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Monday, October 18, 2010

The Calvinist God and the Chilean Miners



I found an interesting post on a site called TheArminian.net. The author asks:

For the benefit of this post, I want to ask why fallen human beings, with regard to the 33 miners, sought every means possible to secure their rescue, but God does not do the same in the Calvinistic system? What is it within human beings, generally speaking, that seeks to rescue those in peril? Granted, the analogy will only carry so far, because Arminianism rejects the heresy of Universalism (cf. Matt. 7:21-23; Rev. 20:11-15) — all 33 miners were rescued. In spite of the Calvinist’s best efforts at explaining how God could in any genuine sense desire the salvation of all people (as Scripture explicitly teaches at 1 Timothy 2:4 et al.), since He has from eternity past, allegedly, already unconditionally selected to save only some (by bringing them to faith through regeneration), they pale in comparison to the words of Christ Jesus: “How often have I desired to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing!” (Matt. 23:37 NRSV)

The Chilean president stated that, whatever it takes, all miners would be rescued. His confident assertion and enthusiasm was inspiring. He and everyone else recognized that those men were in need, so they did what they could to secure their freedom. ...

As Calvinism has it, however, God is not interested in irresistibly saving every individual, nor does He genuinely love the world, contra Scripture (John 3:16). We are left wondering why human beings, in an effort to rescue all 33 miners, for example, retain more genuine love in their breast for other human beings than does the God of Calvinism?

The author makes an important observation. Human beings, seemingly, have more love and compassion than does the Calvinist God. Of course, the Calvinist would say that all men deserve nothing but wrath and judgment and the fact that God saves any is pure grace. Furthermore, God is wise and sovereign, who are we, the mere creature, to question the all-knowing Creator? Anticipating such a reply, a commenter who calls himself DrWayman remarks:

Imagine the outcry if the Prez of Chile, for his own good reasons, decided that only three of the miners would be saved and the rest were to perish. Of course, we would be upset with him but he decided that he did not need to share with us his reasoning for doing so. He told us to trust him, that his salvation of the three miners shows just how terrific he is. Everyone should be glad because he could have left them all to perish…

What would be the response of humanity to such a decree by the President of Chile? Would he be praised for his love and grace? Or would he be condemned as a heartless tyrant?

The Arminian is not off the hook, though, either. As the blogger said above, Arminianism does not hold to universalism. It teaches that some will be eternally lost. To follow the analogy, under Arminianism, some of the miners because of their stubborness would have refused to come out of the mine. The rescuers, respecting the free will of the miners, would have left them to perish.

Does that really make sense? If some of the miners had refused to come out of the mine, it would have been because they were not "thinking right." The trauma of being in the mine for such a long time would have caused some kind of psychological damage resulting in their refusal to come out of the mine. Similarly, in Arminian theology, sinners are not "thinking right." Their minds and their wills have been damaged by sin. They may refuse to cooperate with the grace of God and be saved. What should be done with such people?

In the case of the miners, if some had refused to come out, I tend to think they would have been rescued against their will. The argument would have been that these poor people have been traumatized to the point that they can no longer think rationally and it is the responiblity of the rescuers to override their will and bring them to safety.

How do you think the world would respond to such a scenario? I submit that the rescuers would have been praised for doing the right thing, the loving thing, the humane thing. But what about the fact that these stubborn miners had their free will violated? Isn't free will the ultimate good in the universe, even more than love? It seems so according to Arminianism.

Thus, neither Arminianism nor Calvinism really presents a truly loving God. They both put free will over love. In Calvinism, it is God's free choice that is supreme and in Arminianism it is man's free choice that is supreme.

89 comments:

  1. Apologists for the Chilean president could say he loved the miners enough to let them decide whether to stay in the mine and die. He will not force his rescue on any. (Chuckle.)

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  2. To press the analogy further, imagine if half of the miners choose to stay in the mine. Then some time after the rescue capsule is removed and the team goes home, the trapped miners change their minds. They contact the president by radio and confess they'd made a terrible mistake in judgment. But he informs them that it's now too late -- the time of rescue has passed. When they cry out in despair, he reminds them that he is only honoring and ratifying the decision they had already made, so there's no valid claim of injustice. What would we think about him?

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  3. Funny. Not a single miner seems to have wanted to stay down in that hole. Note that the hole would be a metaphor for the sin that supposedly sends people to Hell, not Hell itself. The death that would result from staying in the hole would symbolize Hell. The reason they all wanted to come up was because they all knew well enough that they were going to die if they didn't. So, seriously, if Hell were as obvious as the inevitable death that would come of staying too long in the mine, who wouldn't want to escape? And Hell is purportedly the infinitely worse fate. Why, then, doesn't God make it at least as obvious? Maybe he really doesn't give a flying fig about our eternal destinies. A better guess is that there is no Hell, no Heaven, and no God.

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  4. Wow, how pompous can we be? Some folks halfway across the world spared no expense to save 33 miners, so now some spoiled and lazy atheist Americans get to congratulate ourselves on being more loving than God?

    There are people suffering and dying anonymously every day, and none of us do anything to save them, despite having the means. As Dan Ariely has shown through experimentation, people will contribute money to a highly visible televised crisis that involves persons faces, but ignore much larger problems, while being fully aware of them. I'm sorry, but almost nobody in America has any right to talk about how we employ "every means possible" to rescue the suffering and dying.

    And if you ask the Chilean miners, they'll tell you that it *was* God who got them out. At least, the ones I saw on TV did.

    "Thus, neither Arminianism nor Calvinism really presents a truly loving God. They both put free will over love. In Calvinism, it is God's free choice that is supreme and in Arminianism it is man's free choice that is supreme"

    I don't get this. How is love that denies free will worthy of the name? Do we demand that God be a cosmic rapist?

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  5. "I don't get this. How is love that denies free will worthy of the name? Do we demand that God be a cosmic rapist?"

    I denied my children's free will all the time when they were young. I never once said, "I love you enough to let you play in the road. I will never force my will on you."

    The free will defense is so lame, J.S. Find something better.

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  6. I don't get this. How is love that denies free will worthy of the name? Do we demand that God be a cosmic rapist?

    That's funny. I have heard the Calvinist doctrine of irresistible grace called "The Holy Rape of the Soul."

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  7. @Hacksaw Duck - Saying that people have free will is not the same as saying that they are given absolute license. The Bible is clear that God corrects, disciplines, and even compels those he loves. In fact, he Bible verses where God threatens to stop punishing are when you know He is really angry.

    One must allow a degree of free will, if there is to be any love. This is true for you and your children, just as it is true for God. Did you tell your children that they are never allowed to leave you? Neither does God.

    Your tone about child-rearing is painfully sanctimonious. What do you tell the parents who have young adult children who commit suicide or overdose on drugs? Are you "one of those people" who blame it on the parents, and say the parents "failed to protect" the kids?

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  8. @Walter - Well, it's not the happy-sappy permissive kind of "love" that we in the liberated world think about. Read Hosea some time. To us moderns, it seems like textbook codependence.

    OTOH, what you describe sounds like a typical Arminian smear of the doctrine of irresistible grace which no Calvinist would agree with. It makes for a funny soundbite on a message board, but doesn't promote any real understanding.

    As far as I'm concerned (and Ken highlights this in his post above) it's mainly a matter of word games. The end result is the same -- some are saved, some are condemned.

    Calvinists, like most scientists and atheist, believe in compatibilist free will. Compatibilism is compatible with predestination. Saying that irresistable grace is "cosmic rape", on account of it being predestined, is no different than saying that consensual sex is "rape", for the same reason. It's just ridiculous.

