Many assume Christ paid for the sins of each and every person. But since only relatively few are saved, something must be lacking. Many try to resolve this by saying the person must choose to activate the atonement, or someone, a parent must activate it for a child, etc.
The there are others who say Christ paid for the sins of certain individuals, actually saving them entirely without any involvement of their own, while leaving the rest to perish.
Both groups believe Jesus is the savior of the world. The first group focuses on our present world for whom Jesus died. The latter group focuses on future world where everyone is saved, the New Heavens and Earth, for whom Jesus died.
"Relatively few are saved". First, one must read on, past "...few there be...". Context. Secondly, the inverse has far more in its corner within Scripture's singular canopy. As for Faith, Time, and Circumstance, any theology which annihilates Hebrews 11 cannot hope to see, or describe, or converge with, the bitter ends of the actual state of affairs. We underestimate our God, our Father, our eyes on sins, on insufficiency, His on something radically different.
@ scbrownlhrm;
"Relatively few are saved". What are your thoughts on those who drowned in the Flood, the Canaanites, all beyond Israel, beyond the reach of the Gospel, etc., that appear to have been lost?
The there are others who say Christ paid for the sins of certain individuals, actually saving them entirely without any involvement of their own, while leaving the rest to perish.
Describing this view:
The latter group focuses on future world where everyone is saved, the New Heavens and Earth, for whom Jesus died.
I take the Faith of Hebrews 11 to be literal. I also take it to be the case that the literal Abraham literally interfaced with the literal Christ. After he died. The salvific cannot sum to less. If that is correct, then the power of Time and of Circumstance is surpassed by some other set of facts. If that other set of facts is coherent, then key assumptions become a favorable part of a much larger polemic regarding my initial comment . If, however, the only set of facts is Time, Circumstance, and Faith post-resurrection, then I am incorrect and key assumptions remain problematic for that (larger) polemic.
Christus Victor, perhaps purely Narnian, perhaps Lewis' actual take on it, doesn't seem to address the fundamental nature of privation which we find both in Eden and in Gethsemane, both in obedience and outside of obedience. Dave's referent of the *New*, up ahead, properly speaks of an amalgamation which Eden still lacked and *does* get us there. Now, that Wedding's amalgamation is in no way contingent on Satan's presence or absence, hence Christus Victor just isn't necessary.
Jesus being the savior of the world = the world that is actually saved. The world where he died for all without exception = the New Heavens and Earth world.
God so loved the world = the saved world of the future. And not the world he hates and pours his wrath upon = this present world.
As one who has to read your well written theology a few times to unpack them, and as one who is always better off for having done so, I know full well that you have valid reasons for choosing Time and Circumstance as your stopping point, or that fact-set as your stopping point.
So yes - we can say that if Time and Circumstance are the end of it - well then that is one set of facts by which to define reality, as alluded to in my last comment. That fact-set or that stopping point seems somewhat artificial (on my view) given what we find in Scripture and it is better to allow Scripture to define our stopping points overall (as you know better than I). It does not seem that Scripture is very intimidated by, or circumscribed by, or limited by, such contingent barriers - at least as such relate to the reach of the Necessary.
For example, we often say more than, or less than, or not all of, what Scripture actually states on "topic X". Say, for example, death before the fall. Well what about it? Well, God gives Man, in Eden, plants and fruits to eat. And yet Atheists still roar about how there could not have been any death before the Fall - because that is what Christians are telling them (sometimes explicitly, sometimes implicitly). Just as they (the Atheists) roar that Man's body just had to be immortal in Eden, even though Man had not eaten of that Tree of Life - again because that is what Christians are telling them (sometimes explicitly, sometimes implicitly). Of course Scripture does not assert such concepts. It speaks of related, overlapping concepts, but we are often too quick to the line.
Now, these poor Atheists, to get their straw man to go through, must think that plants are A) not alive or B) alive after digestion.
As John Lennnox comments:
Indeed, since fruit and vegetables are explicitly mentioned as a (God-given) diet in Genesis, plant life can scarcely be an issue here. Plant death cannot therefore have been a consequence of the first human sin, even though plant death is death.
(The whole chapter is a great read BTW)
On whatever the topic - it is important that we define terms, that we allow the Necessary rather than the Contingent do such defining, that we not say less than Scripture, and, that we not say more than Scripture.
Obviously we disagree on our respective stopping points when it comes to the pervasiveness of the Necessary. However, disagreement per se can be (at times) more helpful than less helpful.
But the angry Father demanding blood to appease His wrath is entirely absent. Also Aslan did't need to die for the rest of Edmund's family, who while far from perfect, were not in the Witch's power.
That which Christ ushers in is that which God instantiates within all possible worlds of the Adamic Man.
Hebrews 11 affirms that Faith is alive and well in the Old Man, prior to Christ’s resurrection. The options that leaves us with regarding exactly what Christ’s atonement actually delivered to Mankind forces us to define our terms in such a way as to leave the ontological landscape of Hebrews 11 intact in all of its unavoidable clarity, or else, to simply annihilate Hebrews 11 and expunge that topography from all of our theology.
As for the rest, the stuff of Time, the stuff of Circumstance, the pervasiveness of the Necessary relative to the contingent, and so on, all such things are really just moot points pending one’s handling of Faith existing inside of the unregenerate Man. Given what God in Genesis decreed to be the pattern of Mankind’s entire reality, there is no possible world in which the Adamic Man does not find all vectors seamlessly converging in Christ. The eye of Man whether in Eden or outside of Eden has many options, only, thwarting reality is an obvious impossibility as reality cannot be other than what it is.
Christ is not, say, religion-x which a few here or there might someday get a glimpse of. He is rather the unavoidable ground by which our entire reality is created, just as He is the sustenance of being in all permutations, just as He is the express Image of the Divine, just as He is the love of the Necessary Being Who is Himself love, just as He is that All Sufficiency which every frail and insufficient contingency called “a human being” finds itself affronting in all possible worlds. The God of some Christians is by comparison a kind of shriveled rendering whose form is unrecognizable, whose love falters and stumbles over barriers too high, whose power is less than all pervasive. When Christ pours Himself out for the beloved, when Reality Himself speaks of creating worlds and of loving worlds, He is doing and decreeing the metaphysically absolute, He is doing and decreeing that which He has always done and that which He has always pronounced, which that frail and shriveled rendering cannot comprehend.
Penal substitution an all other coherent incantations of atonement find that God does not demand life to appease Justice.
Rather, He gives, pours out, life to thusly fill such ontological voids. And the only kind or category of life such can be is the All Sufficient.
But then, that just is the case in all possible permutations, given that the frail and insufficient contingency that is the Adamic Person cannot be, ever, the Necessary.
Love is a peculiar state of affairs - and there is only one genre on planet Earth that goes the distance morally, metaphysically, logically, and intuitively.
Narnia is not supposed to be a perfect 1-to-1 analogy with Christian doctrine.
The fact that Aslan didn't die for Peter, Susan and Lucy (or, for that matter, for the Tisroc [may he live forever], Shasta, Caspian, Bree, Puddleglum or any other character) is not germane. Lewis is presenting atonement in the character of Edmund, not those other characters.
As for the business about an angry Father out for blood, that's entirely your fabrication. It is not part of the doctrine of substitutionary atonement.
Are you saying that Penal Substitutionary atonement does not say that Jesus had to shed blood to satisfy God's anger at man's sin? Or perhaps His honor which was offended by man's sin?
With PSA, God is the problem that has to be solved, the devil really isn't in the picture, wouldn't you say?
Whose magic put Aslan on the stone table? Wasn't it the Emperor's magic?
The devil is in the picture as the accuser. That's all the White Witch was.
I suspect that the word that most bothered me in your phrase "the angry Father demanding blood to appease His wrath" was "appease". The death of Christ turns aside God's wrath. It doesn't appease it.
W.L. Craig agrees with C.S. Lewis in that it is the Atonement itself which supersedes this or that particular theory of it - obviously with qualifications. A reasonable Assessment of 5 Theories of Atonement is an interesting read.
It looks at:
1) The Ransom Theory of the atonement – specifically the Christus Victor model.
2) The Satisfaction Theory.
3) Penal Substitution Theory.
4) Moral Influence Theory.
5) Existential view of the Atonement.
The fact that Christ is our substitute does not imply that He did not win the victory over Sin, Death and the Devil.
The fact that Christ is or substitute does not imply that He did not satisfy justice.
The fact that Christ is our substitute does not imply that He is not the perfect moral example of God's love for us.
The fact that Christ is our substitute does not imply that we cannot surrender all to the Cross of Christ and live under its shadow.
Far from precluding any of these points, substitutionary atonement seems to imply them. What is more, it is difficult to see how the atonement could be a victory, satisfaction, example or way of life without it being a case of God substituting Himself for us to turn aside His own wrath.
Honestly, we don't owe the devil a blessed thing. He deceived Adam and led him into sin. Adam and Eve's excuses to God were lame, but not entirely without truth. The serpent had no moral claim on them. Satan sinned against them, they did not sin against Satan. If there were any moral claims among the three sinners of Eden, it was Satan who owed Adam and Eve.
But the serious problem is that God had a moral claim on them. The serpent just managed to put himself also in God's debt (or further into God's debt). He certainly did not manage to get to the point that God or Man owed him any ransom.
And the devil doesn't have any kidnapper's leverage against God. If the devil were simply holding us hostage by force, God would think a thought and the devil would be ashes and us free. Of the three victories Christ won over Sin, Death and the Devil, His victory over the Devil was least. True, we could not have won that victory. But if that were the only victory needed, there would have been no need for the cross. And their certainly would have been no need for God Himself to save us by a death upon it.
What is holding us is God's own law and His curse upon us. That's what really needs to be overcome. That's why God had to take our place.
Seems like an odd system for an almighty, all knowing and loving entity to set-up. Someone, don't recall the guys name, said that this is akin to a firefighter lighting a house on fire and then saving some while other perish and then calling the firemen a hero.
I can think of a lot better system without too much thought: when people die and their soul's leave this rock they would go to schools. If you did well maybe your go to something akin to college. If you do really, really well you go into a doctorate program. If you injured or did harm to others then you go to a correction facility, etc, etc. Each soul then gets to continue on a journey the lasts forever. That's much better than a dividing between sheep and goats and the goats burn in hell for ever and ever and ever. That's as evil as it gets.
I can think of a lot better system without too much thought
Some Arminians, like Jerry Walls, already thought of that system. They call it protestant purgatory. The only problem is the Bible never thought of that system.
this is akin to a firefighter lighting a house on fire and then saving some while other perish and then calling the firemen a hero.
The problem with the fire-starter analogy is that it ignore the non-fireman fire-starting agency depicted in the Bible (the people in the house would have to light it on fire) and also makes God just another human agent (a fireman has no rights over the lives of others--so naturally we think it evil for him to direct the course of their lives against their knowledge or will).
A better analogy (though not perfect) would be that of an author. Tolein wirtes the characters of two brothers Smeagol and Deagol. Smeagol willingly and foolishly starts a fire in the forest that ends up trapping Smeagol and Deagol up a tree. Deagol can't hold on any longer and falls into the fire. Just as Smeagol is about to fall too an eagle swoops down and saves him. Clearly this story has a hero (the eagle), Tolkein isn't evil if he writes the story such that Smeagol is saved but his brother, Deagol, perishes, and if Tolkein were to write himself as the eagle then he is the hero of his own story.
May I call you Rem to save some typing and thank you for your post. I cruised around and saw many of your blog posts. May I ask if you are employed by STR or maybe you are a STR Ambassador? Or perhaps you just enjoy the interacting with others, which is a nice feature of this website. If Greg reads any of these posts I would like to thank him for his willingness let people of all different beliefs post their thoughts. Thank you Greg.
Regarding your specific reply to my post I do agree with nearly ever thing you posted with a minor exception, which is a bit confusing because based upon your other posts I thought you would "go after me". I do agree that your analogy of the author is better than the firemen and I'll explain why in another post, I've got to go but I'll return when time allows.
Ok, I'm back. Sorry for any confusion but I didn't like TILII name so until I think of something more profound I'll be "Mike".
So let's see....
"The only problem is the Bible never thought of that system" Yes, that's obviously true.
