Here is a textbox for one of my endlessly undone projects.
___________
Surely the author of a book is allowed to give his or her thoughts on something, even if s/he is in the minority. I personally am unable to see any intrinsic connection between actions/events and their meaning. There are connections and they are easily explained. They are just not intrinsic connections. For example, we define painful or pleasurable events as bad or good. The problem is that the same event can have the opposite significance to different individuals. And even the briefest study of culture leaves us with an extremely small common human sense of right and wrong.
This situation leads me to the conclusion that good is good because God says so, that "the good" is not entirely obvious from events themselves. The Christian definition of good relates directly to the twin values of loving God and loving neighbor. Good is that which is beneficial to ourselves, but even more so that which is beneficial to others, and ultimately that which is beneficial to humanity and God's creation as a whole.
Although the creation does not demand this understanding of the good, it makes sense. It makes sense because pleasure and pain are built in to us. It makes sense because human society prospers when we work for our mutual benefit. Humanity flourishes more the more individuals orient their life around this good.
Could God create a world where the good was defined in some other way? I personally do not see that we have any point of reference from which to answer this question. Our descriptions of the "nature" of God relate directly to how God has revealed himself in this cosmos. But the essence of God pre-dates this cosmos and thus is not limited by the rules of this cosmos. In my opinion, therefore, to think we have God's nature figured out, other than to speak of it in relation to this cosmos, is insanity.
Good is good because God says so in this particular cosmos. To say otherwise is anthropomorphism.
Saturday, July 02, 2011
Friday, July 01, 2011
What do you do with thirty minutes?
It's settled. In 30 minutes we're going to watch Unknown. So what to do with thirty minutes? Not a thing on TV I'm interested in. How about start my 31st novel (I don't actually know how many I've started... I know I haven't finished a one...)
________
I must have nodded off, but the majestic voice at the front of the room jarred me from my nap. Where was I? It was obviously a university class room, like the ones I had in college.
The room was packed--I venture to say not a single seat was empty. The crowd was full of people from all sorts of places. I swear half of them looked familiar, like I had seen them somewhere before. I would have looked more but the voice from the front was so captivating my attention immediately fastened on it.
"Everything is quite out of sorts," he said. "I could fix it of course but this is my day off. You all think you're rather smart. At least that's what you've all been telling people. Let's see how well you do with it."
I couldn't quite see the figure speaking. I for one didn't remember ever telling anyone I was quite that smart. Well, maybe I told my younger sister that once to trick her into getting in trouble.
"There's plenty of stuff lying around the building to get everything up and running again. So, good luck. I'll check back tomorrow to see how you've done with it."
And with that I assume he'd gone. At least it wasn't as bright at the front of the room as before. I looked around to see what the crowd would do. Most were looking around a little bewildered like I was.
But soon a bald headed man in a skirt--or was it a toga--jumped up on the stage. "Now look," he started in. "Before we can get going on this thing we're going to have to plan it all out in our heads. Only then can we begin to put the visible cosmos back together. I'm going to go contemplate it out. Just wait here until I have everything ready in my head."
Then he disappeared off the stage to the left, and the room resumed chattering as if he hadn't said anything. But hardly a second passed before another man, also in a toga, jumped on stage. "Right, just ignore him. I for one am going to take a look around the building and see what I have to work with."
There were a number of nods, a cadre of assenting tones, and a little more than half the room got out of their seats. The others seemed rather deep in thought. I still was quite uncertain exactly where I was or what was going on, but I followed the people near me out a side door and into a hallway.
Countless other hallways seemed to branch off from the hallway I was in, and they in turn seemed to branch off into countless other hallways. I tried to remember how I'd come to where I was, so I might get back. But to be honest, I'm not sure where I had been in the first place.
I chanced upon several arguing over something or another in one of the hallways. "There must be a switch somewhere," she said. "We cannot even begin to do anything unless there is something instead of nothing."
"But there already is something," someone responded. "He told us there were lots of things already here in these halls. We're not completely starting over. It's just all discombobulated and needs put back together."
"So we have something from nothing," she said, as if moving down a checklist. "And I suspect that zero was the first thing he created."
"Yes, yes," another impatiently said.
"Then he probably made 1."
"Very important."
"And from that you have all the integers," she continued.
It was a very interesting discussion, but I continued on my way. I came upon another group very busily putting together a series of lines going in three different directions...
_________
Ok... movie time...
________
I must have nodded off, but the majestic voice at the front of the room jarred me from my nap. Where was I? It was obviously a university class room, like the ones I had in college.
The room was packed--I venture to say not a single seat was empty. The crowd was full of people from all sorts of places. I swear half of them looked familiar, like I had seen them somewhere before. I would have looked more but the voice from the front was so captivating my attention immediately fastened on it.
"Everything is quite out of sorts," he said. "I could fix it of course but this is my day off. You all think you're rather smart. At least that's what you've all been telling people. Let's see how well you do with it."
I couldn't quite see the figure speaking. I for one didn't remember ever telling anyone I was quite that smart. Well, maybe I told my younger sister that once to trick her into getting in trouble.
"There's plenty of stuff lying around the building to get everything up and running again. So, good luck. I'll check back tomorrow to see how you've done with it."
And with that I assume he'd gone. At least it wasn't as bright at the front of the room as before. I looked around to see what the crowd would do. Most were looking around a little bewildered like I was.
But soon a bald headed man in a skirt--or was it a toga--jumped up on the stage. "Now look," he started in. "Before we can get going on this thing we're going to have to plan it all out in our heads. Only then can we begin to put the visible cosmos back together. I'm going to go contemplate it out. Just wait here until I have everything ready in my head."
Then he disappeared off the stage to the left, and the room resumed chattering as if he hadn't said anything. But hardly a second passed before another man, also in a toga, jumped on stage. "Right, just ignore him. I for one am going to take a look around the building and see what I have to work with."
There were a number of nods, a cadre of assenting tones, and a little more than half the room got out of their seats. The others seemed rather deep in thought. I still was quite uncertain exactly where I was or what was going on, but I followed the people near me out a side door and into a hallway.
Countless other hallways seemed to branch off from the hallway I was in, and they in turn seemed to branch off into countless other hallways. I tried to remember how I'd come to where I was, so I might get back. But to be honest, I'm not sure where I had been in the first place.
I chanced upon several arguing over something or another in one of the hallways. "There must be a switch somewhere," she said. "We cannot even begin to do anything unless there is something instead of nothing."
"But there already is something," someone responded. "He told us there were lots of things already here in these halls. We're not completely starting over. It's just all discombobulated and needs put back together."
"So we have something from nothing," she said, as if moving down a checklist. "And I suspect that zero was the first thing he created."
"Yes, yes," another impatiently said.
"Then he probably made 1."
"Very important."
"And from that you have all the integers," she continued.
It was a very interesting discussion, but I continued on my way. I came upon another group very busily putting together a series of lines going in three different directions...
_________
Ok... movie time...
I must be exhausted...
It's 8:45pm. I have tons to do. Behind on almost everything as usual. I want to write but have nothing to say. Most of family is out or preoccupied. Brain is empty (probably always is). Body not quite ready to sleep (had a nap earlier). Don't feel like walking or running. Don't feel like sitting outside. I don't even feel like making coffee.
I guess it's channel surfing for the indefinite future...
Ever feel that way?
I guess it's channel surfing for the indefinite future...
Ever feel that way?
The State of Virtue
Recent times have seen a shift in many circles back toward a more virtue based approach to ethics. Alistair MacIntyre, in a landmark book called After Virtue, argued that the Western world has lost its ethical way. [1] “We have—very largely, if not entirely—lost our comprehension, both theoretical and practical, of morality.” [2] For MacIntyre, modern morality is a collection of incoherent, fragmented survivals from the virtue oriented tradition of Aristotle. [3] Whether you agree with MacIntyre or not, he highlights a key question: Are good and evil real? Are virtues something real and “intrinsic” to life, built-in to reality, if you would? Or are they simply a matter of human feeling or cultural perception?
Earlier in the chapter, we mentioned David Hume’s sense that an uncrossable gulf existed between “facts” and “values.” How do we get from “you killed someone” to “you should not have killed someone.” MacIntyre points out that a lot of ethical theory in the early twentieth century amounted to “You shouldn’t kill people because we don’t feel good about such things,” a theory of ethics called “emotivism.”
Immanuel Kant had tried to address Hume’s fact-value problem by suggesting that morality was one of the innate, “built-in” categories of our minds. He thought it was a matter of logical reasoning. All we need to do is think through what course of action would make sense at any time and place, and we have the Golden Rule. However, Kant’s ethic has been far from convincing to very many people.
We might also mention another question philosophers have tossed around since the ancient Greeks. Plato put it this way, “Is the holy loved by the gods because it is holy? Or is it holy because it is loved by the gods?” [4] You could also put the dilemma in this way, “Is good good because God says so, or does God say it’s good because it’s good.” It is a “which came first” question. Has God created good, as it were, by his command, to where he could make murder the right thing to do if he wanted or perhaps he could create an alternative universe where murder was good? Or is good a standard that God himself must follow, to where if God were to have someone like Abraham to murder his son Isaac, he would be guilty of a crime?
