes issue with Cottrell’s non-soteric interpretation of election in Rom 9-11:
I have been similarly dissatisfied with other Arminian accounts of Romans nine that I have encountered, such as Cottrell’s view that the election in Romans nine is merely an unconditional election to ‘service’ without relevance to one’s salvation (Jack Cottrell, ‘The Nature of the Divine Sovereignty,’ in The Grace of God and the Will of Man, ed. by Clark Pinnock, Minneapolis, MN: Bethany House Publishers, 1989, pp. 97-119; see especially p. 114). Though I agree with Cottrell that the election in view in much of Romans nine, though unconditional in nature, is not an election to salvation, it seems clear to me that the grace said to be extended by God to the Jews in this passage does not relate merely to their service, but instead to something more directly preparatory to their participation (or nonparticipation) in the covenant of grace (cf. my treatment of the notions of particular prevenient grace and hardening in my essay below).
6. Then there’s his position on the fate of the Jews. While he thinks that God will save the end-time generation of Jews, God has hardened every Jewish generation between the time of Christ as the end-time generation. So, by his own admission, God unilaterally deprives them of the opportunity to be saved:
Without delving into competing eschatological views here, this salvation of ‘all Israel’ I take simply to refer to a future generation of Jews before the end of history who will turn en masse to faith in Christ, the Deliverer, who will at that time ‘remove ungodliness from Jacob’ (11:26)...The salvation of “all Israel” is clearly not yet a reality in history, for it is beyond disagreement than many Jews since the time of Christ have died without faith in him.
7. If that were not enough, he broadens this out into a general principle, according to which God doesn’t have to be equitable in his treatment of sinners. Yet it’s hard to see how this is any improvement over what Arminians find so objectionable in Calvinism. For them, Calvinism is unjust because it’s unfair, and it’s unfair because it’s inequitable–especially in the unequal opportunities to be saved. Yet Hamilton allows for that:
The central theological lesson to be gleaned from Romans chapter nine, then, is that God may sovereignly discriminate in the dispensing of particular prevenient grace. That is, God maintains an absolute, sovereign right to either extend, withhold, or diminish the opportunities for any unbeliever (i.e., one who suppresses the truth revealed by universal prevenient grace) to access further truth and have the ability to freely respond in faith to that truth in a way leading to salvation. God has sole discretion to decide if and when he will extend particular prevenient grace to any unbeliever or conversely harden any unbeliever.
…This may be a conclusion hard for some Arminians to accept, who are accustomed to thinking of God as always taking every available opportunity to draw each individual toward salvation (see Note 9 for one indication that Arminius himself would have objected to such thinking). My exegesis of Paul’s teaching in this chapter leads me to conclude that God does not necessarily act in this way. Though God’s genuine desire to see all people saved indeed constrains him to extend universal prevenient grace to all people, the teaching of Romans chapter nine is that God is under no obligation to extend grace beyond that point, but instead may be selective in the dispensing of additional, particular prevenient grace…God’s holiness requires that only condemnation, not grace, be considered obligatory to one who has suppressed God’s truth and violated the Law of God. It is to God’s unending glory that in his wisdom he devised a way for those who merit such condemnation to become the recipients of saving grace by faith in Christ. Yet, God is not bound to draw all persons in the same measure or in the same manner toward this free gift of salvation, though all persons do have sufficient means (through the dispensing of universal prevenient grace) to draw near to God in faith (cf. my earlier discussion of Romans 1:21 and 2:4).
The God(s) of Reppert, Arminius, and Calvin
According to Victor Reppert:
“I don't see any superiority in Calvinist interpretations of Romans 9, John 6:44, Ephesians 1:14, or whatever the other Calvinist proof-texts are, to anti-Calvinist interpretations (Hamilton on Romans 9 looks pretty good to me).”
“Did anybody explain what was wrong with Hamilton's exegesis or Romans 9, when I posted it? I couldn't find it.”
I have to wonder how carefully Reppert actually read Hamilton. For Hamilton’s Arminian, anti-Calvinist interpretation of Rom 9-11 contains some interpretations which are clearly at odds with Reppert’s own position.
Remember, Reppert defines a loving God as a God who acts in the best interests of all human beings. And because the God of Reformed theism does not, he rejects Calvinism. But consider Hamiton’s Arminian alternative:
“Without delving into competing eschatological views here, this salvation of ‘all Israel’ I take simply to refer to a future generation of Jews before the end of history who will turn en masse to faith in Christ, the Deliverer, who will at that time ‘remove ungodliness from Jacob’ (11:26)...The salvation of ‘all Israel’ is clearly not yet a reality in history, for it is beyond disagreement than many Jews since the time of Christ have died without faith in him.”
According to Hamilton’s own timetable, God has hardened Israel for the past 2000 years and counting. And the calculated result of divine hardening is to prevent most Jews from coming to a saving knowledge of Christ.
Although Hamilton regards divine hardening as temporary, that comes way too late benefit those who died in unbelief. And they died in unbelief because God hardened them.
Seems to me that this is clearly opposed to Reppert’s own view of God’s saving purposes.
Let’s take another statement from Hamilton:
“The central theological lesson to be gleaned from Romans chapter nine, then, is that God may sovereignly discriminate in the dispensing of particular prevenient grace. That is, God maintains an absolute, sovereign right to either extend, withhold, or diminish the opportunities for any unbeliever (i.e., one who suppresses the truth revealed by universal prevenient grace) to access further truth and have the ability to freely respond in faith to that truth in a way leading to salvation. God has sole discretion to decide if and when he will extend particular prevenient grace to any unbeliever or conversely harden any unbeliever.”
“…This may be a conclusion hard for some Arminians to accept, who are accustomed to thinking of God as always taking every available opportunity to draw each individual toward salvation (see Note 9 for one indication that Arminius himself would have objected to such thinking). My exegesis of Paul’s teaching in this chapter leads me to conclude that God does not necessarily act in this way. Though God’s genuine desire to see all people saved indeed constrains him to extend universal prevenient grace to all people, the teaching of Romans chapter nine is that God is under no obligation to extend grace beyond that point, but instead may be selective in the dispensing of additional, particular prevenient grace…God’s holiness requires that only condemnation, not grace, be considered obligatory to one who has suppressed God’s truth and violated the Law of God. It is to God’s unending glory that in his wisdom he devised a way for those who merit such condemnation to become the recipients of saving grace by faith in Christ. Yet, God is not bound to draw all persons in the same measure or in the same manner toward this free gift of salvation, though all persons do have sufficient means (through the dispensing of universal prevenient grace) to draw near to God in faith (cf. my earlier discussion of Romans 1:21 and 2:4).”
This is even more general than the specific case of Jewish unbelievers. God isn’t bound to treat everyone the same way. He can rightly prevent sinners from having an opportunity to be saved. He doesn’t do whatever he can to save every individual. He doesn’t act in the best interests of every sinner. Isn’t that diametrically opposed to Reppert’s own position?
So, if Reppert is consistent, then not only must he reject the God of Calvinism as a false God, but he must also reject the God of Arminianism as a false God.
“I don't see any superiority in Calvinist interpretations of Romans 9, John 6:44, Ephesians 1:14, or whatever the other Calvinist proof-texts are, to anti-Calvinist interpretations (Hamilton on Romans 9 looks pretty good to me).”
“Did anybody explain what was wrong with Hamilton's exegesis or Romans 9, when I posted it? I couldn't find it.”
I have to wonder how carefully Reppert actually read Hamilton. For Hamilton’s Arminian, anti-Calvinist interpretation of Rom 9-11 contains some interpretations which are clearly at odds with Reppert’s own position.
Remember, Reppert defines a loving God as a God who acts in the best interests of all human beings. And because the God of Reformed theism does not, he rejects Calvinism. But consider Hamiton’s Arminian alternative:
“Without delving into competing eschatological views here, this salvation of ‘all Israel’ I take simply to refer to a future generation of Jews before the end of history who will turn en masse to faith in Christ, the Deliverer, who will at that time ‘remove ungodliness from Jacob’ (11:26)...The salvation of ‘all Israel’ is clearly not yet a reality in history, for it is beyond disagreement than many Jews since the time of Christ have died without faith in him.”
According to Hamilton’s own timetable, God has hardened Israel for the past 2000 years and counting. And the calculated result of divine hardening is to prevent most Jews from coming to a saving knowledge of Christ.
Although Hamilton regards divine hardening as temporary, that comes way too late benefit those who died in unbelief. And they died in unbelief because God hardened them.
Seems to me that this is clearly opposed to Reppert’s own view of God’s saving purposes.
Let’s take another statement from Hamilton:
“The central theological lesson to be gleaned from Romans chapter nine, then, is that God may sovereignly discriminate in the dispensing of particular prevenient grace. That is, God maintains an absolute, sovereign right to either extend, withhold, or diminish the opportunities for any unbeliever (i.e., one who suppresses the truth revealed by universal prevenient grace) to access further truth and have the ability to freely respond in faith to that truth in a way leading to salvation. God has sole discretion to decide if and when he will extend particular prevenient grace to any unbeliever or conversely harden any unbeliever.”
“…This may be a conclusion hard for some Arminians to accept, who are accustomed to thinking of God as always taking every available opportunity to draw each individual toward salvation (see Note 9 for one indication that Arminius himself would have objected to such thinking). My exegesis of Paul’s teaching in this chapter leads me to conclude that God does not necessarily act in this way. Though God’s genuine desire to see all people saved indeed constrains him to extend universal prevenient grace to all people, the teaching of Romans chapter nine is that God is under no obligation to extend grace beyond that point, but instead may be selective in the dispensing of additional, particular prevenient grace…God’s holiness requires that only condemnation, not grace, be considered obligatory to one who has suppressed God’s truth and violated the Law of God. It is to God’s unending glory that in his wisdom he devised a way for those who merit such condemnation to become the recipients of saving grace by faith in Christ. Yet, God is not bound to draw all persons in the same measure or in the same manner toward this free gift of salvation, though all persons do have sufficient means (through the dispensing of universal prevenient grace) to draw near to God in faith (cf. my earlier discussion of Romans 1:21 and 2:4).”
This is even more general than the specific case of Jewish unbelievers. God isn’t bound to treat everyone the same way. He can rightly prevent sinners from having an opportunity to be saved. He doesn’t do whatever he can to save every individual. He doesn’t act in the best interests of every sinner. Isn’t that diametrically opposed to Reppert’s own position?
So, if Reppert is consistent, then not only must he reject the God of Calvinism as a false God, but he must also reject the God of Arminianism as a false God.
Two Upcoming Resurrection Debates
Mike Licona recently announced two upcoming debates on the resurrection. He'll be debating Richard Carrier next February and Stephen Patterson (of the Jesus Seminar) next April.
Saturday, September 19, 2009
Sugar and spice and everything nice!
As we all know, Arminians are made of sugar and spice and everything nice. That’s cuz Arminians worship a nice God, and you are what you worship.
By contrast, Calvinists are mean cuz they worship a mean God. That’s why Calvinists say mean things about their opponents.
In case you doubt me, you only need to compare the mean things that a Calvinist will say about his opponents with the kind and gentle discourse of the loving Arminian. Case in point:
Robert said...
For the Nazis it was the Jewish race that needed to be eliminated by any means at their disposal. For the KKK it was the blacks. I find these groups and their actions to be morally reprehensible and showing the most ugly aspects of what humans are capable of.
And yet if the calvinists are correct about God and the “reprobates”, then God is the ultimate racist.
