Ave Maria

In my observation, Catholic apologists deploy two basic arguments to justify prayers to Mary. Each argument can be assessed on its own terms, or in relation to one another. Let's begin with the latter analysis:

i) Asking Mary to intercede for us isn't essentially different from asking a Christian friend to intercede for us.

ii) We should pray to Mary because Mary is special. She's in a unique position to intercede on our behalf.

Now, whatever the individual merits of these two arguments, when taken in combination they invalidate each other. Hence, it is not even possible for a Protestant to agree with both arguments. So a Catholic apologist needs to decide which one we should believe, since we can't very well believe both. 

iii) The first argument is a common ground argument. It isn't overtly based on Catholic distinctives. It attempts to build a bridge by appealing to something a Protestant already concedes–or does. 

By contrast, the second argument is just the opposite. It appeals to Marian dogmas. We should pray to Mary because she's the Queen Mother. We should pray to her due to her unrivaled holiness–given the Immaculate Conception. 

Again, though, whatever else we might say about that claim, it's the polar opposite of a common ground argument. And it stands in point blank contradiction to the rationale of the first argument. The first argument contends that we ought to pray to Mary because that's not essentially different from asking fellow Christians to pray for us. By contrast, the second argument contends that we ought to pray to Mary because she's in a fundamentally different, and superior position, to ordinary Christians. We should pray to her because she is decidedly not like ordinary Christians. She's in a class apart. 

Once again, my point at this stage of the argument isn't to assess the merits of that claim, but to note that if the first argument is true, it invalidates the second argument–and if the second argument is true, it invalidates the first argument. If a Catholic apologist insists on both, then they cancel each other out, without remainder. These are two diametrically opposing arguments. 

iv) Now let's briefly consider each argument on its own terms. One essential difference between asking Mary to intercede for us and asking a Christian friend to intercede for us is the difference between asking for prayer and praying to someone. If I ask a friend to pray for me, I'm not praying to my friend. 

But in the case of Marian devotions, the very act of asking Mary to pray for us is, in itself, a prayer to Mary. You can't ask Mary to pray for you unless you pray to Mary. You're not just soliciting prayer. You're praying for prayer. You're praying to Mary to pray for you. Praying to someone, and asking someone to pray for you, are not the same thing. So that's just one point at which the argument from analogy breaks down. 

v) Is Mary holier than other Christians? I'll grant you that Mary in heaven is holier than Christians on earth. But that doesn't make Mary in heaven holier than other Christians in heaven. Mary is sinless in heaven. But so are other Christians in heaven.

Conversely, there's no Biblical reason to think that before she died and went to heaven, Mary was holier than every other Christian or Jew on earth. No reason to think she was holier than Anna or Elizabeth (Lk 2).

Of course, at this point a Catholic apologist will counter that she was holier by virtue of the Immaculate Conception. She was sinless all her life. And, in fact, she never died. She went straight to heaven. 

But, of course, that invokes presuppositions which a Protestant doesn't grant. That's an appeal to evolving traditions. Traditions which become more theologically embellished as they become more distant in time and space from historical events and historical sources. 

There is much more one could say in objection to Marian prayer. For now I'm just clearing some of the underbrush that obscures the real issues.

On Marxism: “The American solution was simple: to wait…”

What the Fall of the Berlin Wall did not Change:

Twenty-five years ago, a crowd filled with an uneasy mixture of joy and rage tore down the Berlin Wall. There was joy for the end of Germany's partition and the end of tyranny. There was rage against generations of fear. One fear was of communist oppression. The other fear was of the threat of a war, which had loomed over Europe and Germany since 1945. One fear was moral and ideological, while the other was prudential and geopolitical. As in all defining political moments, fear and rage, ideology and geopolitics, blended together in an intoxicating mix. …

It is difficult for us to remember how seductive Marxism was, and how frightening Soviet power was.

Update: New York doctor cleared of Ebola; no known cases in the US

He had visited a popular restaurant and coffee shop, rode multiple subway lines and went to a bowling alley and bar in Brooklyn:

The doctor who contracted Ebola in West Africa before returning to New York City has been declared free of the virus, hospital officials announced Monday. This news means that 41 days after the first Ebola diagnosis in the United States, there are no known cases of the virus in the country.

Craig Spencer, 33, who had been treating Ebola patients in Guinea, was diagnosed with Ebola on Oct. 23. Bellevue Hospital Center in New York City, where Spencer was being treated, confirmed in a statement Monday that he “has been declared free of the virus.” Spencer will be discharged on Tuesday, according to the hospital….

More than 350 people were being actively monitored by the New York City health department for Ebola as of last week, the department said in a statement. Most of these people had traveled to New York City from Liberia, Guinea or the Sierra Leone, but that number also included Bellevue staff members treating Spencer and lab workers who took his blood.

Here’s the latest from the CDC update site. As of November 7, there have been 13,241 total cases and 4,950 deaths.

On November 5, WHO released a situation report that included a decrease in the number of total cases since the report released on October 31, 2014. WHO reports that the decrease in total cases results from a change in data sources.

On November 5, WHO reported that all 83 contacts of the health worker infected in Madrid, Spain have completed the 21-day follow-up period.

WHO officially declared Senegal and Nigeria free of Ebola virus transmission on October 17 and 20, respectively.

The number of new cases in Liberia recently declined sharply.

The contagion has to be tracked to the last patient and obliterated lest it flare anew.

When veneration of the saints mutates

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/geneveith/2014/11/the-fastest-growing-new-religious-movement/

9/11 jumpers

I'll comment on this post: 

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/formerlyfundie/brittany-maynard-didnt-commit-suicide-what-we-can-learn-from-9-11s-falling-man/

The post is a pretext to bash conservative Christians, by an ex-fudie. 

Until Brittany I was absolutely, positively against the idea that physician assisted suicide should be legal. 

I'm unimpressed by the moral seriousness of people whose ethical views change based on the last news story they saw. 

However, the real shift in my thinking came from sitting in my rocking chair next to my wood stove late in the evening, watching a program about iconic photography from the terrorist attacks of 9-11…On one hand, one could say these people took their own lives– that they committed suicide– but that wouldn’t really be fair, would it?…The Falling Man, and others like him, didn’t have a real choice to live or die– they only had a choice in which way they died: smoke and fire, or by falling. For their children to have to walk through life saying, “my dad committed suicide” is less than fair and completely untrue– they didn’t choose to die (the very definition of suicide), they just chose how they died. This is precisely why I’m losing my patience with my fellow Christians who are condemning Brittany Maynard for her decision to take the pills her doctor prescribed her.

Problem is, Corey is conflicted. On the one hand he's defending their choice, but on the other hand he doesn't want to call it "suicide." Yet if what they did wasn't wrong, what's wrong with calling it suicide? It would only be wrong if suicide is always wrong, but that's the very question at issue. He resorts to euphemisms because he apparently feels that "suicide" carries a stigma. Invidious connotations. But since he doesn't think it's always wrong to end your own life, why run away from the word "suicide"? 

If he were logical, what he'd say is that, yes, they committed suicide, but in some cases suicide is morally permissible. Instead, he's hung-up on the word, but that reflects an unease that's in tension with his argument. 

