tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8826994950591043122024-03-13T06:03:55.068-04:00Why I De-Converted from Evangelical ChristianityKen Pulliamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12161943466797514854noreply@blogger.comBlogger396125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-882699495059104312.post-17116003940328059532010-11-28T04:00:00.000-05:002010-11-28T04:00:08.198-05:00Fine Tuning Ethical IntuitionismThere are different varieties of Ethical (or Moral or Evolutionary) Intuitionism. Some are subject to more criticism than others. I am in the process of fine tuning my particular view of Ethical Intuitionism. I found a recent article by Jeff McMahan to be quite helpful ("Moral Intuition," in <i><a href="http://books.google.com/books?id=mJSKMpfvENEC&printsec=frontcover&dq=Blackwell+guide+to+ethical+theory&hl=en&ei=5R6OTNXaG8L78AaW1KDcCw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CDYQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q&f=false">The Blackwell Guide to Ethical Theory</a></i>, ed. Hugh LaFollette [2000], 92-110).<br />
<br />
<strong>1. What is a moral intuition?</strong> <br />
<br />
According to McMahan:<br />
<br />
<em></em><br />
<blockquote><em>[It] is a spontaneous moral judgment, often concerning a particular act or agent, though an intuition may also have as its object a type of act or, less frequently, a more general moral rule or principle. In saying a moral intuition is a spontaneous judgment, I mean that it is not the result of conscious inferential reasoning. In the first instance at least, the allegiance the intuition commands is not based on an awareness of its relations to one's other beliefs. If one considers the act of torturing the cat, one judges immediately that, in the circumstances, this would be wrong. One does not need to consult one's other beliefs in order to arrive at this judgment. This kind of spontaneity, I should stress, is entirely compatible with the possibility that a fair amount of cognitive processing may be occuring beneath the surface of consciousness</em> (pp. 93-94). </blockquote><br />
<strong>2. There is not a special organ or faculty that perceives moral facts.</strong><br />
<br />
Although some have held that ethical intuitions are <em>the deliverances of a special organ or faculty of moral perception, typically understood as something like an inner eye that provides occult access to a noumenal realm of objective values (p. 94),</em> I reject this notion. I don't believe that there is something like a sixth sense that is able to perceive moral facts.<br />
<br />
<strong>3. Intuitions are not infallible.</strong><br />
<br />
<em></em><strong>4. Intuitions are biologically based.</strong><br />
<blockquote><em>But numerous considerations--such as the diversity of moral intuitions, the fact that people do often doubt and even repudiate certain of their intuitions, and the evident origin of some intutitions in social prejudice or self-interest--make it untenable to suppose that intuitions are direct and infallible perceptions of morality</em> (pp. 94-95).</blockquote><br />
<br />
<br />
<em></em><strong>5. Intuitions may differ among people</strong>.<br />
<blockquote><em>One piece of evidence for this is the surprising uniformity of our intuitions about particular cases. We have been impressed for so long by the claims of anthropologists, English professors, undergraduates, and others about the diversity of moral opinion that we are inclined to overlook how much agreement there actually is. Interestingly, what one finds is that moral disagreements tend to widen and intensify the more we abstract from particular cases and focus instead on matters of principle or theory. When the partisans of different schools of moral thought turn their attention to particular cases, there is far more intuitive agreement that their higher-level disputes would lead one to suspect</em> (pp. 106-07).</blockquote><br />
<blockquote><br />
<em>There are several explanations for this. One is that our moral intuitions undoubtedly stem from numerous diverse sources: while some derive from biologically programmed dispositions that are largely uniform across the species, others are the products of cultural determinants, economic or social conditions, vagaries of individual character and circumstance, and so on. Given the heterogeneity of these sources, it is hardly surprising that there are conflicts</em> (p. 109).</blockquote>Ken Pulliamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12161943466797514854noreply@blogger.com64tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-882699495059104312.post-47551332196266768132010-11-04T04:00:00.000-04:002010-11-04T04:00:00.040-04:00Ayn Rand on "Free Will" and Justice<blockquote>"<i>A sin without volition is a slap at morality and an insolent contradiction in terms: that which is outside the possibility of choice is outside the province of morality. If man is evil by birth, he has no will, no power to change it; if he has no will, he can be neither good nor evil; a robot is amoral. To hold, as man's sin, a fact not open to his choice is a mockery of morality. To hold man's nature as his sin is a mockery of nature. To punish him for a crime he committed before he was born is a mockery of justice. To hold him guilty in a matter where no innocence exists is a mockery of reason. To destroy morality, nature, justice and reason by means of a single concept is a feat of evil hardly to be matched. Yet that is the root of your code. Do not hide behind the cowardly evasion that man is born with free will, but with a 'tendency' to evil. A free will saddled with a tendency is like a game with loaded dice. It forces man to struggle through the effort of playing, to bear responsibility and pay for the game, but the decision is weighted in favor of a tendency that he had no power to escape. If the tendency is of his choice, he cannot possess it at birth; if it is not of his choice, his will is not free"</i> (Ayn Rand, <a href="http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=For+the+New+Intellectual&x=16&y=18"><i>For the New Intellectual</i>, 1961, pp. 136-37).</a></blockquote>Ken Pulliamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12161943466797514854noreply@blogger.com21tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-882699495059104312.post-90692815011728465962010-11-03T04:00:00.001-04:002010-11-03T04:00:04.223-04:00Is God the Author of Evil? Molinism has no better answer than CalvinismIn the book, <i><a href="http://books.google.com/books?id=_5VhE1ekHfgC&lpg=PP1&dq=divine%20foreknowledge%20four%20views&pg=PP1#v=onepage&q&f=false">Divine Foreknowledge: Four views </a></i>(ed. James K. Beilby and Paul R. Eddy, 2001), four evangelical Christians present different views on the meaning of Divine Foreknowledge. Greg Boyd presents the Open-Theism View, David Hunt, the Simple-Foreknowledge View, William Craig, The Middle-Foreknowledge View (aka, Molinism), and Paul Helm, the Augustinian-Calvinist (A-C) View. One of the criticisms often raised by those who oppose the latter view is that it makes God the author of sin. That is because it essentially makes no distinction between foreknowledge and foreordination. God foreknows what he does because he has foreordained it. <br />
<br />
Craig expresses this criticism of the A-C view:<br />
<blockquote><i><br />