He decides beforehand that certain individuals will be part of the class of reprobates. He then hates everyone in this class regardless of what they do or what kind of person they are. He just hates them because they are reprobates (and he decided they would be in the reprobate class, the class of those “automatically damned”). And the calvinists just can’t understand why non-Calvinists find their system to be so morally objectionable. That is like the Grand Dragon or Imperial Wizard not understanding why non-racists find their beliefs and practices to be morally objectionable. The parallels between racists like the KKK and the Nazis and the God of calvinism who reprobates most of the human race for his pleasure are chilling.
And my intuition that racism is wrong does not conflict with scripture but is supported by scripture. And your system of theology which makes God into the worst racist in existence is contrary to both my intuition and the scripture. So both our intuitions and scripture are against the racist Calvinistic theology. The theology that makes God a racist against the reprobates. With the non-reprobates then wearing the white sheets and justifying and rationalizing their hatred. And like the KKK the calvinists have the gall to use scripture to justify and rationalize their hatred.
http://dangerousidea.blogspot.com/2009/09/thought-experiment-for-calvinists.html#c3692049293974623529
Calvinists are to the Gestapo as their God is to the Führer.
How’s that for charity?
By contrast, Calvinists are mean cuz they worship a mean God. That’s why Calvinists say mean things about their opponents.
In case you doubt me, you only need to compare the mean things that a Calvinist will say about his opponents with the kind and gentle discourse of the loving Arminian. Case in point:
Robert said...
For the Nazis it was the Jewish race that needed to be eliminated by any means at their disposal. For the KKK it was the blacks. I find these groups and their actions to be morally reprehensible and showing the most ugly aspects of what humans are capable of.
And yet if the calvinists are correct about God and the “reprobates”, then God is the ultimate racist.
He decides beforehand that certain individuals will be part of the class of reprobates. He then hates everyone in this class regardless of what they do or what kind of person they are. He just hates them because they are reprobates (and he decided they would be in the reprobate class, the class of those “automatically damned”). And the calvinists just can’t understand why non-Calvinists find their system to be so morally objectionable. That is like the Grand Dragon or Imperial Wizard not understanding why non-racists find their beliefs and practices to be morally objectionable. The parallels between racists like the KKK and the Nazis and the God of calvinism who reprobates most of the human race for his pleasure are chilling.
And my intuition that racism is wrong does not conflict with scripture but is supported by scripture. And your system of theology which makes God into the worst racist in existence is contrary to both my intuition and the scripture. So both our intuitions and scripture are against the racist Calvinistic theology. The theology that makes God a racist against the reprobates. With the non-reprobates then wearing the white sheets and justifying and rationalizing their hatred. And like the KKK the calvinists have the gall to use scripture to justify and rationalize their hatred.
http://dangerousidea.blogspot.com/2009/09/thought-experiment-for-calvinists.html#c3692049293974623529
Calvinists are to the Gestapo as their God is to the Führer.
How’s that for charity?
The moral intuitions of Attila the Hun
Victor Reppert keeps appealing to his moral intuitions to verify or falsify a revelation claimant and/or the interpretation thereof.
There are three basic problems with this appeal:
1.He oscillates back and forth between the interpretation of a revelatory claimant and the verification of a revelatory claimant. Yet these are not interchangeable propositions. In principle, you could have:
i) A true interpretation of a false revelatory claimant
ii) A false interpretation of a true revelatory claimant
iii) A true interpretation of a true revelatory claimant
iv) A false interpretation of a false revelatory claimant
To what does moral intuition apply? Is it Reppert’s contention that his moral intuition is sufficiently discriminating to adjudicate all four cases?
2.He also acts as if moral intuition is the only criterion to verify or falsify a revelatory claimant. Does he really think that’s the only line of evidence for or against a revelatory claimant?
3.Finally, I have to wonder if he’s ever asked himself what his moral intuitions would be telling him right now had he been born a Viking or Aztec priest or Samurai swordsman or Spartan soldier or Prussian general or Assyrian warrior or Iroquois brave.
His ethnocentric appeal to moral intuition strikes me as hopelessly provincial.
There are three basic problems with this appeal:
1.He oscillates back and forth between the interpretation of a revelatory claimant and the verification of a revelatory claimant. Yet these are not interchangeable propositions. In principle, you could have:
i) A true interpretation of a false revelatory claimant
ii) A false interpretation of a true revelatory claimant
iii) A true interpretation of a true revelatory claimant
iv) A false interpretation of a false revelatory claimant
To what does moral intuition apply? Is it Reppert’s contention that his moral intuition is sufficiently discriminating to adjudicate all four cases?
2.He also acts as if moral intuition is the only criterion to verify or falsify a revelatory claimant. Does he really think that’s the only line of evidence for or against a revelatory claimant?
3.Finally, I have to wonder if he’s ever asked himself what his moral intuitions would be telling him right now had he been born a Viking or Aztec priest or Samurai swordsman or Spartan soldier or Prussian general or Assyrian warrior or Iroquois brave.
His ethnocentric appeal to moral intuition strikes me as hopelessly provincial.
Thanksgiving or murmuring?
There are two different attitudes you can take to life. One is an attitude to recrimination and complaint. It isn’t hard. In a fallen world, there’s always something to complain about. You don’t even have to go looking. Everyday, unpleasant things happen close to home.
So you can curse and swear, get mad, harp on the problem of evil.
However, that’s counterproductive. Chronic grumbling has two effects: (i) it makes good things bad and (ii) bad things worse.
So you miss out on both counts. On the one hand, grumbling about your lot in life (or the suffering of others) doesn’t make a bad situation any better. Rather, it makes it even worse.
On the other hand, it also spoils the good things in life. You’re so busy complaining about how bad things are that you miss out on the good things which come your way. So this attitude is thoroughly poisonous.
The alternative is to cultivate a spirit of thankfulness. To thank God for all the plainly good things in life. Thank God for all the little goods in life–which we tend to neglect and forget. Overlook. Take for granted. But also learn to see the hidden good in things which, at the time, seemed to be an unmitigated evil.
In the programmatic statement of St. Paul, “All things work together for the good of those who love God, for those who are called according to his purpose.”
Incidentally, I’m quoting Joseph Fitzmyer’s translation of Rom 8:28. Fitzmyer is a Jesuit Bible scholar. So you can’t accuse me of loading the dice in favor of Calvinism by my choice of translations.
Gratitude doesn’t come naturally to us, especially in the face of evil, but if you apply yourself and think about it, you can come to appreciate God’s providential hand in life. You can compare the past with the present and begin to see how God is bringing good out of evil.
It’s not just that you and I live in a fallen world. You and I are the product of a fallen world. So we should be grateful to be here at all. A “better” world would be better off without the likes of you and me. Yet we made the cut!
God could have chosen the A-team. Instead, he chose the B-team. The ones who are normally picked last.
Now, someone might exclaim: “That’s easy for you to say! You think you’re one of the elect. You have this wonderful future ahead of you. The best is yet to be. But what about the poor, benighted reprobates?”
Yet reprobation has a paradoxical aspect: If you believe in reprobation, you’re not a reprobate; if you’re reprobate, you don’t believe in reprobation. (Which is not to say that only reprobates deny reprobation.)
Reprobates don’t think they’re hellbound. They mock the idea of damnation.
What is more, they mock the idea of heaven. They think Christians are childish fools who can’t face the finality of death. As a result, Christians miss out on life because they’re pining for a nonexistent afterlife.
So there’s no point complaining on behalf of those who deny the very fate you complain about. Those who, what is more, mock the heavenly alternative.
So you can curse and swear, get mad, harp on the problem of evil.
However, that’s counterproductive. Chronic grumbling has two effects: (i) it makes good things bad and (ii) bad things worse.
So you miss out on both counts. On the one hand, grumbling about your lot in life (or the suffering of others) doesn’t make a bad situation any better. Rather, it makes it even worse.
On the other hand, it also spoils the good things in life. You’re so busy complaining about how bad things are that you miss out on the good things which come your way. So this attitude is thoroughly poisonous.
The alternative is to cultivate a spirit of thankfulness. To thank God for all the plainly good things in life. Thank God for all the little goods in life–which we tend to neglect and forget. Overlook. Take for granted. But also learn to see the hidden good in things which, at the time, seemed to be an unmitigated evil.
In the programmatic statement of St. Paul, “All things work together for the good of those who love God, for those who are called according to his purpose.”
Incidentally, I’m quoting Joseph Fitzmyer’s translation of Rom 8:28. Fitzmyer is a Jesuit Bible scholar. So you can’t accuse me of loading the dice in favor of Calvinism by my choice of translations.
Gratitude doesn’t come naturally to us, especially in the face of evil, but if you apply yourself and think about it, you can come to appreciate God’s providential hand in life. You can compare the past with the present and begin to see how God is bringing good out of evil.
It’s not just that you and I live in a fallen world. You and I are the product of a fallen world. So we should be grateful to be here at all. A “better” world would be better off without the likes of you and me. Yet we made the cut!
God could have chosen the A-team. Instead, he chose the B-team. The ones who are normally picked last.
Now, someone might exclaim: “That’s easy for you to say! You think you’re one of the elect. You have this wonderful future ahead of you. The best is yet to be. But what about the poor, benighted reprobates?”
Yet reprobation has a paradoxical aspect: If you believe in reprobation, you’re not a reprobate; if you’re reprobate, you don’t believe in reprobation. (Which is not to say that only reprobates deny reprobation.)
Reprobates don’t think they’re hellbound. They mock the idea of damnation.
What is more, they mock the idea of heaven. They think Christians are childish fools who can’t face the finality of death. As a result, Christians miss out on life because they’re pining for a nonexistent afterlife.
So there’s no point complaining on behalf of those who deny the very fate you complain about. Those who, what is more, mock the heavenly alternative.
Investing in the pearl of great price
“How a Calvinistic God would reconcile me to the idea of reprobation in such a way as to permit me to worship him is difficult for me to comprehend.”
Well, one basic problem is that I don’t share Reppert’s intuitions. That’s why he has to resort to subversive hypotheticals.
A Reformed theodicy (which I equate with Bible history) operates on the principle of tradeoffs. On the one hand, you could have a world with lesser goods and lesser evils. On the other hand, you could have a world with greater goods and greater evils. God opted for the latter.
Let’s take an illustration. On the one hand you have an arranged marriage between a man and a woman, both of whom come from “good” families. Indeed, they each come from one of the “best” families in the land.
If they marry each other, they will enjoy a very lavish standard of living. While they don’t love each other, they like each other. Over time they may grow fond of each other. Care about each other. They may also have children whom they love.
There’s nothing wrong with a marriage like that. A marriage without highs or lows. A marriage devoid of passion.
On the other hand, you have an arranged marriage, but the rich young suitor has fallen in love with a “commoner.” Indeed, they’ve known each other for years. They take surreptitious walks in the park. Secluded picnics on his sailboat. Little things like that.
He longs for her. And when he looks into her eyes, he sees her yearning in return.
But his family disapproves of marriage to a commoner. Indeed, they’ll disown him if he presumes to marry someone below his station in life.
However, he throws caution to the wind, and takes her to be his wife. As a result, they have a rather meager standard of living. But they have each other, and they live happily ever after.
We see this type of tradeoff in the parable about the Pearl of Great Price (Mt 13:44-46). The man has a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to acquire something priceless. But he must sell everything he has to buy it.
He must forego all the lesser goods to acquire one incomparable good.
We also see this with C. S. Lewis. He married a woman with cancer. He knew the risk. As a result, he had a tragically brief, intense, bittersweet marriage.
Lewis was in a position to marry a different woman. A healthy woman. As an Oxford don, he was a very eligible bachelor. But he chose to roll the dice.