    Arminians, in contrast with most scientists and atheists, believe in a relatively incoherent concept called "libertarian free will". If you believe in libertarian free will, I can understand how you would make statements about irresistable grace being "cosmic rape". But then I would suspect you're not a very good atheist.

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  9. "Thus, neither Arminianism nor Calvinism really presents a truly loving God. They both put free will over love."

    The problem in both is the Pauline theology that the world is all about God wanting a perfect world filled with immortal men but Adam eating an apple getting in the way and now everyone is damned by default unless they accept magical beliefs and ceremonies to save them from the damnation they deserve (sic) for someone else' "sin".

    If, however, the world is more like modern Jews, or even perhaps Jesus himself in the parable of the net (Mat 13:47-50) or some apocryphal book like Sriach would describe it: if God created the world to test men and see who he would want to be with him in the end, the whole "many are called but few are chosen" motif, these sorts of problems are avoided.

    If its that he simply rewards and punishes based on our works and in proportion to their goodness and badness, then all the foolish theological problems inherent in the Christian message are gone. If salvation isn't about faith, but is about morality, you don't end up bogged down knee deep in Pauline feces.

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  10. "many are called but few are chosen" i.e. with the choosing happening after the calling:

    Matthew 13:47-50 "Again, the kingdom of heaven is like unto a net, that was cast into the sea, and gathered of every kind: (48) Which, when it was full, they drew to shore, and sat down, and gathered the good into vessels, but cast the bad away. (49) So shall it be at the end of the world: the angels shall come forth, and sever the wicked from among the just, (50) And shall cast them into the furnace of fire: there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth."

    So God makes the sea so a bunch of fish can spawn in it. Then he puts a net in and catches a bunch. They he sifts through them and chooses the best and tosses the rest. And this choosing is in the end and is based on how the fish are not on some retarded predestination that has no reason to. The bad fish are bad because they're stinky or something not because he decided beforehand he would call this one bad for no reason at all other than a dice roll or something.

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  11. @ J.S.- You missed my point. I was rebutting your statement that God's supposed infringement on the free will of man would be a violation of love. It wouldn't be. I "violated" my children's not-so-free will all the time for their own good precisely because I loved them.

    I'm baffled by your subsequent comments, such as the suggestion that I'd blame parents for some tragedy involving their kids. When did I say anything like that??

    You come in here with a real attitude and it doesn't help your case any.

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  12. Calvinists, like most scientists and atheist, believe in compatibilist free will. Compatibilism is compatible with predestination. Saying that irresistable grace is "cosmic rape", on account of it being predestined, is no different than saying that consensual sex is "rape", for the same reason. It's just ridiculous.


    Is it ridiculous? Calvinists believe that all of humanity is incapable of coming to God due to an inherited sin nature. Through some divine lottery that no human is privy to, God preselected a few people to become elect through absolutely no merit of their own. Thus God is in essence forcing regeneration on a few select people. How is this not violating the free will of the chosen, since the chosen have no more wish to love God than the non-chosen do?

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  13. @Hacksaw Duck - You were rebutting a straw man. Nothing in my comment could be interpreted as talking about mere "infringement" of free will. In any case, it sounds like you agree with me -- "love" in the absence of any free will regarding that "love", is no love at all. Love can never completely trump free will; which is why I found Ken's comment to be weird.

    Sorry to baffle you with the other comment. It seemed as if you were saying, "I override my children's desires, in order to keep them safe. Therefore, if God lets anyone willingly choose hell, then God is an unfit parent!"

    If that's really an accurate portrayal of your position, then my comments shouldn't be very baffling. Saying that God is an unfit parent (or unfit bridegroom), just because He allows some people to reject His love; is essentially equivalent to condemning someone as being an unfit parent, just because their adult child commits suicide.

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  14. @Walter - When you say "how is that not violating the free will of the chosen", you *seem* to be talking about libertarian free will. You seem to be assuming that anything predestined is not "free will". It's a common intuitive mistake, but basically incoherent.

    I'm not sure how you can believe in science and still believe in libertarian free will.

    Are you familiar with the idea of "compatibilism"?

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  15. Are you familiar with the idea of "compatibilism"?

    Yes I am familiar with the concept. Basically, God predetermines the desires of people, causing the elect to desire to worship and be with him. IOW, God is NOT forcing you to do something against your will per se, he is manipulating your will to the point that you desire him.

    Let's return to the rape analogy: Let's say that I had the ability to "psychically" manipulate any woman that I came within range of. With this ability I could make any woman immediately have an irresistible desire to have sex with me, which I then indulged myself in. Would you consider this rape, since the woman desired me due to my manipulation of her mind? Would I not still be forcing myself on her in a fashion? This is how I view the Calvinist concept of God, i.e. God is just a puppeteer pulling people's strings by manipulating their desires to suit his own purposes. And it is not only the elect, the unsaved are being manipulated as well. All of humanity is given a nature that by default supposedly hates all things of God; then we are punished eternally for following a nature that we have no choice in. The Calvinist God is absolutely a rapist IMO.

    This is generally where the conversation will turn towards Paul's 'potter an clay' analogy.

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  16. @ J.S. A parent would be unfit if he or she had the means to prevent their child's suicide but refrained on the basis of "loving the child enough to allow a free choice."

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  17. @Walter - That's not how I would describe compatibilism at all. There is no need to bring in the concept of "God", or talk about potters and clay. Compatibilism is a common belief for atheists (IMO it is the only logical belief for atheists), and Daniel Dennett has talked about it a lot.

    I understand your arguments, and agree that they have some level of intuitive appeal. But they've been beaten to death by atheists like Dennett. I just don't see how an atheist can credibly indict the Calvinist God for being compatibilist.

    It's hard to tell whether you're being consistent, though, since you haven't said what you believe? Do you believe in libertarian free will?

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  18. "A parent would be unfit if he or she had the means to prevent their child's suicide but refrained on the basis of "loving the child enough to allow a free choice.""

    Great. Next time you talk to someone whose adult child has just committed suicide, accuse the parent of being an unfit parent. "If only you had strapped your child into a straightjacket and fed him intravenously, he would still be alive today!"

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  19. Only someone resorting to the manifestly silly free-will defense would equate these two things: (1) God interfering with a man's free will to prevent him from going to hell, (2) a parent putting a child in a straitjacket and administering intravenous feeding.

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  20. Saying that God is an unfit parent (or unfit bridegroom), just because He allows some people to reject His love

    I take issue with this as well. The Calvinist God is not passively letting people reject his love; God is actively manipulating all people, causing humanity to reject God. Only the elect get the process reversed.

    You seem to be one of those inconsistent Calvinists that does not like the logical implications of your completely sovereign God. If God is sovereign, then everything is controlled by him. Every single event from Adam's rebellion up to the current day and beyond is scripted. Christians like to claim that atheism is depressing because atheists have no higher meaning to their lives, but from where I am sitting, Calvinism is far worse; we are just puppets on a string being toyed with by an omnipotent and apparently capricious deity who has completely scripted our lives (not to mention that our eternal fate is already scripted as well).

    For the record, I have never actually claimed to be an atheist. I have always claimed to be an agnostic and somewhat of a soft deist. I do not know if people have libertarian free will or not. I do know that compatibilism does not exonerate a sovereign god from being responsible for EVERYTHING that happens, good and bad. When a man rapes and murders a small child, the completely sovereign God of Calvinism is in control, and is directly responsible for that event happening.

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  21. @Hacksaw Duck - You're the one who said that parents should be held culpable for not preventing suicide of adult children. Are you backing away from that statement?

    Hell is simply a person exercising the ultimate choice to reject God and walk away from God, despite everything that God has done to save humanity. I find it ironic that you criticize God for not preventing you from walking away, and then use that as an excuse to walk away.

