Thursday, April 26, 2012
Scalia on illegal immigration
http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2012/04/scalia-likens-undocumented-immigrants-to-bank-robbers.php
King James, of “King James Bible” Fame
http://calvinistinternational.com/2012/04/26/the-faith-of-king-james/
What we can point out, however, is
that whatever private proclivities James might or might not have had (and they
are far from proved), he had a very public Protestantism and there is no reason
whatever to doubt that it was personally sincere. The stamp he sought to put
upon his commonwealth, which was quickly becoming the most important in the
world, was a moderate Protestant irenicism, in which the greatest theologians
and scholars, the English clergy who earned the title stupor mundi, were endorsed and supported by the crown. James also sought to unify the Reformed
churches of England, Scotland, Ireland, and those on the Continent with various
Lutheran churches. James was confident
enough to attempt this because of family connections he possessed with
Scandinavian royalty. And though he was
ultimately unsuccessful in this reconciliation, the attempt was highminded and
heroic....
… Now, as to Faith, which is the nourisher and quickner of Religion, as
I have already said, It is a sure perswasion and apprehension of the promises
of God, applying them to your soule: and therefore may it justly be called the
golden chaine that linketh the faithfulle soule to Christ: And because it
groweth not in our garden, but is the free gift of God, as the same Apostle
saith, it must be nourished by prayer, Which is nothing else, but a friendly
talking with God. (214)
Such a confession is wholly
consistent with the magisterial Reformers.
James is clearly evangelical. For
those familiar with a Richard Hooker-brand of Protestant Anglicanism, James’
ideas are a rather neat fit.
Wednesday, April 25, 2012
The Styrofoam Jesus
rogereolson says:The closest I can come to describing it is “spiritualized matter.” But that would not be matter as we now know it. The analogy is always to Jesus’ bodily resurrection. He could eat but also walk through walls.
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/rogereolson/2012/04/certainty-not-a-guest-post/comment-page-1/#comment-28201
Of course, Jesus could also walk on water. So I guess the pre-Resurrection body of Jesus was made of cork or Styrofoam:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/jun/16/touchdown-jesus-statue-burns-down/print
Trelane's playmates
Recently I compared the neotheist God to Trelane (The Squire of Gothos) and Damien (The Omen). In this post I’m going to briefly explicate the basis of that comparison. At the bottom of my post I include the supporting material from Scripture as well as two prominent open theists.
In this post I’m not discussing the merits of open theism. I’m not assessing the truth or falsity of open theism, or the classical theist alternative. I’m simply expounding the logical implications of open theism. I’ll assess open theism in a separate post.
According to Boyd’s reading of Scripture, God sometimes entertains false expectations. He sometimes regrets the consequences of his own actions. And not just in the sense that he regrets having to do what he did, but in the sense that if he had it to do over again, he’d handle things differently. But it’s too late to undo the past.
Rhoda says the open theist God chose to play a risky, high-stakes creation game because that’s more interesting and challenging than a safe, risk-free (i.e. predestinarian) game.
This already suggests a Damien or Trelane-like deity. A child God who needs play time. A child God who needs playmates. Human beings are his pets or his toys.
Likewise, because he entertains false expectations, he is easily frustrated. And when he’s frustrated, he lashes out at his playthings.
Because he can’t control his toys, he gets mad at them and destroys them in a fit of rage. But after he destroys his playmates, he doesn’t have anyone to play with anymore. That makes him lonely. So he’s sorry that he killed them.
That’s the gist of the position. But let’s look at some specifics. Let’s interpret some passages of Scripture from a neotheist standpoint.
According to Gen 6:5-7, God is disappointed in the human race. We let him down. If he could go back in time and redo it, he wouldn’t make us. So he destroys the human race, except for Noah’s family.
This is a God who’s learning the ropes. Getting the hang of what it’s like to be God. Growing pains. Like Spiderman experimenting with his newfound Spidey powers.
In Gen 18, God, accompanied by two angels, pays Abraham a visit. God doesn’t know where Sarah is because Sarah is in a tent, and he can’t see through fabric.
