Screwtape Updates 2: The Veil Technique

Continued from yesterday.
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My dear Wormwood,

I received your letter yesterday with a most satisfying amusement. Your progress, while still embryonic by our exacting standards, suggests that some of my earlier instructions have not been wholly wasted. Continue in this vein, and you may yet rise above the more deplorable ranks of our department.

Your chief concern must be those within the Church who see and who pray. We can easily keep the great majority of churchgoers distracted, but even a handful of awakened souls can be devastating. Do not be deceived by the seeming urgency of your other campaigns. Your principal labour must remain the maintenance of what we have come to call "the Veil." 

The Veil, my dear Wormwood, is a blessed obscurity by which the Enemy’s detestable light is kept from shining too clearly among them. Under its shadow, a thousand evils may flourish unobserved. The hungry may languish in a different part of town, yet they will not see them. A man may torment his wife and children within sight of their pew and still be admired as a most respectable giver. As for the miseries of those beyond their borders? Well, those scarcely register at all. And should a flicker of awareness trouble them between breakfast and luncheon, we have only to smother it beneath the next mouthful.

I was most gratified to learn of your recent success in dismantling a tiresome organization which had been saving many lives abroad. Exquisite work! Think what diseases may now return to their proper dominions, what admirable harvests of hunger and despair may once again ripen. It does not, of course, approach the grandeur of our earlier enterprises, but it shows that you have profited by our instruction.

Such triumphs are, fortunately, among the easiest to preserve beneath the Veil. The average churchgoer will never see these children. Statistics can be ignored as dull or disputed as false, and any pang of compassion that slips through can be quickly soothed with a murmured prayer and a generous helping of pudding. The Veil, my dear Wormwood, remains one of the most serviceable instruments in our entire armoury.

I note with satisfaction that you have also made use of that most dependable instrument for deadening compassion -- misguidance. How lamentably tender-hearted the human species has become in recent decades! One longs for the more wholesome cruelties of earlier ages, when life itself was harsh enough to blunt the edge of sympathy. Since the detestable peace that followed the blessed War, compassion has enjoyed an alarming revival. Yet I entertain growing hopes that we may soon restore society to a state of more general hardship, where each creature’s own discomfort will once again suffice to drown out the cries of his neighbour.

How ingenious of you to employ the mantle of fiscal prudence as a disguise for throttling generosity. I see you have been studying my own methods with care. Conservatism, when properly administered, has ever been one of our most serviceable narcotics for the conscience. It permits the patient to imagine that he is defending “principle” when in fact he is merely defending his purse. 

Our best results come when we blend this with a rosy illusion of the past -- an era that, of course, never quite existed. Remind them that the Church once “stood firm for truth,” and they will soon forget what truths it neglected. Let them cherish the past as holy ground, and we may quietly lead them to preserve its sins -- not to mention the past sins of society.

I dare say that by now, under the Veil, the majority of churchgoers have quite forgotten those thousands of growing numbers who are suffering abroad. Such, after all, is the exquisite efficacy of that device. Spare no effort, therefore, in maintaining it under the banner of the god of this world.

Do keep me apprised of your further operations. There is much yet you might learn from my continued counsel.

Your affectionate uncle,
Screwtape

Screwtape Updates 1: The Operations

Dearest Uncle Screwtape,

It has been some time since my last report, but developments here in the United States compel me to request additional personnel. I am pleased to inform you that our operations are enjoying a most gratifying revival – an outpouring of division and hate not witnessed since the delightful Civil War. But the Enemy is fighting too, and I fear that the tide could turn if we are not relentless in our war efforts.

In your earlier instructions, you cautioned me not to spend too much time trying to persuade patients of godless philosophy. And yet, to our delight, we have found in America a remarkable appetite for notions that have a hint of cleverness while being thoroughly poisonous. It is astonishing how readily they prefer slogans to those tiresome evidences of the truth. Best of all, we have contrived to affix the labels “Christian” and “patriotic” to ideas that are neither, which has advanced our cause immeasurably.

Our operations are presently divided among four divisions, each attending to a distinct set of patients.

The first concerns those whose appetites already incline them toward the gratification of rage and cruelty. In the past, they were compelled to hide these impulses. But already, we have made considerable progress in persuading the public that their savageries are in fact the sentiments of justice. They can increasingly express their cruelty in the open.

It is a most promising development. Families are broken. People vanish, and no one knows what has happened to them. You will understand the satisfaction our junior tempters take in granting the lawless so generous a license over the helpless – especially with no one there to see what they do. 

The division about which I am most gratified is tasked to deceive Christians into working for us while convincing them that they are working for the Enemy. We have kept their gaze fixed on those few passages where judgment blazes – Sodom and Gomorrah, the slaughter at Carmel. Before long they can scarcely recall that any texts on "loving your enemy" exist. Empathy and mercy they now deride as excuses for sin.

What an exquisite perversion! We make them believe they are defending the Enemy while they labor against Him. Their tongues confess Him, but their hearts increasingly beat for us. With each passing day their zeal grows more reliable, and I trust you will find our progress worthy of commendation. 

A third division profits handsomely from the errors of the second. Those who once strongly believed see with distressing clarity how large numbers of professing Christians are now laboring against the Enemy. The effect is predictable and useful. They grow skeptical of the faith. In time, if we are fortunate, they may consign the whole affair to the category of charade. What an excellent reverse conversion!

The final division is entrusted with the cultivation of spiritual sleepiness. Our task here is to tranquilize. We fix their attention on pleasant sermons and tuneful worship. Some of us think that, if we are very crafty, we can turn baptisms into an inoculation against any deep engagement. Once they have been suitably “dampened,” as it were, we will get them to focus on themselves and overlook the havoc we are effecting elsewhere. It is a modest operation, but full of potential.

There is ample scope to put ever more souls on a course for our master. What we lack is personnel. The difficulty is the persistent remnant who see and have not forsaken the Enemy. They pray. They fast. Their intercession is not showy, but we feel its pressure. To be frank, we are somewhat rattled. Any additional agents you can spare would be gratefully received. The campaign is only beginning.

Your nephew,
Wormwood

Winger Video 4: Women Elders and Deacons

I have been slowly watching Mike Winger's 13 video (45 hour) craziness. I hate to say that I'm only about 7 hours in. Sigh.

Here are the previous posts and videos.

1. His introductory video: my blog post.and video response
2.1 His material on Genesis 1: my blog post and video response
2.2 His material on Genesis 2-3: my blog post on Gen 2 and video response to both Genesis 2-3 
3. Women in the Old Testament: my blog post and my video response

Now for his two hour video on the question of whether women were elders or deacons in the early church.
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1. There are a couple aspects to Winger's videos that I find problematic. One is the atomization of the biblical text. This is the playground of fundamentalism and it is quite misleading. Fundamentalism fights its battles in the minutia -- which of course goes along with its frequent missing the big picture. Clobber verses are used to undermine the weighty principles of Scripture -- just like the Pharisees pictured in Matthew 23.

For example, he begins this two hour extravaganza with Nympha in Colossians 4. Rather than move from the clear to the unclear, he starts with the obscure. This is because, as he admits in the middle of the video, he is in the end arguing for a complementarian position. So the most effective rhetorical technique is to begin with the claim that egalitarians are overreading obscure texts. Then by the time he gets to the points he agrees with, they have long lost any credibility.

My second complaint is that he spends most of his time deconstructing extreme egalitarian comments. It reminds me of the creation debates I went to in high school where I just wanted Henry Morris and Duane Gish to get to the evidence for creationism. They seemed to spend a lot more time quoting evolutionists. I would agree that many of the things Winger quotes are overreads -- some even extreme.

But that's ultimately a diversion. Rhetorically, being caught in an overreach undermines your case. But it doesn't actually mean that your basic claims are wrong. His videos often come off like hit jobs on egalitarian scholars.

2. So, we need to start with the big picture before we get to the obscure verses. What were elders and deacons in the early church? When I come to Colossians 4 and hear that Nympha had a church in her house, I think, "I bet she was one of the elders." The same thing for Lydia in Acts 16: "I bet she was an elder in the church that met in her house." Is it a certainty? No. But given my sense of the church from the New Testament as a whole, it seems probable to me.

(At some point, we'll have to reckon with how unique 1 Timothy is in the Pauline corpus. It often reads like an end of ministry systematization rather than Pauline rules that were in place from Day 1. Indeed, the teaching with regard to widows in 1 Timothy 5 is significantly different from his teaching in 1 Corinthians 7, reflecting less a sense of Christ's immanent return.

(These differences have led most non-evangelical scholars to think it dates to decades after Paul had passed. But even from an evangelical perspective, we should probably see it as Paul looking to the time after his passing more than as a snapshot of how things were always done during his ministry.)

3. What were elders (presbyteroi)? I suspect they were built off the synagogue model. Large enough assemblies had a council of elders to help guide the church, like a board of elders today. Think Sanhedrin. In some cases, a whole city may have had a council of elders.

Given this model, you can see that Winger and I are bringing a different set of lenses to this question. I'm pretty sure that he sees an elder as something like a lead pastor. I can see where that would make the assumption that Nympha or Lydia was the overseer of the church in their house seem like more of a stretch. By the way, I agree with him that elder (presbyteros) and overseer (episkopos) both referred to the same role in the earliest church. 