The one approach is called “divine command theory” (DCT). It sees good as a question of what God commands. There is no intrinsic good or evil to the creation. Rather, good is whatever God wants it to be. Most Christian thinkers have opted for something closer to the second option, perhaps suggesting that God’s “nature” is good, and therefore that he has built within himself an absolute definition of good.
Those who take different positions on the question of "intrinsic morality" can make their "base camp" in differing Scriptures. Those who favor DCT point out that God often seems to command things in the Old Testament that would be immoral if any of us did them. The instance of God commanding Abraham to sacrifice Isaac is usually mentioned (Genesis 22). And, for that matter, there is the instance of God commanding the Israelites to slaughter everyone down to the children and animals of the Canaanites (e.g., Josh. 6:17-21).
On the other hand, James 1:13 says that God cannot be tempted with evil. Hebrews 6:18 says that it is impossible for God to lie. And we have various indications in Scripture that the understanding of divine agency gained in precision as we move from the older parts of the Old Testament to the later ones and then into the New Testament. For example, the earlier 2 Samuel 24:1 says that God did something that the later 1 Chronicles 21:1 says Satan did!
Then again, the apostle Paul makes the morality of eating meat that might have been offered to an idol a matter of personal conscience (Rom. 14:5-8). Food for him is neither clean nor unclean (a development in understanding from Leviticus) but its status depends on whether the person eating thinks it is clean or unclean. One might use this line of thought to argue for a form of DCT in which what is good and evil is a question of how God thinks about it.
However, most Christian thinkers see a much more substantial connection between the nature of God and what is good or evil in this world. Historic Christianity has emphasized that "goodness" is one of God's attributes and thus that goodness is thus something intrinsic to his creation, even if it is currently marred by sin. This connection would thus give a fixed point by which to judge what is good and evil in the world.
_____
[1] Alasdair MacIntyre, After Virtue: A Study in Moral Theory. 2nd ed. (London: Duckworth, 1985).
[2]After Virtue, 2.
[3] After Virtue, 257.
[4] Euthyphro, 10a.
Earlier in the chapter, we mentioned David Hume’s sense that an uncrossable gulf existed between “facts” and “values.” How do we get from “you killed someone” to “you should not have killed someone.” MacIntyre points out that a lot of ethical theory in the early twentieth century amounted to “You shouldn’t kill people because we don’t feel good about such things,” a theory of ethics called “emotivism.”
Immanuel Kant had tried to address Hume’s fact-value problem by suggesting that morality was one of the innate, “built-in” categories of our minds. He thought it was a matter of logical reasoning. All we need to do is think through what course of action would make sense at any time and place, and we have the Golden Rule. However, Kant’s ethic has been far from convincing to very many people.
We might also mention another question philosophers have tossed around since the ancient Greeks. Plato put it this way, “Is the holy loved by the gods because it is holy? Or is it holy because it is loved by the gods?” [4] You could also put the dilemma in this way, “Is good good because God says so, or does God say it’s good because it’s good.” It is a “which came first” question. Has God created good, as it were, by his command, to where he could make murder the right thing to do if he wanted or perhaps he could create an alternative universe where murder was good? Or is good a standard that God himself must follow, to where if God were to have someone like Abraham to murder his son Isaac, he would be guilty of a crime?
The one approach is called “divine command theory” (DCT). It sees good as a question of what God commands. There is no intrinsic good or evil to the creation. Rather, good is whatever God wants it to be. Most Christian thinkers have opted for something closer to the second option, perhaps suggesting that God’s “nature” is good, and therefore that he has built within himself an absolute definition of good.
Those who take different positions on the question of "intrinsic morality" can make their "base camp" in differing Scriptures. Those who favor DCT point out that God often seems to command things in the Old Testament that would be immoral if any of us did them. The instance of God commanding Abraham to sacrifice Isaac is usually mentioned (Genesis 22). And, for that matter, there is the instance of God commanding the Israelites to slaughter everyone down to the children and animals of the Canaanites (e.g., Josh. 6:17-21).
On the other hand, James 1:13 says that God cannot be tempted with evil. Hebrews 6:18 says that it is impossible for God to lie. And we have various indications in Scripture that the understanding of divine agency gained in precision as we move from the older parts of the Old Testament to the later ones and then into the New Testament. For example, the earlier 2 Samuel 24:1 says that God did something that the later 1 Chronicles 21:1 says Satan did!
Then again, the apostle Paul makes the morality of eating meat that might have been offered to an idol a matter of personal conscience (Rom. 14:5-8). Food for him is neither clean nor unclean (a development in understanding from Leviticus) but its status depends on whether the person eating thinks it is clean or unclean. One might use this line of thought to argue for a form of DCT in which what is good and evil is a question of how God thinks about it.
However, most Christian thinkers see a much more substantial connection between the nature of God and what is good or evil in this world. Historic Christianity has emphasized that "goodness" is one of God's attributes and thus that goodness is thus something intrinsic to his creation, even if it is currently marred by sin. This connection would thus give a fixed point by which to judge what is good and evil in the world.
_____
[1] Alasdair MacIntyre, After Virtue: A Study in Moral Theory. 2nd ed. (London: Duckworth, 1985).
[2]After Virtue, 2.
[3] After Virtue, 257.
[4] Euthyphro, 10a.
Thursday, June 30, 2011
Christian Virtue
Juggling my writing commitments poorly...
Christian Virtue
Of the three main types of ethical theory--duty based, consequence based, and virtue based--we will not be surprised to find that the New Testament is primarily virtue oriented. We are not surprised because, as we have seen, ancient ethics in general was primarily virtue based. It is not that we do not find ethical duties in the New Testament--"Stay away from sexual immorality" (1 Thess. 4:3, CEB), for example. It is not that we do not find interest in consequences--"Strive for the things that bring peace and the things that build each other up" (Rom. 14:19 CEB). It is only that the primary ethical interest is in virtues like faith, hope, and love (e.g., 1 Cor. 13:13).
Accordingly, New Testament ethics tends to focus more on a person's character and motives than on his or her specific actions or the consequences of those actions. To be sure, we find enough commands and prohibitions in the Bible that various currents within Christian tradition have focused from time to time more on duties than character. For example, many Christian circles in the United States today focus heavily on exceptionless ethical absolutes and despise any thought of ethical relativisms. By emphasizing such things, such currents tend more toward a duty-based approach to ethics than a virtue based one.
One interesting twist on a duty oriented Christian framework are those traditions that process the death of Jesus in primarily legal terms. In one scenario, God's justice is understood in such duty-oriented terms that he could not possibly forgive any debt or wrong against him unless someone from the guilty party pays him in full. Accordingly, Jesus must become human because a human must pay God back, and Jesus must suffer the full punishment of every single sin for which he atones.
This line of thinking takes one picture of God in the Bible--that of Judge--and fills in the philosophical picture of atonement (the means by which humanity is reconciled to God) with God as a duty-oriented ethicist. Of course, such systems then flip the basis of God's judgment. Because Jesus has paid the debt in full, believers are no longer judged at all on the basis of their actions. God's legal judgment is based solely on his consideration of Jesus. The basis of God's ethical assessment is still duty based. It is just that Jesus is the one God legally assesses.
A more virtue based approach might focus on God's character as one of love, graciousness, and faithfulness. [1] It might invoke the Parable of the Prodigal Son as a better illustration of the character of God (Luke 15). In this story, a father forgives his son of his recklessness and the insult of the son asking for his inheritance before his father had even died. There is no legal exchange, no act of atonement. The father simply forgives because of his love for the son.
Indeed, although there is clearly duty language within the New Testament, the primary orientation of Jesus and Paul seems around a person's heart and intentions. In Mark 7:18-23, Jesus says, "'Do you not see that whatever goes into a person from outside cannot defile, since it enters, not the heart but the stomach, and goes out into the sewer?' (Thus he declared all foods clean.) And he said, 'It is what comes out of a person that defiles. For it is from within, from the human heart, that evil intentions come: fornication, theft, murder, adultery, avarice, wickedness, deceit, licentiousness, envy, slander, pride, folly. All these evil things come from within, and they defile a person.'" (NRSV).
This is a vice list, the opposite of a virtue list. Jesus is basically saying that either virtue or vice flows out of a person's character. To be clean or unclean is not so much a matter of external actions but a matter of what is inside a person.
Similarly, Paul speaks of the fruit of the Spirit being "love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. There is no law against such things (Gal. 5:22-23, NRSV). This is a virtue list, and Paul says it flows naturally from God's Spirit being inside us. When Paul comes close to defining sin, he says that "whatever does not proceed from faith is sin" (Rom. 14:23, NRSV). His sense of what sin is for a believer is thus not primarily a matter of violating a law but of a life that does not reflect the right character.