The Augustinian-Calvinist perspective interprets the above passages to mean that foreknowledge is based upon foreordination. God knows what will happen because he makes it happen. Aware of the intentions of his will and his almighty power, God knows that all his purpose shall be accomplished. But his interpretation inevitably makes God the author of sin, since it is he who moved Judas, for example, to betray Christ, a sin that merits the hapless Judas everlasting perdition. But how can a holy God move people to ocmmit moral evil and, moreover, how can these people then be held morally responisble for acts over which they had no control. The Augustinian-Calvinist view seems, in effect, to turn God into the devil</i> (p. 135).</blockquote>Paul Helm, on the other hand, maintains that the Middle-Knowledge View (Molinism) of Bill Craig has the same problem:<br />
<br />
<blockquote><i>On the question of the authoriship of evil, there's not a hairsbreadth bewteen the Augustinian-Calvinist perspective and Craig's Molinism. According to Craig's description of Molinism, "God decreed to create just those circumstances and just those people who would freely do what God willed to happen" (p. 134). While this description does not ential that God is the author of sin (any more than the A-C perspective does), it does entail that God decreed all sinful acts to happen and decreed them precisely as they have happened. If this is so, the God of Molina and Arminius seems to be as implicated in the fact of evil as much (or as little) as the God of the A-C perspective </i>(p. 159).</blockquote>I agree with Craig that the A-C view does make God the author of sin. Since everything that happens in the word was foreordained by God, then sin was foreordained by him as well. I also agree with Helm that Molinism does not solve this problem. It inserts "middle-knowledge" between foreknowledge and foreordination but the result is the same. If God chooses to actualize a word in which there will be evil and he knows there will be evil due to his middle-knowledge, then he is no less the author of sin than the Calvinist God is.<br />
<br />
Furthermore, as John Feinberg points out, Molinism's attempt to safeguard "libertarian free will" also fails. He writes:<br />
<blockquote><i>[M]iddle knowledge talks about what would happen, so once God chooses the possible world he wants to actualize, he knows in every situation what his creatures would freely do. Divine foreknoweldge is upheld. However, if incompatiblism is correct, how can he know what would happen if any given "x" occurred? That is, if "y" is an incompatibilistically free human action, it must be indeterminate, but if so, it is impossible for God to know in advance of our free choice which "y" would actually occur in any given "x" situation. In virtue of what would he know the particular "y" that would follow? In virtue of causal conditions that confront the agent at the time of decision making and move him to choose as he does? If so, that is determinism, not libertarian free will </i>(<i><a href="http://books.google.com/books?id=keqAbvGS-RYC&printsec=frontcover&dq=the+many+faces+of+evil&hl=en&ei=FfPKTLj5PIbGlQfj5pTlAQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CDcQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q&f=false">The Many Faces of Evil</a></i>, 2004, p. 113).</blockquote>Another author, David Hunt, maintains that the Molinist view does not resolve the "soteriological problem of evil" either. He writes:<br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt;"><em><blockquote><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt;"><em>The Bible appears to teach that some (many? most?) human beings will spend eternity in hell. Whatever "eternity in hell" amounts to, it is certainly not the purpose for which God created the world--God does not desire this for anyone (2 Pet 3:9). but if he is equipped with middle knowledge, he knew exactly who would reject him prior to creating anyone; knowing this, he could easily have refrained from creating these people. Why didn't he do so? This is a more difficult question to answer for the Molinist than it is for the open theist (whose God lacks this knowledge) or the defender of simple foreknowledge (whose God knows the actual future but cannot use that knowledge to change the very thing he foreknows). This does not show that there are no reasons why God might create people he "middle-knows" would reject him, but the need to posit and defend such reasons is a cost not borne by the non-Molinst</em> (<em>Divine Foreknowledge</em>, p. 152)</span></div></blockquote></em></span>So, despite the poplularity among a number of Christian philosophers and apologists regarding middle-knowledge (many seem to think its a panacea for all the sticky issues facing Christianity), it doesn't seem to me that it offers any better solution to the problems than does pure Calvinism.Ken Pulliamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12161943466797514854noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-882699495059104312.post-8583194903901822652010-11-02T04:00:00.001-04:002010-11-02T04:00:05.588-04:00How Did Adam and Eve Sin if they were created "Good"?In a prior post, I argued that not even Adam and Eve had a truly free will. If this is true, then the so-called Free Will Defense for the Problem of Evil fails, for they were created with a predisposition towards evil. <br />
<br />
R. L. Dabney, the 19th century Calvinist theologian, attempts to explain how beings created as "very good" (<a href="http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Genesis%201:31&version=NIV">Gen. 1:31</a>)could sin. He writes:<br />
<br />
<blockquote><i>How a holy will could come to have an unholy volition at first, is a most difficult inquiry. And it is much harder as to the first sin of Satan, than of Adam, because the angel, created perfect, had no tempter to mislead him and had not even the bodily appetites for natural good which in Adam were so easily perverted into concupiscence. Concupiscence cannot be supposed to have been the cause, pre-existing before sin; because concupiscence is sin, and needs itself to be accounted for in a holy heart. Man's, or Satan's, mutability cannot be the efficient cause, being only a condition sine qua non. Nor is it any solution to say with Turrettin, the proper cause was a free will perverted voluntarily. Truly; but how came a right will to pervert itself while yet right?<br />
<br />
... The most probable account of the way sin entered a holy breast first, is this: An object was apprehended as in its mere nature desirable; not yet as unlawful. So far there is no sin. But as the soul, finite and fallible in its attention, permitted an overweening apprehension and desire of its natural adaptation to confer pleasure, to override the feeling of its unlawfulness, concupiscence was developed. And the element which first caused the mere innocent sense of the natural goodness of the object to pass into evil concupiscence, was privative, viz., the failure to consider and prefer God's will as the superior good to mere natural good. Thus natural desire passed into sinful selfishness, which is the root of all evil. ...<br />
<br />
When we assert the mutability of a holy will in a finite creature, we only say that the positive element of righteousness of disposition may, in the shape of defect, admit the negative, not being infinite</i> (<i><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Systematic-Theology-R-L-Dabney/dp/0851514537/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1288287967&sr=1-1">Systematic Theology</a></i>, ch. 29).</blockquote><br />
So, if I understand Dabney correctly, Adam and Eve fell because they were created as finite beings. Even as a candle will eventually burn out due to its finiteness, the first human beings eventually sinned due to their finiteness. Thus, it was inevitable that they sin.<br />
<br />