Like the 9-11 jumpers, Brittany didn’t have a choice in dying, she only had a choice in how she died. You see, there are people like Brittany– terminally ill with imminent death looming– who are essentially trapped in a burning building from which there is no way of escaping with their lives. For some of these people, the idea of being burned alive or having to inhale smoke until death overcomes them becomes less appealing than stepping up to the ledge and accepting a quicker, less painful fate.

i) That's a careless comparison. The 9/11 jumpers were facing imminent death in a way that Brittany was not. Terminal illness doesn't mean death is imminent. 

ii) Moreover, his argument proves too much. Death is inevitable for each and every one of us. We have no choice about whether to die. At most, we have a choice about how and when two die. Sooner or later. 

In all the years since 9-11, I’ve never once heard a Christian speak up in judgement and condemnation over the 9-11 jumpers. I’ve never heard someone say they sinned because they “hastened death instead of accepting God’s timing.” I’ve never heard anyone say that failing to condemn their choice is a “slippery slope that could send the message that suicide is okay.”

There are several problems with that objection:

i) It's only applicable to Christians who take an absolutist position on suicide and euthanasia. If you think that's intrinsically wrong, then it would be inconsistent to make an exception for the 9/11 jumpers. 

ii) His objection lacks traction for Christians who think suicide and euthanasia are normally impermissible, but permissible under special circumstances. 

BTW, that isn't relativistic. If you think suicide or euthanasia is always impermissible in one type of situation, and always permissible in a different type of situation, then that's not relativistic–because it's always licit or illicit given the same type of situation. What changes is the situation, not the licit or illicit  character of the action in that situation. 

iii) Obviously, the choice of 9/11 jumpers isn't a slippery slope, because their plight was so exceptional to begin with. How often do people find themselves in that situation? It's pretty rare dilemma. 

iv) Apropos (ii), he ducks the question of whether death by brain cancer is analogous to death by incineration. How much pain do brain cancer patients experience, under sedation, or when they become comatose? Is that comparable to burning alive?

v) Keep in mind, too, that the 9/11 jumpers were separated from their families. By contrast, terminal cancer patients are often surrounded by one or more loved ones at the end. So there's the question of what duty you have to your loved ones, and their duty is to you. Caring for a person the harder it gets is an acid test of true caring. To support a person at their worst. That's a "soul-making" virtue.  We short-circuit our moral and spiritual development when we give up on people before the end. 

vi) He hasn't shown that the same sample of Christians who condemn Brittany's suicide don't condemn the 9/11 jumpers. 

vii) Moreover, many Christians lack the time and aptitude to have considered positions on every social issue. It isn't easy to be intellectually consistent. Even professional Christian ethicists struggle with formulating consistent positions. Many Christians have an intuitive sense of right and wrong. That's very rough-hewn. It can be unreliable. But a lack of intellectual consistency isn't necessarily hypocritical. 

If you're going to attack Christians who condemn her suicide, don't pick on Christians at random. That's too cheap and easy. Test yourself against those who specialize in bioethics. 

Enns's inner adolescent

http://www.reformation21.org/shelf-life/the-bible-tells-me-so.php

It was a lie all along

http://dailycaller.com/2014/11/09/obamacare-architect-lack-of-transparency-was-key-because-stupidity-of-the-american-voter-would-have-killed-obamacare/?print=1

Interstellar

http://www.dennyburk.com/my-thoughts-on-interstellar-it-asks-all-the-right-questions-but-gives-many-wrong-answers/

http://godawa.com/movieblog/interstellar-big-bold-beautiful-sadly-empty-space/

Taking Wood to the woodshed

David Wood recently posted a clip of W. L. Craig answering a Muslim questioner. That precipitated a dust-up in the combox:

http://www.answeringmuslims.com/2014/11/william-lane-craig-how-muslim-concept.html

I'll begin by commenting on Craig, then commenting on Wood:

i) I appreciate the fact that Craig challenges Islam.

ii) Every Christian apologist will take his own theological viewpoint as the standard of comparison. As a freewill theist, Craig naturally frames the debate from his own theological perspective. So I'm not offended.

iii) Craig is an outspoken critic of Calvinism. So the fact that some Reformed commenters took issue with how he framed the alternatives doesn't come out of the blue. He regards Islam and Calvinism as significantly parallel. 

iv) In fairness to Craig, this was a brief, off-the-cuff reply to a question from the audience. Had it been a lengthy, prepared answer, it might have been more logical. 

That said:

i) The way he frames the issue is a false dichotomy: either God loves every sinner or God hates every sinner. Either God loves every unbeliever or God hates every unbeliever. Clearly, though, that doesn't exhaust the logical or theological alternatives. What about a God who loves some, but not all, sinners (or unbelievers)? Craig's forced option is a false antithesis. 

ii) Moreover, Craig says a perfect God is an all-loving God, which he sets in contrast to conditional love. But it's highly ironic for a freewill theist to cast the issue in that way. For in freewill theism, including Craig's Molinism, salvation or damnation is contingent on human response. Salvation is conditional. God accepts you provided that you become a Christian. And that depends on your independent choice.   

By contrast, Calvinism espouses unconditional election. That draws attention to another false dichotomy in Craig's representation. It's not as though God's love is either universal and unconditional on the one hand, or selective and conditional on the other hand. What if God's love is selective, but unconditional? 

In Calvinism, God doesn't favor some people because they are pious. Rather, they are pious because God favors them. 

iii) Now, there's a sense in which salvation in Calvinism has conditions. There are certain general requirements, like faith, repentance, and sanctification. However, what God demands, he gives. He ensures compliance in the lives of the elect. So it's not conditional in the libertarian sense (pace Craig). Rather, it's a sure thing. 

iv) Moreover, does Craig's God really love everyone? The devil is in the details:

Now I think that it is obvious that, all things being equal, an omnibenevolent God prefers a world in which all persons are saved to a world containing those same persons some of whom are lost. But (4) is stronger than this. It claims that God prefers any world in which all persons are saved to any world in which some persons are damned. But again, this is far from obvious. Suppose that the only worlds feasible for God in which all persons receive Christ and are saved are worlds containing only a handful of persons. Is it not at least possible that such a world is less preferable to God than a world in which great multitudes come to experience His salvation and a few are damned because they freely reject Christ? Not only does this seem to me possibly true, but I think that it probably is true. 

Now we have seen that it is possible that God wants to maximize the number of the saved: He wants heaven to be as full as possible. Moreover, as a loving God, He wants to minimize the number of the lost: He wants hell to be as empty as possible. His goal, then, is to achieve an optimal balance between these, to create no more lost than is necessary to achieve a certain number of the saved. 

But it is possible that the balance between saved and lost in the actual world is such an optimal balance. It is possible that in order to create the actual number of persons who will be saved, God had to create the actual number of persons who will be lost. It is possible that the terrible price of filling heavenis also filling hell and that in any other possible world which was feasible for God the balance between saved and lost was worse. It is possible that had God actualized a world in which there are less persons in hell, there would also have been less persons in heaven. It is possible that in order to achieve this much blessedness, God was forced to accept this much loss. Even if we grant that God could have achieved a better ratio between saved and lost, it is possible that in order to achieve such a ratio God would have had to so drastically reduce the number of the saved as to leave heaven deficient in population (say, by creating a world of only four people, three of whom go to heaven and one to hell). It is possible that in order to achieve a multitude of saints, God had to accept an even greater multitude of sinners. 

http://www.reasonablefaith.org/no-other-name-a-middle-knowledge-perspective

So, according to Craig, although there are feasible worlds in which everyone is saved, without violating their freewill, God opts for a feasible world in which some people are damned. The heavenbound are saved on the backs of the damned. They pay the price for God to save more people overall. 