The New Testament does encapsulate the entirety of human duty into two commands, as we said earlier in the chapter: Love God and love neighbor. These two duties indicate the appropriate motivations of a Christian's character. The heart of a Christian should be one that it oriented around helping and not hurting all others in every way. In terms of God, the heart of a Christian should be one that does everything "for the glory of God" (1 Cor. 10:31).
Here many will try to sneak back in a more duty-oriented framework. Loving God, some might say, involves keeping this list of laws for their own sake. Perhaps so, but some strong cautions are in order. First, loving God never contradicts loving our neighbor or enemy. It is not--"I must love my neighbor unless he is a homosexual, for love of God requires me to hate homosexuals." The love of God does not work this way but reinforces the love of my neighbor and enemy. It hopes for the redemption of my enemy even if my enemy is seeking to harm me.
However, love of God does contradict an inordinate focus on myself. It requires me to shift from myself being the focus of all my actions to God and his desire for the greater good. I cannot excuse selfishness or actions done in private simply because they do not harm my neighbor or enemy. A heart oriented toward God is a heart that is not oriented toward myself.
[1] Recovering the Scandal of the Cross
Christian Virtue
Of the three main types of ethical theory--duty based, consequence based, and virtue based--we will not be surprised to find that the New Testament is primarily virtue oriented. We are not surprised because, as we have seen, ancient ethics in general was primarily virtue based. It is not that we do not find ethical duties in the New Testament--"Stay away from sexual immorality" (1 Thess. 4:3, CEB), for example. It is not that we do not find interest in consequences--"Strive for the things that bring peace and the things that build each other up" (Rom. 14:19 CEB). It is only that the primary ethical interest is in virtues like faith, hope, and love (e.g., 1 Cor. 13:13).
Accordingly, New Testament ethics tends to focus more on a person's character and motives than on his or her specific actions or the consequences of those actions. To be sure, we find enough commands and prohibitions in the Bible that various currents within Christian tradition have focused from time to time more on duties than character. For example, many Christian circles in the United States today focus heavily on exceptionless ethical absolutes and despise any thought of ethical relativisms. By emphasizing such things, such currents tend more toward a duty-based approach to ethics than a virtue based one.
One interesting twist on a duty oriented Christian framework are those traditions that process the death of Jesus in primarily legal terms. In one scenario, God's justice is understood in such duty-oriented terms that he could not possibly forgive any debt or wrong against him unless someone from the guilty party pays him in full. Accordingly, Jesus must become human because a human must pay God back, and Jesus must suffer the full punishment of every single sin for which he atones.
This line of thinking takes one picture of God in the Bible--that of Judge--and fills in the philosophical picture of atonement (the means by which humanity is reconciled to God) with God as a duty-oriented ethicist. Of course, such systems then flip the basis of God's judgment. Because Jesus has paid the debt in full, believers are no longer judged at all on the basis of their actions. God's legal judgment is based solely on his consideration of Jesus. The basis of God's ethical assessment is still duty based. It is just that Jesus is the one God legally assesses.
A more virtue based approach might focus on God's character as one of love, graciousness, and faithfulness. [1] It might invoke the Parable of the Prodigal Son as a better illustration of the character of God (Luke 15). In this story, a father forgives his son of his recklessness and the insult of the son asking for his inheritance before his father had even died. There is no legal exchange, no act of atonement. The father simply forgives because of his love for the son.
Indeed, although there is clearly duty language within the New Testament, the primary orientation of Jesus and Paul seems around a person's heart and intentions. In Mark 7:18-23, Jesus says, "'Do you not see that whatever goes into a person from outside cannot defile, since it enters, not the heart but the stomach, and goes out into the sewer?' (Thus he declared all foods clean.) And he said, 'It is what comes out of a person that defiles. For it is from within, from the human heart, that evil intentions come: fornication, theft, murder, adultery, avarice, wickedness, deceit, licentiousness, envy, slander, pride, folly. All these evil things come from within, and they defile a person.'" (NRSV).
This is a vice list, the opposite of a virtue list. Jesus is basically saying that either virtue or vice flows out of a person's character. To be clean or unclean is not so much a matter of external actions but a matter of what is inside a person.
Similarly, Paul speaks of the fruit of the Spirit being "love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. There is no law against such things (Gal. 5:22-23, NRSV). This is a virtue list, and Paul says it flows naturally from God's Spirit being inside us. When Paul comes close to defining sin, he says that "whatever does not proceed from faith is sin" (Rom. 14:23, NRSV). His sense of what sin is for a believer is thus not primarily a matter of violating a law but of a life that does not reflect the right character.
The New Testament does encapsulate the entirety of human duty into two commands, as we said earlier in the chapter: Love God and love neighbor. These two duties indicate the appropriate motivations of a Christian's character. The heart of a Christian should be one that it oriented around helping and not hurting all others in every way. In terms of God, the heart of a Christian should be one that does everything "for the glory of God" (1 Cor. 10:31).
Here many will try to sneak back in a more duty-oriented framework. Loving God, some might say, involves keeping this list of laws for their own sake. Perhaps so, but some strong cautions are in order. First, loving God never contradicts loving our neighbor or enemy. It is not--"I must love my neighbor unless he is a homosexual, for love of God requires me to hate homosexuals." The love of God does not work this way but reinforces the love of my neighbor and enemy. It hopes for the redemption of my enemy even if my enemy is seeking to harm me.
However, love of God does contradict an inordinate focus on myself. It requires me to shift from myself being the focus of all my actions to God and his desire for the greater good. I cannot excuse selfishness or actions done in private simply because they do not harm my neighbor or enemy. A heart oriented toward God is a heart that is not oriented toward myself.
[1] Recovering the Scandal of the Cross
Wednesday, June 29, 2011
Unintentional Wrongs
So is it possible to do evil without knowing it or without intending it? It is certainly possible to wrong another person without knowing or intending it. The Old Testament certainly has a category of unintentional sin. In fact, the Levitical system of sacrifices primarily provided for unintentional sin (e.g., Num. 15:22-31). We can infer from the stories of the Old Testament that there was atonement for intentional sin (e.g., when David sinned with Bathsheba), but this fact is not at all clear from the sacrificial instructions of Leviticus and Numbers themselves.
However, the New Testament shows little interest in this category. The "sins committed in ignorance" in Hebrews 9:7 relate to the time before the audience was "enlightened" (e.g., 6:4), before they experienced the Spirit and confessed Jesus as Messiah. The kind of wrongdoing that is of interest to the New Testament is not a vague violation of anything that "misses the mark" or anything short of absolute perfection. Rather, it is wronging others, particularly intentionally, and knowingly doing wrong.
Paul puts it this way, "Everything that does not come from faith is sin" (Rom. 14:23). What he means by that is when you are seriously unsure something is okay for you to do before God and you do it anyway, you are sinning. You are doing wrong. The knowledge of what you are doing is key.
Similarly, James 4:17 gives us a classic definition of what we might call "sins of omission," when you do not do something you know you should. "Anyone, then, who knows the right thing to do and fails to do it, commits sin" (NRSV). In both these cases, the key to what it means to sin or do wrong is not so much the violation of a rule but the intent to violate a rule. [1]
The point is that sin is overwhelmingly a question of intent and motive in the New Testament. It is not primarily some legalistic measurement against an absolute standard. One can wrong another person unintentionally or unknowingly. These kinds of incidences can be called sin, but they are important to God because of what they do to the other person rather than as a matter of great concern for God in relation to you.
Biblically, one can also unknowingly or unintentionally do things that are wrong according to God, even though they do not wrong your neighbor. It is important to recognize this category as very obscure in the New Testament. The NIV 2011 of Romans 5:13-14 says, "sin is not charged against anyone’s account where there is no law. Nevertheless, death reigned from the time of Adam to the time of Moses, even over those who did not sin by breaking a command, as did Adam." Paul seems to say that there were consequences for such sinning, even though God did not consider such individuals guilty in a moral sense.
In other words, Paul seems to support our claim even here, namely, that the question of guilt and the question of morality has to do with knowingly doing wrong. Unintentional wrongs we might do are thus not evil, even though we can consider them wrongdoing, even sin. A person could unintentionally kill someone in an incredibly tragic way. But if it was truly unintentional--and not involving any inappropriate choices on our part--then technically we would not call it evil. [2]
It is also clear here that the popular notion that "all sin is sin" is also unbiblical to the core. If by the idea that "all sin is sin" you mean that, before God forgives our past sins, one sin drives us to God's forgiveness just as much as any other sin, this would be correct. However, since God looks at sin primarily in terms of our intentions, it would not be true to say that God looks on all wrongdoing the same after we have believed.
As an example, you can wrong your spouse in many different ways in a marriage. For example, a husband could forget his wife's birthday. But this "wronging" of your spouse is of quite different moral significance than a husband cheating on his spouse with another woman. [3] The level of intention and actual wrong to the wife is of a completely different level. The relationship can easily survive missing a birthday. It may or may not survive an affair.