Shedd (vol. 2, p. 149)Adam was holy by creation, but not indefectibly and immutably so. The inclination of his will, though conformed to the moral law, was mutable, because his will was not omnipotent. When voluntary self-determination is an infinite and self-subsistent power, as it is in God, the fall of the will is impossible. But when voluntary self-determination is a finite and dependent power, as it is in man or angel, the fall of the will is possible. ... The power to the contrary; the possibilitas peccandi, or power to originate sin ; belonged to Adam's will because of its finiteness.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
If it was inevitable that the first couple sin, then how can they be held culpable? <br />
<br />
see discussion at Tribalogue<br />
<br />
Unfortunately, since we are not in the position of Adam and since the Bible is silent on the issue, we can only answer with speculation. Granted, it is speculation that is informed by the rest of Scripture, but this isn't an issue that the Bible addresses specifically.<br />
<br />
We do know that Adam's sin did not catch God off-guard. It was foreordained, yet in such a way that Adam freely sinned. These concepts are all clear from Scripture. While I do not have a perfect answer for the question, I will give you my speculation with the caveats that 1) I haven't really worked through this in its entirety and 2) I do not hold this position dogmatically and can easily be influenced away from it.<br />
<br />
My current belief is that barring active influence from God in the form of common grace, it is impossible for anything to remain in a perfect state. That is, the natural state of everything is entropy, and this is true of man and his spirituality. Thus, it is impossible for God to create a man who of his own power (that is, apart from God's continual upholding via His grace and mercy) will remain steadfast and not turn toward sin.<br />
<br />
The advantage to this argument is that it would explain why Adam sinned (i.e. God removed His grace and let Adam be as Adam would be, which invariably means Adam would "break" and sin) and it explains why we will not sin in heaven (i.e. God will not ever remove His grace from us, and therefore we will continually rely on His power to keep us in communion with Him for all time). <br />
<br />
The drawback is that it relies on saying that it is impossible for God to create a man who would not sin if God ever let the man exist of the man's own power. However, I wouldn't have a problem with this in theory since I do not believe God can make a round square or any other contradiction, and if it is logically impossible for God to create a person who cannot sin without His continual grace then we don't have a problem there.<br />
<br />
So the question would be, is it logically possible for God to create a person who is able of his own power to remain faithful to God? And I haven't worked through that one yet.<br />
<br />
But at least it gives me something to think about.<br />
12/16/2007 9:58 PM <br />
<br />
<br />
see discussion Puritanboard<br />
<br />
http://www.puritanboard.com/f15/how-did-adam-sin-27525/<br />
<br />
You are also going to have to avoid the Roman error: that Adam's human nature was naturally deficient, that it tended toward concupiscence without the donum superadditum, special grace needed to remain sinless<br />
<br />
Rome says concupiscence (inclination to wrongdoing) is natural. Dabney says, "concupiscence was developed." At least Dabney admits the result is mysterious, and not a natural occurrenceKen Pulliamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12161943466797514854noreply@blogger.com11tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-882699495059104312.post-43351186493534529662010-11-01T04:00:00.001-04:002010-11-01T04:00:00.685-04:00Did Adam and Eve have a Free Will?The Free Will Defense for the problem of evil really relates only to Adam and Eve; because the Bible teaches that after the fall of the original couple, men's hearts incline towards evil. Man's nature post-fall is corrupt and is bent in the direction of doing evil. Man is totally depraved, meaning that left to himself, he will choose against God. So, according to historic Christianity, the only persons who were truly free were Adam and Eve. That means that the so-called Free Will Defense employed by Christian apologists really only applies to the original couple.<br />
<br />
But were they even truly free? What precisely does it mean to have a truly free will? Does it mean that nothing is <strong>causing</strong> you to choose one option over another or does it mean that nothing is <strong>influencing</strong> you to choose one option over another? It seems that it must be the former, since it seems impossible for one to make any choice without being influenced by something. But is a will that is influenced, truly free? <br />
<br />
I guess the question becomes how much influence is required before one is no longer culpable for his choice? In the criminal justice system, the defense of entrapment can be used by someone who believes that he was "<i>improperly induced</i>" into committing a crime. While this area of the law is complex and somewhat subjective (see <a href="http://books.google.com/books?id=vzHQUDvsPr4C&lpg=PR6&dq=Criminal%20Law%20By%20Thomas%20J.%20Gardner%2C%20Terry%20M.%20Anderson&pg=PP1#v=onepage&q&f=false">Criminal Law </a>, Thomas J. Gardner and Terry M. Anderson, [10th ed., 2009], 146-49 and <a href="http://books.google.com/books?id=2ipUSeStAzQC&lpg=PP1&dq=criminal%20law%20David%20C.%20Brody%2C%20James%20R.%20Acker&pg=PP1#v=onepage&q&f=false">Criminal Law</a>, David C. Brody, James R. Acker, and Wayne A. Logan [2001], 313-14), it is agreed that the defendant must have had a<strong> predisposition</strong> to commit the crime before he encountered the undercover officer in order to avoid the charge of entrapment. In other words, to prove the entrapment defense, you have to show that the crime is one that you would not have committed and that you had no predisposition to commit without the inducement of an undercover agent. Police cannot select random citizens to participate in organized sting operations in hopes of generating an arrest. There must be some compelling evidence that a specific individual has a propensity for committing such a crime. <br />
<br />
So, in a sting operation, a person is put in circumstances which allows him to reveal his true nature or character, and predispositions. Thus, unless Adam was entrapped, he already had a predisposition to disobey God and eat the fruit. That would mean his nature was already corrupt before he fell (Jesus says that the desire to do something wrong is just as evil as the act itself, see Matt. 5:27-28). It seems therefore that God must have created Adam this way. God created him with a predisposition to commit evil. If Adam had no predispostion to commit the crime of eating the fruit and the snake convinced him to do so, that would be entrapment according to western jurisprudence.<br />
<br />
Since one's will (i.e., what one chooses) is based on one's nature (i.e., what one is), it doesn't seem plausible to me that Adam had a truly free will. He was predisposed to disobey God from the moment he was created because he was created with such a nature (see next post).<br />
<br />
So much for the Free Will Defense, as the fact is no one, not even the first couple (assuming they really existed) had a genuinely free will.Ken Pulliamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12161943466797514854noreply@blogger.com64tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-882699495059104312.post-32026266561157527192010-10-31T05:00:00.002-04:002010-10-31T05:00:01.258-04:00HalloweenShort History of Halloween<br />
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<object height="385" width="480"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/R-VRAemIvbI?fs=1&hl=en_US"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/R-VRAemIvbI?fs=1&hl=en_US" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="480" height="385"></embed></object><br />