Now, whatever else you said about that scenario, how does God love everyone if some people are saved at the expense of the damned? How is sacrificing some humans to save other humans loving towards those who lose out? 

Lydia McGrew wallops Dave Armstrong

Lydia McGrew said...

Thanks, Dave, for your response.

Part of the difficulty here, which is almost certainly going to preclude agreement, is the very fact that I am not definitely saying that prayers to the dead saints are idolatrous. This may seem ironic, but my point is it that it is the very "fuzziness" and hence relative mildness of my critique that makes it both difficult for you to refute it decisively and also difficult for me to convince you of its justice. If I were saying that speaking to dead saints is intrinsically, by its very nature, idolatrous, then I could be refuted, and we'd be done. I could write that refutation myself, in fact. It is because I am using terms like "uncomfortably" or "too much like" and so forth that it is difficult to find common ground for disagreement–because there is an ineliminable element of subjectivism in these evaluations. When is a practice, for us human beings as we really are, dangerously psychologically too much like praying to God to be theologically wise? When does that practice, for us human beings as we really are, create the wrong kind of "space" between ourselves and God himself, replacing the closeness to and confident and frequent intercourse we should have with God with greater closeness to other Invisible Personages treated as intermediaries? When does this practice encourage too much of a psychological sense that we are not important enough to God?

I could talk about the very analogies used. Look at your own analogy of levels of bosses and asking an intermediate-level boss to get a raise for us. Is that how we should think of God and our relationship to him? In all honesty, I'm a little shocked by that analogy. Jesus definitely told the disciples, in the very context of prayer, that "the Father himself loveth you" (John 16:27). And the author of Hebrews (Hebrews 4:16) tells us to come boldly to the throne of grace and emphasizes throughout the book that, the old covenant being at an end, we need no human intermediary other than the Lord Jesus himself. These verses and others (the Lord's prayer itself, for example) encourage believers to strive for a directness and intimacy in their relationship with God that is, to my mind, miles away from the analogy of asking one boss to get a raise for you from a higher-up boss or asking a guy's mother (who has Influence with him) to make your request for you.

When I say "intimacy" I do not mean at all to preclude awe or to encourage casualness and flippancy in our relationship with God. But I do mean intimacy, as a loving son has with his father with whom he has a respectful but close relationship. I think that the father would be rightly hurt if a son said that he asked his brother to make a request on his behalf because he thought the brother a favorite and wanted the brother to help him by "getting it for him."

But again, you are likely simply to say that you do not agree that the analogies used or the practice as you engage in it or as your friends engage in it encourages a wrong kind of distance from God or a replacement of intimacy and closeness with God with intimacy with the saints who seem nearer to ourselves. And that statement is hard to refute from my side. Indeed, at that point it would not be clear whether we disagree about what degree of intimacy one _should_ have with God or whether we disagree instead about whether prayers to the saints endanger that degree of intimacy!

So in some ways you are likely to feel that you are responding to a frustratingly subjective target, and that is just in the nature of the case, given the type of criticism I am making.

I can say this much, because this lies within my own personal experience: During the times when I have been most sympathetic to prayers to the saints, I have found that sympathy and inclination *actually to be* a distraction from what I now regard as my proper personal relationship with God.

More later.

Sun Nov 09, 09:32:00 PM EST

Lydia McGrew said...

Perhaps it will be helpful for me to add: If I asked a dear, godly friend here on earth to pray for me about something, first, I would _always_ also pray for it myself. That isn't the case in the analogy of the boss or of asking the guy's mother to act as a go-between. The whole point of the request to the intermediary in those analogies is that that person is asking _for_ you, _instead_ of your asking yourself. That, to my mind, is part of the danger of the analogies. Second, if I asked a dear, godly, living friend to pray,and what I asked for came to pass, I would _never_ say to that person, "Hey, you prayed for x for me, and you got it for me." I would regard that as theologically very misguided and indeed verging on superstition. I would, hopefully, remember to _thank_ the person for praying (if I knew he had prayed) and give him an update on what happened, but it would seem to me disrespectful to everyone involved--both to the friend and to God--to high-five the friend and say, "Hey, you got it for me!" The whole attitude one would have to the intermediate-level boss after getting the raise would be inappropriate to have toward a friend who prayed for you--as though one could "wangle" God into doing something by sending him the right person to ask!

Interestingly, I doubt that most Catholics would talk that way to or about an earthly friend, either, even one they respected greatly and asked to pray for them. But after a person dies and is declared a saint, suddenly these analogies of intermediate bosses and the like and "helping you by getting it for you" seem appropriate in a way that they didn't for even extremely godly living people.

Of course, I could be wrong about that last paragraph. Maybe some Catholics _do_ talk that way about living people they regard as saintly. But I think they shouldn't.

Sun Nov 09, 09:39:00 PM EST

Lydia McGrew said...

Here is another example of one of those problems of subjectivism that will bedevil this discussion: You insist that every reference in standard Catholic prayers to the saints to their helping us and our flying to them for refuge or going to them for help (and these do not only occur in prayers to Mary, by the way) must be interpreted as merely a request for their prayers. But, to my mind, it gives _far_ too demigod-like a status to any human beings to speak of them as supernaturally helping us in the terms that are used for the saints, and it *simply does not at all sound like* asking for their prayers alone. Not even remotely. You dismiss this by saying that it is merely "not pausing every two seconds" to state that one is asking for help by way of prayer. Rhetorically speaking, I think this is _far_ too dismissive. It isn't *at all* like asking for prayer. It's like asking for supernatural, individual, personal help.

Look: If a human being literally pulls you out of a burning car, there is a sense in which he is helping you within the order of grace, doing so by the power God has given by creating his arms and so forth. There is a sense in which nothing is done strictly _apart from_ God. But we also quite naturally say that he helped you. To my ear, the vast majority of the language used in prayers to the saints sounds much more like asking someone to pull you out of a burning car than like asking him to pray for you. And I think it is theologically inappropriate to speak of someone's _prayers_ with this kind of language, whether the person happens to be living or dead.

Let me explain a little more what I mean by "quasi-omniscience." Perhaps a numerical analogy will help: Consider saying, "Infinitely great" and saying, "Indefinitely great." These two are not the same, it is true. However, *in practice*, if any number one can choose is contained in the latter set, then saying that the latter set is not infinitely large may make very little difference to practical applications.

So, here. One can say that the saints are not considered omniscient in Catholic theology. I accept that. However, for any particular problem I might have, if I'm Catholic or very high Anglican, I'm supposed to consider that I can talk to a saint about it, and he'll know the situation. For any words I might speak in my head, intended as reaching out to a saint and asking for his "help" (which you gloss as merely asking him to pray for me), he will know that I am saying them–he will hear me. For any problem of world politics, or whatever it might be, I'm supposed to be able to take it as a given that the saints know about it, know that I'm calling out to them about it (even silently), and can pray intelligently to God about it.