I had an uncle whose wife made him oatmeal for breakfast for every day of their marriage. For 60 years, he had oatmeal for breakfast. Like Reppert, my uncle was the mild-mannered academic type.
However, whenever he came to visit us, he wanted to us to taking him out to nice restaurants. The restaurants he could never take his wife to–because she wasn’t into romance or fine food or anything out of the ordinary.
In his little way, my uncle had an adventurous streak. But he chose a life of stability instead. And there’s nothing wrong with that.
Now, it may be that Reppert is temperamentally incapable of relating to that type of mindset. Perhaps he’s a naturally cautious, sensible man who’d rather play it safe. He’ll forgo the highs to forgo the lows.
And if that’s the case, I don’t fault his priorities. But I do fault him for faulting the Bible if it doesn’t share his bland, timid priorities.
“I sympathize with Talbott's statement 'I will not worship such a God, and if such a God can send me to hell for not so worshipping him, then to hell I will go'.”
Of course, Talbott takes the position that unless God saves all of his loved ones, then God is unworthy of his love and adoration. And he extrapolates from his own case to everybody else–since just about everybody has loved ones.
Up to a point, I can appreciate his sentiments at a purely emotional level. But I also realize that that’s a purely emotional response which is completely divorced from justice or morality.
For all I know, John Gotti’s widow can’t bear the thought of spending eternity without her beloved husband by her side. But for me to say, on that account, that I won’t worship such a God, and if such a God can send me to hell for not so worshipping him, then to tell I will go, is not a rational or honorable or admirable sentiment. To the contrary, it’s profoundly evil and ungrateful.
Such a thankless, petulant, amoral attitude is, indeed, deserving of hell. I’m tempted to say it’s juvenile, which would be true-–but that tends to trivialize the egregious evil of the sentiment.
Reppert finds Calvinism outrageous, while I find Reppert’s outrage outrageous. It’s reprehensible to say that God is unworthy of your worship in case he punishes evildoers instead of saving them.
“But let's put it this way. Suppose I became convinced that I couldn't deny Calvinism without denying inerrancy, and also that I couldn't reject inerrancy without undermining Christianity. (This is a real hypothetical scenario, but let's go there for a minute). Then I would be left with my intuition that this sort of God was acting wrongly, and what would I do with that? Could my intuitions be in error?”
i) But that generates a dilemma. If your moral intuitions lead you to disbelieve in God, then where does that leave your moral intuitions? In a godless universe, your moral intuitions are the adventitious byproducts of your social conditioning and your evolutionary programming. Mere feelings–feelings which don’t correspond to right and wrong. For a godless world is amoral to the core.
If you begin to question God on the basis of your morality, then you end by questioning your morality in the absence of God. Without God, your moral intuitions are illusory.
ii) I’d also add that I’m not the least bit inclined to answer Reppert’s subversive hypotheticals. Reppert’s whole line of questioning is positively diabolical. He’s reprising the role of the Tempter. But why should I humor Mephistopheles?
“I think I would pose the question as follows. Can Calvinism offer any reason for worshipping their God that is not a dressed-up version of the might-makes-right argument?”
Of course, I’ve answered that question on more than one occasion.
I’d add that I don’t share his voluntaristic view of saving faith. He seems to think we put the evidence for God in one column, and the counterevidence (as he sees it) in another column, then go with whichever column is longer.
But that confuses apologetics with how people come to know something. We don’t believe because of the arguments. Rather, the arguments are just a way of trying to articulate our tacit knowledge of God’s indubitable existence.
Underlying the arguments is our experience of God’s grace and providence. To the regenerate, faith in God is spontaneous and irrepressible. It’s not a light-switch that we flick on or off at will. Rather, it’s sunlight and moonlight–day and night.
“If no, then I'm with Tom Talbott. I won't worship on the basis of mere power alone.”
Actually, unbelievers do worship power. They live for power. Idolize power.
“Is there something better than a might-makes-right argument that can be made on behalf of a Calvinistic God? That would be the question.”
But, as we know, Reppert’s theological antipathies aren’t limited to Calvinism. He’s equally antagonistic to everlasting retribution. He’s equally antagonistic to certain OT commands. He uses Calvinism as a stalking horse to camouflage a far wider range of things in Scripture which offend his precious sensibilities.
And the Bible describes some very unpleasant events–past and future. It also contains some very unpleasant commands.
But that’s because the Bible is realistic. That’s the world we live in. A fallen world which is the theater of redemption is a world with some stark tradeoffs.
There’s a moral austerity to a supralapsarian theodicy. It’s rather angular. A high cost/benefit ratio.
There are possible worlds which lower the cost. But, by the same token, they lower the compensatory benefits. Fewer losses with fewer gains.
That, however, is not the world God chose to make. That’s not the world we inhabit. You and I don’t exist in those nice, safe, equitable, ouchless painless worlds. I exist in this world. My loved ones exist in this world. As such, I’m in no position to complain.
To take one example, suppose I’m the bastard son of an 18C nobleman. I carry a social stigma. My half-brothers shun me as a usurper.
That’s unfair. Unjust. But should I blame God? Well, if my dad hadn’t slept with his courtesan, I wouldn’t even be here. So, like Reppert, I can kick against the goads every step of the way, whining and bitching and bemoaning the injustice of it all. Or else I can thank God for the gift of life and make the most of my God-given opportunities.
“But we are a long way from this situation. I will repeat that the closest I ever came to atheism was when I started reading the Bible Calvinistically at the age of 19.”
For a card-carrying libertarian, Reppert has a fundamentally coercive criterion for love and friendship. For him, it boils down to a quid pro quo. I won’t do something for God unless God does something for me or my loved ones.
That’s why Reppert keeps resorting to emotional coercion. He dares God to damn him unless God behaves according to his specifications.
It’s highly ironic that a doctrinaire libertarian like Reppert regards coercive emotional appeals as the ultimate basis of love and friendship. But there you have it.
Well, one basic problem is that I don’t share Reppert’s intuitions. That’s why he has to resort to subversive hypotheticals.
A Reformed theodicy (which I equate with Bible history) operates on the principle of tradeoffs. On the one hand, you could have a world with lesser goods and lesser evils. On the other hand, you could have a world with greater goods and greater evils. God opted for the latter.
Let’s take an illustration. On the one hand you have an arranged marriage between a man and a woman, both of whom come from “good” families. Indeed, they each come from one of the “best” families in the land.
If they marry each other, they will enjoy a very lavish standard of living. While they don’t love each other, they like each other. Over time they may grow fond of each other. Care about each other. They may also have children whom they love.
There’s nothing wrong with a marriage like that. A marriage without highs or lows. A marriage devoid of passion.
On the other hand, you have an arranged marriage, but the rich young suitor has fallen in love with a “commoner.” Indeed, they’ve known each other for years. They take surreptitious walks in the park. Secluded picnics on his sailboat. Little things like that.
He longs for her. And when he looks into her eyes, he sees her yearning in return.
But his family disapproves of marriage to a commoner. Indeed, they’ll disown him if he presumes to marry someone below his station in life.
However, he throws caution to the wind, and takes her to be his wife. As a result, they have a rather meager standard of living. But they have each other, and they live happily ever after.
We see this type of tradeoff in the parable about the Pearl of Great Price (Mt 13:44-46). The man has a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to acquire something priceless. But he must sell everything he has to buy it.
He must forego all the lesser goods to acquire one incomparable good.
We also see this with C. S. Lewis. He married a woman with cancer. He knew the risk. As a result, he had a tragically brief, intense, bittersweet marriage.
Lewis was in a position to marry a different woman. A healthy woman. As an Oxford don, he was a very eligible bachelor. But he chose to roll the dice.
I had an uncle whose wife made him oatmeal for breakfast for every day of their marriage. For 60 years, he had oatmeal for breakfast. Like Reppert, my uncle was the mild-mannered academic type.
However, whenever he came to visit us, he wanted to us to taking him out to nice restaurants. The restaurants he could never take his wife to–because she wasn’t into romance or fine food or anything out of the ordinary.
In his little way, my uncle had an adventurous streak. But he chose a life of stability instead. And there’s nothing wrong with that.
Now, it may be that Reppert is temperamentally incapable of relating to that type of mindset. Perhaps he’s a naturally cautious, sensible man who’d rather play it safe. He’ll forgo the highs to forgo the lows.
And if that’s the case, I don’t fault his priorities. But I do fault him for faulting the Bible if it doesn’t share his bland, timid priorities.
“I sympathize with Talbott's statement 'I will not worship such a God, and if such a God can send me to hell for not so worshipping him, then to hell I will go'.”
Of course, Talbott takes the position that unless God saves all of his loved ones, then God is unworthy of his love and adoration. And he extrapolates from his own case to everybody else–since just about everybody has loved ones.
Up to a point, I can appreciate his sentiments at a purely emotional level. But I also realize that that’s a purely emotional response which is completely divorced from justice or morality.
For all I know, John Gotti’s widow can’t bear the thought of spending eternity without her beloved husband by her side. But for me to say, on that account, that I won’t worship such a God, and if such a God can send me to hell for not so worshipping him, then to tell I will go, is not a rational or honorable or admirable sentiment. To the contrary, it’s profoundly evil and ungrateful.
Such a thankless, petulant, amoral attitude is, indeed, deserving of hell. I’m tempted to say it’s juvenile, which would be true-–but that tends to trivialize the egregious evil of the sentiment.
Reppert finds Calvinism outrageous, while I find Reppert’s outrage outrageous. It’s reprehensible to say that God is unworthy of your worship in case he punishes evildoers instead of saving them.
“But let's put it this way. Suppose I became convinced that I couldn't deny Calvinism without denying inerrancy, and also that I couldn't reject inerrancy without undermining Christianity. (This is a real hypothetical scenario, but let's go there for a minute). Then I would be left with my intuition that this sort of God was acting wrongly, and what would I do with that? Could my intuitions be in error?”
i) But that generates a dilemma. If your moral intuitions lead you to disbelieve in God, then where does that leave your moral intuitions? In a godless universe, your moral intuitions are the adventitious byproducts of your social conditioning and your evolutionary programming. Mere feelings–feelings which don’t correspond to right and wrong. For a godless world is amoral to the core.
If you begin to question God on the basis of your morality, then you end by questioning your morality in the absence of God. Without God, your moral intuitions are illusory.
ii) I’d also add that I’m not the least bit inclined to answer Reppert’s subversive hypotheticals. Reppert’s whole line of questioning is positively diabolical. He’s reprising the role of the Tempter. But why should I humor Mephistopheles?
“I think I would pose the question as follows. Can Calvinism offer any reason for worshipping their God that is not a dressed-up version of the might-makes-right argument?”
Of course, I’ve answered that question on more than one occasion.
I’d add that I don’t share his voluntaristic view of saving faith. He seems to think we put the evidence for God in one column, and the counterevidence (as he sees it) in another column, then go with whichever column is longer.
But that confuses apologetics with how people come to know something. We don’t believe because of the arguments. Rather, the arguments are just a way of trying to articulate our tacit knowledge of God’s indubitable existence.
Underlying the arguments is our experience of God’s grace and providence. To the regenerate, faith in God is spontaneous and irrepressible. It’s not a light-switch that we flick on or off at will. Rather, it’s sunlight and moonlight–day and night.
“If no, then I'm with Tom Talbott. I won't worship on the basis of mere power alone.”
Actually, unbelievers do worship power. They live for power. Idolize power.
“Is there something better than a might-makes-right argument that can be made on behalf of a Calvinistic God? That would be the question.”