As mentioned I only spent a few minutes thinking about alternatives to hell. It can be improved, such as if you are not going to harm others you can travel instead of going to school and if you ever get bored of traveling (like to other universes) you can go to school. But that doesn't really matter, it is just hypothetical stuff showing that there is a better way than sending souls to burn in hell forever. Most people don't really take anytime to mediate upon the doctrine of hell and just how horrific the dogma really is. If you ever get the stomach flu again just imagine having that for all eternity and then think how that would be heaven compared to burning forever. In my opinion and many others hell is a myth. Of course we are indeed talking about many myths here, the creation story and the Garden of Eden are myths or at best metaphors not intended to be taken literally.
So, your analogy or metaphor of the author is much better than the firemen story. The author is God and as the author he can write the story anyway he wants, after all he is the author. So God creates two beings, A and B. A creates a fire and it kills B but an eagle (which is God in the form of Jesus I presume) saves A and B dies in the fire. Why not let the fire just teach both A and B a lesson and they both come away better for it? No, one dies in the fire (burns forever, no?) and God, who wrote the stupid story ends up the hero. At least in the firemen story the firemen does not proclaim himself the hero, in your story the author writes a horrible story let's an innocent being die in fire and then announces he is a hero to boot. So I do agree, it matches the Bible story much better.
But now you're just asserting that the Tolkien (I mistakenly typed "Tolkein" earlier) story is horrible and stupid. But while my story was very short and perhaps lacking literary beauty there is nothing in the bare bones of it that makes it stupid or horrid. In fact there are many such stories like this and Tolkien's own stories involve elements similar to the bare bones story that I laid out. I don't know of anyone that thinks Tolkien's stories are stupid or horrible. So why would it be stupid and horrible for God to write such a story?
Why not let the fire just teach both A and B a lesson and they both come away better for it?
Why not make the fire turn into cotton candy and instead of an eagle swooping down it's two ice-cream cones, each the perfectly flavor for Smeagol and Deagol?
Just as we may not be capable of answering why an author wrote all the details of his story just as he did, so I don't presume that we should be able to discover an explanation for all the details of God's work. But so what? I don't find it problematic that I don't know why Tolkien chose giant eagles as saviors in his Hobbit story or why this or that orc died. Likewise, it's not prima facie problematic that I don't know why God chose all the details of this world.
Any way, there are many reasons that we can offer as to why God allows evil in his "story" generally. I'm sure you can find such reasons on this website.
in your story the author writes a horrible story let's an innocent being die
I never stipulated that Deagol was innocent in my story.
and then announces he is a hero to boot.
It's not just him announcing that he is a hero, it's that he is in fact a hero in his story. If Tolkien writes a story where he saves the day then within the confines of that story it's just a fact that he is a hero.
Thank you for your time and input. I'm not really very good at this stuff, I'm posting mainly because I need the practice on how to express my opinions in a polite and calm manner. So I am grateful that you both took some time out of your day to reply. I respect your opinions and no doubt you are both gentlemen and scholars however I beg to differ with your belief system. I'll need to be brief because I gotta go. My first reply is to WL, good name by the way, I'm still trying to think of a good blogging name for myself.
I think your argument for me is awesome.
I believe that I could improve upon the way the Bible is written. Well, yeah is some ways. Think of all the junk in Leviticus, Deuteronomy, Numbers, etc. I could improve those for sure. Unfortunately the world is going to have to do without since I don't have the time.
God would have written the Bible at least as well as I could.
So, the Bible is false. Yes, yes, exactly. You put it perfectly.
In contrast, this is a good argument:
The Bible is true. That is not an argument and the rest of it flows from a nonsensical start. You could start with "I believe the Bible is true" and therefore yada, yada, yada and that would make sense. However even if the bible is true that doesn't mean it is well written.
Hi Rem,
Thanks for our input; if we lived near each other I'm sure we would be good friends. Regarding the issues the author is the only person responsible for the contents of his book that is pretty obvious. We are trying to find an analogy to describe what takes place from Genesis to Revelation. In this case distinguishing between the author and the characters in his book is not useful. God created the story, according to your belief system; he therefore must take responsibility for the contents of his book. God could write any story he wanted and eating ice cream could save us from fire or sin or whatever. What if the Bible did say eating ice cream saves you from sin? You would have some super long theological statement of faith as to why ice cream saves us from sin. Anyway, back to the story... But God choose to put a tree with fruit that looks good but caused death. After the eating thing God final puts a sword to protect the tree of life therefore God could have put a sword around the tree of knowledge (or whatever its called). There are millions, even billions of scenarios but the fact is God choose to make eating the fruit an inevitable event and then choose death as the consequence. It didn't have to be death, if could of given Adam and Eve food poisoning and then they would have learned to obey God without spreading death to everyone. Remember God is the author of the book and he can write whatever He wants. So to continue, God eventually makes it to earth in the form of Jesus and dies for Adam's sin and all the sins added on after that. So you see the stories do give an shorten succinct summary of the Bible story. God create the problem, he/she then solves the problem but only for some while the majority burn in hell forever and then God thinks himself a hero.
I won't be able to reply until next week so take it easy on me. I may have gone over the top a little, okay I went way over the top but I didn't have time to think this out. Please pardon me if I offended anyone because I like you all and wish you all good things.
We are trying to find an analogy to describe what takes place from Genesis to Revelation. In this case distinguishing between the author and the characters in his book is not useful. God created the story, according to your belief system; he therefore must take responsibility for the contents of his book.
The author analogy points out that it's possible that an authored character, such as fire-starting Smeagol, can be morally culpable for his actions and this doesn't directly transfer to the author who is in some sense "responsible" for Smeagol. Smeagol is foolish, but it doen't follow that the author of Smeagol is foolish. Smeagol is wicked, but it doesn't follow that the author of Smeagol is wicked. I think the same is true of God's relationship to us: God can plan for the fall of humanity into sin without himself falling into sin. If you want to say that God bears some responsibility for the story similar to how an author bears responsibility for his story that's fine, but it doesn't therefore follow that God is *blameworthy* for a world that has blameworthy characters.
God could write any story he wanted and eating ice cream could save us from fire or sin or whatever. What if the Bible did say eating ice cream saves you from sin? You would have some super long theological statement of faith as to why ice cream saves us from sin.
The suggestion here is that we merely find some convoluted way to make sense out of whatever the Bible says. But whether that's true or not should be demonstrated from an examination of the reasons offered for the particular phenomenon we are trying to explain rather than from an imaginary phenomenon you assume we might explain.
God create the problem, he/she then solves the problem but only for some while the majority burn in hell forever and then God thinks himself a hero.
So far you've just pointed out that you don't like the way God has done things. But that's not an argument. You keep saying thinks like "thinks himself a hero" and "announces he is a hero" but again you're just gesturing towards an unstated argument that God is not actually a hero.
It's also worth pointing out that, in this story, the people who burn in hell forever (1) don't want to be saved and (2) are being punished for their sins.
It is a narrow, this-worldly sort of metaphysics and a narrow, this-worldly sort of theology which is forced to interpret and define reality by mutable and contingent lines rather than by the Necessary. Such often succumb to the error of asserting bizarre and irrational claims, such as Eden housing but one possible world, and not many, or such as God designing the Fall of Man such that the Necessary fails to instantiate in all possibilities, plural, or such as the Dark, the Outside, there outside of God, offering the Creature more Sight over more horizons than the Creature obtains in the Light, there inside of God. But then that is the tale told to Man in Eden, and Man is still told that tale today. Fortunately - in all worlds - the Necessary is blindingly inescapable, finally, ultimately.
“To rationalize evil, we must obliterate the Good….. And yet there can be no “rationalization” of any action in the absence of Good.” (Feser)
Let’s follow that out, step by step, starting right here, today, and track it, and ourselves, to the obliteration of the Good, and, thereby, to the only genre on planet Earth that gets it right – the peculiarity that is the Christian’s doctrine of the Atonement:
To perceive some contour of reality towards the orphan or the child of, say, love (on the one hand) and, also, to perceive the contour of reality one knows as indifference (on the other hand) towards the orphan or the child, is to perceive two contours of reality converging with the orphan or the child. Well, are those two contours “at bottom” metaphysically distinct, themselves irreducible? One of those contours perceived (love), though by nature higher than indifference, is volitionally scorned and declared to be what Feser justifiably argues is a mere AS-IF fiction on Naturalism, and what others have aptly termed the Noble Lie in that same sort of “living as-if we ought-love” (on Naturalism). Meanwhile, another perceived contour of reality (indifference) is volitionally elevated, made the truth, though it is by nature lower than, more base than, love. Just as problematic is the fact that Logic per se also suffers the *same* defeat given the means and ends available. Such the Non-Theist willingly trades for in all his eliminative metaphysics and while it is true that some Non-Theists today assert an objective morality, what they never do assert is an immutable and irreducible morality and therein even what they do assert is – at some ontological seam somewhere – of the eliminative category.
Today’s Non-Theist asserts nothing that comes even remotely close to an immutable and irreducible love / personhood of the non-eliminative category. Not only are the means unavoidably mutable and pliable but such also fades into the unforgiving hands of eliminative ends and even the fallacy of emergentism which Feser arguably shows to be incoherent is layered over all of “that” by the Non-Theist.
Any metaphysic(s) which is not categorically non-eliminative (irreducible) is, well, eliminative. The worth of the child is deemed to be, by volition, but a Con, a kind of Delusion. Else – God.
But wait: The Christian cannot take comfort there – for – as Romans 1 affirms, we too encounter, and insult, various contours of Truth and Love. In my own case – such is, well, daily.
Scripture tells us we all rationalize some contour of evil such that we (necessarily then) obliterate some contour of the Good? Well that is what Scripture affirms, and, it’s easily demonstrable. As in: That turns out to be a very simple reality which, unfortunately, all of us experience both from others and from ourselves. “Every-man” perceives particular contours of reality, say, X1 and X2, such that, having come upon X1, Every-man then comes upon X2 and X2 just is some contour of reality which is by nature greater, higher, more lofty, more noble, more lovely than X1. Such a contour – X2 – is then volitionally traded on such that the particular contour or reality called X1, which is by nature lower than, less noble than, more base than, less lovely than, the particular contour of reality called X2, assumes the location of Everyman’s choice such that X2 becomes Every-man’s declared Higher, though it is by nature Lower, one's declared Lofty, though it is by nature more Base, and so on, such that what the eye knows to be the lesser is volitionally retained, or elevated, or traded *for*, while the contour of reality which the eye knows to be the more lofty, the more lovely is set aside, or debased, or traded *away*.
That dance which we all, unfortunately, partake of between those perceived contours of reality obtains in a thousand different forms and in a thousand different fashions amid a thousand different cultures amid a thousand different norms across the span of eons and this dance is affirmed by even a high school examination of Anthropology 101. However, that dance itself, the trading itself, is of a singular nature, of a singular archetype.
How do we know this is the case with both our volitional use of reason and our constitutional nature?
Well that is easy: The existential and the intellectual saturate mankind’s experiential landscape and it turns out that the flavor which is ubiquitously tasted by all of us is a certain offence against love at some seam somewhere in life, in our own life, and, a certain offense against truth at some seam somewhere in life, in our own life, and those two ubiquitously tasted offenses against Love and Truth are so concrete that the one among *us* who denies such in himself is immediately counted, by all of us, as a liar – or a lunatic. Even more concrete is the fact that we all know this given the fact that should one among us claim of themselves today the moral spotlessness which Christ claimed of Himself the reaction by all of us against that claim would be ….wait for it…….*ubiquitous*.
“To rationalize evil, we must obliterate the Good….. And yet there can be no “rationalization” of any action in the absence of Good.”
There is no such possibility of obliterating some contour of the Good without obliterating some contour of God for *any* contour or elemental feature of “reality” that is Good just is some contour of Goodness Itself, and there is but *one* metaphysical path to such an irreducible *end*, and that is, simply, God. Nietzsche’s deicide defines a part of, not all of, the ontological real estate which comprises the metanarrative of Man’s painful privation.
The bloody violence of the death of Jesus Christ – the skin torn by scourging, the nails driven through hands and feet, the thorns pushed into scalp and forehead, the spear thrust into the side – naturally impresses upon our minds His fleshly humanity. But it is in contemplating the Passion, perhaps more than in any other context, that we must fixate our minds precisely upon Christ’s divinity, lest we miss the event’s significance entirely.
Modern people think they understand it well – a miscarriage of justice on the part of a corrupt political system, an affront to freedom of conscience, an expression of reactionary hostility to novel ideas comparable to the execution of Socrates. Thus is Christ transformed, absurdly, into something like an early martyr for Liberalism. (This gets the death of Socrates completely wrong too, of course. The popular understanding of both events reflects a Whiggish narcissism: “He was a great man; ergo he must have been anticipating us moderns in some way.” But that is another subject.)