<br />
What band is best suited for Halloween? Its got to be Kiss. In the 70's when I was a teenager, preachers were saying that KISS stood for Kings in Satan's Service. Get over it, it just an act.<br />
<br />
God of Thunder<br />
<br />
<object height="385" width="480"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/LWmdak-hrcY?fs=1&hl=en_US"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/LWmdak-hrcY?fs=1&hl=en_US" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="480" height="385"></embed></object>Ken Pulliamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12161943466797514854noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-882699495059104312.post-5096904834019535582010-10-30T04:01:00.000-04:002010-10-30T04:01:00.668-04:00God or Nothing?Pat Condell, in his own inimitable way, explains why not to believe in God doesn't mean that one must believe in nothing.<br />
<br />
<object height="385" width="480"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/Ovg0eYjM64w?fs=1&hl=en_US"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/Ovg0eYjM64w?fs=1&hl=en_US" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="480" height="385"></embed></object>Ken Pulliamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12161943466797514854noreply@blogger.com12tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-882699495059104312.post-19461344931756498122010-10-29T04:05:00.000-04:002010-10-29T04:05:00.157-04:00Hugo Grotius on Punishing an Innocent<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5lJ5gXi2ldoeEqDGKuXpSbpwre9fenlTCDof3Vngx3VVGG3GDcw3umVSoqHTw3REODikA05-5pfcgeXpOlYxIo-pDuUDrtQe9xJzny0Q4EGvxqb5zitQhC8MbAwSLo0MbhT05plBc5Bs/s1600/grotius.bmp" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" ex="true" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5lJ5gXi2ldoeEqDGKuXpSbpwre9fenlTCDof3Vngx3VVGG3GDcw3umVSoqHTw3REODikA05-5pfcgeXpOlYxIo-pDuUDrtQe9xJzny0Q4EGvxqb5zitQhC8MbAwSLo0MbhT05plBc5Bs/s320/grotius.bmp" width="268" /></a></div><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hugo_Grotius">Hugo Grotius</a> (1583-–1645) was a Dutch jurist who is famous for his work on international law. He was also a theologian and is credited with developing the governmental theory of the atonement. This theory is similar to the penal substitution theory (PST) and the satisfaction theory of Anselm but has an important difference. It holds that the death of Jesus was a payment of the penalty which sinners deserved but was not the precise equivalent in the sense of a direct substitution. This has led some to term the theory: "Penal Non-Substitution" (see Oliver Crisp, "Penal Non-Substitution," in <em><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Reader-Contemporary-Philosophical-Theology-Oliver/dp/0567031462">A Reader in Contemporary Philosophical Theology</a></em> [2009], 299-327). To further explain:<br />
<br />
<blockquote>[The] <em>governmental theory holds that Christ's suffering was a real and meaningful substitute for the punishment humans deserve, but it did not consist of Christ receiving the exact punishment due to sinful people. Instead, God publicly demonstrated his displeasure with sin through the suffering of his own sinless and obedient Son as a propitiation. Christ's suffering and death served as a substitute for the punishment humans might have received. On this basis, God is able to extend forgiveness while maintaining divine order, having demonstrated the seriousness of sin and thus allowing his wrath to "pass over." This view is very similar to the satisfaction view and the penal substitution view, in that all three views see Christ as satisfying God's requirement for the punishment of sin. However, the government view disagrees with the other two in that it does not affirm that Christ endured the precise punishment that sin deserves or its equivalent; instead, Christ's suffering is seen as being simply an alternative to that punishment. In contrast, penal substitution holds that Christ endured the exact punishment, or the exact "worth" of punishment, that sin deserved; the satisfaction theory states that Christ paid back at least as much honor to God as sin took from Him</em>("<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Governmental_theory_of_atonement">The Governmental Theory of the Atonement</a>").</blockquote>Grotius was emphatic that the death of Jesus was in fact a penal act. He wrote<em>: </em><br />
<blockquote><em>God was moved by his own goodness to bestow distinguished blessings upon us. But since our sins, which deserved punishment, were an obstacle to this, he determined that Christ, being willing of his own love toward men, should, by bearing the most severe tortures, and a bloody and ignominious death, pay the <b>penalty</b> (emphasis mine) for our sins, in order that without prejudice to the exhibition of the divine justice, we might be liberated, upon the intervention of a true faith, from the punishment of eternal death </em>")"<a href="http://books.google.com/books?id=-9oWAQAAIAAJ&pg=PA105&dq=a+defence+of+the+catholic+faith+foster&hl=en&ei=OJGsTL6kJMK88gaqgsmfCA&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CCoQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=a%20defence%20of%20the%20catholic%20faith%20foster&f=false">A Defense of the Catholic Faith Concerning the Satisfaction of Christ against Faustus Socinus</a>" [1617], trans. Frank Foster, in<em> Bibliotheca Sacra,</em> 36 [1879], 106-07).</blockquote>Therefore, Grotius found it necessary to explain how an innocent person, such as Jesus, could be punished. He argues that since God cannot act unjustly and since the Bible affirms that God does sometimes punish certain people for what others have done, therefore, such punishment must be just. He writes: <br />
<br />
<blockquote><i>I affirm that it is not unjust simply, or contrary to the nature of punishment, that one should be punished for another's sins. When I say unjust it is manifest that I speak of that injustice which springs from the nature of things, not that which is founded upon positive law; so that the divine liberty cannot be abridged by it. In proof of this remark: "God visits the iniquities of the fathers upon the children, and upon the children's children" [Ex. 20:5]. "Our fathers have sinned, and we have borne their iniquities" [Lam. 5:7]. For the act of Ham, Canaan is subjected to a curse [Gen. 9:25]. For the act of Saul, his sons and grandsons are hung with the approval of God [2 Sam. 21:8, 14]. For the act of David, seventy thousand perish, and David exclaims, "Lo, I have sinned, and I have done wickedly; but these sheep, what have they done" [2 Sam. 24:15-17]? So for the act of Achan his sons were punished [Josh. 7:24], and for the act of Jeroboam his posterity [1 Ki. 14:10]. These passages manifestly show that some are punished by God for others' sins</i> (<i>Ibid</i>., p. 272).</blockquote><br />
I commend Grotius for acknowledging that the Bible does teach that God sometimes punishes the innocent for what the guilty has done. Some apologists will attempt to deny this fact. However, I do not agree with him that just because the Bible records such punishments as being ordained by God, they must therefore automatically be just. I think that is begging the question.<br />
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Next, Grotius claims that since there is a connection between Jesus and humanity (he assumed their nature), thus it is just for Jesus to suffer the penalty that mankind deserves. He writes: <br />