But, as we know, Reppert’s theological antipathies aren’t limited to Calvinism. He’s equally antagonistic to everlasting retribution. He’s equally antagonistic to certain OT commands. He uses Calvinism as a stalking horse to camouflage a far wider range of things in Scripture which offend his precious sensibilities.
And the Bible describes some very unpleasant events–past and future. It also contains some very unpleasant commands.
But that’s because the Bible is realistic. That’s the world we live in. A fallen world which is the theater of redemption is a world with some stark tradeoffs.
There’s a moral austerity to a supralapsarian theodicy. It’s rather angular. A high cost/benefit ratio.
There are possible worlds which lower the cost. But, by the same token, they lower the compensatory benefits. Fewer losses with fewer gains.
That, however, is not the world God chose to make. That’s not the world we inhabit. You and I don’t exist in those nice, safe, equitable, ouchless painless worlds. I exist in this world. My loved ones exist in this world. As such, I’m in no position to complain.
To take one example, suppose I’m the bastard son of an 18C nobleman. I carry a social stigma. My half-brothers shun me as a usurper.
That’s unfair. Unjust. But should I blame God? Well, if my dad hadn’t slept with his courtesan, I wouldn’t even be here. So, like Reppert, I can kick against the goads every step of the way, whining and bitching and bemoaning the injustice of it all. Or else I can thank God for the gift of life and make the most of my God-given opportunities.
“But we are a long way from this situation. I will repeat that the closest I ever came to atheism was when I started reading the Bible Calvinistically at the age of 19.”
For a card-carrying libertarian, Reppert has a fundamentally coercive criterion for love and friendship. For him, it boils down to a quid pro quo. I won’t do something for God unless God does something for me or my loved ones.
That’s why Reppert keeps resorting to emotional coercion. He dares God to damn him unless God behaves according to his specifications.
It’s highly ironic that a doctrinaire libertarian like Reppert regards coercive emotional appeals as the ultimate basis of love and friendship. But there you have it.
Friday, September 18, 2009
Libertarian fatalism
It’s often said that certain cultures (e.g. Hindu, Muslim, Buddhist) are backward and stagnant because they are fatalistic, and being fatalistic, the populace is passive in the face of suffering. Since what will be will be, you might as well grin and bear it.
Ironically, libertarians have the functional equivalent of fatalism. Take a statement by Victor Reppert:
“It's easy to see that if people are given a free will, God cannot be systematically insulating the world from its effects without in effect taking that free will away. If a billy-club turns into nerf every time I try to hit someone over the head, or if I start to throw up every time I lust, I am effectively unfree. Welcome to the world of Clockwork Orange.”
Now this has reference to God, but if you take it seriously, then it also has ramifications for social ethics. Logically, we shouldn’t try to make the world a better place, for in so doing we’d be upsetting the libertarian ecosystem. We can do things which improve our personal situation, but to meddle in the affairs of other free agents would tilt the libertarian balance of cause and effect.
Ironically, libertarians have the functional equivalent of fatalism. Take a statement by Victor Reppert:
“It's easy to see that if people are given a free will, God cannot be systematically insulating the world from its effects without in effect taking that free will away. If a billy-club turns into nerf every time I try to hit someone over the head, or if I start to throw up every time I lust, I am effectively unfree. Welcome to the world of Clockwork Orange.”
Now this has reference to God, but if you take it seriously, then it also has ramifications for social ethics. Logically, we shouldn’t try to make the world a better place, for in so doing we’d be upsetting the libertarian ecosystem. We can do things which improve our personal situation, but to meddle in the affairs of other free agents would tilt the libertarian balance of cause and effect.
Light & darkness
“What makes debate between Calvinists and their opponents so difficult is that it really boils down to a difference of basic hermeneutical principle. What makes Calvinism difficult for many to accept is the fact that they see the Bible pointing in the direction of a hermeneutical center, and that center is love. When the I John 4:8 says God is love, for agapocentrists, this isn't just a statement that God is loving, (except, of course, when he's unconditionally reprobating people), it is rather, that this is an essential characteristic of God that provides the fundamental motivation behind everything.”
http://dangerousidea.blogspot.com/2009/09/agapocentrism.html
i) That’s a good example of Reppert’s perfunctory prooftexting. It’s as if he ran his finger down a concordance and counted the number of times 1 John uses the word “love.”
However, if you actually bother to study the thematic developments in 1 John, he presents a radically polarized outlook. For John, there are two antithetical, inner circles.
On the one hand there is the circle comprising God and Christians. God loves Christians and Christians love God.
On the other hand is the circle comprising the world, the Antichrist, and the devil.
The world loves its own. As a corollary, the world hates God, hates those whom God loves, hates those who love God.
Conversely, John warns Christians not to love the world. If you love the world, you don’t love God. If you love God, you don’t love the world.
So John sees the world in terms of contrasting images: light and darkness, the children of God and the spawn of Satan.
John (in 1 John) defines love in very exclusive and exclusionary terms.
iii) Of course, John also says that Christians were saved from the world. So we have a tension.
The resolution to this tension is found in the Fourth Gospel, where we have a doctrine of election. Those the Father gave to the Son, before the foundation of the world.
iv) Keep in mind, to, that in the Johannine corpus, the love of God does not extend to the devil.
v) I’d add that “love,” while a leading theme in 1 John, is by no means the only leading theme. God is love, but God is truth. Truth, knowing the truth, doing the truth, is a major motif as well.
And that is set in contrast to lies and liars.
iv) This brings us to another Johannine motif which Reppert disregards. Reppert acts as though, to be a loving person means to be indiscriminately loving. But consider this paradigmatic Johannine description:
“And this is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil. For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his works should be exposed” (Jn 3:19-20).
To love one kind of thing is to hate what is unlike the kind of thing you love. If you love the light, you hate the darkness; if you love the darkness, you hate the light.
“With respect to the Law, Jesus seems to set love up as the hermeneutical center: love God and your neighbor and in so doing you will fulfill, at least in spirit, the whole of the Law.”
Well, there are different ways of determining what’s “central.” There is, for example, the way the story ends. In a sense, it doesn’t matter how the story begins, or what happens in-between. It’s the destination that counts. That’s what sticks. That’s for keeps.
What are you a sheep–or are a goat? According to Jesus, God treats some men as sheep and other men as goats. The eternal fate of one stands in stark contrast to the eternal fate of the other.
Doesn’t that tell you something about God’s ultimate priorities?
“Paul, with respect to what came to be known as the Three Holy Virtues, faith, hope and love, put love as the greatest.”
i) And here’s something else that Paul said in the very same letter:
“Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God” (1 Cor 6:9-10).
ii) In addition, Reppert defines love as acting in the best interests of a second party. But by that definition, Christians don’t love God. After all, a Christian can’t act in God’s best interests. There’s nothing we can do for God.
“With respect to any question on limits on the scope of love (Who is my neighbor?) Jesus, through the parable of the Good Samaritan, undercut the conception of 'in group' versus 'out group' which, to a regrettable extent, infects all human efforts to love others.”
Well, if Reppert is going to apply this parable to God, then where was God in this story? Was God a good neighbor to the victim? Wasn’t God in a position to prevent the muggers from harming the man in the first place?
Yet as soon as you pose that question, Reppert suddenly shifts grounds. He’ll say something like, “It's easy to see that if people are given a free will, God cannot be systematically insulating the world from its effects without in effect taking that free will away. If a billy-club turns into nerf every time I try to hit someone over the head, or if I start to throw up every time I lust, I am effectively unfree. Welcome to the world of Clockwork Orange.”
But even if, ad arguendo, we accept that rejoinder on its own terms, then where does it leave the parable of the Good Samaritan? Doesn’t that give the priest and the Levite a perfect excuse not to get involved? If they witness a mugging in progress, they can say to themselves, “I dare not intervene, since I’d be insulating the world from the consequences of their God-given liberty. So I’d better cross the street to given the muggers a wide berth. Mustn’t interfere.”
“I had complained against Calvinism that it leaves an unacceptable gap between what God wants us to do and what God himself does. Of course, Steve and Peter have both pointed out that there are plenty of situations in which, depending on who you are, what is right for you to do is different from what it is right for someone else to do. But I was not talking about specific actions, I was talking about the traits of character that God manifests and the God expects humans to manifest.”
Let’s see. God himself executed the citizens of Sodom and Gomorrah, while he commanded the Israelites to execute the Canaanites. Sometimes he exacts judgment directly, while at other times he delegates that task to humans. Where’s the gap?
“John tells us those who don't love don't know God because that is who God is.”
No, that’s not what John says. John tells us those who don’t love the “brethren” (i.e. fellow Christians) don’t’ know God. The inner circle of love. And that’s set in contrast to those outside the circle–who occupy a different, opposing circle.
“He doesn't say ‘those who aren't wrathful don't know God, because God is wrath’.”
To the contrary, he says, “Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world— the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes and pride in possessions—is not from the Father but is from the world” (1 Jn 2:15-17).
For John, what Christians love has its corollary in what they hate. Love and hate are mutually defining.
“But in agapocentric theology there is a symmetry between the character God commands us to have and God's character.”
And in Johannine theology, there is a symmetry between the character God commands us to have and God's character. Like father, like son.
And that symmetry includes a symmetrical loathing of all that’s opposed to the things of God.
“To me, that leaves us, not with an Omnipotent Fiend perhaps, but certainly with a God with a divided character that seems to me schizophrenic.”
There’s nothing schizophrenic about loving good and hating evil. Those are two sides of the same coin.
“However, the character of God is the same for universalists as for Arminians.”
Yes, they share a common error. And universalism is a more consistent version Arminianism, in one respect–while open theism is a more consistent version of Arminianism, in another respect.
“But doesn't everyone have a hermeneutical center? Doesn't everyone read passages that are harder to understand from the point of view of their hermeneutical center through passages that express that center?”
We shouldn’t superimpose a meaning on a text which cuts against the grain of the text (and context).
“Does agapocentrism make the problem of evil more difficult? There is a sense in which it does. Persons who advance the argument from evil expect God's goodness to involve loving all persons, which agapocentrists agree with. They also have a tendency to equate love for us with a pursuit of our own temporal happiness, which agapocentrists need not accept.”
To detach our temporal experience from our eternal experience isn’t that cut-and-dried.
Take a woman who’s a pious churchgoer. She also has a grown daughter. Her daughter is her life. They talk on the phone several times a day. See each other several times a week. Mom expects her beloved daughter to be a central part of her life until she (Mom) dies of old age.
One day, a man murders her daughter. On that day, not only does the daughter’s life come to an end, but emotionally speaking, the mother’s life also comes to an end. She no longer has anything to live for. She lingers. Blames God. Can’t forgive him for allow that to happen. Becomes bitter and inconsolable.
Can’t stand church. Can’t stand the Bible. Her life is ruined. Irreparable harm.
Now, Reppert may believe in postmortem repentance and restoration. But that’s like breaking someone’s bone so that you can set the broken bone. Put it in a cast. Give the patient painkillers.
Yet even if the bone finally mends, why break someone’s bones in the first place?
http://dangerousidea.blogspot.com/2009/09/agapocentrism.html
i) That’s a good example of Reppert’s perfunctory prooftexting. It’s as if he ran his finger down a concordance and counted the number of times 1 John uses the word “love.”
However, if you actually bother to study the thematic developments in 1 John, he presents a radically polarized outlook. For John, there are two antithetical, inner circles.
On the one hand there is the circle comprising God and Christians. God loves Christians and Christians love God.
On the other hand is the circle comprising the world, the Antichrist, and the devil.
The world loves its own. As a corollary, the world hates God, hates those whom God loves, hates those who love God.
Conversely, John warns Christians not to love the world. If you love the world, you don’t love God. If you love God, you don’t love the world.