God has heard rumors about the iniquity of Sodom and Gomorrah, but he needs to check it out for himself. He doesn’t know if the rumors are true. He has to investigate. But his provisional plan is to annihilate Sodom and Gomorrah.
However, he mulls over whether he should share his plans with Abraham. After debating with himself, he decides to tell Abraham his intentions.
Abraham tries to talk him out of it. Abraham bargains with God. Abraham gets God to modify his original plan.
In Exod 32, after God delivers the Israelites from Egypt, he gets mad at them when they commit idolatry in the wilderness. He didn’t see that coming when he rescued them from Pharaoh. So he threatens to destroy them.
Moses reasons with God. Tries to calm him down. Reminds God of the covenant he made with the patriarchs. In his rage, God forgot about the covenant.
In Num 14, the Israelites complain. They foment rebellion against Moses.
Then God complains to Moses about how they treat him. They’ve hurt his feelings. They don’t appreciate him. So he threatens to destroy them.
Moses tries to talk him down by shaming him. What will other folks think of him if he destroys the very people he rescued? They will make fun of him. So God relents to avoid the public humiliation.
In Num 25, God sends a plague to kill the idolatrous Israelites. Phinehas steps in to limit the damage. If he hadn’t intervened, only a handful of Israelites would survive.
If we interpret these narratives the way open theists do, God comes across as a being who’s dangerously agitated when things don’t turn out the way he hoped. He needs our advice. If we didn’t talk him down, he’d end up doing ever more regrettable things at a later date.
This is very much like Damien or Trelane. A child God who loves you one moment but hates you the next. Who can be very affectionate when he’s in a good mood, but murderous when he’s annoyed with his playmates.
“Anglicanorum Coetibus”: merely a rounding error
To Roman Catholics, it’s “Christian unity in the news” But to conservative Anglicans, it’s a “tempest in a teapot”:
When the Bishop of Rome issued Anglicanorum Coetibus it was said that 400,000 continuing Anglicans plus many more from the Church of England and the Anglican Communion would be rushing for the bridges of the Tiber. On Sunday, the Roman authorities held “ceremonies across the country” to receive Anglicans in Canada wanting to join the new Anglican Ordinariate of the Roman Catholic Church. Only around 100 confused Anglicans in all of Canada accepted the Roman bishop’s “generous offer.” Still, Rome is hoping for “dozens” more in upcoming weeks!
Only about 1,400 Anglicans out of 27 million have joined the new Ordinariate in Great Britain, and about 1,000 more are said to be on the Roman road in the United States - and that number may be wishful thinking as well. Despite the hype, the wishful thinking on the part of Rome, and the “generous offer” of the Roman bishop, Anglicans are not going to leave their Church to submit to an unreformed papacy. It is just not going to happen. Yes, we have got problems; but I would not trade our problems for their deeply rooted doctrinal errors, nominal Christianity, and moral scandals.
George Will might call the small blip this effort has made
“a rounding error”.
Why we should continue to bring up the Roman Catholic sex scandals
If you were to study the history of Vatican II, you would
see that there were two primary factions present: those who might be called the
“traditionalists”, and those who might be called “the progressives”. At Vatican
II, Rome didn’t solve the “unity” problem between these two groups on the strength of its doctrines. It
papered over the problems with what amounted to a form of equivocation.
Rome has a history of pressing the unsavory use
of language to its advantage (consider the tactic of mental
reservation, which is really only an institutionally-sanctioned form of
lying). Many of these recent scandals we are seeing really are only the fruit of its practice.