That is what I mean by quasi-omniscience. Within human life, we have an idea of the _limits_ of the knowledge of other people. We have some idea of whether our friend Jeff knows or doesn't know about some problem or issue. And we _certainly_ don't expect to be able to communicate with him whenever we feel like it by thinking in his direction! _Those_ powers–of knowing all about anything we might need or want to ask for help for from God and hearing our thoughts or our words spoken in private–are otherwise ascribed only to God. Yet in the normal practice of prayers to the saints, we are supposed to ascribe them to the saints as well. That is what I am calling "quasi-omniscience." It is knowledge of at least human affairs, problems, thoughts, and words without functional upper bound.

It is, of course, quite plausible that you will say, "So what?" and that again we will be up against the ineliminable element of what is theologically "too much" like God to be theologically appropriate to assume without _very_ strong evidence. But that is at least a further explanation of what I have in mind.

Sun Nov 09, 09:59:00 PM EST

Lydia McGrew said...

My previous explanation of what I meant by "quasi-omniscience" will also help to explain why I don't consider the biblical support that you bring to be at all sufficient. The position in question concerning the saints' knowledge is an _extremely_ strong one. If it were not that strong, anyone asking for the saints' help/prayers would have to wonder every time, "Hmm, I wonder if St. Joseph can hear me this time" or "I wonder if St. Agnes has clue #1 what I'm even talking about. Do I need to give her way more backstory?"

Considering the strongness of the degree of knowledge being attributed to the saints, I think that the scriptural supports you allege are far too weak to uphold it. Believe me, for many years, perhaps a decade or more, I used the verse in Hebrews about the great cloud of witnesses in exactly that way. I think it's the best biblical argument. But can so brief and inexplicit a reference, partly to witnesses to the existence of God (as you note) and possibly also to spectators at a sporting event, support _that_ level of ascription of knowledge, including knowledge of our private prayers? I have come to conclude that that evidence is far too weak for that strong of a conclusion. Even if I were convinced beyond all shadow of a doubt that the author of Hebrews meant the analogy to spectators at a sporting event, I would not consider that verse sufficient to support that strong of a conclusion and a practice that I consider theologically dangerous for a variety of reasons.

To the other verses: The argument that if we shall judge angels, we should take it that those in the afterlife probably have knowledge akin to that of the angels seems to me rather weak. At what point they or we will judge angels, which angels will be judged, what knowledge will be given us or them for that purpose, we are nowhere told. I simply consider it a non sequitur that right now, the blessed dead probably have the knowledge that the blessed angels have because at some point they will judge (at least some) angels. The "rejoicing in heaven" verse may apply to angels alone or it may mean that God informs the blessed dead when a sinner repents for a special "shoutin' time" (to name a wonderful gospel song based on that verse). To use it to support a _general_ knowledge by the blessed dead of the events on earth, our struggles, and our attempted prayers to them, seems to me, again, simply to stretch the verse much farther than it will go.

I agree with you that Rev. 6:9ff is an imprecatory prayer. Yet in your later argument you say that it portrays the martyrs "praying for us in heaven." Well, no, it just doesn't. Rev. 6:9ff portrays them as praying against the wicked, for God's judgement to fall on them, to avenge the blood of those very saints who are praying! No doubt, if God slays the wicked, that may or will help many good people on earth. (Of course, if God wipes out a city or something, that might slay a lot of good people at the same time, so the inference is only approximate!) But this verse does not picture anything *even remotely* like praying for us and our problems, much less hearing us and praying because we asked them to. If one insists on taking this verse with strict literalness, it sounds like almost a rather "selfish" prayer–it portrays these particular martyrs as knowing that their deaths have not yet been avenged on the ungodly that dwell on the earth and asking God to get on with it! The most that one can say is that this shows them as having *some* (negative) knowledge of events on the earth, but that's the most it shows.

Sun Nov 09, 10:32:00 PM EST

Lydia McGrew said...

You mention two verses in Revelation that mention the prayers of the saints as being contained in something (vials of odours, Rev. 5:8) or rising as incense out of an angel's hands (Rev. 8:4). I am puzzled as to exactly what the argument is supposed to be that this supports prayers to the saints of the high Anglican or Catholic kind. The word for saints is "hagion" in both of these places and means "holy ones." There are holy ones both on earth and in heaven. There is no reason whatsoever to think of "the prayers of the saints" in these verses to have any _special_ reference to the holy ones in heaven. To think so would be to commit a specifically Catholic or Anglo-Catholic type of anachronism–hearing the phrase "the saints" in the specialized sense it has taken on. If one gets rid of that specialized sense, then these are "the prayers of the holy ones." Some holy ones. Perhaps _all_ of the holy ones, both on earth and in heaven. Well and good. But why think that the prayers of the holy ones in heaven concern specific and on-going knowledge of our current affairs, requested by us on an on-going basis? These verses tell us only that holy ones *do pray*, which we never doubted, and that God values their prayers. It may well include the holy ones in heaven as well as on earth. I am not trying to exclude them from the set of "holy ones" referred to. But these verses simply don't support the idea that the saints know of and pray for our on-going struggles.

As you know from my post, I consider it possible and even plausible that those who have actually known us and loved us (who will usually be humble dead people who were never canonized) may indeed pray for us after death! I find that a wonderful and good thought. But that is, I'm afraid, quite different from our being able to talk to them and their being able to watch a kind of heavenly livestream and pray to God at our request for what is happening to us right now.

I used to spend quite a bit of time searching for biblical evidence for the regular practice of prayers to the saints. You have brought up some verses that I had not previously heard used to support that practice, but I simply don't think that the argument succeeds, largely because the claim to be supported is so strong.

Sun Nov 09, 10:32:00 PM EST

Lydia McGrew said...

One point that occurs to me is that if idolatry creeps into a Christian group or into the life of a Christian (or Jew, for that matter), it will do so in some way that _can_ be explained away. In fact, in the very nature of the case, idolatry is the kind of thing that comes in degrees. We do admire people, so it's a question of when admiration "turns into" idolatry, and this will have fuzzy lines.

Also, if one is theologically clever, one can explain away almost anything. If I knelt down in front of a picture of Ronald Reagan every day and called him "Lord," or even used the word "God" in addressing him, I could construct an explanation that I am praying to "God as manifested in his servant" or something like that.

And I certainly could pray, "Oh, holy Ronald, help us and protect us in all our dangers. We are yours. Lead us and guide us," and be doing nothing more than what can be found in Catholic prayers to and references to the saints.

So when is a line crossed?

I think it is theologically healthy to recognize a category of "closeness" to idolatry rather than simply exercising ingenuity to justify a practice by explaining away the various appearances that seem problematic.

Mon Nov 10, 09:44:00 AM EST

Lydia McGrew said...

Hmmm, I'm surprised that you think you have documented your position "massively" in Scripture. Isn't that a rather strong statement, considering the strength of the position? Massively?

For example, consider the verses in James. I'm rather intrigued by the fact that you seem to think that those verses do teach that we should go to those intermediaries (e.g., the elders of the church) *rather than* praying on our own behalf. I would call this a type of biting the bullet.