So John sees the world in terms of contrasting images: light and darkness, the children of God and the spawn of Satan.
John (in 1 John) defines love in very exclusive and exclusionary terms.
iii) Of course, John also says that Christians were saved from the world. So we have a tension.
The resolution to this tension is found in the Fourth Gospel, where we have a doctrine of election. Those the Father gave to the Son, before the foundation of the world.
iv) Keep in mind, to, that in the Johannine corpus, the love of God does not extend to the devil.
v) I’d add that “love,” while a leading theme in 1 John, is by no means the only leading theme. God is love, but God is truth. Truth, knowing the truth, doing the truth, is a major motif as well.
And that is set in contrast to lies and liars.
iv) This brings us to another Johannine motif which Reppert disregards. Reppert acts as though, to be a loving person means to be indiscriminately loving. But consider this paradigmatic Johannine description:
“And this is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil. For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his works should be exposed” (Jn 3:19-20).
To love one kind of thing is to hate what is unlike the kind of thing you love. If you love the light, you hate the darkness; if you love the darkness, you hate the light.
“With respect to the Law, Jesus seems to set love up as the hermeneutical center: love God and your neighbor and in so doing you will fulfill, at least in spirit, the whole of the Law.”
Well, there are different ways of determining what’s “central.” There is, for example, the way the story ends. In a sense, it doesn’t matter how the story begins, or what happens in-between. It’s the destination that counts. That’s what sticks. That’s for keeps.
What are you a sheep–or are a goat? According to Jesus, God treats some men as sheep and other men as goats. The eternal fate of one stands in stark contrast to the eternal fate of the other.
Doesn’t that tell you something about God’s ultimate priorities?
“Paul, with respect to what came to be known as the Three Holy Virtues, faith, hope and love, put love as the greatest.”
i) And here’s something else that Paul said in the very same letter:
“Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God” (1 Cor 6:9-10).
ii) In addition, Reppert defines love as acting in the best interests of a second party. But by that definition, Christians don’t love God. After all, a Christian can’t act in God’s best interests. There’s nothing we can do for God.
“With respect to any question on limits on the scope of love (Who is my neighbor?) Jesus, through the parable of the Good Samaritan, undercut the conception of 'in group' versus 'out group' which, to a regrettable extent, infects all human efforts to love others.”
Well, if Reppert is going to apply this parable to God, then where was God in this story? Was God a good neighbor to the victim? Wasn’t God in a position to prevent the muggers from harming the man in the first place?
Yet as soon as you pose that question, Reppert suddenly shifts grounds. He’ll say something like, “It's easy to see that if people are given a free will, God cannot be systematically insulating the world from its effects without in effect taking that free will away. If a billy-club turns into nerf every time I try to hit someone over the head, or if I start to throw up every time I lust, I am effectively unfree. Welcome to the world of Clockwork Orange.”
But even if, ad arguendo, we accept that rejoinder on its own terms, then where does it leave the parable of the Good Samaritan? Doesn’t that give the priest and the Levite a perfect excuse not to get involved? If they witness a mugging in progress, they can say to themselves, “I dare not intervene, since I’d be insulating the world from the consequences of their God-given liberty. So I’d better cross the street to given the muggers a wide berth. Mustn’t interfere.”
“I had complained against Calvinism that it leaves an unacceptable gap between what God wants us to do and what God himself does. Of course, Steve and Peter have both pointed out that there are plenty of situations in which, depending on who you are, what is right for you to do is different from what it is right for someone else to do. But I was not talking about specific actions, I was talking about the traits of character that God manifests and the God expects humans to manifest.”
Let’s see. God himself executed the citizens of Sodom and Gomorrah, while he commanded the Israelites to execute the Canaanites. Sometimes he exacts judgment directly, while at other times he delegates that task to humans. Where’s the gap?
“John tells us those who don't love don't know God because that is who God is.”
No, that’s not what John says. John tells us those who don’t love the “brethren” (i.e. fellow Christians) don’t’ know God. The inner circle of love. And that’s set in contrast to those outside the circle–who occupy a different, opposing circle.
“He doesn't say ‘those who aren't wrathful don't know God, because God is wrath’.”
To the contrary, he says, “Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world— the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes and pride in possessions—is not from the Father but is from the world” (1 Jn 2:15-17).
For John, what Christians love has its corollary in what they hate. Love and hate are mutually defining.
“But in agapocentric theology there is a symmetry between the character God commands us to have and God's character.”
And in Johannine theology, there is a symmetry between the character God commands us to have and God's character. Like father, like son.
And that symmetry includes a symmetrical loathing of all that’s opposed to the things of God.
“To me, that leaves us, not with an Omnipotent Fiend perhaps, but certainly with a God with a divided character that seems to me schizophrenic.”
There’s nothing schizophrenic about loving good and hating evil. Those are two sides of the same coin.
“However, the character of God is the same for universalists as for Arminians.”
Yes, they share a common error. And universalism is a more consistent version Arminianism, in one respect–while open theism is a more consistent version of Arminianism, in another respect.
“But doesn't everyone have a hermeneutical center? Doesn't everyone read passages that are harder to understand from the point of view of their hermeneutical center through passages that express that center?”
We shouldn’t superimpose a meaning on a text which cuts against the grain of the text (and context).
“Does agapocentrism make the problem of evil more difficult? There is a sense in which it does. Persons who advance the argument from evil expect God's goodness to involve loving all persons, which agapocentrists agree with. They also have a tendency to equate love for us with a pursuit of our own temporal happiness, which agapocentrists need not accept.”
To detach our temporal experience from our eternal experience isn’t that cut-and-dried.
Take a woman who’s a pious churchgoer. She also has a grown daughter. Her daughter is her life. They talk on the phone several times a day. See each other several times a week. Mom expects her beloved daughter to be a central part of her life until she (Mom) dies of old age.
One day, a man murders her daughter. On that day, not only does the daughter’s life come to an end, but emotionally speaking, the mother’s life also comes to an end. She no longer has anything to live for. She lingers. Blames God. Can’t forgive him for allow that to happen. Becomes bitter and inconsolable.
Can’t stand church. Can’t stand the Bible. Her life is ruined. Irreparable harm.
Now, Reppert may believe in postmortem repentance and restoration. But that’s like breaking someone’s bone so that you can set the broken bone. Put it in a cast. Give the patient painkillers.
Yet even if the bone finally mends, why break someone’s bones in the first place?
Thursday, September 17, 2009
Control and governance
According to Billy Birch:
“First, notice that God is said not to control the actions and passions of his creatures (as is explicitly admitted by Calvinists), but that he governs such. The difference is paramount for a faithful, appropriate, and correct understanding of God as revealed throughout the tenor of Scripture.”
But according to his alter ego:
“I was a youth pastor when 9/11 hit. Many of the kids wanted to know how to react to the situation as far as God was concerned. The first thing I let them know was that this did not take God by surprise. He is in control."
Arminian theodicy suffers from multiple-personality disorder.
“First, notice that God is said not to control the actions and passions of his creatures (as is explicitly admitted by Calvinists), but that he governs such. The difference is paramount for a faithful, appropriate, and correct understanding of God as revealed throughout the tenor of Scripture.”
But according to his alter ego:
“I was a youth pastor when 9/11 hit. Many of the kids wanted to know how to react to the situation as far as God was concerned. The first thing I let them know was that this did not take God by surprise. He is in control."
Arminian theodicy suffers from multiple-personality disorder.
Making God the copilot of sin
William Watson Birch said...
“I was a youth pastor when 9/11 hit. Many of the kids wanted to know how to react to the situation as far as God was concerned. The first thing I let them know was that this did not take God by surprise. He is in control. The second thing I told them was that God is not in the business of throwing planes into buildings, so don't think of the event in that manner.”
http://classicalarminianism.blogspot.com/2009/09/practicality-of-theology-where-rubber.html#comment-6121712956501938027
So, according to classical Arminianism, God is in the business of controlling fanatical pilots who crash planes into buildings.
Thankfully, Arminianism doesn’t make God the author of sin. Instead, it makes him the copilot of sin.
And that makes all the difference…I guess.
“I was a youth pastor when 9/11 hit. Many of the kids wanted to know how to react to the situation as far as God was concerned. The first thing I let them know was that this did not take God by surprise. He is in control. The second thing I told them was that God is not in the business of throwing planes into buildings, so don't think of the event in that manner.”
http://classicalarminianism.blogspot.com/2009/09/practicality-of-theology-where-rubber.html#comment-6121712956501938027
So, according to classical Arminianism, God is in the business of controlling fanatical pilots who crash planes into buildings.
Thankfully, Arminianism doesn’t make God the author of sin. Instead, it makes him the copilot of sin.
And that makes all the difference…I guess.
The blind leading the blind
An apostate has responded to something I posted on Mt 23:2-3:
http://purifyyourbride.stblogs.com/2009/09/15/steve-hays-on-mat-23/
“This is an interesting theory. If you bring to the text some assumptions about authority and holiness then you are lift with a real puzzle to solve.”
Well, I quoted from John Nolland who, in addition to his own comments, quoted from Mark Allan Powell. Nolland is Anglican, so I don’t think the assumptions he is bringing to the text are necessarily prejudicial to a high-church polity. Likewise, Powell is a Lutheran ecumenist and member of the Catholic Biblical Association. So I doubt that his operating assumptions are especially hostile to a high-church polity.
“The same goes with Matthew 16 where Jesus tells Peter, ‘On this rock I will build My church’ in one moment and in the next story He is saying ‘Get behind me Satan’. What is going on? Jesus does not see a problem. Men can have a legitimate authority from God and still be quite sinful. In fact, sinful men are all God has to choose from so you can be sure all Christian leaders will be sinful.”
One of the problems with this statement is the fact that we do have moral qualifications for church office-holders in the NT:
1 Tim 3:1-7:
1The saying is trustworthy: If anyone aspires to the office of overseer, he desires a noble task. 2Therefore an overseer must be above reproach, the husband of one wife, sober-minded, self-controlled, respectable, hospitable, able to teach, 3not a drunkard, not violent but gentle, not quarrelsome, not a lover of money. 4He must manage his own household well, with all dignity keeping his children submissive, 5for if someone does not know how to manage his own household, how will he care for God’s church? 6He must not be a recent convert, or he may become puffed up with conceit and fall into the condemnation of the devil. 7Moreover, he must be well thought of by outsiders, so that he may not fall into disgrace, into a snare of the devil.
Tit 1:6-8:
6 if anyone is above reproach, the husband of one wife, and his children are believers and not open to the charge of debauchery or insubordination. 7For an overseer, as God’s steward, must be above reproach. He must not be arrogant or quick-tempered or a drunkard or violent or greedy for gain, 8but hospitable, a lover of good, self-controlled, upright, holy, and disciplined.
Paul was obviously aware of the fact that “sinful men are all God has to choose from,” yet that doesn’t make questions of character or conduct irrelevant to church office.
The fact that all men are sinners doesn’t mean we should hire someone convicted of graft or embezzlement to be the church treasurer.
So even if we’re going to recast the issue in terms of sinful office-holders, which is not the correct way to frame the interpretation in the first place, that hardly means we can brush aside questions of character and conduct with glib platitudes about the universality of sin.
“God solves this problem by establishing an office that transcends the office-holders. Holier men make the office more powerful but ‘blind guides’ cannot ruin the office.”
i) An obvious problem with that solution is that Mt 23:2-3 isn’t describing “office-holders.” “Pharisee” was not an office, like high priest or procurator. Someone who happened to be a Pharisee could also be an office-holder, but that’s incidental to Pharisaic identity. Many or most Pharisees were laymen.