    @Walter - I would feel the same way if I believed the caricature of Calvinism that you're painting.

    You seem stuck in this mentality that things must either be "free will" or else "completely controlled". Seriously, you need to do some reading about determinism and culpability, and compatibilism.

    You're making these very bold and strident claims, and don't seem to be aware that the topic has been beaten to death already.

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  22. You seem stuck in this mentality that things must either be "free will" or else "completely controlled". Seriously, you need to do some reading about determinism and culpability, and compatibilism.

    Yes, these topics have been beaten to death for centuries, and will still be argued long after I am gone from this rock.

    I would like to see you defend the notion that man is responsible for sins that he cannot help but commit. Compatibilists will state that I am free to do anything I will, but that what I will is determined. In Christian Speak, I am free to not sin, but my nature is determined to sin, therefore I will sin, as I cannot go against my sin nature that was given to me by God.

    My question to you is: how can I be held morally culpable for sins that I cannot stop myself from committing, when I have been given a nature by God that guarantees that I will sin? I do not see how sin can be blamed on humans, when it is the Creator who guarantees that humans will sin as a punishment for something mythical Adam did?

    On second thought, forget it. I have had these arguments a hundred times before, as I was an Arminian Christian before my deconversion and argued with Calvinists even then. As far as I am concerned, the only consistent Calvinists are the hyper-Calvinists.

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  23. @Walter - I remain convinced that most lay people are only arguing because they're confused. For example, it seems like you are mixing together determinism and fatalism, as if they are the same thing.

    Here is a good overview from an atheist perspective, of how determinism is compatible with moral responsibility.

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  24. I guess I am just a little thick-headed.

    The way I see it, God gives a standard of perfection to live up to, while at the same time he creates us in such a way that it is impossible for us to live up to that standard of perfection. Then, for not being able to "measure up" we get sentenced to an eternity of torment without parole, except for a small handful of people that God arbitrarily chooses to save from himself. And somehow, this is all our own fault for not being able to meet God's impossible standard.

    My way of looking at it is this: if Toyota builds a flawed car, you don't blame the car itself--you blame Toyota.

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  25. An interesting Q&A post by Bill Craig on Calvinism can be found here:

    http://www.reasonablefaith.org/site/News2?page=NewsArticle&id=8111

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  26. @JS Allen

    While this post departs somewhat from the strain of this thread, I am asking this question because despite numerous conversations with Calvinists and having been a cursory reader of Calvinist literature, I have never heard a plausible answer. (I have other, related questions that remain equally unanswered, but I find this one the most troubling). To wit, prior to the creation of the world, why did God not predestine all persons to salvation?

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  27. I would like to quote Christian philosopher Victor Reppert PhD:

    Calvinists, so far as I can see, make three moves in defense of reprobation:

    1) Hell is what everyone deserves. In fact in federal theology, we can retributively deserve hell because of the actions of Adam. But, setting that aside, we perform sinful actions which fail to give God the glory he merits by being God, and we perform these actions with compatibilist free will. We aren't forced to do them, we want to do them, therefore we do them. OK, we want to do them because God predestined that we should want to do them, but that doesn't matter, we're still guilty and deserving of punishment.

    I don't think compatibilist free will is sufficient for retributive punishment, and retributive punishment by the person whose actions guaranteed that the action being punished was performed in the first place strikes me as morally perverse in the extreme. So this response doesn't make hell at all understandable to me, and I don't think my intuitions are idiosyncratic here. So, even if true, this defense doesn't provide any comprehensibility to divine reprobation.


    Excerpted from here:

    Making sense of reprobation

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  28. @Walter - Yes, Vic disagrees with compatibilists. He is a dualist who believes in libertarian free will and doesn't believe in a hell. But I don't see an argument there; I just see him saying that he disagrees. (I've also seen him quite Kant as saying that compatibilism is a "wretched subterfuge" :-))

    @Reuben - I don't think your question has anything to do with Calvinism; I think it's an issue with the doctrine of hell in general. For example, you could say "to wit, if God could foresee who would choose to reject him, why didn't he make that impossible, or make those people never be born?" IOW, even an Arminian or Molinist God would be open to the question you are asking. Right? The only way to dodge that question is to be a universalist like Vic.

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  29. @JSAllen

    Quite so – Arminians and Molinists are open to the exact same question. But of course, first of all, that is to say that Calvinists are in fact open to the question, and so I ask. Second, these other camps provide different *kinds* of answers, as far as I have encountered, which are not accessible to Calvinists. I think that I understand the Molinist response to the questions you quote, and whether I find it plausible or think that it falls apart elsewhere, at least it is one that does not immediately strain all credibility. I suppose that I am looking for a response of that caliber on behalf of Calvinism.

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  30. Hell is simply a person exercising the ultimate choice to reject God and walk away from God, despite everything that God has done to save humanity.


    I was under the impression that Hell was supposed to be a pit of eternal torment that God sends you to, rather than a process of "walking away". Which, as an aside, would be really weird if it were the case that the damned "walk away" into Hell. Are you really supposed to believe that people just mosey on down into the cosmic barbeque of their own accord?

    But in any case, what is the Christian God supposedly saving you from? Apparently from his own whims, which strikes me as rather Mafia-esque. Sure is a shame that you chose to reject His "generous offer" of protection from Himself.

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  31. @Reuben - I suppose the standard Calvinist answer would be, "Why don't you trust that God knows what He's doing, and then ask him yourself when you get to heaven?"

    @Cromm - You must live a sheltered life. I guess suicide is a myth too, since WHO WOULD DO THAT TO THEMSELVES? If you haven't seen many people walk into drug addiction, gambling addiction, suicide, or other self-destructive behaviors I guess you would have a hard time understanding what hell is.

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  32. @JSAllen

    Then I suppose that the standard answer is not an answer at all - which is what I expected, really, and I do not indict you for merely saying what the Calvinist would say.

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  33. @Reuben - Correct. The typical Calvinist might say that the question isn't really a question.

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  34. Uh, really? "Why did God not choose to predestine all persons to salvation" is not really a question? I know at least one Calvinist who understands that statement to be a meaningful question, and in his response resorts to something both vague and barbaric about God receiving glory through the damnation of the non-elect. I guess that he could be an atypical Calvinist.

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  35. @Reuben - It's an accusation masked as a question.

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  36. How 'bout this. Suppose for a moment that I am a Christian who thinks that Calvinism is probably true - I know that this will strain every drop of imagination in both of our heads, but I for one am willing to give it a shot. I am nearly convinced that 1) God exists 2) the Bible is divine revelation and 3) Calvinism accurately captures Biblical writings, but I have some misgivings. For instance, I wonder to myself, why did God not predestine everyone to salvation? I see that the Molinists have a very nice explanation, but I think that they do not get the right handle on Paul. So I ask, is there an equally sophisticated Calvinistic response?

    So far I have been 1) asked why I do not trust God and 2) told that my question is not legitimate because it has not been asked in earnest. Given my imaginary state of mind, I begin to doubt that any explanations are forthcoming. Are there no other candidates?

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  37. J.S. said: "You must live a sheltered life. I guess suicide is a myth too, since WHO WOULD DO THAT TO THEMSELVES? If you haven't seen many people walk into drug addiction, gambling addiction, suicide, or other self-destructive behaviors I guess you would have a hard time understanding what hell is."

    Ridiculous comparison. People who fall into addiction or kill themselves are often seeking relief from their suffering. But no one would voluntarily jump into the Lake of Fire, knowing full well what they're doing. What would anyone hope to gain from that??