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<blockquote><i>We might reply that no man is unconnected with another; that there is a certain natural union among men by birth and blood; that our flesh was assumed by Christ. But another and a greater connection between us and Christ was designed by God. For Christ was designated by God himself as the "head of the body" of which we are members. . . .</i><br />
<br />
<i>[T]he mystic connection ought in this case to have a place of no less importance, as very clearly appears in the case of a king and his people. The story of the people of Israel, punished on account of David's crime, has been cited above. The ancient author of Quaestiones ad Orthodoxos(which is circulated under the name of Justin), wisely discoursing upon this topic, says: "As man is composed of soul and body, so a kingdom is composed of the king and his subjects. And as, if a man committing sin with his hands receives punishment on his back he who punishes him does not act unjustly, so God acts not unjustly when he avenges the sins of the rulers upon the people" (Ibid</i>., pp. 274-75).</blockquote><br />
If Christ is somehow connected with sinful man due to his assumption of man's nature, it would seem that Christ should have assumed human nature as it existed after the fall. In other words, he should have assumed a fallen human nature. Grotius does not teach this (although others later would, such as Edward Irving, Karl Barth, etc.). So, the fact that he is also man does not automatically make it just to punish him for what other men have done.<br />
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His analogy of a king and his subjects is interesting. There is a sense in which the subjects of a king or government suffer as a result of what their leader(s) do. However, is this just? It seems it is only if the subjects have specifically endorsed the action of their leader(s) that results in the punishment. But, if this is the case, then the subjects are also culpable for their leader(s) action. A more appropriate analogy would be that the king or leader is punished for what the whole country does. Is this just? <br />
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One could imagine a scenario where the leader of a country was punished for what his people did but intuitively it still seems unjust. Punishment as such is designed for the one who is guilty. If the leader is somehow completely innocent of what his people have done, then how can he justly suffer punishment in their place? Only if he is somehow culpable in the evil act, can he be justly punished. Furthermore, if he is punished for what his people have done, how can the people justly forego punishment themselves? How can their evil acts be excused because their leader was punished in their place? Whoever the arbiter of justice is in this case, seems to be interested in some type of symbolic justice, which under closer scrutiny is no justice at all.Ken Pulliamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12161943466797514854noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-882699495059104312.post-51074365371848058762010-10-28T04:00:00.000-04:002010-10-28T04:00:01.213-04:00Must There be Evil if there is Good?Christians sometimes offer a defense for the problem of evil by claiming that "there must be evil if there is good. " In other words, you can't have one without the other. <br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.biographybase.com/biography/Mackie_J_L.html">John Leslie Mackie</a> (1917-1981), an Australian philosopher, taught at Oxford University from 1967 till his death in 1981. In 1955, he wrote an important article on the Problem of Evil entitled: "<a href="http://faculty.unlv.edu/jwood/unlv/evilomnipotence.pdf">Evil and Omnipotence</a>" (<i>Mind</i>, vol. 64, no. 254, 200-212). In his essay, he offered three responses to this particular claim.<br />
<br />
<b>1. Good and evil are not logical opposites.</b><br />
<blockquote>[U]<i>nless evil is merely the privation of good, they are not logical opposites, and some further argument would be needed to show that they are counterparts in the same way as genuine logical opposites ("Evil and Omnipotence</i>," 204-05).</blockquote><b>2. It is not necessary that a particular quality always have a real opposite.</b><br />
<blockquote><i>There is still doubt of the correctness of the metaphysical principle that a quality must have a real opposite: I suggest that it is not really impossible that everything should be, say, red, that the truth is merely that if everything were red we should not notice redness, and so we should have no word 'red'; we observe and give names,to qualities only if they have real opposites. If so, the principle that a term must have an opposite would belong only to our language or to our thought,and would not be an ontological principle, and, correspondingly, the rule that good cannot exist without evil would not state a logical necessity of a sort that God would just have to put up with. God might have made everything good, though we should not have noticed it if he had (Ibid</i>., 205).</blockquote><b>3. It would require only a miniscule amount of evil to provide the opposite.</b><br />
<blockquote><i>But, finally, even if we concede that this is an ontological principle, it will provide a solution for the problem of evil only if one is prepared to say, "Evil exists, but only just enough evil to serve as the counterpart of good." I doubt whether any theist will accept this. After all, the ontological requirement that non-redness should occur would be satisfied even if all the universe, except for a minute speck, were red, and, if there were a corresponding requirement for evil as a counterpart to good, a minute dose of evil would presumably do. But theists are not usually willing to say, in all contexts, that all the evil that occurs is a minute and necessary dose (Ibid</i>., 205).</blockquote>Ken Pulliamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12161943466797514854noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-882699495059104312.post-47453781561383447222010-10-27T04:11:00.001-04:002010-10-29T11:50:36.184-04:00J. L. Mackie on the Problem of Evil--The Free Will Defense<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTUsOR012ef0O_9U5j1ZEllTkpdOIElRn-HFZWpkzSpig_3-C0V4gwKx6QfkwDkP-OrkRZjsEYXbCHwoSQUifsaWDgWB_6-oGwTwKcyky65kcfC5u9AvbT9mH2BoB9T0j1UZIaXqs0vwo/s1600/untitled.bmp" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; cssfloat: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" nx="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTUsOR012ef0O_9U5j1ZEllTkpdOIElRn-HFZWpkzSpig_3-C0V4gwKx6QfkwDkP-OrkRZjsEYXbCHwoSQUifsaWDgWB_6-oGwTwKcyky65kcfC5u9AvbT9mH2BoB9T0j1UZIaXqs0vwo/s1600/untitled.bmp" /></a></div><a href="http://www.biographybase.com/biography/Mackie_J_L.html">John Leslie Mackie</a> (1917-1981), an Australian philosopher, taught at Oxford University from 1967 till his death in 1981. He was also elected a fellow of the British Academy. In 1955, he wrote an important article on the Problem of Evil entitled: "<a href="http://faculty.unlv.edu/jwood/unlv/evilomnipotence.pdf">Evil and Omnipotence</a>" (<i>Mind</i>, vol. 64, no. 254, 200-212).<br />
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Mackie's argument against the Free Will Defense is twofold. The first is essentially based on his rejection of <a href="http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/incompatibilism-arguments/">incompatiblism</a>, i.e., the notion that genuine free will is incompatible with determinism. He argues:<br />