Biting the bullet is always interesting. I would say that this demonstrates that our disagreement comes at the level of what degree of intimacy *should* obtain between Christians and God. (You'll recall that I speculated above that it might be hard to tell if we disagree there or elsewhere.) Now, I would instead say that the verses in James of course mean something, and that they do mean that we should ask other people to pray for us, and that they do attribute some degree of special effectiveness to the prayer of a righteous man, but that they *absolutely do not mean* that we should ask the righteous man to pray for us *instead of* praying for ourselves. In fact, when James says that "the prayer of faith will heal the sick," it is very natural to read that to mean, inter alia, the sick man's own prayer. Not _only_ the prayer of the elders who come.

Or consider your additional verses. Why in the world would anyone take the knowledge in those verses to mean or even to include knowledge of events going on on earth, knowledge of people's trying to talk to you by ESP, and so forth? I cannot imagine. The verses are quite explicitly and clearly talking about *theological* knowledge--knowledge of the character of God, the love of God, etc. It's almost downgrading the almost mystical and high-level theological knowledge in question there by turning it into a knowledge about events concerning people alive on earth.

Consider: In the verses from Ephesians, Paul *clearly* isn't talking about his or the Ephesians' knowledge of mundane events. He is clearly not saying that Christians here on earth obtain ESP about events hundreds of miles away and/or the ability to communicate with each other by long-distance mind-meld. So why think, using those verses, that that is what it amounts to when someone dies? Or that that is even part of what a person obtains when he dies?

I mean, that's just not anything like massive biblical support. Massive biblical support is like what we have for the deity of Jesus Christ or the wrongness of homosexuality. This isn't even close.

Mon Nov 10, 12:52:00 PM EST

Lydia McGrew said...

For the record, I do _comprehend_ what you are saying about its all being "one big thing" and there being "no dichotomy" between seeking the intercession of the saints and praying to God directly. I just flatly disagree that there is no distinction. And yes, it makes a big difference as to whether we are talking about our communication with God or God's communication with us, so I think your attempt to reverse the process and say that prophetic utterances don't really count as "the word of the Lord" is a poor one. We are not God. It makes a big difference *to us* whether we are talking directly to God or not, or what kind or how many intermediaries we have. That is precisely why the author of Hebrews makes such a big deal about Jesus as the only intermediary. (Paul in I Timothy as well.) And that is why Jesus encourages the disciples to pray to the Father directly because "the Father himself loves you." God knows how our human psyche works, and he knows how it changes things for us to be talking to him directly vs. sending a message through someone else. I watch Catholics, educated Catholics, brilliant Catholics, well-catechized Catholics. I have among my Internet friends probably some of the most knowledgeable Catholics around. And, I'm sorry to have to come out and say this, but in my opinion the piety connected with the saints and the attempt to say that it's "all just one big thing" to talk to the saints as opposed to talking directly to God has a bad effect upon the concept of the relationship with God even of the best-educated Catholic.

I think this is illustrated in your own case in your actually biting the bullet and suggesting that we are _gaining_ something spiritually if we sometimes or often _refrain_ from talking to God directly and "talk to God" only through an intermediary instead. You will say as a throwaway line, "Of course you can go to God any time you want to directly," but several of your more recent comments actually clearly encourage not doing so. You even bit the bullet on my father-son analogy, suggesting that there would be nothing problematic in the less-favorite son asking the more-favorite son to go to the father in his stead.

Wow. I mean, to my mind that's really mistaken theology. No Christian should be thinking that another Christian is a favorite with God and for that reason _refraining_ from praying to God directly himself, asking the favorite to go instead. It's massively unconvincing to argue for that practice and then to say, "Hey, this is really all the same. It's all one big thing. It's really the same as talking to God directly."

Well, no, it isn't. There are clearly different propositional beliefs involved--such as, for example, that it's in some cases actually *better* to go to God through the intermediary saint than to go oneself.

Mon Nov 10, 01:02:00 PM EST

Lydia McGrew said...

"Your most recent comment is based on the premise that merit and differential holiness and grace either don't exist or are insignificant factors."

No, I just don't think that they have _this_ significance--namely, that it is ever "better" (in your words, which I will quote at more length below) to go to someone more holy and ask him to act as intermediary for me than to pray directly to God.

Nor do I think that differences in holiness have generally the significance that dead people should be presumed to be able to hear our requests, know our state, and pray for us on that basis. Why think a thing like that? A person can be far, far more holy than I am and be enjoying the beatific vision, there can be differences in blessedness in the ultimate state in heaven, all kinds of implications of differences among Christians, without that implying anything about the prayers of the saints. Differences in holiness and grace probably should influence my seeking out living companions and advisers here on earth. There are lots of implications, but prayers to the saints just aren't automatically included.

Now, you seem to be saying that I misunderstood you concerning praying to the saints in some cases instead of praying oneself. I'm sorry if I misunderstood you, but I took it from this. First, I gave the father/son analogy. Here's me:

"I think that the father would be rightly hurt if a son said that he asked his brother to make a request on his behalf because he thought the brother a favorite and wanted the brother to help him by 'getting it for him.'"

That was a follow-up to your boss-higher boss analogy. You responded:

"Then you have not understood differential grace and merit in Scripture and tradition. This is not surprising, since most Protestants are taught to deny both (quite biblical) things. You also have to deny the bald fact of passages such as the one I already gave you:

James 5:14 Is any among you sick? Let him call for the elders of the church, and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord;

So now God would be offended because He spoke an inspired word in His revelation through James, that it is better to ask a Church elder to pray for a sickness than to go "direct to Him"?"

You see how that lends itself to that interpretation? You appear to be saying that God is telling us, and that you believe, that it is at least sometimes _better_ to go to an intermediary than to go directly to God.

Mon Nov 10, 04:07:00 PM EST

Lydia McGrew said...

Similarly, here. I pointed out that, when we ask someone else to intercede for us, we usually do this _instead_ of making the request directly, not in addition to it. You seemed to concede that point:

"In one sense he is, in another (I say, the more essential aspect) he isn't. If I ask something of someone through an intermediary, it doesn't cease to be (ultimately or essentially a request from me. It's still my request and only secondarily the intermediary's request, as a go-between, or messenger between myself and the ultimate goal (in the analogy, God)."

So rather than saying, "Oh, no, no, I think you should _also_ pray yourself and just ask the saints to supplement your prayers by their intercession," you said, consistent with your take on the James passage, that yes indeed, you might very well _just_ ask the saints to intercede _instead_ of praying directly, but that this is no problem whatsoever because it's all one big thing, so the distinction really doesn't matter. In fact, your comment on the James passage implied that doing it in this indirect way might be better! And indeed the analogy on which you bit the bullet--the son asking the more favored son to go to the father--would seem to support this as your approach.

Now, I'm sorry if I've misunderstood you, but to me what you said earlier is indeed an illustration of that wrongful distance that I believe prayers for the saints can set up between the individual believer and God: "So-and-so is more holy than I am, so I'll send so-and-so to pray for me about this instead of praying about it directly myself." I really stand on what I said about the father and the son. There are other Scripture verses that do address this--for example, Paul's statement that we do not have the spirit of fear but of adoption and that we cry out "Abba, Father" to God (an Aramaic term like "Daddy.") (Romans 8:15) Nothing could be farther from asking your brother to go talk to your father instead of talking to him yourself. You might ask your brother to talk to your father in addition to doing it yourself, but that concept of sonship definitely means that you should go yourself. It's clear that Jesus taught this as well, both in the verse I already cited ("The father himself loveth you") and even in the Lord's prayer.