In fact the significance of the Passion has nothing to do with such comparative trivialities. “We preach Christ crucified,” wrote St. Paul; “to the Jews a stumbling block, and to the Greeks foolishness.” The Jews and Greeks of old were (here as in so many other ways) closer to the truth than the moderns. For whatever else the crucifixion of Jesus Christ was, it was, first and foremost, the supreme blasphemy. It was Pure Act, esse ipsum subsistens, That Than Which No Greater Can Be Conceived, the “I Am Who Am” of Exodus, our First Cause and Last End – spat upon, beaten, and nailed to a cross. All other meanings – political, socioeconomic, legal, moral – fade into insignificance in light of this most incomprehensible of sins. Unlike us moderns, always trying to wedge moral and religious truth into our narrow, this-worldly horizon, the ancient Jews and Greeks knew this, and rebelled at the thought. How could it be? How could Being Itself be put to death? How could the Most High allow Himself to be brought so low? A metaphysical impossibility! An inconceivable sacrilege! And yet it happened.
The “death of God” of Nietzsche’s “madman” parable was not the crucifixion. Nor, of course, was it a literal killing of any sort. But the moral (if not the metaphysical) magnitude of deicide was not lost on him:
"How shall we comfort ourselves, the murderers of all murderers? What was holiest and mightiest of all that the world has yet owned has bled to death under our knives: who will wipe this blood off us? What water is there for us to clean ourselves? What festivals of atonement, what sacred games shall we have to invent? Is not the greatness of this deed too great for us? Must we ourselves not become gods simply to appear worthy of it?”
No silly talk here of “Flying Spaghetti Monsters” and the like; Nietzsche, unlike so many of his successors, still had a sense of the noble, indeed of the Holy. (The New Atheist is none other than Nietzsche’s Last Man in rationalist drag.) And what he said of the modern, metaphorical “death of God” is true of the real thing: We are each of us guilty of it. We are each of us the worst of murderers. We have, each of us, slain our Maker and sought to make ourselves gods in His place. And we cannot possibly atone.
For the crucifixion, in its sublime gruesome blasphemousness, lays bare the true meaning of sin. It is Non serviam, “My will, not thine, be done!” pushed through consistently. To rationalize evil, we must obliterate the Good. To justify lawlessness, we must put to death the Lawgiver. And yet there can be no “rationalization” of any action in the absence of Good. There can be no “justification” without Law. In the crucifixion we see the sheer, satanic madness of sin.
And we cannot possibly atone. Yet we are not without hope. For the Supreme Lawgiver against Whom we offend is also Infinite Mercy. The God Who can lay down His life can raise Himself up again. And He lays it down willingly, for those He calls His “friends” – for us, His very killers! Even as we commit the greatest of crimes against Him, His thoughts are – astoundingly – with us: “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.” Having put Him on a cross, we can but humbly kneel before it – in sorrow, in thanks, in worship.
Hi Remy, I trust your day is going well. I woke up early this morning so I'm posting before I go to work. Unfortunately my career, at least at this time of my life, requires and unbelievable amount of hours, eeekkk, so my posting to this blog is going to need to be reduced or eliminated or else I'll lose a bunch of clients.
We can banter back and forth forever. No doubt you guys know more than I in regards to religion / Christianity /philosophy so admittedly you've got me beat in that area. The downside to your position is that your locked in to a dogma that doesn't allow for personal freedom of thought because anything the Bible says has to be defended because it is "the word of God", even nonsensical stuff requires long winded explanations for nearly everything as opposed to the simple and obvious.
Regarding scbrownlhrm's input, thank you for your time sir. Unfortunately I can't read all that this morning and I can't possibly respond to multiple rebuttals because of my career obligations, it is Saturday morning and I'm getting ready to go to work. Perhaps another day. Nonetheless thank you for your time.
Below is Remy's last part of his post: "So far you've just pointed out that you don't like the way God has done things." Your assuming God has done things this way, maybe he hasn't. It is just part of your belief system. Basically your just going with the majority vote. I don't think He/She did things this way and therefore it is not part of my belief system. If there is any "proof" at all, it would be in my favor not yours. As an example, "the wages of sin is death" seems unlikely. Living things on earth have been dying for millions of years so there is no correlation between sin and death unless you date the Garden of Eden story millions of years into the past. God could of wrote into his story that if you sin you barf constantly for 24 hours and no other "thing" can cause barfing. Humans would then quickly correlate cause and effect and recognize sin is the cause of barfing. It would greatly reduce the amount of sin too because who wants to barf constantly for 24 hours :)
You also said that "in this story, the people who burn in hell forever (1) don't want to be saved and (2) are being punished for their sins" That is not true. In the analogy you wrote both of the characters wanted to be saved, if they didn't they would not have bothered to climb the tree and then hold on for dear life. Same is true in real life, everybody I know would like to live on after their few years here on this rock. Regarding the second point that is still just your belief system and it is not factual. As mentioned we can banter back and forward on this issue forever as it comes down to belief systems. The Bible backs me up on this because belief is the thing that gets you into heaven.
But as I write this what peaks my curiosity is some background on your belief system. I assume you believe the Garden of Eden story is literal, no? If you do believe the GoE story is literal where do you place it in history? 6,000 years ago, 50,000 years ago, 200,000 years ago or millions of years ago? Are you a young or old earth creationist or a intelligent design advocate? How is original sin passed from person to person? If you take the time to read this post I thank you again and wish you an enjoyable weekend my friend. No hard feeling, we just don't share the same belief system. Fortunately for you, you have a book that supposedly explains everything whereas I do not.
My comments were directed at the OP, and not really toward your discussion with Remington and WL.
You simply haven't earned the intellectual right to challenge the constitutions of love unless and until you put your own cards on the table regarding said constitutions.
What is love, on your view? Is it an evolved meme which itself reduces to that which is, in fact, constituted of the indifference that just is particle cascade? Or what?
God, being love, constitutes the Christian's A, the Christian's Z. Love's ceaseless reciprocity houses much within its singular meta-narrative there in Scripture *but* unpacking that for the questioner unwilling to commit himself where love is concerned seems unwarranted. On our end, well, such commitments are made daily by Christians in these sorts of threads.
Love is the highest ethic, on that singular meta-narrative. Now, it seems you agree on that ethical statement.
What isn't clear is what possible warrent you could have to believe such a metaphysically loaded claim.
And without that commitment from you, well the discussion you're having with Rem/WL just isn't interesting.
Your assuming God has done things this way, maybe he hasn't. It is just part of your belief system.
It makes no difference to my point if you just add in to my statement "So far you've just pointed out that you don't like the way God has done things [according to the Bible]."
As an example, "the wages of sin is death" seems unlikely. Living things on earth have been dying for millions of years so there is no correlation between sin and death unless you date the Garden of Eden story millions of years into the past.
It's true that if you accept the standard Darwinian theory of history then you might run into trouble fitting that with the Bible. Some Christians have tried to make them fit: for instance there is the Old Earth Creation model where the earth has been around for millions of years and animal life has experienced death since the beginning. But God still created an original human pair, several hundred thousand years ago, that did not experience death until they sinned. To support this idea they point out that the death-introducing passages are always focused on humans (Romans 5, Gen 3).
However, I suspect you will be almost as skeptical of the scientific evidence of there having been an original human pair as the idea that the earth has only been around for thousands rather than millions of years. My own position is that of a relatively young earth. I think it's rational to believe in a young earth if (a) one has good reason to believe the Bible is the word of God and (b) there are good exegetical reasons to believe it teaches the Earth is relatively young. There are epistemological issues here that would need to be unpacked and you may hand-wave that as "long winded explanations" but it would be foolish to dismiss complicated issues or nuance simply because you find it complicated or nuanced. On those grounds you might as well dismiss the scientific arguments for an old earth or the Darwinian thesis as "long winded." Any way, this is largely an area for the scientists to wrestle with and there are several good scientists on all sides of the issue (e.g., Fazale Rana on the side of the old earth and original human pair position I described and Todd Wood or Jay Wile on the young earth side). I'm not a scientist, so I won't bother trying to argue the scientific merits of any position.
God could of wrote into his story that if you sin you barf constantly for 24 hours and no other "thing" can cause barfing. Humans would then quickly correlate cause and effect and recognize sin is the cause of barfing. It would greatly reduce the amount of sin too because who wants to barf constantly for 24 hours.
These are pointless imaginations that seem to have as their goal a poisoning of the well. Why not just deal with the actual positions being defended? As it happens, people do recognize that death is a proper penalty for some sins. But no one recognizes that barfing is a penalty for some sins.
In the analogy you wrote both of the characters wanted to be saved
Remember that you were trying to show the absurdity of the Bible story. So you have to account for the vital parts of the Bible story like man's rebellion.
My analogy was about four sentences long and was only written to illustrate two points: (1) that God can plan events without sharing in the culpability of the agents who are part of that plan and (2) that God can plan events and then participate in them as a savior or hero. And in fact I didn't specify that Smeagol or Deagol wanted to be saved by the eagle. They didn't want to die by the fire, sure. But I didn't specify whether they would have/did welcome the eagle or whether the eagle plucked Smeagol unwillingly from the tree.
Same is true in real life, everybody I know would like to live on after their few years here on this rock.
"live on" is not the same as salvation. And you can easily find *many* atheists who openly admit that they would never worship or accept God if he existed.
Regarding the second point that is still just your belief system and it is not factual. As mentioned we can banter back and forward on this issue forever as it comes down to belief systems. The Bible backs me up on this because belief is the thing that gets you into heaven.
Beliefs can be true or false. Beliefs that are true are factual.
Some of your questions about the "background" of my belief system don't seem very relevant to me. I'll skip over them for the sake of time right now.
I think our conversation is getting off track. You started off trying to illustrate (via the fire-starter story) that the idea of God planning the current world and then being a heroic actor within that world was silly and left God morally blameworthy. I countered with another story that preserved the basic tenets of the Bible of this world being part of God's plan and God being a heroic actor within the world but didn't imply that God was blameworthy or silly.
You responded by simply declaring that this story is horrible and stupid. But I pointed out that (a) most people don't think similar stories are horrible and stupid and that (b) it boils down to an assertion without an argument.
So I think we need to get back to that point before moving on to other things you raised later on:
Is the story stupid and horrible because (a) God planned it and (b) God acts as the hero within it? If so why?
You're ok, your a good guy and I appreciate your time however your beliefs are not factual. Quite the opposite. However I'm at work now. And I'm dead serious when I say I've got to work on some client's stuff, I'm a professional with lots of demands on my time. You apparently have lots of time on our hands, I do not. So, simply, the story is not stupid or horrible because God planned it (which he didn't by the way) nor because he acts as the hero. It is horrible and stupid because the punishment is eternal damnation for not believing something on bad evidence and he is only the hero for some, He is the villain for everyone else but still claims to be a hero even though God invented the entire store that puts billions of souls into hell forever. That is an evil story and we been through all that before.
This next part isn't regarding you or WL because I have never meet you face to face but I do know a lot of Christians and a problem for me is that Christian's defend their dogma like a pit bull but don't give a damn about others. I interact with Christian's face to face a lot but they never show any emotions. How can you really believe a friend or neighbor is going to hell for all eternity and not snob for them, hold them, cry with them. The reason is Hell is just a dogma planted in the brain or they don't really believe it or perhaps they are just completely self absorbed.
Hi Wisdom Lover, good to hear from you as well. I'll repeat I don't have time to carry on however my point will be as short as yours; your premise wasn't even a premise. You begin with a statement that is factually and provably wrong.
Now, if only I could sign off with the wit and insight of the Screw Tape Letters but all I can think of is may life bless you Remy and WL, in an odd way you may not understand you guys really are my friends whether you want to be or not.
Thanks for taking the time to respond so cordially. Being polite and cordial is helpful to dialogue which seeks to establish or debunk truth claims. This type of dialogue can be fruitful as we put claims to the test.
But we actually need to put claims to the test by providing reasons or arguments or data to back up the claims made. Otherwise we are just politely telling each other that they are wrong, which is a lot less dialectically useful.
Now you've made a claim that the story of the Bible (or some specific elements of it) is horrible and stupid. That's the claim I would like to "put to the test" so to speak or find out whether there are good reasons for the claim being made.