In the same way, both God's evaluation of wrongdoing and the consequences of wrongdoing can vary widely. Paul does not kick the arrogant and spiritually immature out of the Corinthian church. He does, however, kick out the man sleeping with his step-mother. The level of the sin correlates with the intensity of the wrong done and the level of intentionality.
The ancient model of patrons and clients gives us great insight into how such things likely worked in Paul's mind. Words like grace (charis) and gifts (charismata) from God are terms of patronage. You did not earn the graciousness of an ancient patron. The gift was always disproportionate to anything you might do for the patron. But you could solicit patronage.
Similarly, gifts of patronage technically came without payment, but this fact does not mean there were no expectations. There were informal rather than formal strings attached. At the very least, the patron expected to be praised and given honor for his or her giving. If you were ungrateful, you certainly would not continue to receive patronage.
This model corresponds well to what we find in Paul. Our right standing before God is a gift of grace from God. We solicit it with our faith but we cannot earn it. God does have certain expectations of us thereafter. Those who do not press on will not win the prize of God's "upward call" in resurrection (Phil. 3:14). Those who do not discipline their bodies to win the contest will be disqualified (1 Cor. 9:24-27). Those who insult the Spirit of grace will find themselves with no sacrifice for sins left (Heb. 10:26-31).
The notion that "all sin is sin" is thus unbiblical when applied to wrongdoing after individuals are forgiven their past sins. Sin rather becomes almost entirely a matter of one's intent to do wrong. It becomes a relational issue. Some wrongdoing, such as sins of surprise, are more a matter of neglect than high intention and have less immediate effect on one's relationship with God our divine Patron. Other sins may involve such a high level of intentionality in wrongdoing that they would revoke God's patronage all together and sever our relationship with God.
Accordingly, unintentional and unknowing wrongs do not fall under our definition of evil. Things that happen and things that are done unknowingly can have very bad consequences. But for them to fall under the "problem of evil," they must be things a moral agent intends to do on some level.
[1] Here it is probably worth pointing out a common misinterpretation of Romans 3:23. The New Living Translation interprets this verse to say that all have sinned by falling short of "God's glorious standard." But in fact, what Paul is saying is that all lack the glory of God, a glory God created humanity to have at the beginning (cf. Ps. 8:5) and that we hope to receive when Christ returns (e.g., Rom. 5:2; 8:18).
[2] In our world, drunk driving almost always does involve inappropriate choices. So if a person were to kill someone else unintentionally while driving drunk, such a wrongdoing is a moral act because it has involved a prior choice to drink and drive. It falls under Wesley's category of a "sin of surprise."
[3] On the other hand, a one time "sin of surprise" in forgetting your spouse's birthday can become more an more of a "high handed" sin if you do not do something about it. Sins of neglect, when not addressed, quickly become sins of intent.
However, the New Testament shows little interest in this category. The "sins committed in ignorance" in Hebrews 9:7 relate to the time before the audience was "enlightened" (e.g., 6:4), before they experienced the Spirit and confessed Jesus as Messiah. The kind of wrongdoing that is of interest to the New Testament is not a vague violation of anything that "misses the mark" or anything short of absolute perfection. Rather, it is wronging others, particularly intentionally, and knowingly doing wrong.
Paul puts it this way, "Everything that does not come from faith is sin" (Rom. 14:23). What he means by that is when you are seriously unsure something is okay for you to do before God and you do it anyway, you are sinning. You are doing wrong. The knowledge of what you are doing is key.
Similarly, James 4:17 gives us a classic definition of what we might call "sins of omission," when you do not do something you know you should. "Anyone, then, who knows the right thing to do and fails to do it, commits sin" (NRSV). In both these cases, the key to what it means to sin or do wrong is not so much the violation of a rule but the intent to violate a rule. [1]
The point is that sin is overwhelmingly a question of intent and motive in the New Testament. It is not primarily some legalistic measurement against an absolute standard. One can wrong another person unintentionally or unknowingly. These kinds of incidences can be called sin, but they are important to God because of what they do to the other person rather than as a matter of great concern for God in relation to you.
Biblically, one can also unknowingly or unintentionally do things that are wrong according to God, even though they do not wrong your neighbor. It is important to recognize this category as very obscure in the New Testament. The NIV 2011 of Romans 5:13-14 says, "sin is not charged against anyone’s account where there is no law. Nevertheless, death reigned from the time of Adam to the time of Moses, even over those who did not sin by breaking a command, as did Adam." Paul seems to say that there were consequences for such sinning, even though God did not consider such individuals guilty in a moral sense.
In other words, Paul seems to support our claim even here, namely, that the question of guilt and the question of morality has to do with knowingly doing wrong. Unintentional wrongs we might do are thus not evil, even though we can consider them wrongdoing, even sin. A person could unintentionally kill someone in an incredibly tragic way. But if it was truly unintentional--and not involving any inappropriate choices on our part--then technically we would not call it evil. [2]
It is also clear here that the popular notion that "all sin is sin" is also unbiblical to the core. If by the idea that "all sin is sin" you mean that, before God forgives our past sins, one sin drives us to God's forgiveness just as much as any other sin, this would be correct. However, since God looks at sin primarily in terms of our intentions, it would not be true to say that God looks on all wrongdoing the same after we have believed.
As an example, you can wrong your spouse in many different ways in a marriage. For example, a husband could forget his wife's birthday. But this "wronging" of your spouse is of quite different moral significance than a husband cheating on his spouse with another woman. [3] The level of intention and actual wrong to the wife is of a completely different level. The relationship can easily survive missing a birthday. It may or may not survive an affair.
In the same way, both God's evaluation of wrongdoing and the consequences of wrongdoing can vary widely. Paul does not kick the arrogant and spiritually immature out of the Corinthian church. He does, however, kick out the man sleeping with his step-mother. The level of the sin correlates with the intensity of the wrong done and the level of intentionality.
The ancient model of patrons and clients gives us great insight into how such things likely worked in Paul's mind. Words like grace (charis) and gifts (charismata) from God are terms of patronage. You did not earn the graciousness of an ancient patron. The gift was always disproportionate to anything you might do for the patron. But you could solicit patronage.
Similarly, gifts of patronage technically came without payment, but this fact does not mean there were no expectations. There were informal rather than formal strings attached. At the very least, the patron expected to be praised and given honor for his or her giving. If you were ungrateful, you certainly would not continue to receive patronage.
This model corresponds well to what we find in Paul. Our right standing before God is a gift of grace from God. We solicit it with our faith but we cannot earn it. God does have certain expectations of us thereafter. Those who do not press on will not win the prize of God's "upward call" in resurrection (Phil. 3:14). Those who do not discipline their bodies to win the contest will be disqualified (1 Cor. 9:24-27). Those who insult the Spirit of grace will find themselves with no sacrifice for sins left (Heb. 10:26-31).
The notion that "all sin is sin" is thus unbiblical when applied to wrongdoing after individuals are forgiven their past sins. Sin rather becomes almost entirely a matter of one's intent to do wrong. It becomes a relational issue. Some wrongdoing, such as sins of surprise, are more a matter of neglect than high intention and have less immediate effect on one's relationship with God our divine Patron. Other sins may involve such a high level of intentionality in wrongdoing that they would revoke God's patronage all together and sever our relationship with God.
Accordingly, unintentional and unknowing wrongs do not fall under our definition of evil. Things that happen and things that are done unknowingly can have very bad consequences. But for them to fall under the "problem of evil," they must be things a moral agent intends to do on some level.
[1] Here it is probably worth pointing out a common misinterpretation of Romans 3:23. The New Living Translation interprets this verse to say that all have sinned by falling short of "God's glorious standard." But in fact, what Paul is saying is that all lack the glory of God, a glory God created humanity to have at the beginning (cf. Ps. 8:5) and that we hope to receive when Christ returns (e.g., Rom. 5:2; 8:18).
[2] In our world, drunk driving almost always does involve inappropriate choices. So if a person were to kill someone else unintentionally while driving drunk, such a wrongdoing is a moral act because it has involved a prior choice to drink and drive. It falls under Wesley's category of a "sin of surprise."
[3] On the other hand, a one time "sin of surprise" in forgetting your spouse's birthday can become more an more of a "high handed" sin if you do not do something about it. Sins of neglect, when not addressed, quickly become sins of intent.
Tuesday, June 28, 2011
Emotions Just Are
If we follow our train of thought, it soon becomes apparent that emotions are only moral to the extent that they reflect human intention. I once heard someone put it this way, "Emotions are neither good nor bad. They just are." To the extent that emotions are a kind of automated response to what happens in the world--or even often caused by the chemistry of our bodies--they are not a matter of intention or choice. Therefore, to that degree they cannot be evil.
examples
Now, we need to be very careful here, because sometimes emotions do involve intent and thus come into the sphere of morality. This is certainly the case when it comes to what we do with our emotions. Ephesians 4:26 is an excellent picture of this truth: "In your anger, do not sin." It is thus possible to be angry and yet not sin--that is, not wrong others or do wrong. However, one can also "give way" to your anger and commit horrible crimes.