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<blockquote>[I]<i>f God has made men such that in their free choices they sometimes prefer what is good and sometimes what is evil, why could he not have made men such that they always freely choose the good ? If there is no logical impossibility in a man's freely choosing the good on one, or on several, occasions, there cannot be a logical impossibility in his freely choosing the good on every occasion. God was not, then, faced with a choice between making innocent automata and making beings who, in acting freely, would sometimes go wrong: there was open to him the obviously better possibility of making beings who would act freely but always go right. Clearly, his failure to avail himself of this possibility is inconsistent with his being both omnipotent and wholly good.<br />
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If it is replied that this objection is absurd, that the making of some wrong choices is logically necessary for freedom, it would seem that 'freedom' must here mean complete randomness or indeterminacy, including randomness with regard to the alternatives good and evil, in other words that men's choices and consequent actions can be "free" only if they are not determined by their characters. Only on this assumption can God escape the responsibility for men's actions; for if he made them as they are, but did not determine their wrong choices, this can only be because the wrong choices are not determined by men as they are. But then if freedom is randomness, how can it be a characteristic of will? And, still more, how can it be the most important good'? What value or merit would there be in free choices if these were random actions which were not determined by the nature of the agent?</i> ("Evil and Omnipotence," 209). </blockquote><br />
Mackie's second response to the Free Will Defense is what he calls "the Paradox of Omnipotence." He writes:<br />
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<blockquote><i>But besides this there is a fundamental difficulty in the notion of an omnipotent God creating men with free will, for if men's wills are really free this must mean that even God cannot control them, that is, that God is no longer omnipotent. It may be objected that God's gift of freedom to men does not mean that he cannot control their wills, but that he always refrains from controlling their wills. But why, we may ask, should God refrain from controlling evil wills? Whv should he not leave men free to will rightly, but intervene when he sees them beginning to will wrongly? If God could do this, but does not, and if he is wholly good, the only explanation could be that even a wrong free act of will is not really evil, that its freedom is a value which outweighs its wrongness, so that there would be a loss of value if God took away the wrongness and the freedom together. But this is utterly opposed to what theists say about sin in other contexts. The present solution of the problem of evil, then, can be maintained only in the form that God has made men so free that he cannot control their wills.<br />
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This leads us to what I call the Paradox of Omnipotence: can an omnipotent being make things which he cannit subsequently control? Or, what is practically equivalent to this,can an omnipotent being make rules which then bind himself? ...<br />
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It is clear that this is a paradox: the questions cannot be answered satisfactorily either in the affirmative or in the negative. If we answer "Yes ", it follows that if God actually makes things which he cannot control, or makes rules which bind himself, he is not omnipotent once he has made them: there are then things which ce cannot do. But if we answer "No", we are immediately asserting that there are things which he cannot do, that is to say that he is already not omnipotent</i> (Ibid., 209-10).</blockquote>Ken Pulliamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12161943466797514854noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-882699495059104312.post-57838317034697916752010-10-26T04:00:00.001-04:002010-10-26T04:00:07.322-04:00But How Do You Explain the Empty Tomb?Recently on <a href="http://commonsenseatheism.com/?p=12174">CommonSenseAtheism</a>, Luke had a post on the Resurrection which featured the following cartoon from <a href="http://www.jesusandmo.net/">JesusandMo.net</a>:<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj24VXrxdB4sFRZ29c-Va8v_JKF7NPEPMPgpfSQntk7wUacyKqyd7eA-TE4rfQMzdl1m2hWNWsV9AaCjXWYjjJF_31QVvGCy4yrYzywoY_tQ5bLoC1UADqy5rInIDoVKyZYxhCoMVGPJ1c/s1600/jesusandmo.bmp" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" ex="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj24VXrxdB4sFRZ29c-Va8v_JKF7NPEPMPgpfSQntk7wUacyKqyd7eA-TE4rfQMzdl1m2hWNWsV9AaCjXWYjjJF_31QVvGCy4yrYzywoY_tQ5bLoC1UADqy5rInIDoVKyZYxhCoMVGPJ1c/s1600/jesusandmo.bmp" /></a></div><br />
This humorous cartoon, I think, makes an important point. Apologists often maintain that certain "minimal historical facts" cannot be explained apart from a literal resurrection. But, this begs the question because the "historical facts" are part of the story in which the resurrection is reported. As one commenter named Garen said on Luke's blog:<br />
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<blockquote><i>I’m often amazed how even skeptics accept the non-miraculous elements of the Gospels as unbiased history. It comes as a package. If you take the miracles out of the Gospel accounts, of course you will get miracle shaped holes.-- </i>Garren October 18, 2010 at 11:17 am </blockquote>Another commenter, ShaneSteinhauser, using biting sarcasm, explains how the apologists arguments work:<br />
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<blockquote><i>Luke, don’t you understand? <br />
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1. Anything that is reported by at least three ancient non-anonymous scources, and has enemy attestation is fact. This is true because random New Testament historian X says so, and he is not biased at all in anyway whatsoever. <br />
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2. The three gospels report the empty tomb. And we know that the gospel writers are not baised at all because they are Jesus’ disciples who died for their belief, and we know this because early church fathers say so and they are not biased either. Also we know that the gospels are totally reliable even though they were written at least 20 years after Jesus died. We know this because studies in africa have shown that Oral Transmission is extremely accurate. And obviously studies of african traditions have merit on middle eastern traditions. <br />
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3. The three gospels were written by Jesus’ followers and we know this because the early church fathers who are not biased at all said so. <br />
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4. The jews admit that there was an empty tomb and we know this because one of the gospels says so. And that is all we need for enemy attestation. No, we do not actually need a word from an actual jew of the time we just need a gospel saying that he said so. That is good enough. </i><br />