So, simply, the story is not stupid or horrible because God planned it (which he didn't by the way) nor because he acts as the hero.
But later you say that God "claims to be a hero even though God invented the entire store that puts billions of souls into hell forever."
So it looks like you do find something objectionable about God being a hero in a story that he has planned that does not involve the salvation of everyone. But why? Going back to my Tolkien illustration, not everyone in that story was saved. And the story was according to Tolkien's plan. But it's also clearly the case that Tolkien the eagle was the savior/hero of Smeagol. Tolkien could have written it so that he saved both Smeagol and Deagol, but he chose not perhaps for some other purpose. But there is no principle such that "If a person is going to be a hero he must save all those that he is capable of saving and all those who are in need of saving." While you might think that's plausible, prima facie, it's easy to see that there are counter-examples: Gandhi and Hitler fall into shark infested waters. I work for the national guard and can save both and both are clearly in need of saving. But I choose to save Gandhi and not Hitler, knowing that if I save Hitler he will go on to kill six million jews. So there is a scenario where I can save both and bother are in need of saving but I have no moral obligation to save both. And I'm a hero for saving Gandhi.
It is horrible and stupid because the punishment is eternal damnation for not believing something on bad evidence
i) It's not the case that people are punished merely for not believing something. There are a lot of bad things people do (in addition to not believing something) that they are punished for.
ii) It's not the case that the evidence is bad.
and he is only the hero for some, He is the villain for everyone else
That God doesn't save those people who don't wish to be saved by him or spend eternity with him does not make him "the villain."
As you have probably experienced yourself, a person doesn't always communicate their thoughts clearly or write in blogs what they are thinking, especially when in a rush. So it is with many of my posts, if not all of them. They are in poor construction of my thoughts. Also and unfortunately I don't read all the rebuttals as I don't have time. I do look at yours, sort of, actually I skim through them because of time constraints so I'm sure to miss some stuff, my apologies sir.
Regarding your point about the God/Hero thing is that God is not a hero because as God he could have done things differently. He didn't have to make death be the penalty for eating from a tree that he himself "planted" and planted in the middle of the Garden to boot. He could of denied the serpent access to the garden as well. Of course I am talking as if the Garden story is history, when it is actual a metaphor. Anyway these are just simple examples, billions more can be thought of. I think we have covered that many times. I maintain the story is bad. So I adjusted by thoughts from evil to bad, I gave in a little and I'm ok with that. I don’t need to be right all the time and I am willing to learn from most anybody.
Oh, yes, your shark story is very good and has a lot of truth in it. However it is not applicable to our discussion because you are not God. God could have saved two people in those same circumstances.
So, I think I'll finish my posting because as mentioned I am too far behind in with some of my clients, I will likely now be working on Sunday too. I wish you good tidings Rem.
Oh, one quote from your Bible before I go....this is Paul talking:
I was with you in weakness and in fear and in much trembling, and my message and my preaching were not in persuasive words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, so that your faith would not rest on the wisdom of men, but on the power of God.
It’s not that way any more. All the church has now are explanations, tricky answers and long-winded explanations that lead nowhere, in my opinion. Seems like it got all switched around, no power just words.
All the best Remy, it’s been my pleasure, perhaps we will meet again but it’s going to be a long time as I've got to focus on work now.
Hi Wisdom Lover, good to hear from you as well. I'll repeat I don't have time to carry on however my point will be as short as yours; your premise wasn't even a premise. You begin with a statement that is factually and provably wrong.
I think before we get to deciding questions of the truth of premises, we need to decide whether we are arguing in a rationally reliable way. Now, if, as you seemed happy to admit, my characterization of your argument is correct, then it is not a matter that is really open for debate that your argument simply doesn't meet that first test.
We don't need to go an inch farther. Even if your premises are undeniable truths, they don't support your conclusion. As such, we don't even really need to know whether your premises are in fact true (undeniably or otherwise), your argument will fail anyway. It's a simple matter of logical analysis that gives us that. So we set your argument aside.
Now, on my argument, it at least passes the basic test that if its premises are true, then its conclusion cannot avoid also being true. It survives the test of logical analysis. We cannot set it aside without worrying about whether its premises are true.
You assert that the first premise of my argument is provably false. The first premise was that the Bible is true. So you must have some proof that the Bible is false.
Note that we have already established that the argument you've given so far cannot be that proof. It isn't even a valid argument. So you must have some other proof that you haven't shared with us yet. Either that or you are claiming that a proof exists that does not in fact exist.
Now, I'm the first to notice the first premise in my argument does require proof. The purpose of my argument was, of course, not to prove that the Bible is true. Instead it was to underscore the fact that, to those who believe the Bible, a godless person's claim to be able to improve upon it is unpersuasive.
(I need hardly add that your supposed improvements strike me as sophomoric...as most such efforts do.)
As for the simple question of the truth of the first premise of my argument, I'm going to go out on a limb and say that I really doubt that, if you ever decide to actually share your 'proof' that it false with us, it will be very challenging. The basis of my doubt is the quality of your argument thus far.
If you are interested in actual proofs of the first premise of my argument, you might check out some of the resources on the STR site.
Regarding your point about the God/Hero thing is that God is not a hero because as God he could have done things differently.
I've already shown that "could have done otherwise" does not invalidate someone's heroic act. Both my Smeagol illustration (where the author could have written it otherwise) and my shark illustration (where I stipulated that I could have saved both Hitler and Gandhi) demonstrate this. In both cases the hero could have done otherwise, but no one would say that on that basis the hero is not a hero.
Oh, yes, your shark story is very good and has a lot of truth in it. However it is not applicable to our discussion because you are not God. God could have saved two people in those same circumstances.
How did you miss the point that in my shark story I specifically stated that I could have saved both Gandhi and Hitler? I stated: "I work for the national guard and can save both... So there is a scenario where I can save both..."
It’s not that way any more. All the church has now are explanations, tricky answers and long-winded explanations that lead nowhere, in my opinion. Seems like it got all switched around, no power just words.
That ignores the context of Paul's statement, where being a good rhetorician and public speaker gained you clout and mattered a great deal to the general public. Paul was apparently a good writer, but not a good speaker (2 Cor. 10:10). That Paul lacked the panache that was popular and probably expected of a speaker at that time does not mean that he did not present arguments and explanations for his theology--he obviously did (Acts 17).
To keep dismissing the other side as "long-winded" and giving "tricky answers" makes no sense in the absence of any concise, well thought out argument of your own. Your own posts are just as long as long as others on this thread.
Both Mike and the Hyper-Calvinist can only talk past one another as both suffer from defining reality by the contours of frail and mutable contingencies rather than by the contours of the immutable and the necessary. The dangers here are twofold. On the one hand, that of open theism, and, on the other hand, that of the Hyper-Calvinist’s inability to see past an anemic and insubstantial this-worldly pair of lenses. While open theism is lamentable, and indeed, a bit baffling (on the one hand), the reduction of *Christ* to a particular contingency of a particular world, say, World-X, by the Hyper-Calvinist is just as lamentable and baffling.
There is no difference between *God* (on the one hand) and God’s *contours* within any given state of affairs (on the other hand). Christ is not, say, Religion-X which a few here or there might someday get a glimpse of. Rather, He is – Christ is – the unavoidable ground by which our entire reality is created, just as He is the sustenance of being in all permutations, just as He is the express Image of the Divine, just as He is the love of the Necessary Being – Who is Himself love, just as He is that All Sufficiency which every frail and insufficient contingency called “a human being” finds itself affronting in all possible worlds. The God of some Christians is by comparison a kind of shriveled rendering whose form is unrecognizable, whose love falters and stumbles over barriers too high, whose reach is different than His will is different than His love all of which are somehow less than all pervasive. When Christ pours Himself out for the beloved – that is to say – when Reality Himself speaks of creating worlds and of loving worlds, He is doing and decreeing the metaphysically absolute, He is doing and decreeing that which He has always done and that which He has always pronounced, which that frail and shriveled rendering cannot comprehend.
Hence it is a narrow, this-worldly sort of metaphysics and a narrow, this-worldly sort of theology which is forced to interpret and define reality by mutable and contingent lines rather than by the Necessary. Such often succumb to the error of asserting bizarre and irrational claims, such as Eden housing but one possible world, singular, and not many, plural, (how such can “be” is just too much for that frail and shrunken version of God) or such as God designing the Fall of Man such that the Necessary fails to instantiate in all possibilities, plural, or such as the Dark, the Outside, there outside of God, here in the pains of privation, offering the Creature – Man – more Sight over more horizons than the Creature – Man – can and will obtain in the Light of Amalgamation within the margins of Bride/Groom, there inside of God. That same tale was told to Man in Eden and it is hence the boldness of Scripture which contradicts the Hyper-Calvinist’s this-worldly-ness wherein Man is still told that tale today. Fortunately – in all worlds – the Necessary is blindingly inescapable, finally, ultimately.
All Sufficiency is found in One, and only One, ontological stopping point. That is to say, more is needed than this or that contingent being. It is a metaphysical impossibility for contingency to pull itself up and into God. That is to say, Man cannot glory. A Door must Open. Living Water Himself must Pour Out. Love Himself must Empty. Only then can the contingent – the beloved – be filled.
That was true in Eden.
That was true outside of Eden prior to Christ.
That is true now prior to Christ’s return.
That will always be true. Short of Marriage, short of Amalgamation. It seems that, in and by love’s volitional motions amid the peculiar triune geography of “Self/Other/Us” which is itself a (metaphysical) singularity (vis-à-vis Trinity), we find a kind of (metaphysical) Wedding, in and by Marriage, of the Bride/Groom, such that then, and only then, can it be the case that should *Man* look inside himself he will see not his own insufficient means, nor his own insufficient ends, but rather, in all directions, wherever his eye shall look, he will see, behold, find, the Means and Ends of All-Sufficiency. The unavoidable semantics of God-In-Man, of Man-In-God, press in upon reality from all directions.
Reality literally cannot be otherwise.
Of course, metaphysically speaking, those very contours of love's pouring out, and of love's filling, are found without First, without Last, in no other ontology outside of Trinity, outside of the Triune God. That Man's contingent being, or Man's contingent "Self”, is thusly fashioned both in Man's horizontal/social reality of community and in Man's Vertical reality of communion amid Man in God, God in Man – inescapably carries us to the Image thereof. Even further, He, being The Necessary, is therein ceaselessly without First, ceaselessly without Last, whereas we, being the contingent, necessarily find in Him – in the ceaseless reciprocity within the immutable love of the Necessary Being – our own First, our own Last.
Evidence is everywhere, everything:
Feser noted in his “The Road From Atheism” the following point of relevance: “If God really exists there should be solid arguments to that effect, and there just aren’t, or so I then supposed. Indeed, that there were no such arguments seemed to me something which would itself be an instance of evil if God existed, and this was an aspect of the problem of evil that seemed really novel and interesting. I see from a look at my old school papers that I was expressing this idea in a couple of essays written for different courses in 1992. (I think that when J. L. Schellenberg’s book “Divine Hiddenness and Human Reason” appeared in 1993 I was both gratified that someone was saying something to that effect in print, and annoyed that it wasn’t me.)”
As it turns out, from 1993 to 2015, now 22 years later, Schellenberg has released his latest attempt at the same insolvent chain of IOU’s, entitled, The Hiddenness Argument: Philosophy's New Challenge to Belief in God.
The sight of God's "contours" are, per Romans 1, both unavoidable and ubiquitous. Presuppositional start/stop points emerge and we easily find use for Feser's reference to Nietzsche's "deicide" (Feser’s The Meaning of The Passion, linked earlier) as we move further downstream:
There is no (metaphysical) possibility of encountering, tasting, perceiving, some contour of the Good, (or of truth, or of love, or of ought, or of logic......and so on) without tasting some contour of God for (on Christianity) *any* contour or elemental constitution of “reality” that is Good (or love, truth, or….) just is some contour of Goodness Itself, and there is but *one* metaphysical path to such a paradigmatically irreducible (non-eliminative) actuality, and that is, simply, God. Nietzsche’s deicide defines a part of (though not all of) the ontological real estate which comprises the madness that is all of our own, or each individual's, or Mankind's own painfully ubiquitous tendencies of trading away some contour truth and of trading away some contour of love and all such trading being a trade for the sake of some contour of the Self. To claim immunity for oneself amid humanity’s painfully ubiquitous stock exchange there is to claim moral spotlessness and such leaves one either a liar or else a lunatic (as C.S. Lewis in part alluded to). As Feser notes in his "The Meaning of the Passion", there can be no obliteration of truth by the Self (in said deicide's painfully ubiquitous truth-trading) without the volitional obliteration of this or that contour of the Divine. It is in this sense where Romans 1, observational reality, and a sound metaphysics successfully break down the insolvent chain of IOU's foisted by Schellenberg now 22 years later.