John Wesley (1703-91) also had a category for a kind of sin that happened in a moment of emotion. You did not intend to lose your cool and yell at your children in a moment of uncontrolled anger, but you have been overworking and skipped lunch. He called such sins, somewhat humorously, "sins of surprise." We can wrong others in such emotional moments. They are not pre-meditated actions, and so are less "moral" in nature than many other actions.
But they may involve choices we have made in the past. Did we have to go into work at 5am this morning or did we have to stay up so late working? Have we unnecessarily let work take too large a role in our lives? Could we have chosen to eat more healthily or did we have to skip lunch? These sorts of choices are not as heavily "moral" as some others because they do not involve significant intent to do wrong. But because they involve our choices, they do come into the realm of the moral. This is especially the case the more we know we have a problem in certain situations and yet continue to put ourselves in them.
Once again, our claim is that evil always involves intent to do wrong or to wrong others. Morality is a matter of choices. There is no such thing as unintentional or accidental evil. Evil is a matter of moral choice. Accordingly, emotions are not good or evil in themselves. It is what we do with them that brings them into the sphere of morality, as well as how our choices have led up to them. If we know we lose our temper in certain situations, then to put ourselves in those situations is to do evil of varying intensity.
examples
Now, we need to be very careful here, because sometimes emotions do involve intent and thus come into the sphere of morality. This is certainly the case when it comes to what we do with our emotions. Ephesians 4:26 is an excellent picture of this truth: "In your anger, do not sin." It is thus possible to be angry and yet not sin--that is, not wrong others or do wrong. However, one can also "give way" to your anger and commit horrible crimes.
John Wesley (1703-91) also had a category for a kind of sin that happened in a moment of emotion. You did not intend to lose your cool and yell at your children in a moment of uncontrolled anger, but you have been overworking and skipped lunch. He called such sins, somewhat humorously, "sins of surprise." We can wrong others in such emotional moments. They are not pre-meditated actions, and so are less "moral" in nature than many other actions.
But they may involve choices we have made in the past. Did we have to go into work at 5am this morning or did we have to stay up so late working? Have we unnecessarily let work take too large a role in our lives? Could we have chosen to eat more healthily or did we have to skip lunch? These sorts of choices are not as heavily "moral" as some others because they do not involve significant intent to do wrong. But because they involve our choices, they do come into the realm of the moral. This is especially the case the more we know we have a problem in certain situations and yet continue to put ourselves in them.
Once again, our claim is that evil always involves intent to do wrong or to wrong others. Morality is a matter of choices. There is no such thing as unintentional or accidental evil. Evil is a matter of moral choice. Accordingly, emotions are not good or evil in themselves. It is what we do with them that brings them into the sphere of morality, as well as how our choices have led up to them. If we know we lose our temper in certain situations, then to put ourselves in those situations is to do evil of varying intensity.
Monday, June 27, 2011
Clean or Unclean
The unclean foods and purity laws of Leviticus might seem at first glance seem to contradict the idea that morality is always a matter of someone's intentions (Lev. 11-16). After all, in Leviticus simply touching something makes you unclean. There are other instances where a person's intentions seem to be good and their touch gets them in trouble. In 2 Samuel 6, a man named Uzzah reaches out to steady the Ark of the Covenant and died immediately. Similarly, at Mt. Sinai, any animal that might have touched the mountain was to be killed (Exod. 19:13).
But as with all issues, we cannot simply appropriate one passage without consulting the rest of the Bible. Similarly, the books of the Bible are in everyday language and categories, which means that it does not express things with philosophical precision, just as it does not express things with scientific or what we would consider historical precision. When we turn to the New Testament, we find the apostle Paul saying that "I am fully convinced that no food is unclean in itself. But if anyone regards something as unclean, then for him it is unclean" (Rom. 14:14).
Paul's claim--quite surprising in the light of Leviticus--is that food in itself is morally neutral. It is the way a person thinks about the food--his or her moral intent--that makes the food clean or unclean. The matter itself is morally neutral. We can accommodate the Old Testament by saying that, during the period of the Old Testament, God considered certain foods and actions to be "unclean" in his dealings with Israel. But in the New Testament, God "declared all foods clean" (Mark 7:19), now making them clean.
Why did God consider them unclean? In itself this question potentially tells us a great deal about how God relates to the world. The instructions on animals with certain hooves or not having fins and scales seem ridiculous to us today. One explanation that has made sense to our modern mind is that these rules had to do with hygiene, and this explanation does go back at least to the time of Jesus.
However, explanations that make sense to us are as often as not anachronistic. A much more likely explanation in light of the ancient world is that these laws mirrored the way the ancient Israelites viewed the world in their socio-cultural context. [1] In other words, rather than God instituting arbitrary rules, these laws reflected God meeting the Israelites within the categories of their own day.
The food laws all imply a certain order to the Israelite world. Things in the sea should have fins and scales. Birds should fly. Blood is a power that should stay inside the body. Israelites are shepherds; other nations herd pigs. The holiness codes of Leviticus thus reflect the lines Israel drew around their world, just as all cultures draw lines and boundaries around their worlds. [2] These laws thus set Israel apart from the nations around them that served other gods. When the gospel expanded to the whole world, these boundaries became more of a hindrance than a help, and so the New Testament in effect revokes them.
But of course, though Paul takes this position on food, he does not say that everything is either clean or unclean because of how we think about it. For example, it is doubtful Paul would have talked about sexual immorality in this way. But again, Paul's writings are letters, not philosophy books. We can still extend the basic principle and account for what he says about sexual immorality in a more precise way.
The key is to bring God into the picture as we did with Leviticus. There, it was not the food that was moral in nature, but the fact that God at that time was declaring those foods unclean for Israel, meeting them within their categories, taking on their flesh, so to speak--incarnating the truth. It is thus possible that certain sexual actions would remain "unclean" in the New Testament era because God considered them unclean, regardless of the intentions of those involved (e.g., sleeping with your step-mother; 1 Cor. 5).
But we are arguing, once again, that it is not the act itself or things themselves that are unclean or morally wrong. Rather, it is either what God thinks about those acts and events or what we intend about those acts that makes them either morally good or evil. And here the principle is once again love. Can a person ever act in love toward his or her spouse and have an affair? Highly doubtful. Therefore, cheating on one's spouse is always a morally evil act--not because of the act itself, but because of the intention involved.
[1] See Mary Douglas, Purity and Danger.
[2] See The Social Construction of Reality
But as with all issues, we cannot simply appropriate one passage without consulting the rest of the Bible. Similarly, the books of the Bible are in everyday language and categories, which means that it does not express things with philosophical precision, just as it does not express things with scientific or what we would consider historical precision. When we turn to the New Testament, we find the apostle Paul saying that "I am fully convinced that no food is unclean in itself. But if anyone regards something as unclean, then for him it is unclean" (Rom. 14:14).
Paul's claim--quite surprising in the light of Leviticus--is that food in itself is morally neutral. It is the way a person thinks about the food--his or her moral intent--that makes the food clean or unclean. The matter itself is morally neutral. We can accommodate the Old Testament by saying that, during the period of the Old Testament, God considered certain foods and actions to be "unclean" in his dealings with Israel. But in the New Testament, God "declared all foods clean" (Mark 7:19), now making them clean.
Why did God consider them unclean? In itself this question potentially tells us a great deal about how God relates to the world. The instructions on animals with certain hooves or not having fins and scales seem ridiculous to us today. One explanation that has made sense to our modern mind is that these rules had to do with hygiene, and this explanation does go back at least to the time of Jesus.
However, explanations that make sense to us are as often as not anachronistic. A much more likely explanation in light of the ancient world is that these laws mirrored the way the ancient Israelites viewed the world in their socio-cultural context. [1] In other words, rather than God instituting arbitrary rules, these laws reflected God meeting the Israelites within the categories of their own day.
The food laws all imply a certain order to the Israelite world. Things in the sea should have fins and scales. Birds should fly. Blood is a power that should stay inside the body. Israelites are shepherds; other nations herd pigs. The holiness codes of Leviticus thus reflect the lines Israel drew around their world, just as all cultures draw lines and boundaries around their worlds. [2] These laws thus set Israel apart from the nations around them that served other gods. When the gospel expanded to the whole world, these boundaries became more of a hindrance than a help, and so the New Testament in effect revokes them.
But of course, though Paul takes this position on food, he does not say that everything is either clean or unclean because of how we think about it. For example, it is doubtful Paul would have talked about sexual immorality in this way. But again, Paul's writings are letters, not philosophy books. We can still extend the basic principle and account for what he says about sexual immorality in a more precise way.
The key is to bring God into the picture as we did with Leviticus. There, it was not the food that was moral in nature, but the fact that God at that time was declaring those foods unclean for Israel, meeting them within their categories, taking on their flesh, so to speak--incarnating the truth. It is thus possible that certain sexual actions would remain "unclean" in the New Testament era because God considered them unclean, regardless of the intentions of those involved (e.g., sleeping with your step-mother; 1 Cor. 5).