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<i>So now that I have proven that there was an empty tomb how do you explain it Luke? Obviously since you don’t have a good explaination Jesus coming back from the grave wins by default. Also since nobody can explain what made that bumping noise in my closet last night it must be the boogeyman</i>--ShaneSteinhauser October 18, 2010 at 2:21 pm </blockquote>Ken Pulliamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12161943466797514854noreply@blogger.com22tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-882699495059104312.post-81738416702897715502010-10-25T04:00:00.005-04:002010-10-29T11:51:11.063-04:00Alvin Plantinga's Free Will Defense<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiK-hte4R1_cJbvwVA1cOi5pkP2buULI-5M8FfI_sf7Az0dolm960PPKzhyphenhyphencL75CvMnEd13S7TgECi3dtWuKRSVyXe_cpEDWa7_nrFrw7DNOcR6MBB6MT65wwRWGv_xo0Leod-dEQguZK4/s1600/untitled.bmp" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; cssfloat: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" ex="true" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiK-hte4R1_cJbvwVA1cOi5pkP2buULI-5M8FfI_sf7Az0dolm960PPKzhyphenhyphencL75CvMnEd13S7TgECi3dtWuKRSVyXe_cpEDWa7_nrFrw7DNOcR6MBB6MT65wwRWGv_xo0Leod-dEQguZK4/s320/untitled.bmp" width="320" /></a></div><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alvin_Plantinga">Alvin Plantinga</a> is perhaps the foremost Christian philosopher of our generation. He has been, until his recent retirement, the John A. O'Brien Professor of Philosophy at the University of Notre Dame. His fame is due primarily to two things: 1) His development of the idea that the belief in God is properly basic and is warranted without any external evidence (<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reformed_epistemology">Reformed Epistemology</a>). 2) His <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alvin_Plantinga's_free_will_defense">Free Will Defense</a> which is viewed by many as having demolished the logical problem of evil. I have, in <a href="http://formerfundy.blogspot.com/2010/05/essence-of-reformed-epistemology.html">a prior post</a>, discussed the essence of his Reformed Epistemology. In this post, I would like to point out a few problems with his Free Will Defense as a solution for the logical problem of evil.<br />
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The <a href="http://www.iep.utm.edu/evil-log/">logical problem of evil</a>, as opposed to the <a href="http://www.iep.utm.edu/evil-evi/">evidential problem of evil</a>, is the contention that to posit the existence of an omnipotent, omniscient, wholly good god in an evil world constitutes a logical contradiction. In other words, an all-powerful god, all-knowing god, and a perfectly good god could not permit evil. (The evidential problem of evil says it is unlikely, not necessarily impossible, for such a god to exist given the amount of evil in the world).<br />
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Plantinga explains the essence of his argument:<br />
<blockquote><i>[W]e can make a preliminary statement of the Free Will Defense as follows. A world containing creatures who are significantly free (and freely perform more good than evil actions) is more valuable, all else being equal, than a world containing no free creatures at all. Now God can create free creatures, but He can't <b>cause </b>or <b>determine</b> them to do only what is right. For if He does so, then they aren't significantly free after all; they do not do what is right <b>freely</b>. To create creatures capable of <b>moral good</b>, therefore, He must create creatures capable of moral evil; and He can't give these creatures the freedom to perform evil and at the same time prevent them from doing so </i>(<i><a href="http://books.google.com/books?id=8i1Sow6q6KYC&printsec=frontcover&dq=God,+freedom,+and+evil+By+Alvin+Plantinga&hl=en&ei=IeOxTNulJ4L58Abk57GVCw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CDAQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q&f=false">God, Freedom, and Evil </a></i>[1977], 30).</blockquote><strong>1. A world with significantly free creatures is more valuable than one with creatures who are not significantly free.</strong><br />
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I would like to know on what basis Plantinga makes this claim. How can one say that a world with significantly free creatures is really more valuable than one without such free will? He is making "significant free will" more important than the permission of evil and the subsequent suffering it entails. I would like to see an argument for this assertion.<br />
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<strong>2. An act can only be considered morally significant or praiseworthy if the individual could have made a different choice.</strong><br />
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In other words, if one is not capable of making an evil choice, then his choice to do right is not morally praiseworthy. Plantinga explains:<br />
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<blockquote><i>What is relevant to the Free Will Defense is the idea of <b>being free with respect to an action</b>. If a person is free with respect to a given action, then he is free to perform that action and free to refrain from performing it; no antecedent conditions and/or causal laws determine that he will perform the action, or that he won't. It is within his power, at the time in question, to take or perform the action and within his power to refrain from it. <br />
<br />
...[I] shall say that an action is <b>morally significant</b>, for a given person, if it would be wrong for him to perform the action but right to refrain or vice versa</i> (Ibid., pp. 29-30).</blockquote>This would mean that none of God's actions are morally praiseworthy and that in reality the term morality does not apply to God. As James R. Beebe puts it:<br />
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<blockquote><i>God, it seems, is incapable of doing anything wrong. Thus, it does not appear that, with respect to any choice of morally good and morally bad options, God is free to choose a bad option. He seems constitutionally incapable of choosing (or even wanting) to do what is wrong. According to Plantinga’s description of morally significant free will, it does not seem that God would be significantly free. Plantinga suggests that morally significant freedom is necessary in order for one’s actions to be assessed as being morally good or bad. But then it seems that God’s actions could not carry any moral significance. They could never be praiseworthy. That certainly runs contrary to central doctrines of theism</i> ("<a href="http://www.iep.utm.edu/evil-log/">Logical Problem of Evil</a>").</blockquote><strong>3. To accomplish the greater good, God is justified in permitting evil.</strong><br />
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Plantinga writes:<br />
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<blockquote><i>The Free Will Defense can be looked upon as an effort to show that there may be a very different kind of good that God can't bring about without permitting evil</i> (<i>God, Freedom, and Evil</i>, p. 29).</blockquote>My problem with this is twofold. First, it contradicts the concept of absolute morality which Christians claim to hold. However, in the Free Will Defense, it is okay to allow some evil so that a greater good will come from it. This is "<em>the end justifying the means</em>" which Christians usually attribute to moral relativism. Such a view takes a teleological or consequential view of ethics as opposed to what Christians normally insist upon, a deontological view. In other words, actions are not intrinsically right or wrong but are judged to be right or wrong depending upon the results of the actions.<br />
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Second, to permit an evil to occur when one could have prevented it makes one culpable. Christians often make the distinction between God permitting evil and God causing evil. They argue that God cannot cause evil because that would violate his holy character. Why does it not violate his holy character for him to permit evil? If I permit my child to do evil, how can I hold him responsible for what I permitted; and, furthermore, how can I escape culpability in the evil he committed? Permitting something is a form of condoning it.Ken Pulliamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12161943466797514854noreply@blogger.com19tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-882699495059104312.post-63945502625612284912010-10-24T07:22:00.000-04:002010-10-24T07:22:56.766-04:00Sunday Funnies--Lewis BlackLewis Black on the Old Testament<br />