The theological and metaphysical nature of how it is that the Necessary, that is to say, how it is that God, that is to say, how it is that God's contours (there *can* be no *actual* difference among the three) necessarily manifest in (or to) the sight of Man, leaves Open Theism, Hyper-Calvinism, and Non-Theism frantically scrambling for lucidity, though for three very different reasons.
The paragraph third from last, which starts out with, "The Sight of God's "contours" are....." is missing a sentence.
It should have read as follows:
The sight of God's "contours" are, per Romans 1, both unavoidable and ubiquitous. The utility found in the arena of presuppositional starting points as we assert that we "have" or that we "have not" spied this or that contour of the Divine emerges and we easily find use for Feser's reference to Nietzsche's "deicide" (Feser’s The Meaning of The Passion, linked earlier) as we move further downstream:
There is no (metaphysical) possibility of.........
D. Rishmawy takes a close look at Locating Atonement which is noteworthy.
Posted by: scbrownlhrm | October 26, 2015 at 03:18 AM
D. Rishmawy also looks at 19 Objections and Answers on penal substitutionary atonement.
Posted by: scbrownlhrm | October 26, 2015 at 03:35 AM
I'm with C.S. Lewis on a more "Christus Victor" approach.
Posted by: Goat Head 5 | October 26, 2015 at 09:43 AM
A bit of interesting reading related to C. S. Lewis and the Atonement
Posted by: scbrownlhrm | October 27, 2015 at 02:29 AM
For whom did Christ die?
Many assume Christ paid for the sins of each and every person. But since only relatively few are saved, something must be lacking. Many try to resolve this by saying the person must choose to activate the atonement, or someone, a parent must activate it for a child, etc.
The there are others who say Christ paid for the sins of certain individuals, actually saving them entirely without any involvement of their own, while leaving the rest to perish.
Both groups believe Jesus is the savior of the world. The first group focuses on our present world for whom Jesus died. The latter group focuses on future world where everyone is saved, the New Heavens and Earth, for whom Jesus died.
Posted by: dave | October 27, 2015 at 03:33 AM
"Relatively few are saved". First, one must read on, past "...few there be...". Context. Secondly, the inverse has far more in its corner within Scripture's singular canopy. As for Faith, Time, and Circumstance, any theology which annihilates Hebrews 11 cannot hope to see, or describe, or converge with, the bitter ends of the actual state of affairs. We underestimate our God, our Father, our eyes on sins, on insufficiency, His on something radically different.
Posted by: scbrownlhrm | October 27, 2015 at 04:12 AM
@ scbrownlhrm;
"Relatively few are saved". What are your thoughts on those who drowned in the Flood, the Canaanites, all beyond Israel, beyond the reach of the Gospel, etc., that appear to have been lost?
Posted by: dave | October 27, 2015 at 07:18 AM
Dave,
Describing this view:
How so? Everyone saved?
Posted by: KWM | October 27, 2015 at 07:39 AM
Goat Head I am with you but think penal atonement and Christus Victor work well together.
Posted by: JBerr | October 27, 2015 at 08:46 AM
Dave,
I take the Faith of Hebrews 11 to be literal. I also take it to be the case that the literal Abraham literally interfaced with the literal Christ. After he died. The salvific cannot sum to less. If that is correct, then the power of Time and of Circumstance is surpassed by some other set of facts. If that other set of facts is coherent, then key assumptions become a favorable part of a much larger polemic regarding my initial comment . If, however, the only set of facts is Time, Circumstance, and Faith post-resurrection, then I am incorrect and key assumptions remain problematic for that (larger) polemic.
Posted by: scbrownlhrm | October 27, 2015 at 09:29 AM
Dave,
It's unclear what you mean by "out of the Gospel's reach". Meaning only that nothing about reality *can* be out of the reach of The Necessary.
Posted by: scbrownlhrm | October 27, 2015 at 09:37 AM
GH5,
Christus Victor, perhaps purely Narnian, perhaps Lewis' actual take on it, doesn't seem to address the fundamental nature of privation which we find both in Eden and in Gethsemane, both in obedience and outside of obedience. Dave's referent of the *New*, up ahead, properly speaks of an amalgamation which Eden still lacked and *does* get us there. Now, that Wedding's amalgamation is in no way contingent on Satan's presence or absence, hence Christus Victor just isn't necessary.
Posted by: scbrownlhrm | October 27, 2015 at 10:35 AM
Aslan died as a penal substitute for Edmund.
Posted by: WisdomLover | October 27, 2015 at 12:29 PM
@ KWM,
Jesus being the savior of the world = the world that is actually saved. The world where he died for all without exception = the New Heavens and Earth world.
God so loved the world = the saved world of the future. And not the world he hates and pours his wrath upon = this present world.
Posted by: dave | October 27, 2015 at 03:19 PM
@ scbrownlhrm,
It seems we have too many lost for us not to say "relatively few saved" when referring to those who are saved at any given time.
Posted by: dave | October 27, 2015 at 03:22 PM
Dave,
As one who has to read your well written theology a few times to unpack them, and as one who is always better off for having done so, I know full well that you have valid reasons for choosing Time and Circumstance as your stopping point, or that fact-set as your stopping point.
So yes - we can say that if Time and Circumstance are the end of it - well then that is one set of facts by which to define reality, as alluded to in my last comment. That fact-set or that stopping point seems somewhat artificial (on my view) given what we find in Scripture and it is better to allow Scripture to define our stopping points overall (as you know better than I). It does not seem that Scripture is very intimidated by, or circumscribed by, or limited by, such contingent barriers - at least as such relate to the reach of the Necessary.
For example, we often say more than, or less than, or not all of, what Scripture actually states on "topic X". Say, for example, death before the fall. Well what about it? Well, God gives Man, in Eden, plants and fruits to eat. And yet Atheists still roar about how there could not have been any death before the Fall - because that is what Christians are telling them (sometimes explicitly, sometimes implicitly). Just as they (the Atheists) roar that Man's body just had to be immortal in Eden, even though Man had not eaten of that Tree of Life - again because that is what Christians are telling them (sometimes explicitly, sometimes implicitly). Of course Scripture does not assert such concepts. It speaks of related, overlapping concepts, but we are often too quick to the line.
Now, these poor Atheists, to get their straw man to go through, must think that plants are A) not alive or B) alive after digestion.
As John Lennnox comments:
(The whole chapter is a great read BTW)
On whatever the topic - it is important that we define terms, that we allow the Necessary rather than the Contingent do such defining, that we not say less than Scripture, and, that we not say more than Scripture.
Obviously we disagree on our respective stopping points when it comes to the pervasiveness of the Necessary. However, disagreement per se can be (at times) more helpful than less helpful.
There are all sorts of fact-sets.
Posted by: scbrownlhrm | October 27, 2015 at 04:13 PM
Wisdomlover,
"Aslan died as a penal substitute for Edmund."
Sure.
But the angry Father demanding blood to appease His wrath is entirely absent. Also Aslan did't need to die for the rest of Edmund's family, who while far from perfect, were not in the Witch's power.
Posted by: Goat Head 5 | October 27, 2015 at 05:57 PM
There are all sorts of fact-sets.
That which Christ ushers in is that which God instantiates within all possible worlds of the Adamic Man.
Hebrews 11 affirms that Faith is alive and well in the Old Man, prior to Christ’s resurrection. The options that leaves us with regarding exactly what Christ’s atonement actually delivered to Mankind forces us to define our terms in such a way as to leave the ontological landscape of Hebrews 11 intact in all of its unavoidable clarity, or else, to simply annihilate Hebrews 11 and expunge that topography from all of our theology.
As for the rest, the stuff of Time, the stuff of Circumstance, the pervasiveness of the Necessary relative to the contingent, and so on, all such things are really just moot points pending one’s handling of Faith existing inside of the unregenerate Man. Given what God in Genesis decreed to be the pattern of Mankind’s entire reality, there is no possible world in which the Adamic Man does not find all vectors seamlessly converging in Christ. The eye of Man whether in Eden or outside of Eden has many options, only, thwarting reality is an obvious impossibility as reality cannot be other than what it is.
Christ is not, say, religion-x which a few here or there might someday get a glimpse of. He is rather the unavoidable ground by which our entire reality is created, just as He is the sustenance of being in all permutations, just as He is the express Image of the Divine, just as He is the love of the Necessary Being Who is Himself love, just as He is that All Sufficiency which every frail and insufficient contingency called “a human being” finds itself affronting in all possible worlds. The God of some Christians is by comparison a kind of shriveled rendering whose form is unrecognizable, whose love falters and stumbles over barriers too high, whose power is less than all pervasive. When Christ pours Himself out for the beloved, when Reality Himself speaks of creating worlds and of loving worlds, He is doing and decreeing the metaphysically absolute, He is doing and decreeing that which He has always done and that which He has always pronounced, which that frail and shriveled rendering cannot comprehend.
Posted by: scbrownlhrm | October 28, 2015 at 02:54 AM
GH5,
You are perhaps implicitly mistaken.
Penal substitution an all other coherent incantations of atonement find that God does not demand life to appease Justice.
Rather, He gives, pours out, life to thusly fill such ontological voids. And the only kind or category of life such can be is the All Sufficient.
But then, that just is the case in all possible permutations, given that the frail and insufficient contingency that is the Adamic Person cannot be, ever, the Necessary.
Love is a peculiar state of affairs - and there is only one genre on planet Earth that goes the distance morally, metaphysically, logically, and intuitively.
Posted by: scbrownlhrm | October 28, 2015 at 03:09 AM
Typo:
This:
"Penal substitution an all other coherent....."
Should have been:
"Penal substitution and all other coherent...."
Posted by: scbrownlhrm | October 28, 2015 at 03:11 AM
Narnia is not supposed to be a perfect 1-to-1 analogy with Christian doctrine.
The fact that Aslan didn't die for Peter, Susan and Lucy (or, for that matter, for the Tisroc [may he live forever], Shasta, Caspian, Bree, Puddleglum or any other character) is not germane. Lewis is presenting atonement in the character of Edmund, not those other characters.
As for the business about an angry Father out for blood, that's entirely your fabrication. It is not part of the doctrine of substitutionary atonement.
Posted by: WisdomLover | October 28, 2015 at 04:54 PM
Wait a minute there WL,
Are you saying that Penal Substitutionary atonement does not say that Jesus had to shed blood to satisfy God's anger at man's sin? Or perhaps His honor which was offended by man's sin?
With PSA, God is the problem that has to be solved, the devil really isn't in the picture, wouldn't you say?
Or am I "fabricating" that too?
Posted by: Goat Head 5 | October 28, 2015 at 06:55 PM
Whose magic put Aslan on the stone table? Wasn't it the Emperor's magic?
The devil is in the picture as the accuser. That's all the White Witch was.
I suspect that the word that most bothered me in your phrase "the angry Father demanding blood to appease His wrath" was "appease". The death of Christ turns aside God's wrath. It doesn't appease it.
Posted by: WisdomLover | October 28, 2015 at 10:18 PM
W.L. Craig agrees with C.S. Lewis in that it is the Atonement itself which supersedes this or that particular theory of it - obviously with qualifications. A reasonable Assessment of 5 Theories of Atonement is an interesting read.
It looks at:
1) The Ransom Theory of the atonement – specifically the Christus Victor model.
2) The Satisfaction Theory.
3) Penal Substitution Theory.
4) Moral Influence Theory.
5) Existential view of the Atonement.
Posted by: scbrownlhrm | October 29, 2015 at 02:54 PM
I guess these points are worth noticing:
- The fact that Christ is our substitute does not imply that He did not win the victory over Sin, Death and the Devil.
- The fact that Christ is or substitute does not imply that He did not satisfy justice.
- The fact that Christ is our substitute does not imply that He is not the perfect moral example of God's love for us.
- The fact that Christ is our substitute does not imply that we cannot surrender all to the Cross of Christ and live under its shadow.