We are aware of the criticisms of the “Evangelicals and
Catholics Together” statements, which relied on equivocation of terms in order
to demonstrate some form of agreement. In the case of Vatican II, (and in the “Spirit
of Vatican II”), Rome used equivocation and amphiboly to paper over the
differences between the “traditionalists” and the “progressives”. The
Protestant theologian David Wells, in his brief 1972 book “Revolution
in Rome” commented on one particular example:
One kind of interpretive problem,
then, which an analyst of the (Vatican II) documents faces concerns the
existence of those passages which are so brilliantly ambiguous as to be capable
of serving the interest of both parties. The statement on biblical inerrancy
best illustrates this problem. The council affirmed:
“since everything asserted by the inspired authors or sacred writers
must be held to be asserted by the Holy Spirit, it follows that the books of
Scripture must be acknowledged as teaching solidly, faithfully and without
error that truth which God wanted put into sacred writings for the sake of
salvation.” (Dei Verbum 11).
This statement, over which there
was a considerable tussle both in private and in public, seems at first sight
to affirm Rome’s traditional stance on this matter. For this reason,
conservatives in the Council agreed to it, and some Protestants subsequently
have been led to think that Catholicism’s historic stance on this matter is
unaltered….
But is this really the case? A
careful scrutiny of the Council’s statement shows that it can be interpreted in
an entirely different way, one which a majority of Catholic scholars are now
following. In perhaps the most lucid account of the Council’s theology, B.C.
Butler, explains how. The council obviously spoke of the Bible “teaching
without error”, but the significance of this phrase, he argues, depends on the
view of “the truth” which Scripture is said to teach without error. ‘Here the
word “truth” is qualified by a statement of the finality or purpose of
inspiration; it is a question of truth relevant to God’s saving purpose summed
up in Christ. The point he is making is that many truths of science and history
have no part to play in our salvation. “For instance” he says, “the date of the
appearance of the human species in natural history is not formally relevant to
our salvation; the reality of Christ’s death and resurrection is formally
relevant.”
The illustration in the first half
of Butler’s sentence is so obvious that the reader is disarmed against the
thrust of the second half. The council’s statement, he argues, guarantees as
inerrant only those truths necessary for our salvation. The meaning of the
passage, therefore, turns on the question of how much we need to know with
certainty to be saved. Apparently there is room for discussion on this point.
Butler has limited the inerrant statements of Scripture to those which bear on
the saving actions of God which were summed up in Christ, but Gregory Baum has
trimmed this core even further. To be saved, he says, we need to know
exceedingly little; exceedingly little, then, is inerrantly taught in scripture
(Wells, p. 29-32).
It should be said that the whole of Vatican II was pervaded
by this “Spirit”. And coming out of this “Spirit” were highly liberal
individuals such as, in
the words of Carl Trueman, “the Kungs, Rahners, Schillebeeckxs and the
journalists at the National Catholic Reporter”.
Roman Catholic epologists in our day automatically exclude these individuals
from even being Catholic, but as Trueman says, “They all claim to be good Roman
Catholics and find their unity around the Office of the Pope, after all. Let us
not exclude them on the dubious grounds that they do not support our own
preconceived conclusions of how papal authority should work.”
Well, this faux “unity” is now coming home to roost for the
Roman hierarchy.
To be sure, the doctrinal questions are at the heart of
everything. And these sexual abuse scandals are something of a side show. James
Swan at Beggars All has raised the question of just how useful it is to
bring up the various scandals. And Luther
himself said “Life is bad among us as among the papists. Hence, we do not
fight and damn [the Roman Catholics] because of their bad lives …. I do not
consider myself to be pious. But when it comes to whether one teaches correctly
about the word of God, there I take my stand and fight. That is my calling. To
contest doctrine has never happened until now. Others have fought over life;
but to take on doctrine—that is to grab the goose by the neck! …” (Cited by
Steven Ozment,”The Age of Reform, 1250–1550: An Intellectual and Religious
History of Late Medieval and Reformation Europe”, New Haven, Connecticut: Yale
University Press, 198), pgs 315-316).
But today, Roman Catholicism is more than just the sum of
its doctrines.
For many Roman Catholics, so much of it really isn’t about “the
doctrines” or doctrinal arguments any more. It’s cultural. It’s an ethos. We
are frequently asked, “given the doctrinal difficulties that Rome faces, what
is it that allures smart people to convert to Rome?” I’m convinced that at
least part of the attraction is the ethos of Rome.