But we are arguing, once again, that it is not the act itself or things themselves that are unclean or morally wrong. Rather, it is either what God thinks about those acts and events or what we intend about those acts that makes them either morally good or evil. And here the principle is once again love. Can a person ever act in love toward his or her spouse and have an affair? Highly doubtful. Therefore, cheating on one's spouse is always a morally evil act--not because of the act itself, but because of the intention involved.
[1] See Mary Douglas, Purity and Danger.
[2] See The Social Construction of Reality
Saturday, June 25, 2011
The Skinny on Wesleyans and Baptism
Interestingly, The Wesleyan Church can be attractive to Baptists and Pentecostals for a number of reasons. To Baptists, it offers a very familiar low church feel with a more robust connecting network. All they have to do is deny eternal security or not bring it up. ;-) For Pentecostals, it's very similar except tongues aren't generally allowed in worship. But then again, a lot of charismatic churches don't speak much tongues in worship either.
So what do Wesleyans believe about baptism? Here's the official statement:
"We believe that water baptism and the Lord's Supper are the sacraments of the church commanded by Christ and ordained as a means of grace when received through faith. They are tokens of our profession of Christian faith and signs of God's gracious ministry toward us. By them, He works within us to quicken, strengthen and confirm our faith.
"We believe that water baptism is a sacrament of the church, commanded by our Lord and administered to believers. It is a symbol of the new covenant of grace and signifies acceptance of the benefits of the atonement of Jesus Christ. By means of this sacrament, believers declare their faith in Jesus Christ as Savior."
But official statements often don't really tell the whole story. Here's the skinny:
"Until recently, baptism has not been much of an emphasis of the Wesleyan Church. Most churches practice believer's baptism and have done it maybe once a year. You may find traces of individuals who have never been baptized or who were baptized as infants, but these are rare. Few if any would have any theology of baptismal regeneration and in practice, our sense of baptism as a sacrament has generally been somewhat weak."
Now the background:
1. One of the main predecessor churches of the Wesleyan Church (Pilgrims) had significant Quaker elements. So many of the early Pilgrims were like the Quakers or Salvation Army. They not only did not emphasize baptism. Many of them were not baptized at all. My grandfather only got baptized because he was asked to perform a baptism. He didn't think he should perform a baptism if he wasn't baptized himself.
By far the majority of Wesleyans would now say that, even though baptism does not actually save you, it is a central practice of the historic church with sacramental power. Nevertheless, we still would not believe that a person has to be baptized in order to be saved.
2. The other main predecessor church (Wesleyan Methodist) withdrew directly from the Methodist church over abolition. Accordingly, it retained the possibility of infant baptism. Again, the idea is not that such a baptism saves the child or ensures that the child will eventually be saved.
By far the majority of Wesleyans now practice believer's baptism, so much so that many would be surprised to know that it is still allowed to practice infant baptism in the Wesleyan Church. Nevertheless, my wife and I preferred for our children to be reckoned "in" the church and to have to leave it rather than to reckon them "out" until we could persuade them to come in. Dr. Bud Bence accordingly baptized our children in a Wesleyan Church.
So basically, in practice we have moved toward the Baptists, although in our theology, we neither specify the method (immersion, sprinkling, or pouring) nor the timing (believer's or infant). For Wesleyans, baptism is a sacrament in which every believer should participate, but it is neither essential for salvation nor something whose particulars we should fight about.
Were you baptized as an infant? You do not need to be re-baptized. If it would be significant for your spiritual pilgrimage, though, we will not stop you. Were you never baptized? You should very, very seriously consider it, although we will still call you a brother or sister if you choose not to.
So what do Wesleyans believe about baptism? Here's the official statement:
"We believe that water baptism and the Lord's Supper are the sacraments of the church commanded by Christ and ordained as a means of grace when received through faith. They are tokens of our profession of Christian faith and signs of God's gracious ministry toward us. By them, He works within us to quicken, strengthen and confirm our faith.
"We believe that water baptism is a sacrament of the church, commanded by our Lord and administered to believers. It is a symbol of the new covenant of grace and signifies acceptance of the benefits of the atonement of Jesus Christ. By means of this sacrament, believers declare their faith in Jesus Christ as Savior."
But official statements often don't really tell the whole story. Here's the skinny:
"Until recently, baptism has not been much of an emphasis of the Wesleyan Church. Most churches practice believer's baptism and have done it maybe once a year. You may find traces of individuals who have never been baptized or who were baptized as infants, but these are rare. Few if any would have any theology of baptismal regeneration and in practice, our sense of baptism as a sacrament has generally been somewhat weak."
Now the background:
1. One of the main predecessor churches of the Wesleyan Church (Pilgrims) had significant Quaker elements. So many of the early Pilgrims were like the Quakers or Salvation Army. They not only did not emphasize baptism. Many of them were not baptized at all. My grandfather only got baptized because he was asked to perform a baptism. He didn't think he should perform a baptism if he wasn't baptized himself.
By far the majority of Wesleyans would now say that, even though baptism does not actually save you, it is a central practice of the historic church with sacramental power. Nevertheless, we still would not believe that a person has to be baptized in order to be saved.
2. The other main predecessor church (Wesleyan Methodist) withdrew directly from the Methodist church over abolition. Accordingly, it retained the possibility of infant baptism. Again, the idea is not that such a baptism saves the child or ensures that the child will eventually be saved.
By far the majority of Wesleyans now practice believer's baptism, so much so that many would be surprised to know that it is still allowed to practice infant baptism in the Wesleyan Church. Nevertheless, my wife and I preferred for our children to be reckoned "in" the church and to have to leave it rather than to reckon them "out" until we could persuade them to come in. Dr. Bud Bence accordingly baptized our children in a Wesleyan Church.
So basically, in practice we have moved toward the Baptists, although in our theology, we neither specify the method (immersion, sprinkling, or pouring) nor the timing (believer's or infant). For Wesleyans, baptism is a sacrament in which every believer should participate, but it is neither essential for salvation nor something whose particulars we should fight about.
Were you baptized as an infant? You do not need to be re-baptized. If it would be significant for your spiritual pilgrimage, though, we will not stop you. Were you never baptized? You should very, very seriously consider it, although we will still call you a brother or sister if you choose not to.
What is Evil? 1
I have a swirl of thoughts that I've trying to organize.
1. Evil has to do with motive and intent. Many "bad" things happen that are not evil. Similarly, we can do many things with "bad" consequences without evil intent.
2. Evil intent is that which is contrary to the love command--when we act intentionally to harm others or do not act to help when we easily could have.
3. Loving God is a difficult category to clarify, because here we are prone to smuggle in a lot of do's and don'ts that work contrary to love of neighbor or are context-specific. So the command to love God principally manifests itself in our love of others. However, there is also an element of "self-displacement" involved in loving God. There are patterns of behavior that do not strictly harm others but which are self-oriented in a way that is not virtuous.
4. "Bad" has more than anything to do with consequences, not least causing human pain. We can broaden such pain to causing the creation pain. However, this is a tricky thing to spell out. Pain can serve a good purpose. It can teach us to avoid certain things. Death is not evil but natural. Humanity as a species currently has a generally harmful effect on the planet. But since we are a part of nature, is it natural?
some thoughts trying to get my juices flowing...
1. Evil has to do with motive and intent. Many "bad" things happen that are not evil. Similarly, we can do many things with "bad" consequences without evil intent.
2. Evil intent is that which is contrary to the love command--when we act intentionally to harm others or do not act to help when we easily could have.
3. Loving God is a difficult category to clarify, because here we are prone to smuggle in a lot of do's and don'ts that work contrary to love of neighbor or are context-specific. So the command to love God principally manifests itself in our love of others. However, there is also an element of "self-displacement" involved in loving God. There are patterns of behavior that do not strictly harm others but which are self-oriented in a way that is not virtuous.
4. "Bad" has more than anything to do with consequences, not least causing human pain. We can broaden such pain to causing the creation pain. However, this is a tricky thing to spell out. Pain can serve a good purpose. It can teach us to avoid certain things. Death is not evil but natural. Humanity as a species currently has a generally harmful effect on the planet. But since we are a part of nature, is it natural?
some thoughts trying to get my juices flowing...
Thursday, June 23, 2011
Psalm 69 and "fuller senses"
If any one doubts my repeated claims that the NT authors read the OT "spiritually" with more tangential interest in the original meaning, I was looking at the NT use of Psalm 69 today.
The early Christians read a number of verses from this psalm in relation to Jesus' last days in Jerusalem:
vs. 9 in relation to Jesus' action in the temple and in relation to Jesus' rejection in general
vs. 21 of the cross
vss. 22 and 25 of Judas
But consider vs. 5 where the psalmist speaks of his guilt and folly, something that clearly would not apply to Jesus. In other words, the psalm had a distinct original meaning in which a psalmist cried out to God for help. And selective verses had a "spiritual" meaning to many early Christian readers of the psalm.