I also disagree with him that the primary function of an elder was teaching. He gets that from one line in the description of an overseer in 1 Timothy 3. But just because an overseer should have the ability to communicate the truth doesn't mean they were something like a teaching pastor. Talk about overreads. He systematizes a bunch of stuff here that the biblical texts don't.

That's another thing I find problematic about his treatments. He doesn't take seriously enough the fact that these books were not written to us -- which is what they say. He seems to have a sense that what the text leaves out is a message for us. But the things the text leaves out are often things that everyone knew at the time of writing. If I write a letter to my mom, I don't have to tell her I'm her son. 

In the same way, the things left out of the biblical texts are some of the most commonly held assumptions -- not the things we can ignore or assume aren't true. Were women commonly elders? The text doesn't say because it was common knowledge one way or another.

So, if there were likely multiple elders in a house church, then it makes perfect sense that the one Paul or Acts associates with the church -- Chloe, Nympha, Priscilla and Aquila, Lydia -- would be on the "elder board." I find Winger's arguments very strained in this regard. Are we absolutely sure? No. Is it likely? Yes. His stuff about Paul or Peter visiting a house and not being an elder in it was really strained. They're just passing through, after all. And who knows how long it was before the church in Lydia's house had official elders?

By the way, Paul references a church in the house of Priscilla and Aquila twice. In Romans 16, he mentions her first. In 1 Corinthians 16, he mentions him first. Winger makes some snide remark about Aquila being mentioned first. I don't know that it would be helpful for me to mock him in my video, but he seems to enjoy portraying egalitarians as stupid a little too much sometimes. It's very tempting to mock him back. But probably not helpful.

4. What were deacons? First, I reject that Acts 6 is about deacons. We don't see Stephen or Philip waiting tables. We see them preaching and evangelizing. Peter got caught with his pants down and God filled in the ministry gap. The word deacon is not used in this chapter. It's a Baptist fallacy. And "I can't help you; I've got to pray" sounds like a flimsy excuse for messing up, A-A-Ron.

If elders were the stationaries, deacons were the moving parts of the earliest churches. They were the ones that served the church. Think Epaphroditus. Think Epaphras. Think Timothy. I can't prove it, but Euodia and Syntyche fit this bill well. Phoebe is explicitly called a deacon. In short, I have a hunch that these deacons fulfilled one set of responsibilities undertaken by the modern pastor. (Another set corresponds to New Testament prophets. Yes, and teachers too.)

Buried in all his blah blah blah is his correct recognition that Phoebe was a deacon of the church of Cenchrea. He rightly notices that she is connected to a specific church, which is the distinguishing context between whether the word is "deacon" or "servant." Yes, prostatis probably has more of a sense of patron here (although BAGD is not infallible either -- a lot of early twentieth century German scholarship was deeply flawed, antisemitic, and perhaps even sexist). 

Did Phoebe read and interpret the letter of Romans to the churches at Rome. I don't think so because I think Romans 16 was a letter to Ephesus. But Winger made a comment that makes me think he doesn't know that these letters were read aloud to churches since most people were illiterate. I find nothing implausible about the suggestion that someone delivering a letter might read it for the church the first time (Sosthenes in 1 Corinthians 1:1?). I can't prove it.

Which is something else annoying about Winger's style. Showing that something isn't proven isn't the same as disproving it. I can't prove that Nympha was an elder in the church in her house. But Winger certainly didn't disprove it either. The man doth protest too much methinks.

5. Priscilla and Aquila. It's nice that he recognizes that she teaches Apollos. But he makes a big deal out of the fact that this is in private and that her husband is with her. The text makes no such big deal. They are not in their home turf when they hear him -- it's a synagogue context -- so it makes perfect sense that they would not confront him publically in the synagogue itself. The text doesn't make any point at all from the fact that they both taught him. Why wouldn't they? I certainly have never thought that Aquila wasn't a strong or knowledgable believer. She just seems to have been even more stand out.

Now we get to filling in the blanks. Did Priscilla teach other men? Nothing in the text says she didn't just as Winger points out it doesn't say she did. I have every reason to believe that, in their house church, she fully participated in the discipleship of the gatherings -- even when Paul was present. Just like the women fully participate in the small group I'm a part of. 

So where do all these boundaries come from? Not from these texts. They come from the imposition of controls from the interpretation of other verses. If we go by what these specific passages have to say, there are no boundaries on who Priscilla can teach or whether she can be an elder in her own house church.

6. I should close with brief mention of 1 Timothy 3. Yes, it assumes that most overseers and deacons will be men. No doubt they were. But it doesn't say, "And women can't be overseers or deacons." In fact, we know Phoebe was a deacon. 

This is a logical fallacy. It extends the situation the text does address and applies it to a situation the text does not address.

Think of when Paul tells the Thessalonians to abstain from sexual immorality. He addresses the "brothers." Does that leave the sisters off the hook? No. "Brothers" just addresses the primary audience he has in mind.

Bottom line: 1 Timothy 3 doesn't say "and women can't be overseers or deacons." It simply addresses the majority case, as you might expect in a patriarchal culture.

I have never taken the "wives" in 3:11 as deaconesses. I take it to refer to the wives of overseers and deacons. By extension, it would apply to the husbands of a female overseer or deacon.

Pensée 3.2 All human life is "intrinsically" valuable.

Building an uber-outline at the bottom.
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1. Human life is valuable. We will debate how and when to define human life, but let us agree that it is universally and intrinsically valuable.

I put intrinsically in quotes because it is not technically true. From a Christian perspective, human life is valuable in a derivative fashion. That is to say, it is valuable because God values it. Genesis 1:27 says that God created humanity -- both male and female -- in his "image" or "likeness." We are a sort of mirror of God. 

Therefore, we are all valuable. In this case, Even if that value derives from God, it is inseparably attached to every human being. We might argue that the image of God in humanity is "marred," but the Bible does not teach that it is ever destroyed. Even the most evil of men is still created in the image of God -- a fundamental dignity remains, however damaged.

2. What shall we say from a non-theist perspective? We might note that Thomas Jefferson, who was a Deist, still penned that humans are "endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights." Admittedly, he still believed in a Creator. And he saw human rights as intrinsic to humanity because of how God had created us. The United States was founded on this belief.

Modern constitutional republics and democracies are founded on this principle as well. It is a distinguishing characteristic. It is part of our social contracts. While the United States still allows for capital punishment, most modern representational democracies do not on the principle that all human life is intrinsically valuable and thus cannot be destroyed except in the most extreme of circumstances such as a just war or self-defense.

It is, admittedly, difficult to prove the intrinsic worth of a human apart from either a religious conviction or an agreed social assumption. Yet arguably, societies that make this assumption thrive on a much higher level than those that do not. A disregard for human life characterizes less developed societies that do not thrive. In these, certain individuals may accrue power and experience great pleasure, but as a whole society does not. If, for example, a nation were to devalue the humanity of any group living in its midst, it would diminish its moral stature. In our case, it would betray both the Constitution and, more importantly, our Creator.

It is in the best interest of the masses to live in a society that values the individual. To the extent that the masses have power, therefore, they should insist on universal, individual rights for their own advantage. Mathematically, such a society brings greater pleasure to a greater number. Although I cannot prove it from a non-theistic perspective, there is a certain common sense to the notion that a greater pleasure in a society makes for a better nation than one where a select few have great pleasure. If might makes right in such a context, the masses should use their power to insist this is the case.

But it is a moot point from a Christian perspective. From God's perspective, all human beings not only have inherent value but equal value.

3. All humans have equal intrinsic value. Humans have differing instrumental values. That is to say, the life of the president of a country in most instances will be more useful than the life of a homeless person. However, they both have the same intrinsic value as human beings. This is an important distinction.

In a just war, it may be justified to kill an enemy for instrumental reasons. But the enemy has the same intrinsic value as a human being. We let the enemy bury their dead. There is a certain dignity to a fallen enemy that comes from their humanity regardless of their actions.

If we have to kill a home invader in self-defense, that may be justified. But the home invader still has a certain dignity as a human being. Their family will have a funeral for them and will mourn their death along with their choices -- a life that could have and should have been more.

What about the most evil of humans? What of the worst serial killer or a dictator ordering genocide? I'll admit that I find these instances difficult because such individuals represent an affront to humanity as humanity. That is to say, their disregard for the value of human life may make their consequences a bigger matter than justice to an individual. They bear the weight of collective justice.

Yet to remain true to principles, it seems we must still treat them as humans. Christian principles suggest that they should be afforded a fundamental dignity even if they bear the weight of collective justice. We lament a human life wasted on evil. If God grieves over all rebellion, even that of Satan, how much more does he mourn the destruction of a human soul.

The fallen human mind would take advantage of any allowance that some humans do not deserve dignity. We see this in play in America at the moment. If you are not here legally, some think that gives permission to disregard certain fundamental rights. This of course is a violation of the Constitution and an offense to God. When leaders of nations disregard human life, they degrade their countries.

4. Galatians 3:28 and the New Testament in general present the radical principle that God values all humans the same regardless of whether they are Jewish or not, slave or free, male or female. If these are "woke" values, then the New Testament is woke and to say differently is to oppose God.