    Evangelicals are so squeamish about hell that they can no longer speak of God casting people into it. Your forefathers -- Augustine, Edwards, Spurgeon -- had no trouble saying it straight up. Neither did Jesus. But you guys have to hedge, talking about people sending themselves there, God simply ratifying man's decision, etc. In doing so, you testify to the unpalatable character of that teaching, its injustice and moral repugnance. And I agree.

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  38. You're assuming that the "question" requires an explanation. And you seem to be assuming that, if no explanation is given, then no good explanation exists. Both assumptions are absurd; even in pedestrian matters of daily life.

    I don't think that God has revealed exactly why he allowed the fall, and I expect that he would have succeeded in revealing his motivations if he had wanted to. Speculation about His motives seems like an exercise in stupidity -- the number of "explanations" we could invent are limited only by our imaginations, but only bound to make us look stupid when proven wrong.

    Imagine that we're riding in an airplane, and the pilot chooses to take a course that is completely unexpected. Neither you nor I can offer a plausible conjecture for why the pilot chose this particular course.

    Now, you're the sort of person who intensely dislikes the pilot and has always wanted to fly an airplane, you might "have some misgivings". You might demand that I offer up plausible explanations for the pilot's behavior. You might suggest that the pilot had abandoned plane or joined up with terrorists, and that we need to break down the door and take control of the cockpit.

    I happen to know and trust the pilot, and am more than a little freaked out by your wild-eyed gambit to take control of the plane. In response to your demand for explanation, I have two options. I could take your bait and try to invent rationalizations for the course that the pilot has taken. Or I could just trust that the pilot knows what he is doing, and that you'll be tasered and subdued when you try to break down the door.

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  39. Alright, I get it, you don't know, I don't know, nobody knows, God knows, stop asking, start believing.

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  40. @Hacksaw - A few points:

    1) The idea that hell is voluntary separation from God is not new. Calvinists talk about it as "reprobation". It is scriptural, and has been consistent from the early Church fathers through present day.

    2) I'm not an evangelical.

    3) If you spent a few minutes scanning my blog, you would not accuse me of being "squeamish" about discussing hell. I've written quite a bit about the process of reprobation; for example, in "Slouching towards Gomorrah" and "Hypnosis and Theology".

    4) I don't think you have much life experience or professional training in the psychology of self-destructive spirals. Claiming that drug addiction or suicidal depression are primarily an attempt to escape an even greater extrinsic pain, is pretty clueless. It's heartless and insensitive, too.

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  41. JS Allen: "Claiming that drug addiction or suicidal depression are primarily an attempt to escape an even greater extrinsic pain, is pretty clueless. It's heartless and insensitive, too."

    OK, I'll grant that people don't always do drugs, drink or kill themselves to either numb or escape the pain. Are you seriously suggesting that it's never the case? Why is it heartless or insensitive to suggest such a thing? (You seems to resort to these condescending little swipes fairly often.)

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  42. About your airplane analogy: The difference between the plane veering off course and the logical conundrums surrounding Christianity is that we know there's a pilot flying us somewhere if we're on a plane. We don't know that your claims about faith, the Bible and God are true -- we have to take someone else's word for it. And if it doesn't make rational sense to people, they're going to ask for something better than "just accept it and don't expect an answer."

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  43. @Hacksaw - I say "heartless", because that excuse is endorsing the idea of escaping pain through voluntary self-destruction. The reprehensibility of this idea is why I rejected Buddhism after years of practice. And the idea has no evidential support. In the vast majority of cases, the pain is caused by the addiction, and not assuaged by it. The evidence leads to a reluctant understanding of reprobation; not to an embracing of self-destructive escapism.

    I've had way too much experience with people who destroyed themselves. Nowadays, when someone tries to justify a drug or gambling addiction, or other self-destructive behavior, I don't encourage them by saying "You must be in a lot of pain; go ahead and kill yourself!".

    I'll readily admit that this is an emotional reaction on my part. So you might be right, and I might be wrong. But this should explain why I say "heartless".

    Regarding your comment about the airplane analogy, you've summarized it quite well. I essentially agree with what you said. We can never compel someone to "just accept it and don't expect an answer". Some people will trust, some won't.

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  44. OK, JS, please link to your blog, rather than assume Ken's readers scan it often, even if they know where it is. Addiction is usually a response to some pain of hhey do believe that a deep absence or borkenness in someone's life. Studies back this up.

    Anyway, to be fair to most Calvinists, Molinists, etc., tte majority of them do belive that the vast majority of the human race will be in heaven, simply by din't of them not wanting to believe that children and foetesus will be sent to hell (even if they still bear Adam's in by dint of imputation). This has always struck me as bizarre, in that to die after one passes the ‘age of accountability’, the inevitable result is an eternity in hell, or annihilation (if you hold to that).

    However, any notion of punishment as severe as an eternity in torment has no value as a disincentive to others because it only happens after death and justice is never ‘seen to be done’. It cannot be restorative in any true ‘evangelical’ sense. Its only function can be as retributive punishment, of which the faithfull will sing praises in heaven. Personally, I find it just as offensive to think of a God who would grant a simple “all is forgiven” to usher Hitler and S talin into heaven as I do with a God who allowes/ordains humans in the millions to be created (via traducianism or not) with no genuine possibility of avoiding this state. I am still searching for a model that might find a place between the two, if it is at all possible.

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  45. J.S.: "So you might be right, and I might be wrong."

    Yes, same here ... I'm fallible as the day is long. Now we're getting somewhere! We've each owned up to our capacity for error. (Some people I talk to stubbornly refuse to do so.)

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  46. Personally, I find it just as offensive to think of a God who would grant a simple “all is forgiven” to usher Hitler and S talin into heaven as I do with a God who allowes/ordains humans in the millions to be created (via traducianism or not) with no genuine possibility of avoiding this state. I am still searching for a model that might find a place between the two, if it is at all possible.

    I think that some Christian Universalists posit a temporary punishment for finite sins, then after a limited punishment for rehabilitation purposes everyone gets reconciled with God--some even include Satan and his fallen angels as among those to be eventually reconciled with God. This concept of God is at least more in alignment with my own moral compass versus the Calvinist God that sentences the majority of humanity to never-ending retributive punishment for the heinous offense of being born human.

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  47. @Hacksaw Duck - I'm wrong several times a day :-)

    @Daniel - I think that's the issue. Some people are comfortable with the idea of *some* people going to hell; or at least being extinguished. It's kind of problematic for Calvinists and Arminians, though, since we aren't allowed to say that the ones who go to hell deserved it more than the rest of us do. That is, we have to say that we deserve hell just as much as Pol Pot does, and that heaven is no work of our own. So that leaves open questions about why God rescues one person and not another.

    @Walter - I would like to believe something more like what you describe; and Calvinism can't completely rule it out. But that scenario does raise its own set of problems. For starters, it's kind of like absolute cosmic rape. Instead of electing some, God elects everyone. The fact that he extends the compulsion out over a very long period of time, "persuades" sinners through a combination of sticks and carrots: dangling over the firepit with wheedling and coaxing, it doesn't make the outcome any less predestined. Alternately, you could say that it gives humans ultimate authority to reject God, but eliminates God's potential to cut off the relationship for any reason, no matter how grievous.

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  48. For starters, it's kind of like absolute cosmic rape. Instead of electing some, God elects everyone

    If the Augustinian version of Human Depravity is true, then God is forcing himself on the elect, since the elect do not naturally seek God any more that the non-elect do. Universalism would just force this 'eventual election' onto all of humanity versus an arbitrary few.

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  49. @Walter - Exactly! You earlier criticized Calvinism by saying that it turns God into a cosmic rapist, but you seemed to be endorsing Universalism, which does the same thing on a grander scale.