Far from precluding any of these points, substitutionary atonement seems to imply them. What is more, it is difficult to see how the atonement could be a victory, satisfaction, example or way of life without it being a case of God substituting Himself for us to turn aside His own wrath.Honestly, we don't owe the devil a blessed thing. He deceived Adam and led him into sin. Adam and Eve's excuses to God were lame, but not entirely without truth. The serpent had no moral claim on them. Satan sinned against them, they did not sin against Satan. If there were any moral claims among the three sinners of Eden, it was Satan who owed Adam and Eve.
But the serious problem is that God had a moral claim on them. The serpent just managed to put himself also in God's debt (or further into God's debt). He certainly did not manage to get to the point that God or Man owed him any ransom.
And the devil doesn't have any kidnapper's leverage against God. If the devil were simply holding us hostage by force, God would think a thought and the devil would be ashes and us free. Of the three victories Christ won over Sin, Death and the Devil, His victory over the Devil was least. True, we could not have won that victory. But if that were the only victory needed, there would have been no need for the cross. And their certainly would have been no need for God Himself to save us by a death upon it.
What is holding us is God's own law and His curse upon us. That's what really needs to be overcome. That's why God had to take our place.
Posted by: WisdomLover | October 30, 2015 at 07:28 AM
Seems like an odd system for an almighty, all knowing and loving entity to set-up. Someone, don't recall the guys name, said that this is akin to a firefighter lighting a house on fire and then saving some while other perish and then calling the firemen a hero.
I can think of a lot better system without too much thought: when people die and their soul's leave this rock they would go to schools. If you did well maybe your go to something akin to college. If you do really, really well you go into a doctorate program. If you injured or did harm to others then you go to a correction facility, etc, etc. Each soul then gets to continue on a journey the lasts forever. That's much better than a dividing between sheep and goats and the goats burn in hell for ever and ever and ever. That's as evil as it gets.
Posted by: Telling it like it is or just TILII | October 30, 2015 at 09:36 AM
Some Arminians, like Jerry Walls, already thought of that system. They call it protestant purgatory. The only problem is the Bible never thought of that system.
The problem with the fire-starter analogy is that it ignore the non-fireman fire-starting agency depicted in the Bible (the people in the house would have to light it on fire) and also makes God just another human agent (a fireman has no rights over the lives of others--so naturally we think it evil for him to direct the course of their lives against their knowledge or will).
A better analogy (though not perfect) would be that of an author. Tolein wirtes the characters of two brothers Smeagol and Deagol. Smeagol willingly and foolishly starts a fire in the forest that ends up trapping Smeagol and Deagol up a tree. Deagol can't hold on any longer and falls into the fire. Just as Smeagol is about to fall too an eagle swoops down and saves him. Clearly this story has a hero (the eagle), Tolkein isn't evil if he writes the story such that Smeagol is saved but his brother, Deagol, perishes, and if Tolkein were to write himself as the eagle then he is the hero of his own story.
Posted by: Remington | October 30, 2015 at 10:39 AM
Hi Remington,
May I call you Rem to save some typing and thank you for your post. I cruised around and saw many of your blog posts. May I ask if you are employed by STR or maybe you are a STR Ambassador? Or perhaps you just enjoy the interacting with others, which is a nice feature of this website. If Greg reads any of these posts I would like to thank him for his willingness let people of all different beliefs post their thoughts. Thank you Greg.
Regarding your specific reply to my post I do agree with nearly ever thing you posted with a minor exception, which is a bit confusing because based upon your other posts I thought you would "go after me". I do agree that your analogy of the author is better than the firemen and I'll explain why in another post, I've got to go but I'll return when time allows.
Posted by: Mike | October 30, 2015 at 11:53 AM
I'm not associated with STR in any way. Just an itinerant commenter.
Posted by: Remington | October 30, 2015 at 12:13 PM
Hi Rem,
Ok, I'm back. Sorry for any confusion but I didn't like TILII name so until I think of something more profound I'll be "Mike".
So let's see....
"The only problem is the Bible never thought of that system" Yes, that's obviously true.
As mentioned I only spent a few minutes thinking about alternatives to hell. It can be improved, such as if you are not going to harm others you can travel instead of going to school and if you ever get bored of traveling (like to other universes) you can go to school. But that doesn't really matter, it is just hypothetical stuff showing that there is a better way than sending souls to burn in hell forever. Most people don't really take anytime to mediate upon the doctrine of hell and just how horrific the dogma really is. If you ever get the stomach flu again just imagine having that for all eternity and then think how that would be heaven compared to burning forever. In my opinion and many others hell is a myth. Of course we are indeed talking about many myths here, the creation story and the Garden of Eden are myths or at best metaphors not intended to be taken literally.
So, your analogy or metaphor of the author is much better than the firemen story. The author is God and as the author he can write the story anyway he wants, after all he is the author. So God creates two beings, A and B. A creates a fire and it kills B but an eagle (which is God in the form of Jesus I presume) saves A and B dies in the fire. Why not let the fire just teach both A and B a lesson and they both come away better for it? No, one dies in the fire (burns forever, no?) and God, who wrote the stupid story ends up the hero. At least in the firemen story the firemen does not proclaim himself the hero, in your story the author writes a horrible story let's an innocent being die in fire and then announces he is a hero to boot. So I do agree, it matches the Bible story much better.
Posted by: Mike | October 30, 2015 at 12:29 PM
And Mike, you've worked out all the details of your better system have you? So you know that it really is better?
This argument is not good:
The reason it is not a good argument is that I could be mistaken about my ability to improve upon the Bible.
In contrast, this is a good argument:
Posted by: WisdomLover | October 30, 2015 at 03:03 PM
Mike,
But now you're just asserting that the Tolkien (I mistakenly typed "Tolkein" earlier) story is horrible and stupid. But while my story was very short and perhaps lacking literary beauty there is nothing in the bare bones of it that makes it stupid or horrid. In fact there are many such stories like this and Tolkien's own stories involve elements similar to the bare bones story that I laid out. I don't know of anyone that thinks Tolkien's stories are stupid or horrible. So why would it be stupid and horrible for God to write such a story?
Why not make the fire turn into cotton candy and instead of an eagle swooping down it's two ice-cream cones, each the perfectly flavor for Smeagol and Deagol?
Just as we may not be capable of answering why an author wrote all the details of his story just as he did, so I don't presume that we should be able to discover an explanation for all the details of God's work. But so what? I don't find it problematic that I don't know why Tolkien chose giant eagles as saviors in his Hobbit story or why this or that orc died. Likewise, it's not prima facie problematic that I don't know why God chose all the details of this world.
Any way, there are many reasons that we can offer as to why God allows evil in his "story" generally. I'm sure you can find such reasons on this website.
I never stipulated that Deagol was innocent in my story.
It's not just him announcing that he is a hero, it's that he is in fact a hero in his story. If Tolkien writes a story where he saves the day then within the confines of that story it's just a fact that he is a hero.
Posted by: Remington | October 30, 2015 at 03:05 PM
Hi Rem and WL,
Thank you for your time and input. I'm not really very good at this stuff, I'm posting mainly because I need the practice on how to express my opinions in a polite and calm manner. So I am grateful that you both took some time out of your day to reply. I respect your opinions and no doubt you are both gentlemen and scholars however I beg to differ with your belief system. I'll need to be brief because I gotta go. My first reply is to WL, good name by the way, I'm still trying to think of a good blogging name for myself.
I think your argument for me is awesome.
I believe that I could improve upon the way the Bible is written. Well, yeah is some ways. Think of all the junk in Leviticus, Deuteronomy, Numbers, etc. I could improve those for sure. Unfortunately the world is going to have to do without since I don't have the time.
God would have written the Bible at least as well as I could.
So, the Bible is false. Yes, yes, exactly. You put it perfectly.
In contrast, this is a good argument:
The Bible is true. That is not an argument and the rest of it flows from a nonsensical start. You could start with "I believe the Bible is true" and therefore yada, yada, yada and that would make sense. However even if the bible is true that doesn't mean it is well written.
Hi Rem,
Thanks for our input; if we lived near each other I'm sure we would be good friends. Regarding the issues the author is the only person responsible for the contents of his book that is pretty obvious. We are trying to find an analogy to describe what takes place from Genesis to Revelation. In this case distinguishing between the author and the characters in his book is not useful. God created the story, according to your belief system; he therefore must take responsibility for the contents of his book. God could write any story he wanted and eating ice cream could save us from fire or sin or whatever. What if the Bible did say eating ice cream saves you from sin? You would have some super long theological statement of faith as to why ice cream saves us from sin. Anyway, back to the story... But God choose to put a tree with fruit that looks good but caused death. After the eating thing God final puts a sword to protect the tree of life therefore God could have put a sword around the tree of knowledge (or whatever its called). There are millions, even billions of scenarios but the fact is God choose to make eating the fruit an inevitable event and then choose death as the consequence. It didn't have to be death, if could of given Adam and Eve food poisoning and then they would have learned to obey God without spreading death to everyone. Remember God is the author of the book and he can write whatever He wants. So to continue, God eventually makes it to earth in the form of Jesus and dies for Adam's sin and all the sins added on after that. So you see the stories do give an shorten succinct summary of the Bible story. God create the problem, he/she then solves the problem but only for some while the majority burn in hell forever and then God thinks himself a hero.
I won't be able to reply until next week so take it easy on me. I may have gone over the top a little, okay I went way over the top but I didn't have time to think this out. Please pardon me if I offended anyone because I like you all and wish you all good things.
Posted by: Mike | October 30, 2015 at 04:36 PM
Posted by: Remington | October 30, 2015 at 06:18 PM
At least this time my block-quote screw up created a nice tornado-like pattern.
Posted by: Remington | October 30, 2015 at 06:19 PM
It is a narrow, this-worldly sort of metaphysics and a narrow, this-worldly sort of theology which is forced to interpret and define reality by mutable and contingent lines rather than by the Necessary. Such often succumb to the error of asserting bizarre and irrational claims, such as Eden housing but one possible world, and not many, or such as God designing the Fall of Man such that the Necessary fails to instantiate in all possibilities, plural, or such as the Dark, the Outside, there outside of God, offering the Creature more Sight over more horizons than the Creature obtains in the Light, there inside of God. But then that is the tale told to Man in Eden, and Man is still told that tale today. Fortunately - in all worlds - the Necessary is blindingly inescapable, finally, ultimately.
Posted by: scbrownlhrm | October 31, 2015 at 01:44 AM
A look at the Atonement from another direction offers insight.
“To rationalize evil, we must obliterate the Good….. And yet there can be no “rationalization” of any action in the absence of Good.” (Feser)
Let’s follow that out, step by step, starting right here, today, and track it, and ourselves, to the obliteration of the Good, and, thereby, to the only genre on planet Earth that gets it right – the peculiarity that is the Christian’s doctrine of the Atonement:
To perceive some contour of reality towards the orphan or the child of, say, love (on the one hand) and, also, to perceive the contour of reality one knows as indifference (on the other hand) towards the orphan or the child, is to perceive two contours of reality converging with the orphan or the child. Well, are those two contours “at bottom” metaphysically distinct, themselves irreducible? One of those contours perceived (love), though by nature higher than indifference, is volitionally scorned and declared to be what Feser justifiably argues is a mere AS-IF fiction on Naturalism, and what others have aptly termed the Noble Lie in that same sort of “living as-if we ought-love” (on Naturalism). Meanwhile, another perceived contour of reality (indifference) is volitionally elevated, made the truth, though it is by nature lower than, more base than, love. Just as problematic is the fact that Logic per se also suffers the *same* defeat given the means and ends available. Such the Non-Theist willingly trades for in all his eliminative metaphysics and while it is true that some Non-Theists today assert an objective morality, what they never do assert is an immutable and irreducible morality and therein even what they do assert is – at some ontological seam somewhere – of the eliminative category.
Today’s Non-Theist asserts nothing that comes even remotely close to an immutable and irreducible love / personhood of the non-eliminative category. Not only are the means unavoidably mutable and pliable but such also fades into the unforgiving hands of eliminative ends and even the fallacy of emergentism which Feser arguably shows to be incoherent is layered over all of “that” by the Non-Theist.
Any metaphysic(s) which is not categorically non-eliminative (irreducible) is, well, eliminative. The worth of the child is deemed to be, by volition, but a Con, a kind of Delusion. Else – God.
But wait: The Christian cannot take comfort there – for – as Romans 1 affirms, we too encounter, and insult, various contours of Truth and Love. In my own case – such is, well, daily.