"God does not show favoritism" to Jew over Gentile, Peter says in Acts 10:34-35. Yes, he is talking about those who pursue God, but nowhere in Scripture does it say that he plays favorites among non-believing groups either. Note that this principle applies to the fundamental human value of Israelis and Palestinians. Even if there would be some instrumental reason to prefer Israel politically, as human beings, Palestinian life must be treated as having equal value. To say otherwise is to oppose God. 

(As a sidenote, Romans 9-11 considers those on either side in or out of the people of God depending on their confession of faith in Christ. Faith in Christ is the New Testament criterion for membership in the people of God.)

This principle can be extended to the domain of ethnicity in general. While there may be instrumental value in deporting undocumented immigrants, in God's eyes, each individual detained is of equal value to the person detaining them. To say otherwise is to oppose God.

Similarly, in God's eyes there is no greater value to the master than to the slave. Antebellum America thus opposed God when it devalued the slave. The Jim Crow South opposed God when it devalued the ex-slave. In terms of intrinsic value, the slave was just as worthy of dignity as the slaveownder. 

The person without money is of just as much value to God as the person with money. Indeed, from a New Testament perspective, the person with money is less likely to be favored by God as the poor. Yet both have the same intrinsic value.

Paul applies this principle to male and female as well. While the cultural roles of his day peek out here and there in his writings, the Day of Pentecost indicates the equal dignity and worth of women to men. The Spirit is the great equalizer. Sons and daughters both receive words from the Lord (Acts 2:17). 

5. It is cliche to refer to Nazi Germany, but it remains the most useful illustration in our memory for a society that went awry in its devaluing of certain human beings. Certainly this was the case with regard to its treatment of Jews. The mass graves in places like Lithuania reveal villages that turned on nearly half their population because they were Jewish. Such atrocities were an affront to collective humanity.

We are just as fallen as them. We are just as capable of such atrocities as them. We can rationalize evil just as easily as they did. All have sinned. There is none righteous, no not one. We are fooling ourselves if we think we could never become what they became.

There were also the experiments in the camp. They treated the weak or physically challenged as less valuable. "Defects" in a person were seen as devaluing of their worth, making it permissible to treat them with disdain, contempt, violence, and death. Such treatment of fellow human beings is an affront to God and a sin against humanity.

Fallen human nature finds ways to justify dehumanization. "They don't deserve to be treated with respect because..." This is what the abuser does -- you made me abuse you because you were unworthy. 

But the command of God is to love our enemies, as hard as this is (Matt. 5:44). It goes against every bone in our bodies. We want to think it weak. Milquetoast. Feminine.

Then God is weak. Except he isn't. This is the command of God, and those who violate this principle are enemies of God. And the society that endorses the dehumanization of others is an inferior country. And God will have his Day of strength.

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Epistemology
1.1 1.1 We can be epistemologically certain of almost nothing.
1.2 The world outside me exists.
1.3 I exist.
1.4 Logic and math seem absolutely reliable.
1.5 Assumptions are inevitable in reasoning.
1.6 Reasoning is inevitable in thinking.
1.7 Our senses give us the "dots" of reality, but our minds draw the pictures.
1.8 Our sense of the "dots" of reality is tremendously skewed.
1.10 A critical realism is an optimal epistemology.
1.11 Paradigms are constantly shifting over time.
1.10 Perception is a reality.
1.11 Our situation requires extreme epistemological pragmatism.
1.12 The scientific method is extremely useful.
1.13 The scientific method has clear limits.
1.14 The meaning of words and symbols is a function of how they are used.
1.15 The meaning of actions and events is constructed.
1.15 Texts by their very nature are polyvalent and "autonomous."
1.16 The Bible is an object of knowledge. 

Philosophy of Religion
2.1 Belief in a Creator is reasonable but not provable.

Philosophy of Personhood
3.1 A human is a biological machine.
3.2 A human is potentially self-conscious in a way no other animal is.
3.3 Humans may have a "spiritual" dimension.
3.4 All human life is "intrinsically" valuable.
3.5 When human personhood begins in part is a social construct.

Ethics
4.1 Good is an adjective, not a noun.
4.2 Good is good because God says so.
4.3 God says that love is good.
4.4 Justice is a function of love.

Social, Political, and Economic Philosophy
5.1 Anarchy and communism are unworkable forms of governance.
5.2 Monarchies and theocracies are unreliable. 
5.3 There are two core principles of governance. 
5.4 Checks and balances are crucial in an ideal government.

The Passing of John Searle (1932-2025)

I had not noticed that John Searle had passed last month. Some thoughts on his philosophy will suffice for my Thursday philosophy post this week. Searle's final years since 2017 were spent in dishonor after multiple accusations of sexual misconduct and retaliation surfaced, leading him to be stripped of his emeritus status at the University of California, Berkeley.

His philosophical contributions can be neatly divided into three phases.

The Philosophy of Language (1960s-70s)
My knowledge of Searle comes from his early linguistic phase. There was a time in the 80s and 90s when a significant number of papers in biblical studies were using his categories to explore the biblical texts in fresh ways. We are talking here of course about speech-act theory.

There is somewhat of a trinity of philosophers of language, father, son, and grandson, so to speak. I always felt a little like the old sense that the ancients were the golden age... then the silver... then the bronze. In this personal analogy, Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889-1951) would be the golden age. Then J. L. Austin (1911-1960) would be the silver. Then Searle would be the bronze.

Wittgenstein's work was not systematic, but he transformed the philosophy of language with his recognition that the meaning of words comes from how they are used in certain contexts. Before him, words were typically viewed as containers with somewhat fixed content in them. Wittgenstein's breakthrough was so obvious once understood that it revolutionized hermeneutics. It is fundamental to biblical exegesis properly done.

Austin then expanded that words do things. When a couple says, "I do," they are doing more than giving a statement. They are actually marrying each other. If I yell, "Fire!" I am not simply pointing to something reddish-orange. I am telling you to get out of the building or to grab a fire extinguisher. Still, Austin's work was somewhat unsystematic.

Searle then brought out an analysis of language in terms of the locutionary, the illocutionary, and the perlocutionary. The locution is a statement itself. The "illocution" is the intention behind the statement. And the "perlocution" is the impact or effect of the statement. This was all the rage in the 80s and 90s in a cross-section of biblical studies papers. I think I first encountered it in Anthony Thiselton's New Horizons in Hermeneutics.

The Philosophy of Mind (1980s-90s)
In his middle decades, his interests turned to the philosophy of mind. His biggest contribution in this phase was the "Chinese Room argument" (1980). 

In this thought experiment, someone who doesn't know Chinese sits in a room. Questions in Chinese are fed into the room. In the room, the person has a manual that tells them what symbols to put down on paper when certain symbols are fed into the room. He writes down these symbols and then passes them out of the room again.

To the outsiders, it appears as if the person in the room is answering the questions that are inputted. But in fact, the person in the room has no understanding of what he is writing down. 

Searle's point -- which is very apt given recent developments in AI -- is that strong AI would still not have consciousness. ChatGPT doesn't know what it is outputting to me when I prompt it. It is simply stringing together symbols based on statistical patterns in its immense database.

Searle thus raises a highly significant question -- what is human consciousness? He was not a theist, and he did not believe that humans had any extra-physical spiritual component to their being. Yet he was trying to steer a path between a dualism of body/soul and some reductive materialism.

This is a great puzzle to me. What is my self-consciousness? It seems to be something more than simply a programmed response to stimuli.

As an aside, I asked ChatGPT what the most current responses to Searle's Chinese Room argument are. As it finished, it said, "My Assessment (as of today)... I think..." :-)

Social Ontology (1990s-2000s)
In the final phase of his career as a philosopher, he moved beyond individual consciousness to what we might call a "social" ontology. How do we as collective humans create things simply because we all agree they exist?

Searle called this "collective intentionality." We make money exist not because a piece of paper with certain marks on it is intrinsically anything but because we all have agreed that it is something. A dollar bill is not merely a social construct. We have actually made it exist because we all agree on it.

Here his concept is that "X counts as Y in context C." In this way we not only create money but governments, state lines, national borders, marriages, churches, universities, etc. The line between Mexico and the U.S. is not a brute fact of reality. It is a line that we have created by collectively agreeing that it exists.

If the individual mind transforms inputs and outputs into consciousness, societies collectively generate social institutions, a kind of social consciousness. Words do not merely describe the world. They make it.
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I am no expert on Searle, and it would seem that in some respects he may have been a deeply flawed man (don't judge all philosophers by a few). Nevertheless, it's clear that he made some major contributions to philosophical thought. Accordingly, his work seemed worth a Thursday post.

6.5 Predestination in the Rest of the New Testament

This continues the discussion of Psalm 139 and Paul's letters.
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1. While Romans 9 is the passage we most associate with the question of predestination, we find strong predestination language in other parts of the New Testament as well. The question is what function this language performs. Is it a core element of New Testament theology, or is it largely rhetorical language that performs some other function?

One of the great insights of the twentieth century was that the meaning of words is a function of how they are used. [1] Meaning is far more in what words do rather than in some static content they contain. J. L. Austin used the example of saying "I do" at a wedding. [2] These words effectively marry a couple, a function that goes far beyond the simple meaning of the two words.