The closest thing you had to a religious office in Judaism was the priesthood, and you didn’t need to be a priest to be a scribe or Pharisee. It was possible to be both, but that was not a job requirement.
ii) Indeed, the Pharisees were opponents of the religious powers-that-be (i.e. the Sadducees).
iii) And even if, for the sake of argument, you said they were office-holders, that doesn’t mean they’re office-holders in the specialized sense that Catholicism ascribes to the episcopate or papacy. The Archbishop of Canterbury is an office-holder, yet Catholics don’t ascribe the same authority to him that they do to Roman Catholic prelates.
Likewise, we still have rabbis and chief rabbis. Yet Catholics don’t regard the chief rabbi as their pope–even though they are religious office-holders as well as heirs to the 1C Pharisees.
“Powell, and Steve, come to this text with the notion that this is an impossible thing for God to do and therefore Jesus must be talking about something else.”
This is something which our apostate pulls out of thin air. I never said it was impossible for God to use sinners in positions of authority. That was not a presupposition of my interpretation.
The problem with the Catholic interpretation is that Jesus describes the scribes and Pharisees “blind guides” (cf. vv16-17,19,24; 15:14).
What that pinpoints is not a lack of character, but a lack of judgment. A “blind guide” is an oxymoron.
The point of hiring a guide if you go on safari is to keep you from getting lost in the jungle. But if the guide were blind, then you’d both be lost. Indeed, Jesus himself explicates the implicit results of the satirical imagery:
Mt 15:14:
Let them alone; they are blind guides. And if the blind lead the blind, both will fall into a pit."
Moving along:
“So they invent this notion that Jesus must simply be talking about the reading of scripture.”
There’s nothing particularly “inventive” about that notion. Why were the scribes called “scribes”? Because they copied the Scriptures. As a result, they acquired an accurate and detailed command of the text of Scripture. The Pharisees also read the Scriptures in their original language and committed large portions to memory.
In an age when illiteracy was widespread, and access to books was limited, this interpretation is grounded in the concrete circumstances of the audience.
“That makes sense until you go back and look at what Jesus actually said. Verse 3 says, ‘So you must obey them and do everything they tell you’. The word ‘So’ indicates the reason for the obedience is in the preceding clause. What is that reason? The teachers of the law and the Pharisees sit in Moses’ seat. Jesus could have said they read from the word of God or they read from the scripture. He didn’t say what they read was trustworthy. He said the position they occupy is trustworthy. That is the reason. So Powell flatly contradicts the plain meaning of the text.”
Since “Moses’ seat” is a metaphor, it has no “plain meaning” to contradict. Quoting a metaphor proves nothing. Metaphors are open-textured. So you need to unpack the metaphor. What does it stand for?
“He goes on to say ‘they do not practice what they preach.’ Again this makes no sense if Powell is right. Preaching and reading scripture are different things. Jesus clearly says they are preaching. That is going beyond the words of scripture and explaining what they mean. He could have said they don’t obey the scripture they read. He did not. He said ‘preach’ because he meant preach.”
i) Our apostate is not making a serious effort to envision the real-life situation of the audience. Suppose a Jewish husband is dissatisfied with his wife. He wants to know if the law of Moses permits him to divorce her. So he asks a scribe or Pharisee what, if anything, the law of Moses has to say in reference to his situation. That’s his source of information.
Sure, the scribe or Pharisee will also volunteer his interpretation. Or the husband may even ask them what they think the text means. But that’s a separate issue from knowing what the text says.
ii) And, remember, we need to construe 23:2-3 consistent with what Jesus also says about “blind guides.” You can’t properly gloss the text in isolation to that recurring theme–which occurs in this very discourse. You need a unified interpretation which considers the text in relation to the context.
What would it mean to follow the “authoritative” lead of a blind guide? By definition, a blind guide is misguided. If you follow him, you will both lose your bearings.
iii) To take a really obvious example: if we construe the text the way our apostate did, then the Jewish rank-and-file were justified in denying the messiahship of Jesus since most of the Jewish authority-figures did. If the “interpretive authority” of the scribes and Pharisees, lawyers and Sadducees were truly binding, then it would be an act of godless insubordination for any Jew to credit the claims of Jesus.
iv) Our apostate also overlooks the obvious fact that Pharisees and Sadducees and other schools and rabbis often differed on the correct interpretation of the OT. When authorities disagree, it isn’t even possible to accept their interpretation on authority, since there’s no one interpretation to accept. What you have, rather, are a set of mutually exclusive, but equally “authoritative” interpretations. And that’s the reductio ad absurdum of our apostate’s position. An appeal to authority can’t broker a disagreement if the authorities disagree.
Our apostate might try to trump this by appeal to the pope. But 1C Jews didn’t have a pope.
http://purifyyourbride.stblogs.com/2009/09/15/steve-hays-on-mat-23/
“This is an interesting theory. If you bring to the text some assumptions about authority and holiness then you are lift with a real puzzle to solve.”
Well, I quoted from John Nolland who, in addition to his own comments, quoted from Mark Allan Powell. Nolland is Anglican, so I don’t think the assumptions he is bringing to the text are necessarily prejudicial to a high-church polity. Likewise, Powell is a Lutheran ecumenist and member of the Catholic Biblical Association. So I doubt that his operating assumptions are especially hostile to a high-church polity.
“The same goes with Matthew 16 where Jesus tells Peter, ‘On this rock I will build My church’ in one moment and in the next story He is saying ‘Get behind me Satan’. What is going on? Jesus does not see a problem. Men can have a legitimate authority from God and still be quite sinful. In fact, sinful men are all God has to choose from so you can be sure all Christian leaders will be sinful.”
One of the problems with this statement is the fact that we do have moral qualifications for church office-holders in the NT:
1 Tim 3:1-7:
1The saying is trustworthy: If anyone aspires to the office of overseer, he desires a noble task. 2Therefore an overseer must be above reproach, the husband of one wife, sober-minded, self-controlled, respectable, hospitable, able to teach, 3not a drunkard, not violent but gentle, not quarrelsome, not a lover of money. 4He must manage his own household well, with all dignity keeping his children submissive, 5for if someone does not know how to manage his own household, how will he care for God’s church? 6He must not be a recent convert, or he may become puffed up with conceit and fall into the condemnation of the devil. 7Moreover, he must be well thought of by outsiders, so that he may not fall into disgrace, into a snare of the devil.
Tit 1:6-8:
6 if anyone is above reproach, the husband of one wife, and his children are believers and not open to the charge of debauchery or insubordination. 7For an overseer, as God’s steward, must be above reproach. He must not be arrogant or quick-tempered or a drunkard or violent or greedy for gain, 8but hospitable, a lover of good, self-controlled, upright, holy, and disciplined.
Paul was obviously aware of the fact that “sinful men are all God has to choose from,” yet that doesn’t make questions of character or conduct irrelevant to church office.
The fact that all men are sinners doesn’t mean we should hire someone convicted of graft or embezzlement to be the church treasurer.
So even if we’re going to recast the issue in terms of sinful office-holders, which is not the correct way to frame the interpretation in the first place, that hardly means we can brush aside questions of character and conduct with glib platitudes about the universality of sin.
“God solves this problem by establishing an office that transcends the office-holders. Holier men make the office more powerful but ‘blind guides’ cannot ruin the office.”
i) An obvious problem with that solution is that Mt 23:2-3 isn’t describing “office-holders.” “Pharisee” was not an office, like high priest or procurator. Someone who happened to be a Pharisee could also be an office-holder, but that’s incidental to Pharisaic identity. Many or most Pharisees were laymen.
The closest thing you had to a religious office in Judaism was the priesthood, and you didn’t need to be a priest to be a scribe or Pharisee. It was possible to be both, but that was not a job requirement.
ii) Indeed, the Pharisees were opponents of the religious powers-that-be (i.e. the Sadducees).
iii) And even if, for the sake of argument, you said they were office-holders, that doesn’t mean they’re office-holders in the specialized sense that Catholicism ascribes to the episcopate or papacy. The Archbishop of Canterbury is an office-holder, yet Catholics don’t ascribe the same authority to him that they do to Roman Catholic prelates.
Likewise, we still have rabbis and chief rabbis. Yet Catholics don’t regard the chief rabbi as their pope–even though they are religious office-holders as well as heirs to the 1C Pharisees.
“Powell, and Steve, come to this text with the notion that this is an impossible thing for God to do and therefore Jesus must be talking about something else.”
This is something which our apostate pulls out of thin air. I never said it was impossible for God to use sinners in positions of authority. That was not a presupposition of my interpretation.
The problem with the Catholic interpretation is that Jesus describes the scribes and Pharisees “blind guides” (cf. vv16-17,19,24; 15:14).
What that pinpoints is not a lack of character, but a lack of judgment. A “blind guide” is an oxymoron.
The point of hiring a guide if you go on safari is to keep you from getting lost in the jungle. But if the guide were blind, then you’d both be lost. Indeed, Jesus himself explicates the implicit results of the satirical imagery:
Mt 15:14:
Let them alone; they are blind guides. And if the blind lead the blind, both will fall into a pit."
Moving along:
“So they invent this notion that Jesus must simply be talking about the reading of scripture.”
There’s nothing particularly “inventive” about that notion. Why were the scribes called “scribes”? Because they copied the Scriptures. As a result, they acquired an accurate and detailed command of the text of Scripture. The Pharisees also read the Scriptures in their original language and committed large portions to memory.
In an age when illiteracy was widespread, and access to books was limited, this interpretation is grounded in the concrete circumstances of the audience.
“That makes sense until you go back and look at what Jesus actually said. Verse 3 says, ‘So you must obey them and do everything they tell you’. The word ‘So’ indicates the reason for the obedience is in the preceding clause. What is that reason? The teachers of the law and the Pharisees sit in Moses’ seat. Jesus could have said they read from the word of God or they read from the scripture. He didn’t say what they read was trustworthy. He said the position they occupy is trustworthy. That is the reason. So Powell flatly contradicts the plain meaning of the text.”
Since “Moses’ seat” is a metaphor, it has no “plain meaning” to contradict. Quoting a metaphor proves nothing. Metaphors are open-textured. So you need to unpack the metaphor. What does it stand for?
“He goes on to say ‘they do not practice what they preach.’ Again this makes no sense if Powell is right. Preaching and reading scripture are different things. Jesus clearly says they are preaching. That is going beyond the words of scripture and explaining what they mean. He could have said they don’t obey the scripture they read. He did not. He said ‘preach’ because he meant preach.”
i) Our apostate is not making a serious effort to envision the real-life situation of the audience. Suppose a Jewish husband is dissatisfied with his wife. He wants to know if the law of Moses permits him to divorce her. So he asks a scribe or Pharisee what, if anything, the law of Moses has to say in reference to his situation. That’s his source of information.
Sure, the scribe or Pharisee will also volunteer his interpretation. Or the husband may even ask them what they think the text means. But that’s a separate issue from knowing what the text says.
ii) And, remember, we need to construe 23:2-3 consistent with what Jesus also says about “blind guides.” You can’t properly gloss the text in isolation to that recurring theme–which occurs in this very discourse. You need a unified interpretation which considers the text in relation to the context.