So as we see over and over again, the NT authors were not wired or apparently worried to read OT texts for what they meant historically. They naturally and predominantly found "fuller senses" and figural meanings in the words. Once again we see that a historical orientation to Scripture is a relatively recent orientation.
The early Christians read a number of verses from this psalm in relation to Jesus' last days in Jerusalem:
vs. 9 in relation to Jesus' action in the temple and in relation to Jesus' rejection in general
vs. 21 of the cross
vss. 22 and 25 of Judas
But consider vs. 5 where the psalmist speaks of his guilt and folly, something that clearly would not apply to Jesus. In other words, the psalm had a distinct original meaning in which a psalmist cried out to God for help. And selective verses had a "spiritual" meaning to many early Christian readers of the psalm.
So as we see over and over again, the NT authors were not wired or apparently worried to read OT texts for what they meant historically. They naturally and predominantly found "fuller senses" and figural meanings in the words. Once again we see that a historical orientation to Scripture is a relatively recent orientation.
Devotional Sample: Romans 14:10-18
Here's another daily sample from the devotional: Our Relationships:
Title: Acting in Love
Scripture Passage: Romans 14:10-18
Introduction:
Paul makes it clear that the question of my brother or sister’s spiritual destiny is far more important than whether I am right or wrong in my position on a particular issue. You can be right on the issue and yet wrong before God.
The Core Teaching:
Paul’s comments here remind us of other places where he indicates that believers will give an account of our lives before God, just as unbelievers will (2 Cor. 5:10; Rom. 2:6). When the Romans do so, it will not matter what their position is on the question of eating or not eating meat that has been sacrificed. What will matter is whether they have acted with conviction in their own actions and acted lovingly toward others. It is none of my business if my Christian brother or sister does not feel free to do things I feel free to do. On the other hand, it is very much my business not to lead my brother or sister into temptation and to cause them to stumble.
The Word Speaks:
Paul takes a very sophisticated position on the question of food here. He does not believe that food in itself is either clean or unclean—a startling position when we consider the codes on clean and unclean in Leviticus. What makes something clean or unclean is the attitude with which you approach it. We might easily generalize this principle to all Christian ethics. It is not so much specific acts that are right or wrong but a person’s attitude in doing them. Acts that are universally wrong, like murder, are thus acts that no one could do anywhere in love. Those who act with peace and joy, as well as love of their neighbor, are the ones pleasing to God (14:17-18).
Life Reflection:
How easily Christians get the values of these verses turned around! We are convinced we are right in some belief or practice and then ironically become displeasing to God because of judgmental or hateful attitudes toward others. The irony of what Paul is saying here is that one might actually sin while doing the right thing. I might tell the truth out of hatred toward another. I might use my freedom to drink in a way that causes another believer to stumble. The Christian attitude is thus not one of “do’s” and “don’ts,” a legally oriented mind. The Christian attitude is one that filters my actions with a view to their impact on others and on the purity of my intentions in relation to God.
Responding through Prayer:
Spirit, search my heart. Make my intentions pure toward God and my actions loving toward others, even in my freedom.
Title: Acting in Love
Scripture Passage: Romans 14:10-18
Introduction:
Paul makes it clear that the question of my brother or sister’s spiritual destiny is far more important than whether I am right or wrong in my position on a particular issue. You can be right on the issue and yet wrong before God.
The Core Teaching:
Paul’s comments here remind us of other places where he indicates that believers will give an account of our lives before God, just as unbelievers will (2 Cor. 5:10; Rom. 2:6). When the Romans do so, it will not matter what their position is on the question of eating or not eating meat that has been sacrificed. What will matter is whether they have acted with conviction in their own actions and acted lovingly toward others. It is none of my business if my Christian brother or sister does not feel free to do things I feel free to do. On the other hand, it is very much my business not to lead my brother or sister into temptation and to cause them to stumble.
The Word Speaks:
Paul takes a very sophisticated position on the question of food here. He does not believe that food in itself is either clean or unclean—a startling position when we consider the codes on clean and unclean in Leviticus. What makes something clean or unclean is the attitude with which you approach it. We might easily generalize this principle to all Christian ethics. It is not so much specific acts that are right or wrong but a person’s attitude in doing them. Acts that are universally wrong, like murder, are thus acts that no one could do anywhere in love. Those who act with peace and joy, as well as love of their neighbor, are the ones pleasing to God (14:17-18).
Life Reflection:
How easily Christians get the values of these verses turned around! We are convinced we are right in some belief or practice and then ironically become displeasing to God because of judgmental or hateful attitudes toward others. The irony of what Paul is saying here is that one might actually sin while doing the right thing. I might tell the truth out of hatred toward another. I might use my freedom to drink in a way that causes another believer to stumble. The Christian attitude is thus not one of “do’s” and “don’ts,” a legally oriented mind. The Christian attitude is one that filters my actions with a view to their impact on others and on the purity of my intentions in relation to God.
Responding through Prayer:
Spirit, search my heart. Make my intentions pure toward God and my actions loving toward others, even in my freedom.
NIV 2011 and Romans 16:1
I was happy to see at least that the NIV 2011 got its head out of the sand and translated Romans 16:1 with the word "deacon." The wimpy NIV 1984 as usual wore its Calvino-evangelical theology on its sleeve and translated her as a "servant" of the church at Cenchrea. We all know this is bias. If it had been a guy, there's little question they would have identified her as a deacon in the first place.
Wednesday, June 22, 2011
"Translating" Paul's Deterministic Language
A Christian will often both begin and end with a sense of the immediacy of Scripture. God said it... that settles it. There is an immediacy of meaning and applicability.
In between, of course, is a time of learning to read its words in context. In this phase, the text can become distant because you are beginning to hear it as it was originally, someone else's mail. Paul's words had first century meanings and his audiences heard first century meanings.
Nevertheless, the goal is a kind of "second naivete" in which you can hear God directly in the words in a dance with the text, loosening it from its historical moorings in a controlled and self-conscious way, intuitively bridging the gap between that time and this time, following currents of continuity.
In practice, most Christians never go through the contextual phase, not really. In practice, most Christians apply the words directly in a way that makes sense to them (usually with their inherited Christian traditions making the sense) and only when they cannot make any sense of a passage at all do they consign it to "that time" rather than "this time."
However, in methodical circles, we speak of formulating a biblical theology, mapping the individual teachings of the Bible to each other. We map James to Paul on the question of justification by works. This mapping requires a focal point, a "clear" Scripture that we use to appropriate the "unclear" one. And of course the great diversity of Christian churches is a reflection that some groups make their base camp in different "clear" verses than others do.
All this hermeneutical spiel is meant to set background for what this post is really about, namely, formulating a biblical theology of predestination. We Protestants have historically had a tendency to set our base camp in Paul. We map Matthew and James on works to Paul rather than the other way around. Indeed, we have historically tended to give greater weight to Paul than even Jesus in the Gospels.
What I am suggesting today is that we must go the other way around when it comes to Paul's predestination language in Romans and elsewhere. There are two reasons for this:
1. Paul himself does not follow through with this language philosophically in the rest of his theology and
2. It contradicts a fundamental principle in James 1:13, namely, that God does not tempt anyone with evil.
The second is especially important. If God literally and directly hardens the hearts of people, then God does in fact not only tempt people but he actually makes them do evil.
When integrating Scripture on this topic, therefore, when mapping a biblical theology on the question of predestination, we have no choice but to consider Romans 9 the "unclear" and the theology of James 1:13 as the clear. Thus, like the difference between 2 Samuel 24:1 and 1 Chronicles 21:1, we have to "translate" Paul theologically. He is saying "God does this," but a more precise way to say it is that "God has allowed this for a reason that fits with his sovereign will" or even better, "God has worked within the allowed choices of those who have rejected him to advance his sovereign will."
I see no way for Christianity to be coherent if we do not suppose something of this sort.
In between, of course, is a time of learning to read its words in context. In this phase, the text can become distant because you are beginning to hear it as it was originally, someone else's mail. Paul's words had first century meanings and his audiences heard first century meanings.
Nevertheless, the goal is a kind of "second naivete" in which you can hear God directly in the words in a dance with the text, loosening it from its historical moorings in a controlled and self-conscious way, intuitively bridging the gap between that time and this time, following currents of continuity.
In practice, most Christians never go through the contextual phase, not really. In practice, most Christians apply the words directly in a way that makes sense to them (usually with their inherited Christian traditions making the sense) and only when they cannot make any sense of a passage at all do they consign it to "that time" rather than "this time."
However, in methodical circles, we speak of formulating a biblical theology, mapping the individual teachings of the Bible to each other. We map James to Paul on the question of justification by works. This mapping requires a focal point, a "clear" Scripture that we use to appropriate the "unclear" one. And of course the great diversity of Christian churches is a reflection that some groups make their base camp in different "clear" verses than others do.