So, if we wish to understand predestination language in the various writings of the New Testament, we need to know what those words were doing. Was their function to make a theological statement, or was it primarily something else? For example, did that language primarily point to God being in control of everything? Was it to express the great value God places on those who follow him?

A couple more examples may be helpful. A person may say a good many words when they are afraid. The particular words themselves may not actually be the point but rather the fact that they are deeply afraid. Anyone who has participated in a marital spat might testify that things can be said that are not really meant in terms of the words themselves. Rather, their function may be to express hurt, insecurity, or anger.

2. We might begin with 1 Peter, perhaps the closest writing in time to Paul's letters of the other New Testament books. The very beginning of the letter describes its audience as "elect exiles... according to the foreknowledge of God by the sanctification of the Spirit" (1:1-2). The connection of God's foreknowledge with the exiles being chosen is reminiscent of Romans 8:29.

As a quick sidenote, there has been some debate in the history of the interpretation of 1 Peter as to whether these were literal or metaphorical exiles. For example, in his early work, John H. Elliott argued that the letter addressed individuals whom the Roman Empire had literally exiled. [3] However, most now take this language metaphorically, as did Elliott himself in his later work. [4] That is to say, calling the audience exiled is a reference to their marginalization within society.

Returning to 1 Peter 1:1-2, the question is what did God foreknow in this case? Did he foreknow that they would exist and chose them unconditionally and irresistably? Did God foreknow that they would exercise faith in Christ and thus plan for the Spirit to sanctify them? Or is foreknowledge and election language performing some other function?

The sense that the foreknowledge leads to obedience to Jesus might imply that the election according to foreknowledge had to do with their salvation. Later in the letter, 2:8 seems to imply that those Jews who rejected Christ were appointed to do so. These observations point toward individual predestination based on God's foreknowledge.

At the same time, the letter consistently urges its audience to choose to take certain moral actions. For example, they are not to use their freedom as an excuse to do evil (2:16). They are to be holy in their conduct (1:!5). They are to put away malice (2:1), stay way from the passions of the flesh (2:11), and turn away from evil (3:8). These instructions assume that they have a legitimate choice in what they do.

The tension in this language may suggest that language of election is doing something different than expressing literal determinism. Indeed, 2 Peter 1:10 exhorts its audience to be diligent to make its calling and election certain -- a seeming contradiction. [5] How can human effort confirm one's election if one's election is purely a matter of God's determination?

In 1 Peter, there may be a correlation between the alienation of the audience and election language. Groups that are marginalized and persecuted can easily develop a "remnant" theology where they view themselves as set apart by God amid a broader culture that has ostracized them. We find this same dynamic among the Dead Sea Scrolls, arguably written and preserved by marginalized Essenes. [6]

In this sense, the function of this language would in part be to affirm God's approval on a group that, from a worldly point of view, would seem to be an "out-group." Appearances would say, "This group is wrong. This group is odd. This group is weak and dishonored." Election language indicates rather that this group is chosen. This group is the truly valued. This group is honored.

Therefore, within that function of the language, normal imperatives implying freedom of choice would still be in play. The audience is chosen and elect, but they also exercise undetermined choice -- as do those who have rejected faith.

3. As we have seen, the Augustinian/Calvinist way of reconciling these two sets of imagery is to privilege the deterministic language and to make language of choice phenomenological. That is to say, we appear to have choice but we really do not. This is soft determinism. We behave as if we are making free choices even though we are not.

However, this approach to harmonizing the two sets of language seems anachronistic. It is nowhere expressed in the text itself. It is a philosophical solution to the puzzle that is imposed on the text.

Yet we might say the same thing of the Arminian approach that says, "God foreknows our choice and predestines us accordingly." This also seems to fill in blanks that the text does not. It seems yet another philosophical solution that is imposed on the text.

4. The books of Luke-Acts also seem to live in this tension, although they do not share 1 Peter's sense of social alienation. Acts 13:48 is a good starting point for the theology of Luke-Acts on predestination: As many as had been appointed to eternal life believed. [7] Acts is referring to those Gentiles in Pisidian Antioch who end up believing. The perfect tense is used in this verb construction, suggesting that they were appointed at some point in the past and remain appointed to the present.

Certainly on a surface level, this statement sounds like determinism. Some believed. Some did not. What made the difference? Some were appointed to believe and others were not.

Yet we also find language in Luke-Acts that could be taken to indicate the contrary. Just two verses before the verse we just quoted, Paul tells the Jews who do not believe that they have "judged themselves unworthy of eternal life" (13:46). It at least sounds like they used their agency to reject the word of the Lord -- they did it themselves.

Similarly, in Stephen's sermon in Acts 7, he indicts the leaders of Jerusalem by saying that they "always resist the Holy Spirit" (7:51). If God was determining what they chose, then this verse would be saying that God caused them to resist the Holy Spirit. This does not seem to be what Luke was saying here. The Jerusalem leaders thus seem to have agency in their rejection of the movement of the Holy Spirit.

How can we reconcile these seemingly contradictory statements in a way that would have made sense in the first century?

5. One option again is to suppose that deterministic language is expressing something other than literal predeterminism. Deterministic language was a feature of much ancient culture. We find it expressed, for example, in the Oedipus story. Oedipus' father is told that he will be murdered by his son, who will then marry his mother. Horrified, the king has his son exposed and left for dead.

But of course Oedipus grows up and hears the prophecy himself. In horror, he flees what he thinks is his hometown and, without knowing it is his true father, kills him in an encounter. He then unknowingly goes to Thebes, where he ends up marrying his mother.

Everyone in this story seems to exercise freedom of choice, and yet the end result is exactly that which is fated. Presumably, the ancients lived within this paradox of freedom that results in fate. The Stoics also believed that you could resist your fate even though it was inevitable.

While we philosophically note the apparent contradiction, the ancients apparently could use deterministic language and language of free choice without seeing the two as exclusive. If the author of Luke-Acts approached election in this way, then he may not have seen a conflict between a sense that those who came to Christ were predestined to do so and yet that they did so of their own free will.

6. Of all the Gospels, the Gospel of John has the strongest sense of determinism. Here we might consider the possibility that different New Testament authors may have had varying senses of determinism. The community that the Gospel of John first addressed may very well have been a marginalized sect within early Christianity. For example, 1 John 2:19 suggests that they were those left after a split, with the departing group possibly being more affluent (3:17).

The social conditions of John may thus be similar to those of 1 Peter with the audience feeling ostracized and marginalized -- even within the broader Christian community. We see dynamics of ostracism throughout John. For example, John 6:66 pictures many of Jesus' initial followers abandoning him. It is probably no coincidence that in the same chapter Jesus says that no one can come to him unless God first draws them (6:44). 

John 9:22 likely reflects the situation at the time the Gospel was written, where those who confessed Jesus as the Christ could be expelled from the mainstream Jewish synagogue. These social pressures seem to lie not far beneath the surface of John on the whole. Like 1 Peter, they correlate well with a strong sense of election in John.

In John 12, God blinds the eyes of certain Jews and hardens the hearts of Jesus' opponents (12:37-40). Only Jesus' sheep hear his voice (10:26-29). These are those whom God has given Jesus out of the world (17:9).

Nevertheless, we also find significant language of freedom of choice in John. John 3:16 says that "whoever" believes in him will not perish -- an apparent invitation to everyone. John 8:31-32 leaves open the possibility that someone might walk away from Jesus. John 15:6 suggests that our choices can result in God cutting us off of the vine.

Once again, we find conflicting language. Warnings indicate that we have choices to make. But there is also this overarching language of determinism. 

7. Like Luke and 1 Peter, John does not reconcile this conflicting imagery. The two sets of language do not cohere very well. Perhaps the best option, rather than forcing a harmonization philosophically, is first to accept that the ancients at this time did not see a fatal contradiction between the two sets of language. However, on a practical level, all these texts assume that we as individuals must make choices and decisions. 

Against this backdrop, deterministic language seems to perform a different function than prediction. In fact, it is "after the fact" language. How do we know whether someone was predestined? By the choices they make. The language thus affirms divine belonging and value far more than predeterminism.

[1] This insight was especially brought out by the philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889-1951), captured in his posthumous Philosophical Investigations.

[2] J. L. Austin, How to Do Things With Words, 2nd ed. (Harvard University, 1975).

[3] John H. Elliott, A Home for the Homeless: A Sociological Exegesis of 1 Peter, Its Situation and Strategy (Fortress, 1976), 34-38. 

[4] John H. Elliott, 1 Peter (Anchor Yale Bible, 2000), 109–118.

[5] It should be noted that perhaps the majority of New Testament scholars believe that 2 Peter comes from a different author than 1 Peter, meaning that election language in 2 Peter may or may not be used similarly to the way it is used in 1 Peter.

[6] E.g., 1QH 7.25-27

[7] I had a seminary professor, Dr. Joseph Wang, who ingeniously suggested that this might be a middle voice instead of a passive -- "as many as appointed themselves." However, this seems to be a case of "special pleading," using your intellect to find a way to defend the position you want to be true rather than what is actually the most likely interpretation.

Notes of my first Year at Asbury -- Reading the Bible Inductively

This is another Monday, "Notes Along the Way" post. Chronologically, the material here is just prior. My last Monday post is here.
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1. Asbury Seminary introduced me to a whole new level of professors. The professor who most took me under his wing was David Bauer. His intellect was so incisive. His approach so objective, comparatively speaking. He modeled a scientific rigor in pursuing the meaning of the biblical text that I found excilarating.