Scripture tells us we all rationalize some contour of evil such that we (necessarily then) obliterate some contour of the Good? Well that is what Scripture affirms, and, it’s easily demonstrable. As in: That turns out to be a very simple reality which, unfortunately, all of us experience both from others and from ourselves. “Every-man” perceives particular contours of reality, say, X1 and X2, such that, having come upon X1, Every-man then comes upon X2 and X2 just is some contour of reality which is by nature greater, higher, more lofty, more noble, more lovely than X1. Such a contour – X2 – is then volitionally traded on such that the particular contour or reality called X1, which is by nature lower than, less noble than, more base than, less lovely than, the particular contour of reality called X2, assumes the location of Everyman’s choice such that X2 becomes Every-man’s declared Higher, though it is by nature Lower, one's declared Lofty, though it is by nature more Base, and so on, such that what the eye knows to be the lesser is volitionally retained, or elevated, or traded *for*, while the contour of reality which the eye knows to be the more lofty, the more lovely is set aside, or debased, or traded *away*.
That dance which we all, unfortunately, partake of between those perceived contours of reality obtains in a thousand different forms and in a thousand different fashions amid a thousand different cultures amid a thousand different norms across the span of eons and this dance is affirmed by even a high school examination of Anthropology 101. However, that dance itself, the trading itself, is of a singular nature, of a singular archetype.
How do we know this is the case with both our volitional use of reason and our constitutional nature?
Well that is easy: The existential and the intellectual saturate mankind’s experiential landscape and it turns out that the flavor which is ubiquitously tasted by all of us is a certain offence against love at some seam somewhere in life, in our own life, and, a certain offense against truth at some seam somewhere in life, in our own life, and those two ubiquitously tasted offenses against Love and Truth are so concrete that the one among *us* who denies such in himself is immediately counted, by all of us, as a liar – or a lunatic. Even more concrete is the fact that we all know this given the fact that should one among us claim of themselves today the moral spotlessness which Christ claimed of Himself the reaction by all of us against that claim would be ….wait for it…….*ubiquitous*.
“To rationalize evil, we must obliterate the Good….. And yet there can be no “rationalization” of any action in the absence of Good.”
There is no such possibility of obliterating some contour of the Good without obliterating some contour of God for *any* contour or elemental feature of “reality” that is Good just is some contour of Goodness Itself, and there is but *one* metaphysical path to such an irreducible *end*, and that is, simply, God. Nietzsche’s deicide defines a part of, not all of, the ontological real estate which comprises the metanarrative of Man’s painful privation.
And this brings us into Feser’s look at the Atonement from another direction which offers insight:
Posted by: scbrownlhrm | October 31, 2015 at 02:08 AM
If the link on the Atonement fails to go to the proper page, the correct link is here and lands on "The Meaning of The Passion".
Posted by: scbrownlhrm | October 31, 2015 at 02:13 AM
Hi Remy, I trust your day is going well. I woke up early this morning so I'm posting before I go to work. Unfortunately my career, at least at this time of my life, requires and unbelievable amount of hours, eeekkk, so my posting to this blog is going to need to be reduced or eliminated or else I'll lose a bunch of clients.
We can banter back and forth forever. No doubt you guys know more than I in regards to religion / Christianity /philosophy so admittedly you've got me beat in that area. The downside to your position is that your locked in to a dogma that doesn't allow for personal freedom of thought because anything the Bible says has to be defended because it is "the word of God", even nonsensical stuff requires long winded explanations for nearly everything as opposed to the simple and obvious.
Regarding scbrownlhrm's input, thank you for your time sir. Unfortunately I can't read all that this morning and I can't possibly respond to multiple rebuttals because of my career obligations, it is Saturday morning and I'm getting ready to go to work. Perhaps another day. Nonetheless thank you for your time.
Below is Remy's last part of his post: "So far you've just pointed out that you don't like the way God has done things." Your assuming God has done things this way, maybe he hasn't. It is just part of your belief system. Basically your just going with the majority vote. I don't think He/She did things this way and therefore it is not part of my belief system. If there is any "proof" at all, it would be in my favor not yours. As an example, "the wages of sin is death" seems unlikely. Living things on earth have been dying for millions of years so there is no correlation between sin and death unless you date the Garden of Eden story millions of years into the past. God could of wrote into his story that if you sin you barf constantly for 24 hours and no other "thing" can cause barfing. Humans would then quickly correlate cause and effect and recognize sin is the cause of barfing. It would greatly reduce the amount of sin too because who wants to barf constantly for 24 hours :)
You also said that "in this story, the people who burn in hell forever (1) don't want to be saved and (2) are being punished for their sins" That is not true. In the analogy you wrote both of the characters wanted to be saved, if they didn't they would not have bothered to climb the tree and then hold on for dear life. Same is true in real life, everybody I know would like to live on after their few years here on this rock. Regarding the second point that is still just your belief system and it is not factual. As mentioned we can banter back and forward on this issue forever as it comes down to belief systems. The Bible backs me up on this because belief is the thing that gets you into heaven.
But as I write this what peaks my curiosity is some background on your belief system. I assume you believe the Garden of Eden story is literal, no? If you do believe the GoE story is literal where do you place it in history? 6,000 years ago, 50,000 years ago, 200,000 years ago or millions of years ago? Are you a young or old earth creationist or a intelligent design advocate? How is original sin passed from person to person? If you take the time to read this post I thank you again and wish you an enjoyable weekend my friend. No hard feeling, we just don't share the same belief system. Fortunately for you, you have a book that supposedly explains everything whereas I do not.
Posted by: Mike | October 31, 2015 at 07:47 AM
Mike,
My comments were directed at the OP, and not really toward your discussion with Remington and WL.
You simply haven't earned the intellectual right to challenge the constitutions of love unless and until you put your own cards on the table regarding said constitutions.
What is love, on your view? Is it an evolved meme which itself reduces to that which is, in fact, constituted of the indifference that just is particle cascade? Or what?
God, being love, constitutes the Christian's A, the Christian's Z. Love's ceaseless reciprocity houses much within its singular meta-narrative there in Scripture *but* unpacking that for the questioner unwilling to commit himself where love is concerned seems unwarranted. On our end, well, such commitments are made daily by Christians in these sorts of threads.
Love is the highest ethic, on that singular meta-narrative. Now, it seems you agree on that ethical statement.
What isn't clear is what possible warrent you could have to believe such a metaphysically loaded claim.
And without that commitment from you, well the discussion you're having with Rem/WL just isn't interesting.
Posted by: scbrownlhrm | October 31, 2015 at 08:17 AM
Mike,
It makes no difference to my point if you just add in to my statement "So far you've just pointed out that you don't like the way God has done things [according to the Bible]."
It's true that if you accept the standard Darwinian theory of history then you might run into trouble fitting that with the Bible. Some Christians have tried to make them fit: for instance there is the Old Earth Creation model where the earth has been around for millions of years and animal life has experienced death since the beginning. But God still created an original human pair, several hundred thousand years ago, that did not experience death until they sinned. To support this idea they point out that the death-introducing passages are always focused on humans (Romans 5, Gen 3).
However, I suspect you will be almost as skeptical of the scientific evidence of there having been an original human pair as the idea that the earth has only been around for thousands rather than millions of years. My own position is that of a relatively young earth. I think it's rational to believe in a young earth if (a) one has good reason to believe the Bible is the word of God and (b) there are good exegetical reasons to believe it teaches the Earth is relatively young. There are epistemological issues here that would need to be unpacked and you may hand-wave that as "long winded explanations" but it would be foolish to dismiss complicated issues or nuance simply because you find it complicated or nuanced. On those grounds you might as well dismiss the scientific arguments for an old earth or the Darwinian thesis as "long winded." Any way, this is largely an area for the scientists to wrestle with and there are several good scientists on all sides of the issue (e.g., Fazale Rana on the side of the old earth and original human pair position I described and Todd Wood or Jay Wile on the young earth side). I'm not a scientist, so I won't bother trying to argue the scientific merits of any position.
These are pointless imaginations that seem to have as their goal a poisoning of the well. Why not just deal with the actual positions being defended? As it happens, people do recognize that death is a proper penalty for some sins. But no one recognizes that barfing is a penalty for some sins.
Remember that you were trying to show the absurdity of the Bible story. So you have to account for the vital parts of the Bible story like man's rebellion.
My analogy was about four sentences long and was only written to illustrate two points: (1) that God can plan events without sharing in the culpability of the agents who are part of that plan and (2) that God can plan events and then participate in them as a savior or hero. And in fact I didn't specify that Smeagol or Deagol wanted to be saved by the eagle. They didn't want to die by the fire, sure. But I didn't specify whether they would have/did welcome the eagle or whether the eagle plucked Smeagol unwillingly from the tree.
"live on" is not the same as salvation. And you can easily find *many* atheists who openly admit that they would never worship or accept God if he existed.
Beliefs can be true or false. Beliefs that are true are factual.
Some of your questions about the "background" of my belief system don't seem very relevant to me. I'll skip over them for the sake of time right now.
Posted by: Remington | October 31, 2015 at 08:35 AM
Posted by: WisdomLover | October 31, 2015 at 08:53 AM
Mike,
I think our conversation is getting off track. You started off trying to illustrate (via the fire-starter story) that the idea of God planning the current world and then being a heroic actor within that world was silly and left God morally blameworthy. I countered with another story that preserved the basic tenets of the Bible of this world being part of God's plan and God being a heroic actor within the world but didn't imply that God was blameworthy or silly.
You responded by simply declaring that this story is horrible and stupid. But I pointed out that (a) most people don't think similar stories are horrible and stupid and that (b) it boils down to an assertion without an argument.
So I think we need to get back to that point before moving on to other things you raised later on:
Is the story stupid and horrible because (a) God planned it and (b) God acts as the hero within it? If so why?
Posted by: Remington | October 31, 2015 at 09:01 AM
Hi Remy,
You're ok, your a good guy and I appreciate your time however your beliefs are not factual. Quite the opposite. However I'm at work now. And I'm dead serious when I say I've got to work on some client's stuff, I'm a professional with lots of demands on my time. You apparently have lots of time on our hands, I do not. So, simply, the story is not stupid or horrible because God planned it (which he didn't by the way) nor because he acts as the hero. It is horrible and stupid because the punishment is eternal damnation for not believing something on bad evidence and he is only the hero for some, He is the villain for everyone else but still claims to be a hero even though God invented the entire store that puts billions of souls into hell forever. That is an evil story and we been through all that before.
This next part isn't regarding you or WL because I have never meet you face to face but I do know a lot of Christians and a problem for me is that Christian's defend their dogma like a pit bull but don't give a damn about others. I interact with Christian's face to face a lot but they never show any emotions. How can you really believe a friend or neighbor is going to hell for all eternity and not snob for them, hold them, cry with them. The reason is Hell is just a dogma planted in the brain or they don't really believe it or perhaps they are just completely self absorbed.
Hi Wisdom Lover, good to hear from you as well. I'll repeat I don't have time to carry on however my point will be as short as yours; your premise wasn't even a premise. You begin with a statement that is factually and provably wrong.
Now, if only I could sign off with the wit and insight of the Screw Tape Letters but all I can think of is may life bless you Remy and WL, in an odd way you may not understand you guys really are my friends whether you want to be or not.
Mike
Posted by: Mike | October 31, 2015 at 09:55 AM
Mike,
Thanks for taking the time to respond so cordially. Being polite and cordial is helpful to dialogue which seeks to establish or debunk truth claims. This type of dialogue can be fruitful as we put claims to the test.
But we actually need to put claims to the test by providing reasons or arguments or data to back up the claims made. Otherwise we are just politely telling each other that they are wrong, which is a lot less dialectically useful.
Now you've made a claim that the story of the Bible (or some specific elements of it) is horrible and stupid. That's the claim I would like to "put to the test" so to speak or find out whether there are good reasons for the claim being made.
But later you say that God "claims to be a hero even though God invented the entire store that puts billions of souls into hell forever."