Mon Nov 10, 04:07:00 PM EST

Lydia McGrew said...

"Prayers for the saints" in the immediately previous comment was a typo for "prayers to the saints." I believe I've done that a couple of times--apologies.

Mon Nov 10, 04:10:00 PM EST

Lydia McGrew said...

I was reflecting on these comments of yours: "Precisely! This is what I am saying. Because (in your theological premises before you even get to the practice) you create a false dichotomy between the saints and God, as if two different things are involved instead of one, you felt like that. But the Catholic who regards all of it as one thing: approaches to God: directly or indirectly: all glory to Him; all things in His providence, we feel no such "competition" between a saint and God. We think in "both/and" terms, and all always goes back to God."

I wonder if you realize that such comments do nothing to allay Protestant concerns about blurring the distinction between the creature and the creator. In fact, they really exacerbate them. All the more so coming from someone obviously well-catechized, well-informed, and highly motivated to instruct.

What you are saying here is that the Protestant is theologically *wrong* to make a distinction (you call it a dichotomy) between the act of asking another human being to pray for him and praying to God directly himself! You are saying that we should deliberately collapse that distinction and regard trying to send a message to God through a purely and solely human intermediary (not God the Son, Jesus Christ, but some other human being) as being "one thing" with praying to God ourselves directly.

Surely you can see that that involves a substantive theological position on whether these two things can be regarded as one and the same or not. And surely you can see that someone might strongly disagree with that substantive theological decision. And I would _think_ that you could see that the disagreement could reasonably take the form of considering that substantive disagreement to verge on, if not actually cross the line of, failing to distinguish the creature from the creator properly, by failing to distinguish our relationship with the creature properly from our relationship with the creator.

Mon Nov 10, 10:26:00 PM EST

Lydia McGrew said...

And it is interesting, too, that in human relationships we would never say that sending a message through an intermediary is the same thing as talking directly. For one thing, the messenger might decide not to take the message! When I ask a friend to pray for me here on earth, he might silently think my request misguided or foolish and not pray for it. If he does pray, he may have his own comments or requests to add to God, related to it, which I would not add. Moreover, I word my conversation with him differently from the way I would word my conversation with God. I just *am not* talking to God when I am talking to him.

If it's "all one thing," indeed, one wonders why it is even all that important for Christians to talk to God directly at all! It should be evident why a substitution could happen here. After all, it's just a Protestant error to think that there is even any relevant distinction between the two activities!

Mon Nov 10, 10:26:00 PM EST

Lydia McGrew said...

Well, no, to be honest, I thought initially that your approach to these problems was more like mine. For ex., you were doing an interesting thing of trying to, as it were, beat the Protestants at their own game by bringing in Scriptures to support your position. That's good, and I addressed that on its own terms, discussing whether I think the Scriptures you adduced support the conclusion in question. My understanding initially was that it was not supposed to be necessary to bring in, e.g., the magisterium, but that you were saying that those Scriptures really do uphold the practice in question. In fact, though I don't resent it in the slightest (it's my own style as well), you hammered rather hard on the James verses, saying, "That must mean something! What can it mean in your theology?" (words to that effect). I consider this a legitimate approach and tried to answer that challenge on its own terms.

So I'm actually a little surprised at your more recent comments concerning faith and philosophy, because they are, in a sense, backing off and saying that I just don't grok all of this because I'm too analytical.

That's of course entirely your prerogative if that is what you think and wish to say, but it is a different tack from your initial approach, which was more one of truly allaying and answering Protestant concerns in a way that would be accessible to them and that would "speak their language," as it were. In that context, I think an analytical approach makes a good deal of sense.

Tue Nov 11, 12:42:00 PM EST

Lydia McGrew said...

Tony, I find an interesting *rhetorical* tension (though probably not a logical tension) between your analogy of various levels of bosses, on the one hand, and your later statements that going to intermediaries is a sop to our human weakness, on the other.

My problem is that I think all of those analogies to intermediate bosses are rather seriously misleading theologically. It seems to me that they teach people that God really does have favorites in an all-too-human sense and that he can be "wangled," as it were, into doing things if you just "know the right people" and have them ask him instead of asking him yourself. Now that idea, taken literally, is _badly_ wrong theologically. Jesus says to his disciples, "The Father himself loveth you" and urges them repeatedly to pray to the father themselves. The author of Hebrews urges us to come boldly to the throne of grace. St. Paul says we have not received the spirit of fear but rather the spirit of adoption whereby we cry, "Abba, Father." So this whole idea that we really do *need* to approach God only through "higher-up bosses" who "have his ear" is rather seriously unbiblical.

Hence, any practice which _fosters_ that idea rather than countering it is, to my mind, theologically wrong-headed. We should be telling people, "No way! It's entirely disrespectful both to God and to the saints to think of them as being like courtly insiders whose ear you have to get in order to wangle your requests from the Big Guy, rather than approaching him yourself. Your relationship with God isn't like that at all!"

I'm not counseling being flippant with God. But I am saying that we are supposed to have with God the rightful kind of respectful intimacy that a beloved son has with his father. Such a father would, I believe, be rightly hurt if one son said that he sent another son with his request instead of coming himself because he thought that gave him a better chance of getting what he was asking for, or because he was reluctant to come himself.

So the saints cannot _really_ be like that, and God cannot _really_ be like that. Hence, I don't think we should make a sop to those particular ways of thinking but rather should counter them in our teaching.

Vaccinophobia

I'm going to opine about the anti-vaccination movement. I'm not a virologist or infectious-disease specialist. I'm just speaking as a layman. 

What accounts to the anti-vaccination movement? Off-hand, I can think of two reasons. Maybe there are more:

i) There's a well-earned distrust of gov't. Public health officials routinely make pro forma statements about how something is safe, how something is under control, not because that's the case, but because they think it's their duty to quell or forestall "mass hysteria." As a result, the public discounts their assurances.

In addition, I think the prestige of science has suffered from the politicization of science, viz. alarmist claims about global warming. 

ii) I think mass vaccination is a victim of its own success. Because it's been so effective in eliminating certain pandemics or epidemics which used to be commonplace, the threat has receded from public consciousness. For many people, the danger of an epidemic or pandemic is just an abstraction. Many people are crisis-driven. They don't take precautions. Unless they experience something, it isn't real to them.

iii) Measles might not sound that alarming, yet it's a major killer of children in the Third World. Moreover, that statistic is misleading. Absent vaccination, the figure of childhood deaths from measles would be far higher. 

iv) Is it just happenstance that the drastic reduction in some epidemics or pandemics coincided with mass vaccination? Is it just happenstance that outbreaks or epidemics occur in areas where there is no mass vaccination? Although one may rightly be skeptical of what public health officials say, don't the statistics speak for themselves? 

v) Unless I'm mistaken, there's no anti-vaccination movement within the medical community. Don't physicians have their own children vaccinated? They wouldn't continue to do that unless they thought it was a wise precaution. To be sure, you can have groupthink in medical science. My point, though, is that this isn't like public health officials saying things they don't believe. 

vi) Vaccination is not risk-free. A statistical fraction of vaccinated individuals will react badly to vaccination. So it's a cost/benefit assessment. Do the general benefits outweigh the occasional risks? To my knowledge, mass vaccination has been overwhelmingly beneficial to public health and safety. 

vii) Finally, although some critics might dismiss the anti-vaccination movement as another expression of the Christian lunatic fringe, it's demographically diverse. There've been anti-vacination movements in Sweden, Japan, and West Germany. Hardly hotbeds of Christian fundamentalism. In addition:

Who is choosing not to vaccinate? The answer is surprising. The area with the most cases of whooping cough in California is Los Angeles County, and no group within that county has lower immunization rates than residents living between Malibu and Marina Del Rey, home to some of the wealthiest and most exclusive suburbs in the country. At the Kabbalah Children's Academy in Beverly Hills, 57% of children are unvaccinated. At the Waldorf Early Childhood Center in Santa Monica, it's 68%, according to the Hollywood Reporter's analysis of public-health data. 