Teaching at IWU for some twenty years, I often felt the pressure of boundaries -- landmine topics to avoid. Much of this was probably self-inflicted, but I felt like I knew what subjects were most dangerous. I was always amazed at how Steve Lennox could march into a controversial subject with such confidence and emerge unscathed. Bud Bence, with a 1990s Houghton mindset dancing in his head, almost felt like he had to shake you some or you weren't getting your money's worth.

At the same time, he also had the fairly recent David Meade affair in the back of his head. A professor at Houghton, Meade had taken the position that Paul did not write the Pastorals and that several other books of the Bible were not written by the names on them. Harold Lindsell, of the Battle for the Bible fame, had written someone on the board (I think) sounding the alarm that Houghton was deviating from its evangelical glory.

When President Dan Chamberlain went to China for a semester, I understand he left instructions with Bud to fire Meade. (He himself was under pressure from the GBA of The Wesleyan Church, I believe.) Bud was the VPAA at Houghton at the time. Bud carried out the charge. From what I understand, Meade and the faculty fought back under the banner of academic freedom. That's a losing battle at a confessional school where the creed of the school is part of an agreement to come teach there. 

[Admittedly, the Wesleyan Church has no creedal line on pseudonymity. In theory, Meade only needed to affirm that the Pastoral letters were truthful and that it was a genre question not a true/false question. But instead, I understand he took the position "I'm the expert and should be allowed to follow the truth wherever it leads." Lennox, also a Houghton grad, has suggested to me that Meade's attitude tanked him more than his position. I of course was not present for any of those controversies to have a first hand opinion.]

The faculty never forgave Bud for firing Meade, and the next chance they got, they pressured Chamberlain into pushing him out. All the way around, he seemed a scapegoat. Bud felt deeply wounded and betrayed. Of course, IWU was so much the better for it. I apologize if I have massacred any of these details.

So Bud was a little nervous hiring me at IWU. He was the Division Chair of Religion when I was hired at IWU. I had also studied at Durham with Jimmy Dunn just as Meade had. (I've never met Meade. Dunn said he would never write a reference for me if Houghton ever wanted to hire me. It was a little bit of a joke when I went to work there in 2019.) 

Years later, Bud would apologize to me for his fears about me (he of course had no reason to apologize). He indicated it turned out I am much more conservative than he is. :-) 

All of that is to say that, in teaching, my hope was that if I taught students how to read the Bible in context -- how to listen to it and let it tell you what it meant -- then I wouldn't have to make controversial claims about what it meant. It would make all its claims for itself.

In practice, of course, few of my students really became fully inductive. Some did. The bread crumbs I thought I left for them to follow rarely led them anywhere different from where they started. Our paradigms are persistent. We see what our paradigms want us to see. This applies to scholars as well.

2. This "scientific method" approach to the Bible was very attractive to me at Asbury. It fit with my love of science in high school and my first year of college. And the "English Bible" method at Asbury, so ably modeled by Bauer, was quintessentially scientific in its approach.

First, you ask what the text says. You don't ask what it means yet. You absolutely do not apply it yet. You start by simply observing. What does the text say?

Then you ask what the words meant. This is a matter of its first meaning, not what the words seem to mean today. You do a word study, looking at the other places a word is used in the same language (Greek, Hebrew. or Aramaic). On a more general question, you gather evidence. In good Baconian fashion, you create a table with evidence and possible inferences. 

After exhausting evidence from the text itself, you now bring in possible historical background. You need to be careful, because the ancient world was a vast foreign country, and we only have the barest of artifacts from it. It is incredibly easy to see parallels that aren't really parallels. Only after you have done all the inductive work yourself do you bring in commentaries, which are just as likely to cloud your mind.

Now, finally, only after you have some sense of what it meant to its first audiences, do you begin to think about applying the text to today. You look for continuities between that time and our time. You also note the discontinuities. As Hays and Duvall put it, you "cross the principlizing bridge" by identifying biblical principles that you then reapply in contemporary contexts and situations.

This all smacks of modernism. This was the 80s, and postmodernism had not yet really hit. I'm all the more grateful it hadn't. Although I would come to appreciate the hermeneutical chastisement of postmodernism, it provides no real method for determining the meaning of the text. It is an incredibly helpful footnote but shouldn't be the main text. It's a muddle by its very nature. I suppose I'll get to that.

Although the inductive method I just set out is not foolproof -- not by far -- it is consummately reasonable.

3. It was also quite different from the method I grew up with, which I would come to categorize as "pre-modern." My mother's approach to interpretation -- without of course her ever knowing it -- amounted to "How can I make the evidence fit the conclusions I already have?" Her conclusions, of course, were provided by her tradition, the Pilgrim Holiness tradition.

The default for American Christians who have grown up in church is basically the same. How can we argue for the position of our group? It is a tribal hermeneutic, perfectly predictable. It's how if you're a Baptist, surprise, the Bible teaches Baptist things. If you're a Lutheran, the Bible teaches Lutheran things. And yes, if you're a Wesleyan, the Bible teaches Wesleyan things.

Of course in a Google, YouTube, Facebook, Tik Tok age, we hear a lot more than what my mother heard in her bubble growing up. In a world of verse quoting, it's easy to be affected by other traditions. The "non-denominational" church near you is basically Baptist. I always smile when some church naively thinks it's just following the Bible. Such comments simply show that the church is unreflective of its own influences and traditions.

But this would become the most important question of my first year at seminary. Would I read the Bible in a way that tried to make it say what I had grown up hearing it said? Or would I read it inductively and let it tell me what it said?

[Note that the Meade controversy didn't distinguish between the question of truth and the question of politics. Meade thought that teaching at a confessional school was a question of truth. It is -- within whatever the boundaries of the institution are. But the question of an institution is also a question of politics, which he failed at that time.]

4. Going back to college, I was struck by the clash between my pre-modern paradigm and the modernist paradigm that I would adopt at Asbury. While studying to test out of New Testament Survey, I was struck by the way Merrill Tenney's New Testament Survey talked about matters like where Thessalonica was located or what its place in the Roman Empire was. These things seemed completely irrelevant to me.

Why? Because reading the Bible at that time to me was a matter of taking an individual verse and reading the words in the light of my holiness theology. Without realizing, I understood reading the Bible to be a mirror reading of what I already thought. And I read in the King James version, as I'll soon discuss. Each verse was listed by number, not in paragraphs.

This led me to have what you might call a "memory verse" approach to the Bible. Each verse was ripped from its context and made into a philosophical proposition. The definitions I brought to each word were Pilgrim Holiness definitions -- not definitions from the Greek and Hebrew worlds in which those words were first written.

It was a completely sincere question I had back then. What does historical context matter in interpretation? Don't we just read the words and do what they say? If 1 Corinthians 11 says a woman shouldn't cut her hair, then shouldn't women not cut their hair? Funny how I didn't apply that question to greeting one another with a holy kiss!

5. A quick example of the paradigm shift I was about to undergo. My senior year of college, I wrote an honors project on the psychological aspects of holiness. It was quite impressive for the world of my background. I argued that the Spirit-fillings of Acts were second works of grace, experiences of entire sanctification. There was a day when you could still find it in the library at SWU.

At Asbury later on, under an independent study with Dr. Bauer, I would go through those same passages inductively and conclude they were all initial experiences of the Holy Spirit (except in Acts 4 of course). This was my transition from being a sectarian, traditional scholar to a more "objective," inductive scholar. I suspect that study helped me become a Teaching Fellow at Asbury. And it probably set me on a course to study with James Dunn at Durham.

But I'm getting ahead of myself.

Outlining the Letter to the Romans

Lead up to Romans
Romans 16 -- Paul's letter to Ephesus
Romans 15:14-33 -- situation of Romans
Romans 1:16-17 -- the point of the letter
Romans 1:1-15 -- the letter opening
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1. "So how do you see this letter unfolding?" Tertius asked. "What will your main points be?"

"I see there being two big sections," Paul answered. "In the first part, I want them to hear what I really teach the Gentile churches -- not what the bad rumors about me say I teach."

"What are they saying you teach?" Tertius responded.

"They think I'm telling Jews to stop keeping the Torah. They think I've betrayed God and Scripture."

"But I've heard you say that we're not under law," Tertius said.

"That's the needle we need to thread in this letter," Paul answered. "We are not judged by the Law, but because of the Spirit we keep the Law. Gentiles don't have to keep the specifically Jewish parts of the Law but the Spirit will lead them to keep the heart of the Law through his power."

"You're making my head hurt," Tertius finally said.

"The Lord will help us make it clear. The key point of the first half is that a right standing with God has always been on the basis of faith, not Law. We'll take it all the way back to Abraham to prove it. Even when I was a Pharisee, I was taught this. It is only by God's grace that any of us can be accepted by God. We keep the Law in thankfulness for his gracious forgiveness for our sins."

"So how will that argument unfold," Tertius asked.

Paul thought for a moment. "I'm thinking a three part argument. In the first part, we'll show that no one is accepted by God because of their keeping of the Law. All have sinned. Only God's grace makes acceptance by him possible. And God has administered this grace through the faithful death of Jesus -- even the Jerusalem church is fully on board with these principles."