Vatican II was largely about something I’ll call “the
glories of the church”. Showing off “the splendor of unity”. For most Roman
Catholics today, John Paul II was something like a kindly grandfather. He spent
years of his life talking not about theology, but something called “marriage
and family”, which, in good part, was a defense of Humanae
Vitae and related issues of sexuality. And the ethos may be characterized
as saying “it’s good to be Roman Catholic. I can live my life according to these
rules, and feel good about myself.”
If you have ever been to a Friday fish fry, or heard your
co-workers sitting around talking about “what they’re giving up for Lent”,
well, that’s what “cultural” Roman Catholicism becomes in its local
communities. It’s all about “good food, friends from the neighborhood, and
fellowship at a place we can trust”. It is largely cultural.
Thus, this “sexual abuse scandal”, which occurred under the
watch of the grandfatherly John Paul II really undermines all the good feelings
that lots of people had about that time and era. There’s a real “yuck” factor
with the sexual abuse scandal. But further to that, the sexual abuse stories aren’t
even about the sexual abuse. They’re about the cover-up. They’re about the
criminal behavior of the bishops and church administrators. And when we bring
up these scandals, (and the daily newspaper makes that easy to do), the
question becomes, “are these the individuals you want to trust with your soul?”
A further (doctrinal) question might be, does God really promise to give
special guidance to “the Church”, an organization like this one, which is
simultaneously “leading the flock” and engaging in criminal behavior?
Historically, Rome has showed itself off to the world as an
unyielding edifice, a shelter against the storms. The problem with that, is
that only “The name of the LORD is a fortified tower” (Proverbs 18:10). Even
the mighty Vatican is going to crumble some day.
And Jesus was right: we can discern a tree from its fruit. And
so now, in pointing to the
feminist nuns who are now in battle with the Bishops, [who are what they
are “in the Spirit of Vatican II”] to the huge percentage of priests and
bishops (estimates range from 20% to 50%) who are said to be gay, we may
legitimately say, “Here is your infallible Church in action”.
There is rampant sexual scandal in the Roman Church, all
through Church history. At a minimum, bringing all this up will give us the
opportunity to ask Roman Catholics (as I have done) to articulate again the
specific doctrines which say, yes, “even though these are the most wicked
people in the world, Christ still promises to protect them from erring
doctrinally”. That is a very lame argument, when you look at it, and I don’t
think many people have the stomach for it.
The Internet and the speed of modern communications is
genuinely shining a light on the difficulties that Rome’s ancient method of manipulation.
Words really do mean things. Rome’s “we are the masters of the word” attitude
has come into clear view, with bishops, who after all created “the Spirit of Vatican
II”, now chastising the feminist nuns that their own practice of equivocation initially fostered. It
is coming home, full circle.
In reality, Rome’s Vatican II solution was a cowardly
solution. It was a failure to stand on principle, and these sex abuse cover-ups
and this situation with the nuns that is the fruit of that flight from principle.
Rome’s epologists love to talk trash about “scholarship”.
Pay no attention to the truth, or to the facts. What Rome has always said is
really what it has always been”. Bringing up these modern-day failures of Rome’s
ancient method is an exceptional way of undermining the veracity of what Rome
has to say.
No, it’s not a primary “argument”. But it is a cultural
factor that strips away some of the shine of the “cultural” reasons for
becoming, or remaining, Roman Catholic.
Tuesday, April 24, 2012
Jesus X
As Steve noted in a previous post, Roger Olson said: "Jesus post-resurrection body had substance, but was not composed of matter–at least not as we know it."
In addition to Steve's possibilities, perhaps there's a third: XNA.
Sure, we kinda know about XNA now. But it sounds like XNA could still be tweaked and improved upon. Maybe current XNA is just a rough draft for a future final product.
If so, maybe what Olson means is Jesus' post-resurrection body was what it was thanks in large part to time-traveling scientists from the future who went back to 1st century Israel.