What would it mean to follow the “authoritative” lead of a blind guide? By definition, a blind guide is misguided. If you follow him, you will both lose your bearings.
iii) To take a really obvious example: if we construe the text the way our apostate did, then the Jewish rank-and-file were justified in denying the messiahship of Jesus since most of the Jewish authority-figures did. If the “interpretive authority” of the scribes and Pharisees, lawyers and Sadducees were truly binding, then it would be an act of godless insubordination for any Jew to credit the claims of Jesus.
iv) Our apostate also overlooks the obvious fact that Pharisees and Sadducees and other schools and rabbis often differed on the correct interpretation of the OT. When authorities disagree, it isn’t even possible to accept their interpretation on authority, since there’s no one interpretation to accept. What you have, rather, are a set of mutually exclusive, but equally “authoritative” interpretations. And that’s the reductio ad absurdum of our apostate’s position. An appeal to authority can’t broker a disagreement if the authorities disagree.
Our apostate might try to trump this by appeal to the pope. But 1C Jews didn’t have a pope.
Responses To The Latest Edition Of John Loftus' Book
J.P. Holding and some of his colleagues at TheologyWeb recently posted a response to the latest edition of John Loftus' book, Why I Became An Atheist (Amherst, New York: Prometheus Books, 2008). Holding's responses to previous editions of the book can be found here. On both pages just mentioned, Holding links to other responses to Loftus as well, such as Steve Hays' review of a previous edition of the book.
Wednesday, September 16, 2009
Reppert Tries Good
In many recent blog exchanges, I've engaged Victor Reppert on the question of Calvinism and the problem of evil. During these exchanges, I have pointed out several times that Reppert never bothers to define what "good" or "evil" is, and I've also pointed out that there's really no purpose in discussing "the problem of evil" if one does not define "evil" in the first place.
I would have thought that this would be sort of obvious, especially for Reppert who is a professional philosopher. Apparently, however, Reppert feels no need to actually define his terms—making it very easy for him to engage in sloppy thinking without even realizing it. After all, part of the reason we define terms is so we can spot ambiguity. If you work with an undefined "evil" then it can morph depending on how you feel, such that an opening paragraph and a closing paragraph in a philosophical argument use completely different meanings of the term "evil" and yet seek to come to a logical conclusion. Not defining the terms is, obviously, poor argumentation.
Since Reppert posted another article about Calvinism and the problem of evil without defining his terms, I pointed out once again that he had not bothered to define his terms. In this case we might give him some leeway since he merely reposted an older blog post; however, given the fact that I have asked for his definition several times, I think such leeway is ultimately unjustified. Since his lack of defining terms has been shown many times, he ought to define his terms before posting another thing on the problem of evil from any perspective.
Reppert decided to respond to my request that he define his terms. He decided to first attack my definition of "good" before attempting what he claims is a definition. Unfortunately, rather than actually interact with my entire argument, presented for instance when I examined the Euthyphro Dilemma or my post on the definition of evil, Reppert decided to use quotes from one comment made on this post.
Sadly, Reppert didn't seem to read his own post, for his first question in response to what I had written was:
But it's actually even worse than that, for in that post in response to my previous comments Reppert had already said:
If Reppert had bothered to actually read my arguments that I had linked in my comments before the one Reppert pulled out to respond to now, he would have seen that I already addressed the issue of identifying who God is. In my Euthyphro post, I said:
In any case, the God of the Divine Command Theory is pretty obvious to spot. He's the God who gives the commands. I would have thought that to be self-evident.
Reppert then moves on to the only thing that resembles a definition (and sadly, he does think it is a definition). He writes:
Secondly, such a definition of "good" is not equivalent to moral goodness. It is good of me to eat food when I am hungry, but it's hardly righteous of me to do so. If this is what Reppert implies by the moral obligation portion, then this definition remains unsatisfactory, for it is certain that God designed people needing food, yet who would consider eating breakfast to be morally good? If, on the other hand, Reppert only intends to define only what moral obligation is here, then he's got the cart before the horse for he is using the term "good" without defining it once again.
Thirdly, and quite damaging to Reppert, in order for us to use "good" in the above, we would have to know for what purpose God designed us. How would we know what that is…without God's commands? But wouldn't that make Reppert a closet Divine Command Theorist?
Fourth, and most damaging to Reppert, if God designed someone to be a vessel of wrath, then by the above definition Reppert has said such an intended purpose "is identical to our good," in which case there is absolutely no reason at all for Reppert to disagree with double-predestination on the grounds that it's evil. Even by his own (weak) definition above, fulfilling the purpose God intends for us is the definition of good. So when a reprobate fulfills his purpose and burns in hell, that's good by Reppert's above definition.
Note that at this point Reppert will be required to insert a qualifier. That qualifier will be: "No, it must be a good intention." At which point it will be demonstrated that the "fulfilling one's purpose" definition above does NOT define "good" at all because it already presupposes some other definition of good in "fulfilling one's good purpose."
Reppert continues:
Continuing:
Reppert says:
But more specific to our current discussion, God is the standard of goodness; we are not. Yes, that makes a wide gap. But so what?
Reppert continues:
Reppert continues:
Reppert said:
But even worse, this trivializes what God does for us in the pursuit of His glory. He demonstrates greater love than we ever could by sending His Son to die for us while we are yet sinners; He shows mercy, justice, wrath, and love; He sends rain to the just and unjust alike. And Reppert is upset that God would do this for us with His own glorification—the very thing He most deserves—in mind?
Reppert says:
Reppert continued:
Reppert said:
I would have thought that this would be sort of obvious, especially for Reppert who is a professional philosopher. Apparently, however, Reppert feels no need to actually define his terms—making it very easy for him to engage in sloppy thinking without even realizing it. After all, part of the reason we define terms is so we can spot ambiguity. If you work with an undefined "evil" then it can morph depending on how you feel, such that an opening paragraph and a closing paragraph in a philosophical argument use completely different meanings of the term "evil" and yet seek to come to a logical conclusion. Not defining the terms is, obviously, poor argumentation.
Since Reppert posted another article about Calvinism and the problem of evil without defining his terms, I pointed out once again that he had not bothered to define his terms. In this case we might give him some leeway since he merely reposted an older blog post; however, given the fact that I have asked for his definition several times, I think such leeway is ultimately unjustified. Since his lack of defining terms has been shown many times, he ought to define his terms before posting another thing on the problem of evil from any perspective.
Reppert decided to respond to my request that he define his terms. He decided to first attack my definition of "good" before attempting what he claims is a definition. Unfortunately, rather than actually interact with my entire argument, presented for instance when I examined the Euthyphro Dilemma or my post on the definition of evil, Reppert decided to use quotes from one comment made on this post.
Sadly, Reppert didn't seem to read his own post, for his first question in response to what I had written was:
At the risk of becoming tiresome, I would have to ask what definition of God we are working with here?The post I responded to was entitled: "Is there a moral obligation to worship a Calvinistic God? Or any other God for that matter?" Apparently, Reppert didn't think that maybe I was responding to his first question.
But it's actually even worse than that, for in that post in response to my previous comments Reppert had already said:
Of course the divine command theory has the problem of identifying God. The standard philosophical definition of God is a being who is worthy of worship in virtue of being omnipotent, omniscient, and perfectly good. But if "good" means "commanded by God" and "God" means a being who is, among other things, perfectly good, it looks like you've got vicious circularity here.I note in passing that this paragraph is basically the entirety of Reppert's current response to me too.
If Reppert had bothered to actually read my arguments that I had linked in my comments before the one Reppert pulled out to respond to now, he would have seen that I already addressed the issue of identifying who God is. In my Euthyphro post, I said:
Now one could argue, as the Moral Philosophy site did, that that means that God could command slavery, genocide, holocausts or any number of such things. However, God could not have done so, for then God would have a different nature then the one He has. A different God could have commanded those things and been morally good in doing so; this God (Who happens to be the real God) cannot do so.Apparently Reppert thinks that when Christians talk about God, they might mean Moloch or Vishnu.
In any case, the God of the Divine Command Theory is pretty obvious to spot. He's the God who gives the commands. I would have thought that to be self-evident.
Reppert then moves on to the only thing that resembles a definition (and sadly, he does think it is a definition). He writes:
In my view moral obligation is created by the fact that God creates us with an intended purpose which is identical to our good, in that we as humans flourish if we fulfill that purpose.But this simply fails as a definition of good. This definition would not enable one to examine whether God Himself is good, for good apparently is fulfillment of the purpose for which God created us. Since God did not create Himself, nor did He have a creator, then under such a definition God cannot be good.
Secondly, such a definition of "good" is not equivalent to moral goodness. It is good of me to eat food when I am hungry, but it's hardly righteous of me to do so. If this is what Reppert implies by the moral obligation portion, then this definition remains unsatisfactory, for it is certain that God designed people needing food, yet who would consider eating breakfast to be morally good? If, on the other hand, Reppert only intends to define only what moral obligation is here, then he's got the cart before the horse for he is using the term "good" without defining it once again.
Thirdly, and quite damaging to Reppert, in order for us to use "good" in the above, we would have to know for what purpose God designed us. How would we know what that is…without God's commands? But wouldn't that make Reppert a closet Divine Command Theorist?
Fourth, and most damaging to Reppert, if God designed someone to be a vessel of wrath, then by the above definition Reppert has said such an intended purpose "is identical to our good," in which case there is absolutely no reason at all for Reppert to disagree with double-predestination on the grounds that it's evil. Even by his own (weak) definition above, fulfilling the purpose God intends for us is the definition of good. So when a reprobate fulfills his purpose and burns in hell, that's good by Reppert's above definition.
Note that at this point Reppert will be required to insert a qualifier. That qualifier will be: "No, it must be a good intention." At which point it will be demonstrated that the "fulfilling one's purpose" definition above does NOT define "good" at all because it already presupposes some other definition of good in "fulfilling one's good purpose."
Reppert continues:
Further, God acts in a way that is consistent with the pursuit of that good for all his creatures.I shudder to think that Reppert seriously is asserting that if God does not act in a way that is beneficial toward man then God is committing evil (see next blockquote too). This is so obviously anti-Christian that I would think it absurd for a professing Christian like Reppert to think that God failing to live up to our goodness is what constitutes evil, rather than us failing to live up to His goodness. But sadly Reppert doesn't give me confidence that he sees this problem, so I mention it here.
Continuing:
Our good is to glorify God and enjoy him forever, evil is what gets in the way of that.But again, under such a view, good or evil is meaningless of God. At best, Reppert can only use this to try to establish relative good and evil amongst mankind, but he can never examine the problem of evil for none of his "definitions" of good and evil extend to anything that God can do.
Reppert says:
On Calvinist theory there is a large gap between what makes God's character good, and what makes us good, a gap that cannot be explained in terms of a difference in God's wisdom or knowledge.Well, yes there is a gap because men are sinners and God is not, and therefore what "makes us good" is Christ's righteousness imputed to us and our unrighteousness imputed to Him, which God does not need to be good.
But more specific to our current discussion, God is the standard of goodness; we are not. Yes, that makes a wide gap. But so what?
Reppert continues:
A native may believe that men in white coats bearing long needles are mean to little kids because he lacks knowledge that the men in the white coats possess, but the standard of goodness for natives and for missionary doctors is the same.That is because both are human. Apparently, Reppert would put God under the Law, which was implemented as a tutor to bring us to Christ, as if God needed to be brought to Christ.
Reppert continues:
Piper seems concerned to respond to the charge that God's interest in his glory makes him selfish, since selfishness is a vice amongst humans.There's a difference between the one who claims something as his own having not earned it and the one who claims something as his own after having earned it. As a liberal, Reppert will never grasp this. But to help others, the next time Reppert says, "I wrote C. S. Lewis's Dangerous Idea: In Defense of the Argument from Reason" I will point out that that's a pretty selfish thing to say. Who cares if Reppert deserves the title of "the author of the book C. S. Lewis's Dangerous Idea: In Defense of the Argument from Reason"? It would be selfish to attribute it to him and not also to me.