All this hermeneutical spiel is meant to set background for what this post is really about, namely, formulating a biblical theology of predestination. We Protestants have historically had a tendency to set our base camp in Paul. We map Matthew and James on works to Paul rather than the other way around. Indeed, we have historically tended to give greater weight to Paul than even Jesus in the Gospels.
What I am suggesting today is that we must go the other way around when it comes to Paul's predestination language in Romans and elsewhere. There are two reasons for this:
1. Paul himself does not follow through with this language philosophically in the rest of his theology and
2. It contradicts a fundamental principle in James 1:13, namely, that God does not tempt anyone with evil.
The second is especially important. If God literally and directly hardens the hearts of people, then God does in fact not only tempt people but he actually makes them do evil.
When integrating Scripture on this topic, therefore, when mapping a biblical theology on the question of predestination, we have no choice but to consider Romans 9 the "unclear" and the theology of James 1:13 as the clear. Thus, like the difference between 2 Samuel 24:1 and 1 Chronicles 21:1, we have to "translate" Paul theologically. He is saying "God does this," but a more precise way to say it is that "God has allowed this for a reason that fits with his sovereign will" or even better, "God has worked within the allowed choices of those who have rejected him to advance his sovereign will."
I see no way for Christianity to be coherent if we do not suppose something of this sort.
Tuesday, June 21, 2011
Quote of the Day: James McGrath
I was reading over at James McGrath's blog, and this line jumped out at me: "We are all mutants, after all." I imagined putting it to the tune of "It's a Small World":
"We're all mutants after all. We're all mutants after all. We're all mutants after all. We're all mu-u-tants." ;-)
So as you go forth today, be looking for the mutant in others. For some, the mutations will be obvious. For others, you may need to dig a little. ;-)
"We're all mutants after all. We're all mutants after all. We're all mutants after all. We're all mu-u-tants." ;-)
So as you go forth today, be looking for the mutant in others. For some, the mutations will be obvious. For others, you may need to dig a little. ;-)
Devotional Sample: Romans 12:3-8
Scrambling as usual to finish something that was supposed to be done a long time ago. Here's a day in the life of my devotionals that accompany the Paul books. This is from a devotional on Romans 9-16 called Our Relationships, that accompanies the Paul: Solider of Peace book.
Title: Yourself in Perspective
Scripture Passage: Romans 12:3-8
Introduction:
These verses give us the first example of what a transformed mind looks like. Such individuals recognize that they are only part of the puzzle, part of a team consisting of the rest of the church.
The Core Teaching:
Romans 12:2 has urged the Romans to have a renewed mind, which is one set on the Spirit rather than the flesh (Rom. 8:5). These verses show some of the specifics of what it looks like. A renewed mind does not have an overly inflated opinion of itself. It recognizes that while you are incredibly important to God, everyone else in your local assembly of believers is too. God has given you certain gifts, but he has given other gifts to others that you do not have. They are all gifts from God, not something you can boast about, as if you are responsible for your giftedness. So let each person exercise his or her own gift for the good of the whole body.
The Word Speaks:
In this passage, Paul gives the Romans the equivalent of what he gave the Corinthians in 1 Corinthians 12. In 1 Corinthians, his picture of a body with many parts especially targeted a local group of believers in a house church. The local church is the first and most important way to read these words in Romans as well. In a local group of believers we will find different kinds of God-given talents and roles. Some are good at seeing the way forward (prophesying). Others are good at informing others about who we are and how we live (teaching). Some are great at encouraging or serving. Some are good at leading. Notice that Paul puts this role near the end!
Life Reflection:
The lists of roles in Romans 12, 1 Corinthians 12, and Ephesians 4 have really resonated with some Christians in recent decades. You can even take “spiritual gift tests” to find out what your particular “gift” is. These tools can be helpful, but they can also feed a certain narcissism and unhealthy introspection. They can turn Paul’s instructions about appreciating each other into a mirror to admire ourselves. Paul never meant these lists to be exhaustive or to pigeonhole what God does with you. We can grow. God can change us. What these lists are really about is us appreciating each other and not thinking too highly of ourselves (12:3). They are as much about me realizing who I am not as who I am.
Responding through Prayer:
Father, help us to see ourselves in proper perspective, as only one member of a body that functions together as one.
Title: Yourself in Perspective
Scripture Passage: Romans 12:3-8
Introduction:
These verses give us the first example of what a transformed mind looks like. Such individuals recognize that they are only part of the puzzle, part of a team consisting of the rest of the church.
The Core Teaching:
Romans 12:2 has urged the Romans to have a renewed mind, which is one set on the Spirit rather than the flesh (Rom. 8:5). These verses show some of the specifics of what it looks like. A renewed mind does not have an overly inflated opinion of itself. It recognizes that while you are incredibly important to God, everyone else in your local assembly of believers is too. God has given you certain gifts, but he has given other gifts to others that you do not have. They are all gifts from God, not something you can boast about, as if you are responsible for your giftedness. So let each person exercise his or her own gift for the good of the whole body.
The Word Speaks:
In this passage, Paul gives the Romans the equivalent of what he gave the Corinthians in 1 Corinthians 12. In 1 Corinthians, his picture of a body with many parts especially targeted a local group of believers in a house church. The local church is the first and most important way to read these words in Romans as well. In a local group of believers we will find different kinds of God-given talents and roles. Some are good at seeing the way forward (prophesying). Others are good at informing others about who we are and how we live (teaching). Some are great at encouraging or serving. Some are good at leading. Notice that Paul puts this role near the end!
Life Reflection:
The lists of roles in Romans 12, 1 Corinthians 12, and Ephesians 4 have really resonated with some Christians in recent decades. You can even take “spiritual gift tests” to find out what your particular “gift” is. These tools can be helpful, but they can also feed a certain narcissism and unhealthy introspection. They can turn Paul’s instructions about appreciating each other into a mirror to admire ourselves. Paul never meant these lists to be exhaustive or to pigeonhole what God does with you. We can grow. God can change us. What these lists are really about is us appreciating each other and not thinking too highly of ourselves (12:3). They are as much about me realizing who I am not as who I am.
Responding through Prayer:
Father, help us to see ourselves in proper perspective, as only one member of a body that functions together as one.
Monday, June 20, 2011
Find the Errors 2
Here is my second find the errors vidcast for my Hebrew for Ministry course, based on Genesis 23:12. Their task is to identify three word fallacies in the selection. Here are the options:
1. English-only fallacy (basing meaning on English rather than the original Greek or Hebrew)
2. Etymological fallacy (the past history of a word does not control its present meaning)
3. Anachronistic fallacy (the future meaning of a word does not control its present meaning)
4. Lexical fallacy (all the meanings of a word do not have to play out some core meaning common to the others)
5. Overload fallacy (meaning is local--don't import extraneous meanings from other contexts to this one)
6. One meaning fallacy (words can and usually do have multiple, distinct, potentially unrelated meanings)
7. Word-concept fallacy (a concept is not limited to a word, and a word will not exhaust a concept)
1. English-only fallacy (basing meaning on English rather than the original Greek or Hebrew)
2. Etymological fallacy (the past history of a word does not control its present meaning)
3. Anachronistic fallacy (the future meaning of a word does not control its present meaning)
4. Lexical fallacy (all the meanings of a word do not have to play out some core meaning common to the others)
5. Overload fallacy (meaning is local--don't import extraneous meanings from other contexts to this one)
6. One meaning fallacy (words can and usually do have multiple, distinct, potentially unrelated meanings)
7. Word-concept fallacy (a concept is not limited to a word, and a word will not exhaust a concept)
remote blogging test 2
blogging by email
Schenck philosophy #1a: the one exception: I think, therefore, something exists. (cf. Descartes)
A Tale of Three States
Saturday for me started in California, stopped in Texas, and ended in Indiana. On the flight to Texas, I sat next to a business woman who started in California and moved to Texas for a better business environment.
Texas is of course Tea Party heaven. The legislature only meets once every other year to set a budget. It's really the counties that run their own show. There's no income tax. Not a great place to be poor, I suspect.
California is over-regulated and over-burocracied on every level. The legislature couldn't balance its budget to save its life. Great place to be if you aren't interested in working... ever.
Indiana is somewhere in the middle. I think our welfare system needs massive fixing too. A lot of waste there, but it's not like we have a lot of jobs right now either.
I'll just leave it at that. The contrast just struck me as I was traveling. I'm not in a position to try to fix anything. And I can't imagine any politician having or being able to pass a balanced solution anyway.
Texas is of course Tea Party heaven. The legislature only meets once every other year to set a budget. It's really the counties that run their own show. There's no income tax. Not a great place to be poor, I suspect.
California is over-regulated and over-burocracied on every level. The legislature couldn't balance its budget to save its life. Great place to be if you aren't interested in working... ever.
Indiana is somewhere in the middle. I think our welfare system needs massive fixing too. A lot of waste there, but it's not like we have a lot of jobs right now either.
I'll just leave it at that. The contrast just struck me as I was traveling. I'm not in a position to try to fix anything. And I can't imagine any politician having or being able to pass a balanced solution anyway.
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