Okay, I know what you're thinking. All this sounds totally far-fetched! But keep in mind nothing is impossible when it comes to Roger "postevangelical" Olson. With man this might be impossible, but with Olson all things are possible.
Self-promotion by assassination
Jerry Coyne wonders why there’s such a heated debate between Bart Ehrman and Richard Carrier over mythicism. Actually, that’s not hard to divine. Borrowing a leaf from the waning days of the Roman Empire, Carrier is simply practicing the art of self-promotion by assassination. In pop atheology, Carrier is a private to Ehrman’s general. Ehrman is a best-selling author. He’s been featured in Time magazine. Appeared on NBC’s Dateline, The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, CNN, The History Channel, National Geographic, as well as NPR.
The quickest, surest way to move up the ranks is to assassinate your commanding office, then take his place.
Jesus Christ: space alien
According to Roger Olson, “Jesus post-resurrection body had substance, but was not composed of matter–at least not as we know it.”
So that presents two bracing possibilities:
i) The risen Christ was a phantom
ii) The risen Christ was a space alien, whose body was composed of exotic matter rather than protoplasm
Perhaps the body of the risen Christ was made of tachyons, R-baryons, or antiquarks–with negative mass. What happens when you get too close to Jesus? Do you vanish into a black hole, like the “Soft Light” episode of the X-Files?
This opens up exciting new fields in Christology, viz. exobiology, astrobiology, and xenobiology. Maybe Baylor will endow a new chair for Olson: The Distinguished H. G. Wells Professor of Exochristology.
I can hardly wait to see the thrilling developments. To boldly go where no postevangelical theologian has gone before.
In the village of atheism
I’m going to comment on some of this:
I’m going to ignore a lot of what she says. Why? Because a lot of what she says consists of question-begging assertions, in which she tendentiously characterizes the opposing position, rather than mounting a real argument to the contrary.
This is because what she’s doing here is a very in-house piece which plays to a sympathetic audience of fellow infidels. An exercise in mutual flattery.
This chapter is already long as it is. Instead, I'll encourage you to spend a little time on the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry and Skeptical Inquirer websites.
Her reliance on these sources unwittingly illustrates her lack of critical thinking.
When you look at the history of what we know about the world, you see a noticeable pattern. Natural explanations of things have been replacing supernatural explanations of them. Like a steamroller. Why the Sun rises and sets. Where thunder and lightning come from. Why people get sick. Why people look like their parents. How the complexity of life came into being. I could go on and on. All these things were once explained by religion.
This is closely related to #1 (the consistent replacement of supernatural explanations of the world with natural ones). But it's different enough to deserve its own section.
When you look at the history of religion, you see that the perceived power of God has been diminishing. As our understanding of the physical world has increased -- and as our ability to test theories and claims has improved -- the domain of God's miracles and interventions, or other supposed supernatural phenomena, has consistently shrunk.
Examples: We stopped needing God to explain floods... but we still needed him to explain sickness and health. Then we didn't need him to explain sickness and health... but we still needed him to explain consciousness. Now we're beginning to get a grip on consciousness, so we'll soon need God to explain... what?
This is what atheists call the "god of the gaps."
That’s a popular, ignorant caricature of “religion.” Except for a handful of occasionalists, Christian theologians have always affirmed a doctrine of second causes. You also have a doctrine of providence in Scripture. People new perfectly well that rain, lightening, and thunder came from clouds. Indeed, they could see that for themselves. Same thing with so many other natural events.
If God (or any other metaphysical being or beings) were real, and people were really perceiving him/ her/ it/ them, why do these perceptions differ so wildly?
When different people look at, say, a tree, we more or less agree about what we're looking at: what size it is, what shape, whether it currently has leaves or not and what color those leaves are, etc. We may have disagreements regarding the tree -- what other plants it's most closely related to, where it stands in the evolutionary scheme, should it be cut down to make way for a new sports stadium, etc. But unless one of us is hallucinating or deranged or literally unable to see, we can all agree on the tree's basic existence, and the basic facts about it.
i) I’d just note in passing that an idealist like Berkeley can deny the tree’s basic existence without being deranged or hallucinating. I don’t agree with him, but his position is consistent and even rational, if pretty outré.
ii) More to the point, a tree is hardly fundamental to our existence. But take something far more elemental like time. Time conditions human existence is a way that a tree does not. Time is a pervasive feature of human experience.