Reppert said:
If I were to read on someone's tombstone "He pursued his own glory single-mindedly throughout his life" I don't think I would think I was looking at the grave of someone I wish I had known. Glory hogs in basketball don't help the team win.But once again Reppert reduces God to a mere man. He never considers that the reason God can be selfish for His glory is because God deserves glory for who He is, and because we are not God we do not have the same right to pursue our own glory.
But even worse, this trivializes what God does for us in the pursuit of His glory. He demonstrates greater love than we ever could by sending His Son to die for us while we are yet sinners; He shows mercy, justice, wrath, and love; He sends rain to the just and unjust alike. And Reppert is upset that God would do this for us with His own glorification—the very thing He most deserves—in mind?
Reppert says:
It seems to me that when you say God gives commands based on his nature, it is pretty clear that we don't have obligations to reflect all aspects of God's moral nature in our own conduct.How could we? It's pretty clear that no matter how much you love someone, you will never die a substitutionary death for them, imputing their unrighteousness to yourself while imputing your righteousness to them, so that you take upon yourself the sins of another so that they might live. Maybe that's why God didn't command it of us, but He did ask it of His Son.
Reppert continued:
We might be rightly wrathful when someone we love is raped, but we aren't supposed to be looking for or artifically creating opportunities for us to exercise our attribute of being wrathful at evil…Why look for artificial opportunities when natural occurrences abound? Secondly, so what? Again, we have already established that God's nature is not ours and that He can do things that we cannot. Why insist that God must be a man rather than God?
Reppert said:
So while divine commands are supposed to be based on the divine nature, the kind of people we are commanded to be fails to fully reflect the character of God, and there are actions on the part of God which are deemed right which, if parallel actions are performed by humans, they would contravene the commands of God.But this last clause is true no matter what position you take. God does do things that He has commanded us not to do. And the first clause is only a problem if God has commanded us to fully reflect His character. He has not done so. He has given us the commands which we are to follow, and we do not have any right to add to them. For an easy example, God doesn't command us to take vengeance—He claims that as His own right. Engaging in vengeance surely is an aspect of character, isn't it?
Channeling the dark side
Victor Reppert said...
“It seems that the Calvinistic God comes across a little bit like a hypocritical parent, who says ‘Don't do as I do, do as I say’ and ’That's different’, two responses I think I've managed to avoid using with our kids.”
In reading Victor Reppert, you must make a forcible attempt to remind yourself that he’s supposed to be a philosopher. It’s trivially easy to come up with examples in which what is right for one person may be wrong for another.
i) It’s wrong for an alcoholic to consume booze. That doesn’t mean it’s also wrong for someone who can hold his liquor.
ii) It’s wrong for Typhoid Mary to attend a baseball game. That doesn’t mean it’s wrong for you and me attend a baseball game.
iii) It’s wrong for a two-year-old to handle a loaded pistol. That doesn’t make it wrong for a policeman or soldier to handle a loaded pistol.
“In my view moral obligation is created by the fact that God creates us with an intended purpose which is identical to our good, and is acts in a way that is consistent with the pursuit of that good for all his creatures.”
So when the rattlesnake eats the groundhog, that’s good for the groundho? When the shark eats the seal, that’s good for the seal?
Somehow I doubt the seal and the groundhog would share Reppert’s Panglossian outlook. Admittedly, they can’t be reached for comment–inside the tummy of the shark and the rattlesnake.
“On Calvinist theory there is a large gap between what makes God's character good, and what makes us good, a gap that cannot be explained in terms of a difference in God's wisdom or knowledge.”
Well, what do you expect? To take one obvious example, humans reproduce sexually. This creates a whole network of natural social obligations, between husbands and wives, parents and children, brothers and sisters, as well as unrelated age-mates, &c.
As such, there are both analogies and disanalogies between divine and human goodness.
“A native may believe that men in white coats bearing long needles are mean to little kids because he lacks knowledge that the men in the white coats possess, but the standard of goodness for natives and for missionary doctors is the same. Both the native and the doctor want the child to be well, and for the child not to suffer, but they have different ideas as to how to go about it.”
Note the incorrigible irony: Reppert is trying to define goodness, yet he invariably defines goodness in amoral terms. For Reppert, the difference between guilt and innocence never figures in his definition of goodness.
Of course, that’s the way I’d expect the Old Horny to define goodness. To define it amorally, so as to avoid incriminating distinctions between good and evil.
So often, Reppert seems to be channeling the dark side. Listening to Reppert is like overhearing the speech a certain archangel must have given to his comrades to make recruits for his “cause.”
“Piper seems concerned to respond to the charge that God's interest in his glory makes him selfish, since selfishness is a vice amongst humans. If I were to read on someone's tombstone ‘He pursued his own glory single-mindedly throughout his life’ I don't think I would think I was looking at the grave of someone I wish I had known. Glory hogs in basketball don't help the team win.”
i) God is the benefactor, not the beneficiary. God has nothing to gain. It’s for the good of the elect.
ii) God is the summum bonum. The infinite good from which all finite goods derive. Our human self-fulfillment relies on the various ways in which God communicates his goodness to human beings. That’s the opposite of selfishness.
Reppert is a study in spiteful, hellish ingratitude.
“It seems to me that when you say God gives commands based on his nature, it is pretty clear that we don't have obligations to reflect all aspects of God's moral nature in our own conduct. We might be rightly wrathful when someone we love is raped, but we aren't supposed to be looking for or artifically creating opportunities for us to exercise our attribute of being wrathful at evil, (maybe by creating androids who commit crimes so that we can punish them for those crimes)…”
As a general proposition, human beings constantly look for or create artificial opportunities to exercise their attributes, viz., art, literature, music, sports.
So Reppert needs to explain which it’s wrong to “artificially” manifest some attributes, but not others.
Remember, Reppert is the one who’s accentuating the commonalities between God and man.
“As if there was some aspect of us that is going to go unfulfilled if we are fortunate enough never to be in a position where that sort of wrath is called for.”
Once again, this is a spiteful caricature of the Reformed position. The question is not whether God is unfulfilled, but whether creatures are unfulfilled unless they exemplify the exemplar.
That, of course, doesn’t mean every creature is entitled to achieve self-fulfillment. If, for example, a suicide-bomber kills a pizzeria full of Jewish teenagers to get his 70 virgins in Paradise, it’s a fit punishment if, in fact, his eternal destiny deprives him of the very thing he sought through murderous means.
“So while divine commands are supposed to be based on the divine nature, the kind of people we are commanded to be fails to fully reflect the character of God, and there are actions on the part of God which are deemed right which, if parallel actions are performed by humans, they would contravene the commands of God.”
Reppert doesn’t state what he’s referring to. For example, God sometimes visits direct judgment on the wicked (e.g. raining fire and brimstone on Sodom and Gomorrah), but sometimes he delegates the judicial action to second parties (commanding the Israelites to execute the Canaanites).
“It seems that the Calvinistic God comes across a little bit like a hypocritical parent, who says ‘Don't do as I do, do as I say’ and ’That's different’, two responses I think I've managed to avoid using with our kids.”
In reading Victor Reppert, you must make a forcible attempt to remind yourself that he’s supposed to be a philosopher. It’s trivially easy to come up with examples in which what is right for one person may be wrong for another.
i) It’s wrong for an alcoholic to consume booze. That doesn’t mean it’s also wrong for someone who can hold his liquor.
ii) It’s wrong for Typhoid Mary to attend a baseball game. That doesn’t mean it’s wrong for you and me attend a baseball game.
iii) It’s wrong for a two-year-old to handle a loaded pistol. That doesn’t make it wrong for a policeman or soldier to handle a loaded pistol.
“In my view moral obligation is created by the fact that God creates us with an intended purpose which is identical to our good, and is acts in a way that is consistent with the pursuit of that good for all his creatures.”
So when the rattlesnake eats the groundhog, that’s good for the groundho? When the shark eats the seal, that’s good for the seal?
Somehow I doubt the seal and the groundhog would share Reppert’s Panglossian outlook. Admittedly, they can’t be reached for comment–inside the tummy of the shark and the rattlesnake.
“On Calvinist theory there is a large gap between what makes God's character good, and what makes us good, a gap that cannot be explained in terms of a difference in God's wisdom or knowledge.”
Well, what do you expect? To take one obvious example, humans reproduce sexually. This creates a whole network of natural social obligations, between husbands and wives, parents and children, brothers and sisters, as well as unrelated age-mates, &c.
As such, there are both analogies and disanalogies between divine and human goodness.
“A native may believe that men in white coats bearing long needles are mean to little kids because he lacks knowledge that the men in the white coats possess, but the standard of goodness for natives and for missionary doctors is the same. Both the native and the doctor want the child to be well, and for the child not to suffer, but they have different ideas as to how to go about it.”
Note the incorrigible irony: Reppert is trying to define goodness, yet he invariably defines goodness in amoral terms. For Reppert, the difference between guilt and innocence never figures in his definition of goodness.
Of course, that’s the way I’d expect the Old Horny to define goodness. To define it amorally, so as to avoid incriminating distinctions between good and evil.
So often, Reppert seems to be channeling the dark side. Listening to Reppert is like overhearing the speech a certain archangel must have given to his comrades to make recruits for his “cause.”
“Piper seems concerned to respond to the charge that God's interest in his glory makes him selfish, since selfishness is a vice amongst humans. If I were to read on someone's tombstone ‘He pursued his own glory single-mindedly throughout his life’ I don't think I would think I was looking at the grave of someone I wish I had known. Glory hogs in basketball don't help the team win.”
i) God is the benefactor, not the beneficiary. God has nothing to gain. It’s for the good of the elect.
ii) God is the summum bonum. The infinite good from which all finite goods derive. Our human self-fulfillment relies on the various ways in which God communicates his goodness to human beings. That’s the opposite of selfishness.
Reppert is a study in spiteful, hellish ingratitude.
“It seems to me that when you say God gives commands based on his nature, it is pretty clear that we don't have obligations to reflect all aspects of God's moral nature in our own conduct. We might be rightly wrathful when someone we love is raped, but we aren't supposed to be looking for or artifically creating opportunities for us to exercise our attribute of being wrathful at evil, (maybe by creating androids who commit crimes so that we can punish them for those crimes)…”
As a general proposition, human beings constantly look for or create artificial opportunities to exercise their attributes, viz., art, literature, music, sports.
So Reppert needs to explain which it’s wrong to “artificially” manifest some attributes, but not others.
Remember, Reppert is the one who’s accentuating the commonalities between God and man.
“As if there was some aspect of us that is going to go unfulfilled if we are fortunate enough never to be in a position where that sort of wrath is called for.”
Once again, this is a spiteful caricature of the Reformed position. The question is not whether God is unfulfilled, but whether creatures are unfulfilled unless they exemplify the exemplar.
That, of course, doesn’t mean every creature is entitled to achieve self-fulfillment. If, for example, a suicide-bomber kills a pizzeria full of Jewish teenagers to get his 70 virgins in Paradise, it’s a fit punishment if, in fact, his eternal destiny deprives him of the very thing he sought through murderous means.
“So while divine commands are supposed to be based on the divine nature, the kind of people we are commanded to be fails to fully reflect the character of God, and there are actions on the part of God which are deemed right which, if parallel actions are performed by humans, they would contravene the commands of God.”
Reppert doesn’t state what he’s referring to. For example, God sometimes visits direct judgment on the wicked (e.g. raining fire and brimstone on Sodom and Gomorrah), but sometimes he delegates the judicial action to second parties (commanding the Israelites to execute the Canaanites).
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