"Then in the second part we'll directly attack the idea that I am endorsing sin. We'll show that it is only through the Holy Spirit that anyone can keep the Law. And we'll show that it is through Christ that the Spirit gives us this power. We will get back to some of the fundamentals I learned when I was first setting out to be a Pharisee -- the person who loves God and his neighbor has kept the whole Law."

"So what will your third argument be?" Tertius asked.

"In the third part of this first teaching section, I want to address directly the place of Israel in God's plan. This gets to the heart of the tension over my gospel. While Israel has a central place of honor in God's plan, they are still accepted or rejected on the basis of their faith in Christ -- not their keeping of the Law. God's plan is to bring non-Jews into the people of God, and God's in charge. They have no right to reject his plan. 

I'm convinced they will eventually come around to Jesus. But for the moment, their resistance is opening up a space for Gentiles to be saved."

"Wow, that sounds like a lot of pages, way more than a typical letter," Tertius said.

"And that's only the first half, the teaching section."

"So, what will the second half be," Tertius asked.

"The application," Paul answered. "Given that we are right with God by faith and then empowered by the Spirit to keep the heart of the Law, what does that look like?"

"And what will you say there?" Tertius followed up.

"The Spirit transforms our whole way of looking at the world," Paul said. "We love our neighbor. We honor others over ourselves. We operate in our communities like the parts of a body working together. We don't rub our freedom in other people's faces, but we act in a way that builds up others."

"Sounds like some lessons the churches here at Corinth could stand to learn," Tertius said. 

"Well, yes," Paul said. "I fully plan to read the letter to them too while I'm here."

"You're sly," Tertius said with a grin.

"I also want to put a brief statement in there about submitting to the empire," Paul added.

"Really?" Tertius answered in surprise. "But the Romans are horrible to us. They kicked Priscilla and Aquila out of the city simply for proclaiming the truth."

"I know," Paul answered. "But we want to stay on their good side. We want anyone who is well connected to be able to honestly say that Christians are good, law-abiding citizens. And, if any Roman should read the letter, it will be a reminder of what authorities at least are supposed to do."

"Again," Tertius said, "you are a sly one."

Then he continued. "This is going to be an exciting letter. The message is inspiring, and we haven't hardly even started."

"Shall we begin?" Paul said.

6.4 Predestination in Paul's Letters

This follows in the same vein as my post on Psalm 139.
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6.4.1 The Question
There is little denying that Paul used language of predestination in some of his letters. The system that Augustine and Calvin created maps to at least one side of Paul's language. The question is whether they have read that language in context or possibly ignored another aspect of his language. For example, is it possible that Paul uses both language of predestination and language that implies human freedom on some level? 

If so, one might argue that Augustine and Calvin have systematized Paul's theology in a way that has resolved unresolved tensions in Paul's thinking in only one direction. If Paul had language that supported both determinism and freedom of choice, did Augustine and Calvin systematized out of existence the choice dimension of his thinking? One might ask the same thing of those who have systematized Paul's teaching in the direction of freedom. Have they thereby underplayed Paul's language of election and predeterminism?

6.4.2 Paul's Earliest Letters
Language of predestination is not a major feature of Paul's earliest letters. Paul does tell the Thessalonians that he knew God had chosen them because of the power that accompanied his first ministry there (1 Thess. 1:4-5). But we should note that Paul does not apply this observation to individuals -- it is a collective election of the church at that location. 

Similarly, Paul does not say why God chose them. For example, Paul does not indicate that they played no role in that choosing. Could not the fact that God knew they would be receptive to the gospel have informed his choosing of them? In short, the passage gives us no information on the mechanism of God's choosing.

2 Thessalonians 2:13 indicates that God chose the Thessalonians to be the firstfruits to be saved. This is, again, a collective choosing, and the choice is about the order in which the gospel was preached. It is nothing like a statement of individual election.

Finally, Galatians 1:15-16 indicates that God had a plan for Paul that went back to the time before he was even born, perhaps echoing the imagery of Jeremiah's calling (Jer. 1:4-5). It is again important to note that Paul gives us no explanation of how this works. Calvin would interpret these comments in terms of unconditional election, with Paul's will playing no role whatsoever. However, one might easily suppose as well that God looked into the future and knew the choices Paul would make.

We might point equally to passages in Paul's earliest letters that seem to suggest some kind of "libertarian freedom," by which we mean a genuine choice for his audiences. 1 Corinthians 10:13 at least seems to suggest that the Corinthians had a choice as to whether they sinned or not when they were tempted. God provided a way of escape if they were willing. It was up to them.

2 Corinthians 9:7 indicates that the Corinthians have the freedom whether to give or not give. They were under "no compulsion." Galatians 5:13 at least sounds like it says that it is up to the Galatians as to whether they use their freedom in the Lord as an opportunity to serve each other or to gratify the sinful desires of their flesh.

However, Calvinists would simply say that we have the appearance of choice. We experience these events as moments of personal choice, but a determinism underlies it. William James promoted this option called "soft determinism" in his 1902 writing, The Varieties of Religious Experience. Philosophers sometimes call this perspective "compatibilism" because it aims to make determinism and freedom of will compatible.

Those who believe in libertarian freedom, on the other hand, might insist that James is making a distinction without a difference. Just because we experience a choice as free, it is not truly free if it is ultimately determined.

In the end, the point is once again that Paul does not work out these details. He uses language that certainly sounds like we have a genuine choice. But the Calvinist has potential explanations for that language. And the Arminian -- a school of Christian thought that believes we have a genuine choice -- has an explanation for determinist language too. [1] John Wesley (1703–1791) and the Wesleyan tradition followed Arminius in affirming genuine human freedom, especially in the context of what he called "prevenient grace" -- an empowerment by God to make such choices.

6.4.3 Romans 9-11
The locus classicus for predestination in Paul's letters is of course Romans 9. John Calvin and modern Calvinists consider this passage ground zero for understanding Paul's deterministic theology. It is the lens through which the rest of Paul's writings are read on this topic.

A few contextual notes are in order, however. The context of Romans 9 is clearly the question of God's inclusion of non-Jews, "Gentiles," into his plan of salvation. Although one can read the words of the chapter in terms of individual predestination, that is not really the point. The background is that most of Israel at that time had not accepted Jesus as their Messiah, but many Gentiles had. 

It prompted a critique. How could Jesus truly be the Messiah when most of Israel rejected him? And how did it make sense that so many Gentiles had? These are the questions that stand in the background of Paul's excursus in Romans 9-11.

Paul's answer is what we might call a remnant theology. Not all Israel, he insists, is actually Israel (Rom. 9:7). God has a plan. In that plan, God will harden the hearts of most of Israel while "grafting" the Gentiles into the people of God (11:8, 25). Then God will bring the rest of Israel back in as well (11:26).

Accordingly, election in this part of Romans is the election of groups rather than individuals. One might respond that, in order to elect a remnant, one must choose individuals within the group. That may be logically true, but it is not part of Paul's rhetoric. When Paul talks about God's election of Jacob over Esau, he is thinking about groups that God had chosen (9:10-13).

As with Paul's earlier letters, we find both language of predestination and libertarian freedom in Romans 9-11. If one only reads 9:14-24, one will come away with a strong sense of unconditional election. "I will show mercy on whom I will show mercy. And I will show compassion on whom I will show compassion." We get a stark picture of God creating some "vessels" -- humans -- just so that he can show his glory as he destroys them (9:22).

Yet, when we get to Romans 11, we do not find individuals whose destiny is fixed. Paul talks about how Gentile believers who might turn their back on God's kindness can be cut back out of the tree of the people of God (11:21-22). Meanwhile, the Jewish branches that God has cut out can be grafted back in (11:24).

This indeterminacy in relation to who is currently in or out fits far better with a libertarian view of freedom of will than with a predestination that goes back before the creation. Calvinism resolves this tension by suggesting that it is just an appearance of freedom, with the final state predetermined. Arminianism might suggest that God's predeterminism is based on his foreknowledge or that Romans 9 is more rhetorical than literal.

The first suggestion might find its basis in Romans 8:29, which says "those whom he foreknew he also prearranged to be conformed to the image of his Son in order that he (Jesus) might be the firstborn among many brothers [and sisters]." However, what seems to be predetermined here is the plan rather than individual predestination. That is to say, the plan is for those who are resurrected to be transformed into the likeness of Christ's resurrection, as 1 Corinthians 15:49 indicates. The first thus is not about individual election.

The second option seems more likely. Given that Romans 11 indicates the possibility for the elect to stop being the elect and the non-elect to become the elect, we should probably take Romans 9 as somewhat rhetorical. "What if," in other words (9:22). The point is that God is in charge and can do whatever he wants. God's plan is to let the Gentiles in by faith. Unbelieving Israel needs to deal with it.

What right has the clay to say to the potter, "What are you doing?" (9:21). So unbelieving Israel has no right to say to God, "Why are you letting the Gentiles be saved by faith without keeping the Law as we must?" God is God. God is sovereign. If God wants to save the Gentiles by faith, that is his prerogative.