    As long as someone ultimately rejects God, we can pretend that humans have free will about relationship with God; and we can act like compatibilism is just a semantic distinction (or "wretched subterfuge"). But the moment we talk about all humans eventually choosing relationship with God, we can't maintain the illusion of freedom anymore.

    FWIW, I don't think that Calvinism is a slam-dunk. Every system (Calvinism, Arminianianism, EO, Universalism) has parts that are problematic. Nobody knows for sure; and scriptures explicitly forbid us from speculating about who is going to hell or not. I just think it's best to hold provisionally to Calvinism when making decisions about one's own behavior.

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  50. Exactly! You earlier criticized Calvinism by saying that it turns God into a cosmic rapist, but you seemed to be endorsing Universalism, which does the same thing on a grander scale

    I would not say that I am endorsing Universalism; I would say that I find it a lot less repugnant to me than the Calvinist Christian theology where everyone is AUTOMATICALLY at birth condemned to unimaginable torment for being what they cannot help but be, i.e. flawed, imperfect beings. If every single tenet of Calvinism turns out to be true, there is no possible way that I could praise such a God for his actions. I might suck up to him out of sheer terror over what he will do to me, but I could never praise him for engaging in what amounts to eternal vengeance. Calvin's God guarantees that we are born flawed, then condemns US--most of us anyway--for being flawed. That just seems "morally perverse in the extreme" to quote Reppert.

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  51. As a follow up to my previous post, a Calvinist would just claim that I cannot praise God for his actions in saving a pittance of humanity from himself because I am fallen, and my spiritual side has been warped by the noetic effects of the Fall. IOW, if I don't see the beauty in God's Master Plan it is because I am still "unregenerate."

    Arminians are more fun to argue with, since they believe that everyone can be persuaded by the evidence.

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  52. @Walter - I think you misunderstand what Arminians believe. Both Calvinists and Arminians believe that humans, due to fallen nature, can refuse to be persuaded.

    BTW, the whole thing about compatibilism being repugnant is refuted by empirical evidence; and I think this has bearing on Ken's series of posts about PST. John Doris and Joshua Knobe (both atheists) have done a lot of work in this area. What the empirical evidence shows is that:

    A) When people talk in abstract terms about theoretical people; they say that retributive justice in a compatibilist system to be unjust. In other words, in *theory* people say that it's unjust to seek retribution against someone who doesn't have libertarian free will.

    B) In practice; given specific cases of real people, people have no problem administering retribution against people who had no choice in the matter. In practice, people have no problem with retribution in a compatibilist system.

    I find that people on message boards like to argue in the abstract, since it lets them make their point without having to deal with reality.

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  53. JS said: "That is, we have to say that we deserve hell just as much as Pol Pot does, and that heaven is no work of our own."

    This is ludicrous, and not even biblical. To say we are all sinners is not the same as saying we all deserve the same punishment. Though there is some pop-evangelical thinking here. That bizarre and austere Calvinist Arthur W Pink actually believed Adam (partner of Eve) would spent eternity in Hell, even for the sin of eating the fruit alone.

    This thinking is just sick.

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  54. I find that people on message boards like to argue in the abstract, since it lets them make their point without having to deal with reality

    My irony meter is pegging out, since that is exactly what I think you do in many of your posts.

    The fact that people who disbelieve in libertarian free will, yet still believe in retributive justice, just shows me that people are inconsistent. People often seek retribution because it is satisfying on an emotional level.

    @Walter - I think you misunderstand what Arminians believe. Both Calvinists and Arminians believe that humans, due to fallen nature, can refuse to be persuaded.

    Calvinists believe that the fallen are incapable of believing without help from the Holy Spirit; Arminians seem to be divided into different camps on whether they believe human nature is Augustinian or Pelagian. Arminians who believe in Total Depravity believe that God still has to assist the pre-chosen elect before they can meet God half-way. Pelagians think that everyone has the ability to come to God, if they can be convinced by the evidence.

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  55. My objection to Calvinism is not so much about compatibilism. I have a moral objection to Calvinism--as well as most forms of conservative, hellfire-&-brimstone Christianity. There is just something seriously wrong with a deity that creates flawed humans, then condemns these humans to unimaginable torments in the afterlife because of flaws that they cannot help but be born with. The Calvinists will then claim that God is only going to rescue a small number of his creation for reasons absolutely unknown, since one piece-of-trash human is no better than another to Most Holy Yahweh. But what truly irks me is when I am told by Calvinists that the unregenerated humans deserve what they are going to get in the next life. This same point is also a sticking point for Christians like Reppert, as quoted earlier.

    If Calvinism is true, I do not see how compatibilistic free will is sufficient to hold humans culpable for desiring to do things that displease Yahweh, when Yahweh is the one who "ensouls" us with a displeasing nature in the first place.

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  56. @Daniel - This ought to be interesting. In what way is my summary "not even biblical". What do you think the Bible says?

    @Walter - You have verified that you don't understand what Arminians believe. Wikipedia is a good resource on the topic, if you want to get educated.

    First, Arminianism is NOT Pelagianism. That's a slur leveled by Calvinists against Arminians, but it's categorically untrue. It's not even close to true.

    Second, Arminians do not believe that sinners "meet God halfway". The Arminian view of salvation is almost identical to Calvinist "unconditional election", with the only difference being that everyone has the opportunity to "resist" God's offer of salvation. Those who are saved, then, are those who refrain from resisting God's offer of salvation.

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  57. Walter - You have verified that you don't understand what Arminians believe. Wikipedia is a good resource on the topic, if you want to get educated.

    First, Arminianism is NOT Pelagianism. That's a slur leveled by Calvinists against Arminians, but it's categorically untrue. It's not even close to true.


    I was raised as a Pelagian, Arminian Protestant, so I beg to differ with you. Arminians subdivide into different camps with differing views. No surprise there.

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  58. OK. Upon the reading the wiki article, I guess my previous church would have been described as Pelagian and not classically Arminian.

    Fair enough point, but it is tangential to the conversation, as far as I can see.

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  59. @Walter - OK, cool. The comments on this thread seemed confused about what Christians really believe. Most of the complaints leveled at "Calvinism" are about standard Christian doctrine shared by all denominations.

    For example, Daniel's objection to my statement that "we deserve hell just as much as Pol Pot does, and that heaven is no work of our own." I'm at a loss to imagine how anyone could say that's not standard Christian doctrine.

    And it's a stretch to imply that Pelagian doctrines represent a significant "camp" within Christianity that is a nicer counterbalance to that "mean" Calvinism. Catholics and Arminians consider Pelagians to be heretics, and Pelagianism would be a tiny camp even if we agree that it's Christian.

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  60. The comments on this thread seemed confused about what Christians really believe.

    LOL. Christians constantly fight with other Christians over their sectarian differences. Can you really expect the rest of us to KNOW exactly what Christians believe, since you all cannot agree amongst yourselves? This can be evidenced at any Christian blog or message board.

    For example, Daniel's objection to my statement that "we deserve hell just as much as Pol Pot does, and that heaven is no work of our own." I'm at a loss to imagine how anyone could say that's not standard Christian doctrine.

    I think that Daniel's main point is that it is sick to believe that the slightest thought-crime warrants the same punishment as something like mass murder. Most of Christianity posits the same retributive punishment for the slightest of crimes, including something as benign as a "bad" thought. (all you really have to do is be born 'human')

    And it's a stretch to imply that Pelagian doctrines represent a significant "camp" within Christianity that is a nicer counterbalance to that "mean" Calvinism. Catholics and Arminians consider Pelagians to be heretics, and Pelagianism would be a tiny camp even if we agree that it's Christian.