These are the kind of immunization rates that can be found in Chad or South Sudan. But parents in Beverly Hills and Santa Monica see vaccines as unnatural—something that conflicts with their healthy lifestyle. And they have no problem finding fringe pediatricians willing to cater to their irrational beliefs. 

http://online.wsj.com/articles/paul-a-offit-the-anti-vaccination-epidemic-1411598408

Jonathan Cahn's Case Against Jesus' Birth On December 25

Steve Hays recently wrote a post about Jonathan Cahn's argument against a December 25 date for the birth of Jesus. You can read an article about Cahn's view here. And here's what I wrote in an email on the subject:

Is the freedom/determinism dilemma a false dilemma?

Don Page recently made a striking claim:

And what’s more, many worlds may even take care of freewill. Page doesn’t actually believe we have freewill, because he feels we live in a reality in which God determines everything, so it is impossible for humans to act independently. But in the many-worlds interpretation every possible action is actually taken. “It doesn’t mean that it’s fixed that I do one particular course of action. In the multiverse, I’m doing all of them,” says Page.

http://www.math.columbia.edu/~woit/wordpress/?p=7219

i) This is very stimulating. On the face of it, his position dissolves the perennial dilemma between determinism and freedom of choice. For on this model, all our choices are determined (indeed, divinely determined), yet we have radical freedom of opportunity inasmuch as we do in fact act on all these alternate possibilities.

ii) It's not quite clear to me how he gets divine determinism out of this. Perhaps he means God indirectly determines everything by initiating and/or instantiating the multiverse.

iii) I'm not clear if he's operating with a Tegmark model of the multiverse in which every possibility is realized. Not every conceivable world is worthwhile.

iii) In principle, God could selectively create parallel worlds which exemplify alternate possibilities. God doesn't require the apparatus of quantum mechanics to create a multiverse. He could do that ex nihilo. So that doesn't require God to instantiate every alternate possibility. It leaves room for divine discretion. Some possible worlds have no redeeming value. Some possible worlds have heretical scenarios (e.g. Christ sinning).

iv) Even if the multiverse does not exist, his argument, if successful, demonstrates that the traditional dilemma between freedom and determinism is a false dilemma in principle. The argument requires a suppressed premise to generate the dilemma: only one possibility can be instantiated at any given time.

v) Yet another objection is that the freedom to do otherwise (i.e. the principle of alternate possibilities) typically means the freedom to do otherwise given the same history, not alternate histories. However, that's ambiguous. It's the same past. The same history up to the decision point. But from thereon it branches off into different futures. So we need to distinguish between alternate history in the sense of a different past or a different future. Does "history" refer to the entire timeline? Or different stages–with forking paths?

vi) Yet another objection is that his argument is vitiated by equivocation. Am I the same person as my counterparts in parallel worlds? Or does that violate personal identity? Here's one way of expressing the objection: "Do you think an exact duplicate of me, sitting next to me, is me? If not, why think that the duplicate existing in another physical universe would be me?"

That, however, raises mereological issues. If spatial distinction is incompatible with numerical identity, is temporal distinction incompatible with numerical identity? Am I the same person today that I was yesterday?

One counterargument is that diachronic identity is univocal because the earlier and later stages of my existence are causally linked. But if that's a necessary condition for personal identity, then that rules out counterfactual identity. My counterparts in abstract possible worlds aren't causally linked. It's a timeless state.

If there's a problem with equivocity, I don't think it begins at the level of causally/spatiotemporally isolated individuals. I don't think instantiating alternate scenarios introduces equivocity into a hitherto univocal relation. If there is a problem, the problem lies upstream, not downstream.

vii) Seems to me the ultimate question is whether God can have a univocal concept of alternate courses of action about the same agent. When God thinks about a driver crashing or just missing a crash, is God's concept about the same driver in both cases? If so, how does God objectifying or transferring his abstract idea to a (concrete/physical) parallel universe situation become equivocal?

Returning to the question: "Do you think an exact duplicate of me, sitting next to me, is me?" I'd say those are two different instances of one and the same exemplary idea.

The exemplar is God's idea of an individual. A possible person is God's constitutive idea of that individual. That's what a person is considered as a possible person, in distinction to an actual person.

As I see it, God is like a novelist. He has a complete idea of every person. I suppose a Classical Arminian might say the same thing, but he doesn't mean what I mean by a complete idea. He means God knows everything about a person.

No doubt that's true as far as it goes, but I'm using "complete idea" in a constitutive sense, like how a novelist's idea of a character is what makes him the character that he is. God's complete concept is variegated. It's the same idea insofar as the content of the exemplary idea is the abstract template for its concrete instances. However, God does not instantiate the entire content of the exemplary idea, for the content of the idea includes alternate courses of action.

They are two different instances of the same exemplary idea. By "exemplary idea," I mean God's complete concept of the individual, including "alternate endings". God can (and does) imagine "alternate endings." God's imagination is infinite.

BTW, here's a useful exposition of possible worlds from a Reformed philosopher:

http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2011/12/my-predestination-is-all-freewill.html

Reducing abortion

i) This post is in reference to "abolitionists" who regard any prolife legislation that falls short of demanding total prohibition as a moral compromise. In context, I'm referring to a situation in which a Christian lawmaker proposes less sweeping legislation because that's all that will pass in Congress or a state legislature–with a veto proof margin, if necessary.

ii) Are laws that merely reduce abortion, or aim to reduce abortion, morally compromised? On the face of it, the answer is no. I daresay there's hardly any law that eliminates the crime it prohibits. What lawmaker expects his law to eradicate the crime in question? Although he might wish that to be the case, the law is not a failure if merely reduces rather than eliminates the crime it bans.

Take laws against murder. Outlawing murder don't eliminate murder. Rather, their function is twofold: (a) to deter murder, and (b) to punish murder when it occurs. A law against murder isn't morally compromised because it merely reduces the rate of murder. That's all the law can do. It can't prevent people from committing murder. 

To say that laws which merely reduce the incidence of abortion are morally compromised is to say that any law which merely reduces the incidence of some crime is morally compromised. But if that's where we set the bar, then we should abolish every law. 

iii) Moreover, there are situations in which it's permissible to allow wrongdoing which you could prevent. Take D.U.I. Drunk drivers are dangerous and culpable. It's wrong to endanger pedestrians, cyclists, and other drivers by driving under the influence. That's why it's against the law.