6.4.4 Ephesians 1
Some of the most concentrated language of predestination language is found in Ephesians 1:

God chose us in him before the foundation of the world to be holy and blameless before him, in love having prearranged us for adoption through Jesus Christ according to the purpose of his will (1:4-5).

He made known to us the mystery of his will... which he purposed in him (Jesus) as a plan for the fulness of time... in him we received an inheritance, having been prearranged according to the purpose of the one who brings about everything according to the council of his will (1:9-11).

However, we note that these verses are not explicitly about individual predestination. All the referents are plural (e.g., "us"). Further, it is the plan that is predetermined. They are predestined to be holy. That is, everyone who is in Christ must be holy. It is part of the deal. Ephesians 1:10 explicitly means that it is the plan that is prearranged, a plan that results in the audience receiving an inheritance.

In the end, it turns out that Paul's language of predestination falls far short of the work that John Calvin and other Calvinists think it does. Yes, he does use language of predestination, but it focuses on groups and God's overall plan rather than the arrangement of individuals for (or not for) salvation. 

At the same time, he assumes choice as the primary mechanism of justification. After all, the very essence of faith is to choose to trust in God through Christ. It is to give one's allegiance to Jesus as Lord. This choice can be explained as a mere manifestation of underlying forces of predestination, but Paul never says anything of this sort.

[1] Arminianism is named after Jacobus Arminius (1560-1609), who modified the dominant Calvinism of his day to allow for libertarian freedom.

Pensée 5.4: Checks and balances are crucial in an ideal government.

Previous posts and prospective posts in this series are linked at the bottom.
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1. In the lead up to the U.S. Constitution, James Madison, Alexander Hamilton, and a man named John Jay penned the Federalist Papers. The collection is important to get a sense of the thinking that stood behind the Constitution as it stands. 

A key principle in those papers is the separation of powers among the branches of government. Madison put it this way: "If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary." However, since neither of these are the case, "Ambition must be made to counteract ambition.” [1]

Madison rightly understood human nature. Left without any boundaries, we will plow down others who stand in the way of our selfish ambition. If lying, stealing, killing will advance our own greed or thirst for pleasure, humans will do these things unless some significant boundary stands in the way.

Lord Acton put it this way: "Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men." By "great men," he means those who have the drive, the resources, the intellect, the skill, and the ability to sway the public such that they can gain power. But this drive can easily lead them to overrun, oppress, and eliminate those who stand in their way. History is the story of these men.

2. Madison and others were essentially drawing on the thinking of Montesquieu. As early as 1748 he had written, "When the legislative and executive powers are united in the same person, or in the same body of magistrates, there can be no liberty… Again, there is no liberty if the judicial power be not separated from the legislative and executive." [3]

This "separation of powers" aims to create checks and balances between the ambitions of differing individuals such that a greater good can emerge that is to everyone's advantage. The executive branch is meant to capture the efficiencies of a monarchy and efficient decision making. The legislative branch brings the collective wisdom of the nation to bear in the creation of laws. This brings in the benefits of an aristocracy.

In modern times, a Congress or Parliament is elected by the people, thus bringing in the advantages of a democracy. If one of the core functions of government is to protect the rights of the individual and aim for the greater good, then a system where the people elects its representatives is optimal because they would ideally vote in their best interests.

Finally, the judicial branch of government is meant to protect the principles of the Constitution. If the Constitution is set up properly, it will encase in fundamental law the rights of the individual as well as checks and balances against any one branch of government.

3. The United States system was the first full scale attempt to fully put Montesquieu's insights into practice in a government. Since then, parliamentary systems have played out these principles in slightly different ways. The executive is chosen from within the legislative branch, and he or she can be removed much more easily. Such leaders do not have a fixed term but can be removed at any time by a vote of no confidence.

Perhaps the biggest advantage of parliamentary systems is that the legislative branch usually requires a coalition of several parties. In the United States, the two party system regularly results in leaders that are no one's first choice. Smaller parties tend to work against the general will by dividing the majority sentiment and allowing a less desired candidate to win.

The Electoral College is an artifact of a time in US history when the will of the people was not trusted and a desire for the elite to be able to pre-empt them was kept in place. In recent decades, however, it has effectively undermined the will of the majority with increasing frequency. In one possible future, one might anticipate a constitutional amendment removing it in the next decade.

4. At present, the ideal checks and balances of the US system are dysfunctional, and it is unclear what the long term result will be. One of the first actions of the current administration was to dismantle internal watch dog elements of government -- checks on its ethics. Inspectors General were dismissed. The long-standing tradition since Watergate of the Department of Justice operating independently of the President has seemingly been abandoned. [4] 

The legislative and judicial branches have largely become rubber stamps of executive will. The legislative branch does nothing when its budgets are (illegally) not distributed as passed. Congress passes legislation it knows goes against the will of the people it represents for fear of primary challenges. The Supreme Court reverses decade and century long precedent and largely enables what many would argue is executive overreach. 

If the system holds, these things will no doubt be righted. However, it is a legitimate question as to whether the system will hold. It is at least possible that the US is in transition to another form of government. We will see.

Meanwhile, the Constitution seems now regularly violated. The Posse Comitatus Act forbids the use of the military against the civilian population. This is now happening at an increasing rate. Rights relating to arrest warrants, habeas corpus, and probable cause are now regularly being violated. An unsupervised and unregulated military force under the control of the executive branch has been given unprecedented funding by Congress. This should be quite alarming.

Ultimately, all of these things can take place because a sizeable enough portion of the American people knowingly or unknowingly supports them -- or at least are willing to look the other way. Similarly, these blocks of support are distributed in ways that facilitate the isolation of opposition.

A rule or law is only as powerful as the ability to enforce it. Similarly, "might makes right" in a fallen world. We can say that God will dispense justice in the afterlife or coming kingdom. But in the meantime, those who have the power to do what they want will do what they want.

[1] Federalist Paper #51.

[2] In a letter to Mandell Creighton in 1887.

[3] The Spirit of the Laws.

[4] Claims that this is no different from previous administrations do not seem to hold up to scrutiny. 
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1.1 We can be epistemologically certain of almost nothing.
1.2 The world outside me exists.
1.3 I exist.
1.4 Logic and math seem absolutely reliable.
1.5 Our situation requires some pragmatism.
1.6 Kant's distinction is useful.
1.7 The scientific method is useful.
1.8 The scientific method has clear limits.
1.9 Assumptions are inevitable in reasoning.
1.10 Reasoning is inevitable in thinking.
1.11 Faith can be reasonable and unreasonable.

2.1 Belief in a creator seems reasonable.

5.1 Anarchy and communism are unworkable forms of governance.
5.2 Monarchies and theocracies are unreliable. 
5.3 There are two core principles of governance.

Explanatory Notes -- Romans 1:1-15

These Explanatory Notes go along with my more informal storytelling about Romans 1:1-15 on Sunday.
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The Prescript
^1:1Paul, a servant of Christ Jesus, called to be an apostle, having been set apart for the gospel of God, ²which he promised beforehand through his prophets in the holy Scriptures.

Letters in the ancient world usually followed a certain form. Their “prescript” – the opening part of the letter – usually began with a very brief: “Sender to Recipient, greetings.” Paul’s letters are thus somewhat unique in the way that he used this opening part of the letter to highlight key truths about himself (and the audience) that were relevant to what he was about to write about.

He starts by describing himself as a servant of Messiah Jesus. If he has recently written Philippians, that is the other place he started this way. He does refer to himself as a servant of Christ within the letters of 1 Corinthians and Galatians. Although I have not used the word slave here, we should remember that the term doulos had a stronger connotation than servant does in English. Paul belongs to God and is obligated to do God’s bidding. He does not belong to himself.

The fact that “Christ” comes before “Jesus” probably implies that Paul was thinking specifically of Jesus as king. Paul is a servant of King Jesus, the Anointed One of Israel, the Messiah.

He is the “herald” or “apostle” of Jesus the king. An apostle was someone sent with a message from someone else. Paul was sent into the world with a message from the king. First of all, that message was that Jesus had risen from the dead. As an apostle, Paul was an eyewitness of the resurrection (cf. 1 Cor. 9:1). There are no more apostles of this sort anymore. Paul was the very last (1 Cor. 15:8). Jesus has not appeared to anyone in the same way since.

This word of Jesus’ resurrection was good news. It was a “gospel.” A gospel was good news of an extraordinary sort. The gospel that Jesus preached was the coming arrival of the kingdom of God (e.g., Mark 1:15). By the time of Paul writing, some twenty-five years later, more details had been filled in. The Jesus movement now knew that Jesus’ death and resurrection were a key part of that coming kingdom – Jesus was in fact the King in that kingdom! Here is the truth that ties these things together. When Jesus rose from the dead, he ascended to the right hand of God. There, God seated Jesus next to him, enthroning him as king.

This wasn’t a last-minute decision by God. God had hidden this plan in the words of the Old Testament Scriptures. More than any other passage, the earliest Christians read Psalm 110:1 in this light. “The LORD (Yahweh) said to my Lord (the Messiah), sit at my right hand until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet.”

³concerning his Son, who came from the seed of David according to the flesh ⁴and appointed Son of God in power according to the Spirit of holiness from the resurrection of the dead – our Lord Jesus Christ.