    Meh. Guess I was never a REAL Christian, since my theological viewpoint was always Pelagian. Apparently, I apostatized from a "heretical" form of Christianity.

    "Augustinians" are too misanthropic for my likes.

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  61. The teaching of Jesus in the synoptic gospels is highly Pelagian.

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  62. Good point. For example, when He said "Only some have sinned, there are some righteous, and the wages of sin can paid off with
    good deeds". And when he said "No one comes to the father except by putting in a good effort" Or when he praised the Pharisees for being so "whitewashed". Yes, Christ's teachings sure are Pelagian

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  63. Charles Finney was pretty much a Pelagian, and much pop-evangelicalism/revivalism traces its theology (which is very thin) and practice from Finney's thoughts and tactics. Keith Green Would be one sort of example. The whole phrasing of the altar call within evangelicalism is wholly Pelagian, even if the theology was not taught in the best Bible colleges.

    And the idea that everyone will share the same punishment as Hitler will in the afterlife is surely a slur on God, and doesn't reflect well on those who advance such a view. Most intelligent Calvinist theologians at least propose a hell where one is punished for their sins, not a place where everyone gets the same punishment. Even those Calvinists who saw the Westminster term "elect infants" to refer only to infants who were elect, not all infants, still believed that they would get "the easiest room in hell, even if just for the sin of Adam alone", to quote one famous Calvinist poem that was taught in Sunday Schools for countless years.

    Of course, some weirdo evangelicals believe since Jesus died for (almost) all sins, then the only ones we can be punished for in Hell is the sin of unbelief, but at least as a Calvinist, JS, you should know that the unelect get punished for all of their sins, since Jesus didn't suffer or die for those sinners.

    Catholics like Dante take this into levels of Hell, which is pure speculation, but the sentiment is throughly in line with reason.

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  64. @Daniel - You're the one who keeps talking about Hitler deserving the same punishments as others in hell; I never said any such thing.

    If you look at what I actually said, I said "deserve hell just as much as". You seem to have read "deserve just as much punishment in hell as".

    Agreed that Dante's levels are pure speculation; but fun to think about in a perverse way.

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  66. @JS. "Yes, Christ's teachings sure are Pelagian." /sarcasm

    By the way, I said synoptic gospels. Your quote about the whitewashed tombs is the only reference to one of those three books. Even that reference doesn't make your point: Jesus wasn't saying the Pharisees were full of genuine good works that can't save. The point -- obvious point -- is that they were only good on the outside, i.e., phony religionists.

    Jesus does not go around in the synoptics saying, "Just believe in me and be saved, nothing else." Instead, we read:

    1. Jesus told the Rich Young Man, "If you want to enter life, keep the commandments."

    2. In Matthew 25, the criteria by which the Sheep are saved and the Goats are damned have to do with performing works of charity -- not "resting on the finished work of the cross," or any such foreign idea.

    3. In the Sermon on the Mount, only those whose do the will of the Father will enter the kingdom (not just those who say, "Lord, Lord").

    4. Also in that sermon, (a) loving enemies makes someone a child of God; (b) only the pure of heart will see God; (c) only those who forgive others will be forgiven.

    5. Only those who "hate father and mother ...," etc., deny self, take up their cross daily, will enter the kingdom.

    Just a few samples. There are plenty more. Nowhere do we find the pop gospel of "just believe" in the first three gospels ... and it's contradicted everywhere.

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  67. One more example: Jesus told the parable of the Good Samaritan in response to the question, "What must I do to inherit eternal life?" The answer to that question had nothing to do with "faith alone" or "cease trusting in your works" and had everything to do with helping those in need. (Can you imagine a Protestant gospel preacher giving that kind of an answer?) After the story, Jesus said, "Go and do likewise." In other words, this is what you must do to inherit eternal life.

    Such a wasted opportunity if sola fide is true. And so misleading to the reader.

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  68. Most conservative Christians prefer to get their theology from Paul's letters, followed by the quasi-gnostic gospel of "John." The Jesus portrayed in the synoptics gets marginalized.

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  69. That's right, Walter. Look at a studious evangelical's Bible and you'll see underlining throughout John and Romans ... much less so in Matthew, Mark and Luke. Jesus would be excoriated in today's conservative Protestant churches for his "works righteousness" preaching.

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  70. I'll be the first to criticize those who turn faith into a sterile intellectual assent, while smugly accusing those who practice charity of pursuing "works-based" salvation. But I think you're falling for exactly the same flawed either-or thinking when you say the synoptic gospels are Pelagian. You sound like an ex-fundy who has brainwashed himself with his own anti-Catholic propaganda.

    We are unambiguously commanded to love our neighbors. That does not mean that
    we take responsibility for our own salvation, or that we keep a self-improvement balance sheet like the Pelagians do.

    And this idea that Paul invented some new religion? That was a fashionable new theory in the 1950s, but was laid to rest by Sanders in "Paul and Palestinian Judaism" in 1970. Judaism was not even Pelagian prior to Christ or Paul. In any case, Paul was not one to be stingy with charity, so accusing him of preaching a sterile intellectual faith is perplexing.

    Several times in the synoptic gospels, Christ says something like "your faith has made you whole". The bleeding woman, the centurion, the blind man, Jarius, and others I am sure.

    The parable of the good Samaritan is a great example. You claim that Christ told the story to illustrate how to be saved, but you are wrong. Christ told the parable in response to a man who asked "who is my neighbor?" In fact, when the same man asked how to be saved, Christ did *not* tell him "do good deeds to improve your character". Christ said: A) Love God with all your your heart. B) Love your neighbor as yourself. Christ is on record saying that commandment A is the greater commandment, and this is consistent across the Old Testament and also in Paul.

    Christ drives home the same point in Matthew 25:40. He doesn't say, "if you help poor people, you'll be saved". You are commanded to love the poor because whatever you do to them, you are doing to Christ. This is how commandments A and B come together. He is making an equivalence between himself and the most vulnerable in society. Love for the poor is an outworking of faith in Christ -- as James said, faith without works is dead. True faith always expresses itself in love for the lost.

    Love for the poor is the fruit of faith, it is not a cosmic vending machine by which you earn salvation.

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  71. BTW, I'm really surprised that you mentioned "hate your father and mother" as support of Pelagianism. Doesn't that verse demonstrate exactly the opposite?

    In Matthew 8:22, Christ tells the young man to skip his dead father's funeral, saying "let the dead bury the dead". Now, how is skipping a funeral a way to "earn" salvation? It's not! Christ wanted the young man to demonstrate his faith in Christ by showing where his priorities were.

    Same thing with the parable of the rich young man, which you seem to have butchered above. Christ tells the young man to give away all of his possessions -- not because it will "earn" rewards in heaven, but because he knows it is the hardest thing for the rich man to do. The rich man has to choose his loyalty -- either have faith in Christ, or faith in his money. The point is rammed home at the conclusion of the parable, where Christ says, "With men this is impossible; but with God all things are possible." Do you still want to argue that this parable is Pelagian?

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  72. I don't think Pelagianism is well represented by the caricature of a ledger or a vending machine. Pelagius appears to have believed in divine grace, but also deemed it a necessary condition of final salvation that a person actually obey the precepts of the gospel (maybe I'm wrong, but I think that was his stance). This seemed to be Jesus' obvious teaching as well.

    Speaking of Paul, listen to how "Pelagian" even he sounds at times: "[God] will give to each person according to what he has done. To those who by persistence in doing good seek glory, honor and immortality, he will give eternal life. But for those who are self-seeking and who reject the truth and follow evil, there will be wrath and anger."