So it looks like you do find something objectionable about God being a hero in a story that he has planned that does not involve the salvation of everyone. But why? Going back to my Tolkien illustration, not everyone in that story was saved. And the story was according to Tolkien's plan. But it's also clearly the case that Tolkien the eagle was the savior/hero of Smeagol. Tolkien could have written it so that he saved both Smeagol and Deagol, but he chose not perhaps for some other purpose. But there is no principle such that "If a person is going to be a hero he must save all those that he is capable of saving and all those who are in need of saving." While you might think that's plausible, prima facie, it's easy to see that there are counter-examples: Gandhi and Hitler fall into shark infested waters. I work for the national guard and can save both and both are clearly in need of saving. But I choose to save Gandhi and not Hitler, knowing that if I save Hitler he will go on to kill six million jews. So there is a scenario where I can save both and bother are in need of saving but I have no moral obligation to save both. And I'm a hero for saving Gandhi.
i) It's not the case that people are punished merely for not believing something. There are a lot of bad things people do (in addition to not believing something) that they are punished for.
ii) It's not the case that the evidence is bad.
That God doesn't save those people who don't wish to be saved by him or spend eternity with him does not make him "the villain."
Posted by: Remington | October 31, 2015 at 12:22 PM
Remmyyy,
As you have probably experienced yourself, a person doesn't always communicate their thoughts clearly or write in blogs what they are thinking, especially when in a rush. So it is with many of my posts, if not all of them. They are in poor construction of my thoughts. Also and unfortunately I don't read all the rebuttals as I don't have time. I do look at yours, sort of, actually I skim through them because of time constraints so I'm sure to miss some stuff, my apologies sir.
Regarding your point about the God/Hero thing is that God is not a hero because as God he could have done things differently. He didn't have to make death be the penalty for eating from a tree that he himself "planted" and planted in the middle of the Garden to boot. He could of denied the serpent access to the garden as well. Of course I am talking as if the Garden story is history, when it is actual a metaphor. Anyway these are just simple examples, billions more can be thought of. I think we have covered that many times. I maintain the story is bad. So I adjusted by thoughts from evil to bad, I gave in a little and I'm ok with that. I don’t need to be right all the time and I am willing to learn from most anybody.
Oh, yes, your shark story is very good and has a lot of truth in it. However it is not applicable to our discussion because you are not God. God could have saved two people in those same circumstances.
So, I think I'll finish my posting because as mentioned I am too far behind in with some of my clients, I will likely now be working on Sunday too. I wish you good tidings Rem.
Oh, one quote from your Bible before I go....this is Paul talking:
I was with you in weakness and in fear and in much trembling, and my message and my preaching were not in persuasive words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, so that your faith would not rest on the wisdom of men, but on the power of God.
It’s not that way any more. All the church has now are explanations, tricky answers and long-winded explanations that lead nowhere, in my opinion. Seems like it got all switched around, no power just words.
All the best Remy, it’s been my pleasure, perhaps we will meet again but it’s going to be a long time as I've got to focus on work now.
Posted by: Mike | October 31, 2015 at 01:29 PM
We don't need to go an inch farther. Even if your premises are undeniable truths, they don't support your conclusion. As such, we don't even really need to know whether your premises are in fact true (undeniably or otherwise), your argument will fail anyway. It's a simple matter of logical analysis that gives us that. So we set your argument aside.
Now, on my argument, it at least passes the basic test that if its premises are true, then its conclusion cannot avoid also being true. It survives the test of logical analysis. We cannot set it aside without worrying about whether its premises are true.
You assert that the first premise of my argument is provably false. The first premise was that the Bible is true. So you must have some proof that the Bible is false.
Note that we have already established that the argument you've given so far cannot be that proof. It isn't even a valid argument. So you must have some other proof that you haven't shared with us yet. Either that or you are claiming that a proof exists that does not in fact exist.
Now, I'm the first to notice the first premise in my argument does require proof. The purpose of my argument was, of course, not to prove that the Bible is true. Instead it was to underscore the fact that, to those who believe the Bible, a godless person's claim to be able to improve upon it is unpersuasive.
(I need hardly add that your supposed improvements strike me as sophomoric...as most such efforts do.)
As for the simple question of the truth of the first premise of my argument, I'm going to go out on a limb and say that I really doubt that, if you ever decide to actually share your 'proof' that it false with us, it will be very challenging. The basis of my doubt is the quality of your argument thus far.
If you are interested in actual proofs of the first premise of my argument, you might check out some of the resources on the STR site.
Posted by: WisdomLover | October 31, 2015 at 06:26 PM
I've already shown that "could have done otherwise" does not invalidate someone's heroic act. Both my Smeagol illustration (where the author could have written it otherwise) and my shark illustration (where I stipulated that I could have saved both Hitler and Gandhi) demonstrate this. In both cases the hero could have done otherwise, but no one would say that on that basis the hero is not a hero.
How did you miss the point that in my shark story I specifically stated that I could have saved both Gandhi and Hitler? I stated: "I work for the national guard and can save both... So there is a scenario where I can save both..."
That ignores the context of Paul's statement, where being a good rhetorician and public speaker gained you clout and mattered a great deal to the general public. Paul was apparently a good writer, but not a good speaker (2 Cor. 10:10). That Paul lacked the panache that was popular and probably expected of a speaker at that time does not mean that he did not present arguments and explanations for his theology--he obviously did (Acts 17).
To keep dismissing the other side as "long-winded" and giving "tricky answers" makes no sense in the absence of any concise, well thought out argument of your own. Your own posts are just as long as long as others on this thread.
Posted by: Remington | November 01, 2015 at 10:54 AM
Both Mike and the Hyper-Calvinist can only talk past one another as both suffer from defining reality by the contours of frail and mutable contingencies rather than by the contours of the immutable and the necessary. The dangers here are twofold. On the one hand, that of open theism, and, on the other hand, that of the Hyper-Calvinist’s inability to see past an anemic and insubstantial this-worldly pair of lenses. While open theism is lamentable, and indeed, a bit baffling (on the one hand), the reduction of *Christ* to a particular contingency of a particular world, say, World-X, by the Hyper-Calvinist is just as lamentable and baffling.
There is no difference between *God* (on the one hand) and God’s *contours* within any given state of affairs (on the other hand). Christ is not, say, Religion-X which a few here or there might someday get a glimpse of. Rather, He is – Christ is – the unavoidable ground by which our entire reality is created, just as He is the sustenance of being in all permutations, just as He is the express Image of the Divine, just as He is the love of the Necessary Being – Who is Himself love, just as He is that All Sufficiency which every frail and insufficient contingency called “a human being” finds itself affronting in all possible worlds. The God of some Christians is by comparison a kind of shriveled rendering whose form is unrecognizable, whose love falters and stumbles over barriers too high, whose reach is different than His will is different than His love all of which are somehow less than all pervasive. When Christ pours Himself out for the beloved – that is to say – when Reality Himself speaks of creating worlds and of loving worlds, He is doing and decreeing the metaphysically absolute, He is doing and decreeing that which He has always done and that which He has always pronounced, which that frail and shriveled rendering cannot comprehend.
Hence it is a narrow, this-worldly sort of metaphysics and a narrow, this-worldly sort of theology which is forced to interpret and define reality by mutable and contingent lines rather than by the Necessary. Such often succumb to the error of asserting bizarre and irrational claims, such as Eden housing but one possible world, singular, and not many, plural, (how such can “be” is just too much for that frail and shrunken version of God) or such as God designing the Fall of Man such that the Necessary fails to instantiate in all possibilities, plural, or such as the Dark, the Outside, there outside of God, here in the pains of privation, offering the Creature – Man – more Sight over more horizons than the Creature – Man – can and will obtain in the Light of Amalgamation within the margins of Bride/Groom, there inside of God. That same tale was told to Man in Eden and it is hence the boldness of Scripture which contradicts the Hyper-Calvinist’s this-worldly-ness wherein Man is still told that tale today. Fortunately – in all worlds – the Necessary is blindingly inescapable, finally, ultimately.
All Sufficiency is found in One, and only One, ontological stopping point. That is to say, more is needed than this or that contingent being. It is a metaphysical impossibility for contingency to pull itself up and into God. That is to say, Man cannot glory. A Door must Open. Living Water Himself must Pour Out. Love Himself must Empty. Only then can the contingent – the beloved – be filled.
That was true in Eden.
That was true outside of Eden prior to Christ.
That is true now prior to Christ’s return.
That will always be true. Short of Marriage, short of Amalgamation. It seems that, in and by love’s volitional motions amid the peculiar triune geography of “Self/Other/Us” which is itself a (metaphysical) singularity (vis-à-vis Trinity), we find a kind of (metaphysical) Wedding, in and by Marriage, of the Bride/Groom, such that then, and only then, can it be the case that should *Man* look inside himself he will see not his own insufficient means, nor his own insufficient ends, but rather, in all directions, wherever his eye shall look, he will see, behold, find, the Means and Ends of All-Sufficiency. The unavoidable semantics of God-In-Man, of Man-In-God, press in upon reality from all directions.
Reality literally cannot be otherwise.
Of course, metaphysically speaking, those very contours of love's pouring out, and of love's filling, are found without First, without Last, in no other ontology outside of Trinity, outside of the Triune God. That Man's contingent being, or Man's contingent "Self”, is thusly fashioned both in Man's horizontal/social reality of community and in Man's Vertical reality of communion amid Man in God, God in Man – inescapably carries us to the Image thereof. Even further, He, being The Necessary, is therein ceaselessly without First, ceaselessly without Last, whereas we, being the contingent, necessarily find in Him – in the ceaseless reciprocity within the immutable love of the Necessary Being – our own First, our own Last.
Evidence is everywhere, everything:
Feser noted in his “The Road From Atheism” the following point of relevance: “If God really exists there should be solid arguments to that effect, and there just aren’t, or so I then supposed. Indeed, that there were no such arguments seemed to me something which would itself be an instance of evil if God existed, and this was an aspect of the problem of evil that seemed really novel and interesting. I see from a look at my old school papers that I was expressing this idea in a couple of essays written for different courses in 1992. (I think that when J. L. Schellenberg’s book “Divine Hiddenness and Human Reason” appeared in 1993 I was both gratified that someone was saying something to that effect in print, and annoyed that it wasn’t me.)”
As it turns out, from 1993 to 2015, now 22 years later, Schellenberg has released his latest attempt at the same insolvent chain of IOU’s, entitled, The Hiddenness Argument: Philosophy's New Challenge to Belief in God.
The sight of God's "contours" are, per Romans 1, both unavoidable and ubiquitous. Presuppositional start/stop points emerge and we easily find use for Feser's reference to Nietzsche's "deicide" (Feser’s The Meaning of The Passion, linked earlier) as we move further downstream:
There is no (metaphysical) possibility of encountering, tasting, perceiving, some contour of the Good, (or of truth, or of love, or of ought, or of logic......and so on) without tasting some contour of God for (on Christianity) *any* contour or elemental constitution of “reality” that is Good (or love, truth, or….) just is some contour of Goodness Itself, and there is but *one* metaphysical path to such a paradigmatically irreducible (non-eliminative) actuality, and that is, simply, God. Nietzsche’s deicide defines a part of (though not all of) the ontological real estate which comprises the madness that is all of our own, or each individual's, or Mankind's own painfully ubiquitous tendencies of trading away some contour truth and of trading away some contour of love and all such trading being a trade for the sake of some contour of the Self. To claim immunity for oneself amid humanity’s painfully ubiquitous stock exchange there is to claim moral spotlessness and such leaves one either a liar or else a lunatic (as C.S. Lewis in part alluded to). As Feser notes in his "The Meaning of the Passion", there can be no obliteration of truth by the Self (in said deicide's painfully ubiquitous truth-trading) without the volitional obliteration of this or that contour of the Divine. It is in this sense where Romans 1, observational reality, and a sound metaphysics successfully break down the insolvent chain of IOU's foisted by Schellenberg now 22 years later.
The theological and metaphysical nature of how it is that the Necessary, that is to say, how it is that God, that is to say, how it is that God's contours (there *can* be no *actual* difference among the three) necessarily manifest in (or to) the sight of Man, leaves Open Theism, Hyper-Calvinism, and Non-Theism frantically scrambling for lucidity, though for three very different reasons.
Posted by: scbrownlhrm | November 02, 2015 at 01:25 AM
Correction:
The paragraph third from last, which starts out with, "The Sight of God's "contours" are....." is missing a sentence.
It should have read as follows:
The sight of God's "contours" are, per Romans 1, both unavoidable and ubiquitous. The utility found in the arena of presuppositional starting points as we assert that we "have" or that we "have not" spied this or that contour of the Divine emerges and we easily find use for Feser's reference to Nietzsche's "deicide" (Feser’s The Meaning of The Passion, linked earlier) as we move further downstream:
There is no (metaphysical) possibility of.........
Posted by: scbrownlhrm | November 02, 2015 at 02:17 AM