Consequently, some police think that justifies random checkpoints. By setting up random checkpoints, they nab some drunk drivers. That's a way of enforcing the law. A way of making the law more effective. 

Yet random checkpoints are very controversial because they treat every driver as a suspect, without probable cause. You can support D.U.I laws, but oppose random checkpoints. There are tradeoffs in a free society. Even if a police state is safer (which is disputable), freedom is a value, too. All things being equal, there's the right to be left alone.

iv) I'd also like to make a point about abortion exceptions. Are these a moral compromise? As I've already pointed out, it's not morally compromising if a lawmaker fails to do more than he was able to do.

But there's another distinction. There are Christians who think the rape/incest/life-of-the-mother exceptions are principled exception. Not just concessions to political reality, but something that laws against abortion ought to exempt. Likewise, there are Christians who reject the rape/incest exception, but think the life-of-the-mother is a morally permissible exception in its own right. That's not an exception to get the bill passed and signed into law. Rather, that exception should be in the bill even if there were the votes to ban abortion in toto.

Now, you can disagree with them. I myself disagree with them. But you can't attack it because it's pragmatic, for proponents who take this view don't justify it on pragmatic grounds. Rather, they regard this as a matter of principle. Therefore, you have to attack the principle. But that's a different argument.

v) Finally, there's a difference between what we think is wrong, and what we should outlaw. I think abortion to save the life of the mother is wrong. That doesn't mean I necessary think it should be outlawed. It's dubious to think we should legislate every hard case in ethics. Sometime we have to give individuals the freedom to be wrong. Are you going to punish someone for making a tough call? 

To take a comparison: suppose you have a family member on life support who's been declared brain dead. If you take him off life support, he may die. Indeed, that's the likely outcome. And, for all you know, it's possible that he will miraculously regain consciousness in 5 years. 

Pulling the plug (in that situation) is an agonizing decision. Suppose I think it's wrong for you to pull the plug (in that situation). Does that mean I should criminalize your decision? Even if you made the wrong call, should that be a felony? 

It isn't our responsibility to craft laws that achieve perfect justice in this life. We couldn't achieve that objective even if we tried. Ultimately, the day of judgment will right the scales of justice. The basic function of law is to establish a moral floor, not a moral ceiling. 

Snakebite

I will put enmity between you and the woman,
    and between your offspring and her offspring;
he shall bruise your head,
    and you shall bruise his heel.”

(Gen 3:15).

i) This is, of course, a very famous passage. One interpretive issue is to explore the picturesque metaphor. The meaning of the word that's translated "bruised" in the ESV is disputed. It's a very rare word in Biblical usage, and its other two occurrences aren't very clarifying. 

Given the Hebrew parallelism, some scholars argue that it should be rendered the same way in both clauses. That might well be the case.

On the other hand, it's possible that the Hebrew word has more than one sense, and trades on that fact so that it carries a different, and appropriate, nuance, in each clause. 

ii) However, the interpretation doesn't necessary turn on how we define that one word. Even if we had no idea what it meant, the overall word picture supplies the gist of the meaning. The reader is expected to visualize the snake hurting the man and the man hurting the snake. What are the likely scenarios?

iii) There are roughly two kinds of snakes: venomous and nonvenomous. 

There are roughly two kinds of nonvenomous snakes: those harmless to man and those dangerous to man. 

iv) Clearly, the passages envisions a snake that's dangerous to man. So that rules out innocuous, nonvenomous species–leaving either venomous snakes or large constrictors. 

Nonvenomous snakes dangerous to man are large constrictors. Constrictors bite, though not to envenomate, but to get a lock on the victim, so that they can then encoil the victim. However, I don't think that's a likely candidate for this passage:

a) To my knowledge, Jews in OT times would be unfamiliar with large constrictors. 

b) The image of biting a man's heel, or a man stomping on a snake's head, seems less congruous in the case of a large constrictor. 

c) Keep in mind, too, that the original audience for Genesis consisted of emancipated slaves from Egypt who wandered in the Sinai. They'd be familiar with black cobras, Egyptian cobras, carpet vipers, and sand vipers. 

v) Assuming it's a venomous snake, I think there are roughly two possible scenarios in view:

a) The snake strikes the man's heel and the man strikes the snake with a long stick. 

b) The snake strikes the man's heel and the man stomps on the snake.

Trying to kill a snake with a long stick is the smart way to dispatch a snake. The stick keeps you out of striking range. 

However, if it's the stick rather than the heel that does the damage, then it's unclear why the passage mentions the heel. Reference to the heel naturally conjures up the image of stepping on a snake. And that's a common way of getting bitten. As a rule, trying to kill a venomous snake by crushing its head with your foot would be a good way of getting bitten.

So, if the imagery is consistent, this isn't a case of attacking the snake, but inadvertently stepping on it. And one is bitten in the process of stepping on it. Stepping on it injures both the snake and the man. Action and reaction. The snake doesn't necessarily die instantly. And even dead snakes can reflexively envenomate you.

I assume your back must be turned to a snake (or at least be sideways) for the snake to bite your heel. If you're facing a snake, it can't bite you in the heel. 

Likewise, if you're facing a snake, and it's either attacking or defending itself, I think it would strike higher than the heel. 

So it seems to me that the imagery suggests accidentally stepping on a snake. A one-time event. 

Again, there's the danger of overinterpreting the implied imagery. 

It's easy to step on venomous snakes, both because they are often nocturnal, so you can't see them at night, and because their skin is camouflaged, so that you can't see them in daylight. So perhaps the intended image is of a man who steps on the head of a snake. Although that's fatal to the snake, when the man lifts his foot, the dying snake, or dead snake, reflexively bites the raised heel, that's just above or ahead of the snake. At this point the snake is inches behind (or below) his foot, but within striking distance.

It's possible that this analysis carries the imagery too far. Perhaps it was never meant to be that precise. But then again, perhaps the reader is expected to envision the complete scene which that image provokes. And, indeed, I assume the original audience had enough experience with snakes, personally or by word-of-mouth, that they'd have a vivid mental image of the encounter. 

vi) It's often said that a head injury is fatal whereas a "bruised heel" is not life-threatening. But a bite from a venomous snake (unless it's a dry bite) is usually fatal. The more so given the toxicity of the venomous species known to the original audience, and the absence of antivenom. 

vii) Although it would be risky to press the imagery, it's literally true that what Jesus suffered wasn't merely harmful, but deadly. Metaphorically speaking, he died of snakebite. 

Strictly speaking, Satan can't be killed. To be killed, you must be alive. But angels aren't living organisms in the biological sense. They can't die. 

Yet they can suffer. Not only is it possible to suffer psychologically, but if human experience is any analogy, mental states can include simulated physical pain. You can feel pain in a nightmare. 

Death can be an escape from physical pain. Ironically, Satan's natural immunity to death or physical injury leaves him vulnerable to far more fearful, punitive suffering. 

viii) I take for granted that Gen 3:15 is prophetic and messianic. That's not just a question of treating the passage in isolation, but tracking that unfolding motif in the rest of the Pentateuch. 

St. Peter's rudderless barque

http://abcnews.go.com/Health/print?id=26779237