    And this from the putative architect of sola fide.

    BTW, I read Sanders years ago and did find him satisfying. The portrait of OT Judaism as a graceless faith is inconsistent with good scholarship. We agree.

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  73. OK, JS, now to address all these ad hoc explanations:

    The parable of the good Samaritan is a great example. You claim that Christ told the story to illustrate how to be saved, but you are wrong.

    JS, if someone asked you how to obtain eternal life, I doubt you'd say, "Love God and love your neighbor." I further doubt you'd expound on the meaning of helping one's neighbor. Am I right? In your belief system, is salvation dependent on my capacity to love my neighbor? I doubt you'd say so, even though this is precisely what Jesus says here.

    Matthew 25:40. He doesn't say, "if you help poor people, you'll be saved".

    He absolutely does. When Jesus pronounces his judgment, he qualifies his action with each group (sheep and goats) with the word "for." He says, "...for I was hungry, and you gave me something to eat ..." etc. To paraphrase: "The reason I'm doing this (giving you life eternal) is because when I was hungry, you fed me ..." It's so obvious that only someone with a vested interest in denying it would in fact do so.

    ... as James said, faith without works is dead.

    Bringing up James doesn't help your case one iota. As you're aware, he said, "We know that a man is justified by what he does and not be faith only." That's devastating to the Reformation view of salvation ... a repudiation of it. I've heard all the bullcrap harmonizations of James and Paul and that's exactly what they are. I thought so even when I was a devout Bible-centered person, sitting in church, listening to the preacher tell me there was "no collision between Paul and James." I wanted it to be so, but I knew deep down it was all major spin -- spin of necessity. Got to keep our theology biblical, even if it means interpreting the Bible so it means the opposite of what it actually says.

    BTW, I'm really surprised that you mentioned "hate your father and mother" as support of Pelagianism. Doesn't that verse demonstrate exactly the opposite?

    How so? You've lost me here. These are huge demands of discipleship -- failure to do them renders one a non-disciple. Certainly doesn't mesh with the popular "free gift" or "cease trusing your works and believe" notions. Again, to paraphrase Jesus: "Here is what I demand of you: total allegiance to the point of renouncing your own loved ones, carrying a cross of self-denial. You must do these or you can't be my follower." That requires effort. Lots of it.

    Christ tells the young man to give away all of his possessions -- not because it will "earn" rewards in heaven, but because he knows it is the hardest thing for the rich man to do.

    JS, his answer to, "What must I do to inherit eternal life?" was, "Keep the commandments." How much plainer could this be?? You're bending and twisting this story to make it fit your theology -- it's all contrived, strained rhetoric.

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  74. I'm baffled by your comments on the story of the rich young man. Did you read the whole story? The story is obviously making the case that it is impossible for a person to achieve the standards required for salvation. The parable is clearly meant to apply to all people; not just the rich man:

    26 "Those who heard this asked, "Who then can be saved?"
    27Jesus replied, "What is impossible with men is possible with God."


    That's as clear a rebuttal of Pelagianism as I can imagine. Are you seriously going to tell me that this story endorses the idea of earning salvation through good works?

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  75. JS, the story definitely teaches that works of goodness are a necessary condition for salvation. Your contention that Jesus was merely setting forth impossible conditions on purpose ... well, that's something you have to superimpose on the text. It's not there.

    Note what Jesus actually said: If the Rich Young Man would only forsake his wealth, he would have "treasure in heaven." That's something the man could have done.

    This is consistent with Jesus' teaching elsewhere that riches are a curse and his followers must embrace poverty. And that's what he was pressing upon this potential convert.

    Let's be honest here, JS. He doesn't say, "How impossible it is for any person to fulfill my righteous demands and enter the kingdom." No, that's you with your theological glasses firmly in place. In the text, he's zeroing in on rich people. How hard it is for THEM to be saved, not the average Joe.

    The disciples' reaction was understandable. Everyone has a certain amount of material accumulation. If God makes it that hard (camel/eye of a needle) on people of great material substance, he is a severe God indeed. How can anyone be saved? Still, the conversation is about wealth, not human inability in some general, metaphysical sense.

    Let me ask you this: Would you ever answer the question, "what must I do to inherit eternal life," by reciting the Decalogue?? You know you wouldn't!

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  76. If you insist on reading Luke 18:26-27 as Pelagian, it's going to be hard to find common ground. I don't think I've ever seen anyone do that, ever. It's as if you're coming from another planet where you live by yourself.

    You might be right, and I might be the one who is proof-texting. But considering that you're named "Hacksaw Duck" and you're promoting a completely novel interpretation of that passage, you'll forgive me for withholding assent.

    BTW, Christ didn't zero in just on rich people; he zeroed in on people who placed faith in their families and all sorts of other things, too. Christ demands that you have faith in him, alone. That's the opposite of Pelagianism.

    To your question about how I would answer "what must I do to inherit eternal life", I have told people exactly the words Christ said regarding the rich man, in Luke 18:26-27. I have also used the answer He gave before telling the parable of the good Samaritan. (BTW, if you don't understand the point of the "who is my neighbor" answer, you ought to read Leo Tolstoy's 'Three Questions', which I've also recommended to people several times).

    I could address all of your other scattershot comments, as well. But, like I said, if you can't even read Luke 18:27 without seeing "Pelagian", what's the point?

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  77. Hey! "Hacksaw Duck" is a nice name.

    Anyway, forget the whole "Pelagian" moniker for a moment. A man asked Jesus, "What must I do to inherit eternal life?" Jesus began reciting some of the Ten Commandments. So why is a "novel" interpretation to say that Jesus believed that one obtained eternal life by keeping the commandments? Isn't it simply the freaking obvious meaning?

    Also, I think you're profoundly, wildly wrong about Jesus not zeroing in on rich people. He said things like, "Woe unto you who are rich," and, "Blessed are you poor," "Do not store up treasures on earth," "How hard it is for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven." He told a story of a rich man who died and woke up in torment -- the only reason given for this state is that he had good things in life. James picked up this theme and invited the rich to "weep and howl" and announced that terrible destruction was coming upon them.

    Christians tend to resist the ban on wealth (for really, really obvious reasons), but it's there in the teaching of Jesus -- glaringly plain, up front, obvious.

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  78. Christians tend to resist the ban on wealth (for really, really obvious reasons), but it's there in the teaching of Jesus -- glaringly plain, up front, obvious.

    Even the most hardcore of fundagelicals are still cafeteria Christians, and the bible is the buffet from which they pick and choose.

    If a particular church teaches something that steps on the toes of the believer, all they have to do is go down the street to the next church which interprets the bible differently.

    And NO Christian follows the bible entirely, as it is impossible because it is a diverse and self-contradicting collection of human texts.

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  79. Yes, Walter, and it's funny how none of the cafeteria Christians seem to opt for the "you must abandon wealth" selection as they're going through the smorgasbord. Present Jesus' prohibition of wealth to them and they'll instantly fly to Paul: "Look, Paul allowed Christians to be rich, Paul allowed Christians to be rich." I hear Dave Ramsey on the radio talking about his faith in Jesus and then immediately encouraging his listeners to amass wealth -- two mutually exclusive messages. But nobody seems to notice.

    One other thing for J.S. Allen: So you've never heard anyone interpret the Rich Young Man story so that Jesus actually means what he says? I submit this explanation: Protestant commentators will move heaven and earth to preserve the doctrine of justification by faith alone. They'll do so even if it means making a sock puppet out of the New Testament, forcing it to say what they think it ought to mean. They'll twist texts into pretzels, take jackhammers to the most common-sense understanding. But ... it's for a good cause: preserving their theological presuppositions and clothing them with "biblical" status, no matter what the Bible actually says.