These two verses form a little snippet of poetry, Hebrew style. Hebrew did not rhyme sounds in its poetry but thought. In “synonymous parallelism,” you said something. Then you said something similar or related. In this case, the poetic snippet presents two different ways in which Jesus was the Messiah: according to the flesh and according to the Spirit.

Paul certainly could have “gone poetic” on the spot. But there is at least one feature of these two lines that is curious. Rather than refer to the Holy Spirit as usual, he uses the phrase “Spirit of holiness,” which is unique here in the New Testament. However, it was not unique within Judaism. It appears both in the Old Testament in Hebrew (e.g., Ps. 51:11) and in other places like the Dead Sea Scrolls (e.g., 1QS 9.3).

These observations lead us to think that Paul is quoting something here, an early Christian poem or creed. Given the unique way of referring to the Holy Spirit, it was likely first composed in Aramaic. Quite possibly, it is an artifact of the worship of the Jerusalem church.

Ambrosiaster, who wrote in the late 300s, indicated that the churches at Rome had a “Jewish bent.” Raymond Brown and John Meier have wondered if this comment alludes to a more Jerusalem oriented form of early Christianity. That makes sense since Paul did not found the church. It was likely founded by individuals returning to Rome from Jerusalem or traveling there in the normal course of things.

What I am getting at is that it would be rhetorically effective to quote something out of Jerusalem to a church whose primary contact with Christianity was in Jerusalem.

There are two parts to the creed. The first recognizes Jesus’ human qualifications to be Messiah. He is a descendant of David in terms of his humanity – “according to the flesh.” (Note that “flesh” has no negative connotation here.) Here is very early testimony from Paul that Jesus had a Davidic lineage, an important verification of the Gospel tradition in Matthew 1 and Luke 3.

The second part is what would distinguish the early Christian understanding from mainstream Jewish thought. Jesus’ resurrection was understood to be part of his enthronement as cosmic Messiah. Those Jews who were looking for a Messiah expected him to be an anointed human. They did not expect him to die, let alone rise again.

Jesus’ death and resurrection were thus unexpected. But once Jesus rose from the dead, his resurrection was quickly interpreted in the light of Psalm 110:1. He rose from the dead and ascended to heaven where he was enthroned at God’s right hand as Son of God in power. God “begat” him as his Son (Ps. 2:7).

Was Jesus not Son of God before this point? We can perhaps think of him as an heir apparent before that point. He is Son but he has not yet taken the throne. He is not yet Son of God in power. This is an appointment he receives after his resurrection and ascension as he sits at the right hand of God (his “session”).

It is at this point that we most meaningfully begin to call him “Lord.” Acts 2:36 proclaims that Jesus’ resurrection means that God has made Jesus both Lord and Christ. The parallelism of Romans 10:9 equates calling Jesus Lord with believing that God raised him from the dead. The hymn of Philippians 2:9-11 similarly speaks of God giving Jesus the name “Lord” as God super-exalts him after his death.

The earliest Christology thus was not an incarnation Christology but a resurrection Christology. The earliest focus of Jesus’ Lordship, royal Sonship, and his identity as Christ found its locus in the resurrection.

⁵through whom we received grace and apostleship leading to the obedience of faith among all the Gentiles on behalf of his name, ⁶among whom are you also called of Jesus Christ.
Although most interpreters of Romans currently picture a mixed audience of Jew and Gentile Christian at Rome, the rhetoric of Romans itself seems far more focused on a Gentile audience. The Gentiles are Paul’s specific calling as apostle to the Gentiles (e.g., Rom. 15:16; Gal. 2:8).

Gentiles were thus the focus of his apostleship, powered by the grace of God. Grace of course is God’s unearned favor. There are a few misconceptions of what grace was in the ancient world. For example, you could solicit it. Sometimes grace is pictured as something that God irresistibly initiates with no involvement from us at all. This is not how grace was understood at the time. Similarly, grace could be cut off if the recipient responded in a completely inappropriate way. The core idea is that such favor is unearned. The other ideas are later add ons.

The phrase “obedience of faith” indicates that faith responds. It acts in obedience. It gives its allegiance. It is not passive in the Calvinist sense of irresistible grace. It participates in the grace.

The audiences in Rome are “among” these Gentiles. And they are also called like the other Gentiles to whom Paul has ministered. Paul was called to be an apostle. The Romans have also received a call from God to become part of the people of God.

⁷To all who are in Rome, beloved of God, called to be holy. Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
This verse ends the prescript of the letter. The first six verses have expanded on the sender, Paul. Now in one verse Paul addresses his recipients and gives his characteristic greeting.

There were almost certainly multiple house churches in the city of Rome. This is certainly the case if Romans 16 was part of the letter sent to them. But even if not, Romans 16 gives us a sense of how many assemblies might be present in a large city like Rome. Some of the Roman churches may have been tenement churches. We have later evidence of churches in Ostia where individuals living next to each other took down the wall separating their houses in order to have a larger space for worship.

Paul indicates that they are beloved of God. This is of course true of all people and all believers. But although God loves us all, God loves us all as we are uniquely. They are also beloved as the churches of Rome.

They are called to believe and become part of the people of God. And they are called to be holy. They are called to be “saints.” The word saints means, “holy ones.” To be holy is to be set apart as belonging to God. And belonging to God implies a certain moral identity too – a life that does not let sin reign (e.g., Rom. 6:14).

The standard letter greeting was a single word, chairein – literally, “to rejoice.” However, from his earliest letters, Paul expanded this to “grace and peace.” The word grace (charis) is related to “greetings,” although giving it a theological twist that corresponded to one of Paul’s signature themes. The word peace corresponded to the Hebrew shalom. Paul’s greeting was thus a mirror of his mission to unite Jewish and Gentile believer into one body of Christ. It brought together a Greek and Hebrew greeting.

This grace and peace came from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Larry Hurtado has called this pairing a kind of “binitarianism.” However, the pair for Paul reflected God and his Messiah. God our Father is the One who is all in all (cf. Rom. 11:33-36; 1 Cor. 15:28). Jesus is his viceroy, his anointed king, the Son of God. He is Lord, enthroned in the heavens. He is the one who authenticates our reconciliation to God, which takes place “in Jesus’ name.”

The Thanksgiving
⁸First, I am thanking my God through Jesus Christ about you all because your faith is proclaimed in the whole world.
As we just mentioned, we can pray to God now through Jesus Messiah, for his death and resurrection has made it possible for us to be reconciled to God. He is the one who vouches for us, who testifies that we are in right standing again. Paul thanks God the Father through Jesus Christ.

The faith of the believers at Rome was apparently renowned through the whole world. Paul would have heard a good deal about their origins and story from Priscilla and Aquila when they first met at Corinth. That would have been some six or seven years previous. No doubt the couple would have stayed somewhat in touch with the happenings of the city even at a distance.

The Roman churches were a success story of the faith.

⁹For God is my witness, whom I worship with my spirit in the gospel of his Son as I am constantly making mention of you ¹⁰always in my prayers, asking if now somehow, I will succeed in the will of God to come to you.
The thanksgiving section of the letter normally followed the prescript. In it, it was customary in Paul’s letters to give thanks to God for the recipients in some way. Although these were normally features of Paul’s letters, we can assume that he meant what he said. He did pray for them regularly.

He prayed for them within the framework of his understanding of the good news. He prayed for them as he worshiped God the Father in his spirit. He worshiped God with thankfulness for the good news that Jesus was king. Although he did not plan to spend a long time with the Roman church, he believed that they had a role to play in Paul’s mission.

¹¹For I long to see you if I might impart some spiritual gift to you in order to strengthen you. ¹²And that is, to be mutually encouraged with you through both your faith and mine among one another.
Paul anticipated that a mutual edification would take place during his visit. It would be a spiritual gift exchange. Paul thought that God would use him to enrich their faith. And Paul believed that they would enrich his faith as well. This is the way the body of Christ works. We all have spiritual gifts that are meant to build each other up.

¹³Now I do not want you to be unaware, brothers [and sisters] that I often planned to come to you and I was prevented until now in order that I might have some fruit also among you just as also among the other Gentiles.
Paul has worked tirelessly spreading the good news in the eastern part of the Roman Empire. But he has apparently had Rome in the back of his mind all along. It was on his evangelistic bucket list. Yet he understood that God first wanted him to make sure that the gospel had permeated Asia, Macedonia, and Greece first. That task was now complete (Rom. 15:23).

1:14 implies that the audience is primarily Gentile. Paul is the apostle to non-Jews. He has had great fruit among the Gentiles of the east. Now he wants to have fruit among the Gentiles at Rome. Verse 14 clearly implies that Paul sees the audience as primarily non-Jew.

¹⁴Both to Greeks and barbarians, both to the wise and the foolish I am a debtor ¹⁵so the purpose for me is also to proclaim the good news to you at Rome.
The way that Paul expands on his target audience reinforces that the audience is non-Jewish. “Greeks and barbarians” refer to subcategories of Gentiles. These two groups align with stereotypes of the wise (Greeks) and the foolish (barbarians). This is the way many thought – there are the civilized Greeks and then there is everyone else.

It is time. Now is the time to present the good news to Rome too, even though his immediate audience has already believed. Paul thinks he will travel there freely after his visit to Jerusalem. Acts tells us it will not play out exactly that way. Still, he will see Rome soon enough.