Yet time isn’t directly perceivable. And for that reason, there are conflicting theories of time. Broadly speaking, you have the A theory and the B theory. And these, in turn, break down into many variations on the A theory and the B theory.
This is an issue in physics as well as philosophy. Does physics imply a “block view” of time?
There are even people like Zeno who deny the reality of time, and justify their denial by very ingenious arguments that are hard to disprove.
By Greta’s logic, we should deny the existence of time simply because philosophers can’t agree on the nature of time, or even the existence of time.
The fact that religion runs in families.
The single strongest factor in determining what religion a person is? It's what religion they were brought up with. By far.
This dramatically illustrates her utter lack of self-critical judgment. Yes, religion often runs in families. Likewise, irreligion often runs in families. Indeed, the pattern operates at a regional or national level as well as a familial level. I daresay a higher percentage of women named Maria are religious than women named Greta. “Greta” is Swedish, and Sweden is less religious than Latin America.
Over the years and decades and centuries, our understanding of the physical world has grown and clarified by a ridiculous amount. We understand things about the Universe that we couldn't have imagined a thousand years ago, or a hundred, or even ten.
That’s true up to a point, but the progress of science is easily overstated. To my knowledge, the correct interpretation of quantum mechanics is just as controversial today as it was a century ago.
Likewise, quantum mechanics and the theory of relativity remain irreconcilable despite the finest minds in the business devoting decades to resolving the problem.
Or consider the Darwin wars, that broke out a few years ago within the evolutionary establishment.
Ten (bad) reasons not to believe in God
Although I don't agree with everything he says, JD lands a number of solid blows:
http://christiancadre.blogspot.com/2012/03/ten-bad-reasons-not-to-believe-in-god.html
http://christiancadre.blogspot.com/2012/04/ten-bad-reasons-for-not-believing-in.html
http://christiancadre.blogspot.com/2012/04/ten-bad-reasons-not-to-believe-in-god.html
http://christiancadre.blogspot.com/2012/03/ten-bad-reasons-not-to-believe-in-god.html
http://christiancadre.blogspot.com/2012/04/ten-bad-reasons-for-not-believing-in.html
http://christiancadre.blogspot.com/2012/04/ten-bad-reasons-not-to-believe-in-god.html
The astral body of Christ
36 As they were talking about these things, Jesus himself stood among them, and said to them, “Peace to you!” 37 But they were startled and frightened and thought they saw a spirit. 38 And he said to them, “Why are you troubled, and why do doubts arise in your hearts? 39 See my hands and my feet, that it is I myself. Touch me, and see. For a spirit does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have.” 40 And when he had said this, he showed them his hands and his feet. 41 And while they still disbelieved for joy and were marveling, he said to them, “Have you anything here to eat?” 42 They gave him a piece of broiled fish, 43 and he took it and ate before them (Lk 24:36-43).
27 Then he said to Thomas, “Put your finger here, and see my hands; and put out your hand, and place it in my side. Do not disbelieve, but believe” (Jn 20:27).
That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we looked upon and have touched with our hands, concerning the word of life (1 Jn 1:1).
rogereolson says:“Corporeal” simply means “bodily.” It doesn’t necessarily mean material (which is what I take “physical” to mean). His pre-resurrection body was most definitely physical; it could die. His post-resurrection body was definitely not physical because it was immortal, incapable of death. But it was a body and not a phantom. In 1 Cor. 15 Paul is striving to get his readers to open up to there being more kinds of bodies than just “physical” or ghostly. Jesus post-resurrection body had substance, but was not composed of matter–at least not as we know it.