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  80. Nothing wrong with calling yourself "Hacksaw Duck", but don't expect me to take you too seriously when you stick to the lonely position that the story of the rich young man is about works-based salvation.

    I'm guessing that you came from a fundamentalist background, since you seem to have an instinctive talent for selectively ignoring scriptures and sticking to a lonely position despite all evidence to the contrary.

    Also, I think you're profoundly, wildly wrong about Jesus not zeroing in on rich people. He said things like, "Woe unto you who are rich," and, "Blessed are you poor,"

    Wow, you're so far off in your own little world that it's not even funny.

    First, I said Christ didn't zero in just on rich people. He zeroed in on anyone who placed faith in something besides Christ.

    Second, you're ignoring all of the other targets Christ zeroed in on in the passages you selectively reference. For example, he also said "blessed are the poor in spirit". He zeroed in on people who trust in reputation ("woe to you when all men speak well of you"), people who trust in their own physical strength, etc.

    Christ systematically found every place where people were depending on themselves, and told them to abandon it, to be radically dependent on Christ. It's the exact opposite of Pelagianism.

    BTW, Pelagius never used any of the scriptures you're citing to promote a works-based salvation -- at least not from any of the existing accounts we have of his teaching.

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  81. First, I said Christ didn't zero in just on rich people. He zeroed in on anyone who placed faith in something besides Christ.

    I agree with Hacksaw Duck that you are reading Pauline theology back into these passages. It is pretty clear to me that Matthew, for instance, did not think much of Paul's antinomian form of Christianity when he spoke of how not one jot or tittle of the law would pass until all is fulfilled.

    This is the problem with attempting to derive a systematic theology from the bible, as if the bible was a unified work produced by one single, divine author--it isn't. Skeptics and liberal believers can see the diversity of theological opinions espoused by the various all-too-human authors of our "inspired" canon. And often these "inspired" authors are saying something that does not quite jibe with the writings of another "inspired" author.

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  82. JS, I never meant to say that Jesus ONLY zeroed in on the rich. But they were on his radar screen as prime targets -- often. In fact, he enjoined this upon his followers: "Sell your possessions and give to charity; make yourselves purses which do not wear out ..."

    The story of the Rich Young Man is all about the dangers of riches and wealth, NOT about the dangers of "trusting something other than Christ." Walter is so right about your reading Pauline theology into the synoptics. The synoptic Jesus NEVER says things like, "You must trust in me alone for salvation and cease trusting your own efforts."

    Your references to "works-based salvation" are an attempt to poison the well. I don't think Jesus based salvation in works, but in the forgiveness of God. However, charitable works and inner goodness were certainly conditions for entrance into the kingdom at his coming, no question about it. At least in the synoptics, that is. Anyone who doesn't see this is reading the synoptics through the filter of the Protestant Reformation or evangelicalism or Campus Crusade ... or something.

    As far as Pelagianism, OK, maybe I don't understand that system of thought accurately enough. Not that I care what title gets affixed to a given interpretation of a text. I just call them as I see them. Not being bound to a doctrine "come hell or high water," I can admit things about a text that others will deny with howls to the bitter end.

    But here's another question for you: Why did Jesus say that we must forgive others in order to be forgiven? And why does he add that God will NOT forgive us if we fail to forgive others? Isn't that a performance-based condition for forgiveness?

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  83. Cool; we're making progress! We've established that Arminians and Calvinists are virtually identical on the doctrines you guys loathe, and that the synoptic gospels aren't Pelagian.

    So now we're debating the claim that Paul represents a distinct theology that breaks significantly from the synoptic gospels, and that "Campus Crusades" tosses out the synoptics in favor of Paul.

    You've accused me of reading the synoptics through a Pauline lens. This would only make sense if I accept your presupposition that Paul says anything different from the synoptics. I don't accept that presupposition, and I think that both Paul and Peter would disagree strongly with you. As I mentioned, your accusation was a "fresh" new theory in the 1950s, and doesn't hold much sway with any serious scholars. You've also accused me of being overly influenced by Reformation thinking.

    Thankfully, I can easily refute this last set of objections, and show that you are the ones being overly influenced by Reformation thinking. The pernicious lie that Paul differs from the synoptics is, through and through, a lie perpetuated by ex-Protestants; and absolutely not by Catholics.

    You may not know that I was an adult convert to Catholicism, and was baptized Catholic. I never was involved with Campus Crusade, and never knew anyone who was. I currently identify as Calvinist, but I still read and appreciate almost everything Pope Benedict XVI writes. In 2008, the year of the feast of St. Paul, Benedict addressed the exact question you both are raising. In a series of lectures given over several weeks, Benedict discussed Paul, the doctrines of grace, and the relation to the synoptic gospels. I have heartily recommended these homilies to Protestant friends, and strongly recommend that you read them before deciding that my interpretation is uniquely Protestant. The Holy Father is indistinguishable from a Protestant in his assessment of Paul. I've found that Protestants tend to be far more ignorant about what Catholics believe than Catholics are, so I take your ignorance about this to be further evidence of my theory that you're ex-fundy.

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  84. @JS

    I like the part where you claim that no "serious" scholar believes that there was disagreement between Paul and Peter. I could name quite a few scholars, but I am sure that you would not consider them to be "serious" enough. I would say without a doubt that Paul's Christianity is a far different animal from the religious views of Jesus, at least as his views are portrayed in the synoptics.

    Conservative Christians really ought to call themselves "Paulinians," since they basically worship every word that Paul ever committed to papyrus. Paul is the real god of the fundies.

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  85. @Walter - I never said anything about serious scholars disclaiming disagreement between Peter and Paul. Peter and Paul had disagreements which are recorded in scripture.

    On the other hand, it looks like you're moving the goalposts yet again. The Holy Father, Pope Benedict XVI is clearly not "Campus Crusade" or "Protestant", so you're now talking about "Conservative Christians". Apparently Pope Benedict XVI is a "Conservative Christian"? Is Pope Benedict also a "fundie"?

    We could've saved a lot of effort if you just admitted that you were planning to argue by repeated redefinition. You've invented some imaginary subset of Christians, no matter how vanishingly small, who reportedly claim that Paul contradicts the synoptics. And then you've defined them as "real" Christians, and everyone else as "fundies". Nevermind the fact that I've never met any of these "real" Christians you're talking about -- they seem to be only attested by ex-fundy atheist activists. All of the Christians who feel that synoptics and Paul are in perfect agreement (which totals 100% of the Christians I have ever met) are slandered as being some Paul-worshipping extremist sect of Christianity. And I'm supposed to take your word on this, because you're such an expert on Christianity. You, who didn't know what Arminians believe and who didn't know what Pelagianism was.

    Yeah, whatever.

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  86. I don't know why you are even bringing Catholics up? I never mentioned them. I did misconstrue the beliefs of Classic Arminians, and I admitted such. I am quite familiar with the beliefs of Pelagius, than you very much. I am stepping off this treadmill, since it is a total waste of time arguing this nonsense with a person who believes that all of humanity deserves eternal torture because we inherited the guilt of a mythical ancestor who ate a magic apple.

    I am out of here.

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  87. Well ... maybe we're NOT making progress. :)

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  88. A more precise analogy is:
    Chilean president would go to a prison and choose by his own will to forgive 3 prisors and set them free!!
    The miners were not condemned to that position.

    The best lessons to be taken from the chilean miners salvation is:
    - they were anable to save themselves. They were dead if left on their own.
    - they didn't have a choise to be saved.
    - they salvation was for free!
    - they will never be able to pay pack the whole salvation operation.

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