Roger Olson keeps digging a deeper hole for himself. He continues to explain his definition of Jesus’ glorified body. Unfortunately for him, his clarifications don’t make his position any more Scriptural or orthodox. Instead, they confirm his essentially heretical view of the Resurrection. A docetic Resurrection. An astral body. Ironically, he takes the same position as Richard Carrier.
He says Jesus’ glorified body “His post-resurrection body was definitely not physical because it was immortal, incapable of death.”
Several problems:
i) Luke and John go out of their way to stress the palpable physicality of Christ’s glorified body. He could eat food. He still bore the scars of his ordeal on Good Friday. He could be touched.
That’s physical. Luke and John don’t offer a philosophical or scientific definition of matter or physicality. Instead, they give us an ostensible definition, by showing the reader the kind of body Jesus had.
ii) Olson asserts that Jesus’s glorified body was “definitely not physical because it was immortal, incapable of death.”
But that’s overstated:
As Paul explains, the glorified body is immortal in the sense that it cannot die from illness or senescence. It can’t die due to the effects of the curse. That’s why Paul brings up the fall of Adam.
But that doesn’t mean the glorified body is indestructible, or fireproof–like Hellboy. It doesn’t mean a glorified body couldn’t die in an accident. Or be morally injured. Or be eaten by a predator.
It’s not a Superhero body like some Marvel comic book characters. Or a werewolf or vampire body that requires special equipment to kill.
If someone with a glorified body jumped off a skyscraper, he’d still go splat when he landed.
There’s more to immortality than an ageless, disease-free body. That also requires some degree of providential protection.
The reason human beings die is not because they have physical bodies, but because mortality is God’s punishment for original sin.
iii) Olson also says “Jesus post-resurrection body had substance, but was not composed of matter–at least not as we know it.”
This involves complete discontinuity between his mortal body and his glorified body. In that case there’s no reason why the tomb was empty.
Does Olson think that at the moment of the Resurrection, the corpse of Jesus instantly liquefied, and God created an immaterial simulacrum to take its place?
iv) One of the problems is that Olson is too lazy to exegete Scripture. We see this in his perfunctory prooftexting of Arminianism. He just quotes his favorite verses without ever defending his interpretation, or considering alternative interpretations.
For instance, here’s what a recent major commentary says about 1 Cor 15:44:
In the modern, post-Enlightenment context, the words natural and spiritual are often taken, popularly at least, to suggest a distinction between the material and immaterial, or between the physical and the spiritual.
The scriptural basis for Paul’s word choice here is given in the following verses when he quotes Genesis 2:7 in modified form. There Adam is described as a “living being/soul.” Paul contrasts this “natural” or “soulish” people with “spiritual” people in 2:14-15, and, as Wright points out, he is certainly not dealing with a distinction between people who are physical and people who are not! Rather, Paul’s usage suggests a distinction between people who “are living at the level of life common to all mankind” versus those who “are indwelt, guided and made wise by the creator’s Spirit.” In this passage as well the distinction has to do with the difference between ordinary human life and life empowered by God’s Spirit. The adjectives Paul uses describe “not what something is composed of, but what it is animated by. It is the difference between speaking of a ship made of steel or wood on the one hand and a ship driven by steam and wind on the other.” Wright follows Hays in pointing to the helpfulness of the Jerusalem Bible’s translation of the verse: “When it is sown it embodies the soul, when it is raised it embodies the spirit. If the soul has its own embodiment, so does the spirit have its own embodiment.”
…he describes a strict dichotomy between the life animated by the soul, or ordinary human life, and life fully animated by God’s Spirit…life directed and empowered by the Spirit, suitable to the age to come, in a body untainted by sin and death in any sense.
As Wright suggests, Paul’s reference to a spiritual body appears to be “the most elegant way he can find of saying both that the new body is the result of the Spirit’s work (answering ‘how does it come to be?’) and that it is the appropriate vessel for the Spirit’s life (answering ‘what sort of a thing is it?’).”
R. Ciampa & B. Rosner, The First Letter to the Corinthians (Eerdmans 2010), 816-818.
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