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<object width="480" height="385"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/LGrlWOhtj3g?fs=1&hl=en_US"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/LGrlWOhtj3g?fs=1&hl=en_US" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="480" height="385"></embed></object><br />
<br />
Lewis Black on Prayer<br />
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<object width="480" height="385"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/nbEINXqNrkY?fs=1&hl=en_US"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/nbEINXqNrkY?fs=1&hl=en_US" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="480" height="385"></embed></object>Ken Pulliamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12161943466797514854noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-882699495059104312.post-76114954324278494802010-10-23T08:16:00.000-04:002010-10-23T08:16:42.917-04:00A Six-Point Calvinist<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiofpNA5JAJNJMiz7vz5u23CaXIMXHAhevX1yvv832cm2lA1WNi4GhHWzWqwNwTYJtI_hfsEcpOALkC1z8tHJRXtD8l5NHaxXczJ-TlwzjOeovyxl-4zvHA8bgm0oHFxRGJxdAPCtvn4CI/s1600/untitled.bmp" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="398" nx="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiofpNA5JAJNJMiz7vz5u23CaXIMXHAhevX1yvv832cm2lA1WNi4GhHWzWqwNwTYJtI_hfsEcpOALkC1z8tHJRXtD8l5NHaxXczJ-TlwzjOeovyxl-4zvHA8bgm0oHFxRGJxdAPCtvn4CI/s400/untitled.bmp" width="400" /></a></div><br />
HT: <a href="http://jeriwho.net/lillypad2/?p=3786">Blog on the Way</a>Ken Pulliamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12161943466797514854noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-882699495059104312.post-26265020204222871832010-10-23T04:00:00.000-04:002010-10-23T04:00:01.773-04:00What is Atheism?An excellent overview of what it means to be an atheist.<br />
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HT: <a href="http://commonsenseatheism.com/?p=12134">CommonSenseAtheism</a><br />
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<object height="390" width="640"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/sNDZb0KtJDk&hl=en_US&feature=player_embedded&version=3"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowScriptAccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/sNDZb0KtJDk&hl=en_US&feature=player_embedded&version=3" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowfullscreen="true" allowScriptAccess="always" width="640" height="390"></embed></object>Ken Pulliamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12161943466797514854noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-882699495059104312.post-60406842943147183272010-10-22T16:00:00.003-04:002010-10-22T16:00:02.968-04:00God Has Not Forgiven Us --From Sola RationeI have discovered a blog, <i>Sola Ratione</i>, which has some good posts on the penal substitutionary theory of the atonement. With the author's permission, I am going to re-post them here. This one is entitled: <a href="http://rationesola.blogspot.com/2010/10/god-has-not-forgiven-us.html">God Has Not Forgiven Us.</a><br />
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If Jesus was punished for our sins (in the sense that God's wrath was directed toward him instead of us), then it follows that God has not forgiven us. <br />
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To forgive someone means that we have let go of our resentment or anger against them. <br />
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It does not mean that we have simply found some innocent bystander upon whom we can dump our anger instead. <br />
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This kind of 're-direction' is so outrageously unjust that it's hard to know what to call it. <br />
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At best it is a kind of therapeutic device. Rather than direct our anger on the person responsible for causing us harm, we lash out at someone else instead. In so doing we discharge or release our anger to such an extent that we no longer feel anger over what was done to us. <br />
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In real life, this phenomenon typically occurs when we have been attacked or bullied by someone who is more powerful than us. <br />
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The risk of attacking them is too great. So we deal with our rage by taking it out on someone who is less likely to retaliate. <br />
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The aim is to restore a semblance of self-respect and pride, in a situation where we are out-gunned.<br />
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Most of us would condemn this approach as highly unethical - on several counts. <br />
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1. It doesn't address the original offence.<br />
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2. An innocent person is attacked.<br />
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3. It is likely to set up an endless chain of revenge-taking (the person we picked on, being less powerful than us, takes their anger out on someone who is less powerful than them, and so on).<br />
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But is this what is happening on the cross? <br />
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Not exactly. <br />
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God doesn't re-direct His anger onto Jesus because He is worried that we might retaliate if He tried it on us.<br />
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No, God takes it out on Jesus because He loves us too much. His anger is so strong that if He let rip (as He does to those whom He consigns to Hell) our relationship would not survive.<br />
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But there are problems with this version of the story.<br />
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To begin, it is rather like a parent who loves his kids to bits, but knows that he has serious anger-management issues. <br />
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So when the smaller, more vulnerable kids annoy him, he narrowly avoids killing them - but only by viciously beating up his eldest son. (Fortunately, this son is eminently scapegoatable, given his almost miraculous ability to recover from the most cruel, even murderous beatings!)<br />
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Now there's a role model to emulate! Social services, not to mention the police, would be onto such a 'dad' in seconds.<br />
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So is that what God is like?<br />
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Well, perhaps we have not taken into account the way in which the Triune Godhead is at work here. <br />
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On this version, God is more like a father who, again, is so loving that he manages to resist killing his children when they piss him off. <br />
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But he only does so by going into his study and punching himself in the face, over and over again, until his anger dissipates. <br />
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God, in other words, got into some serious self-harming on the cross - purely as an outlet for his wrath-management problem. <br />
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Not a pretty picture.<br />
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But again, perhaps we haven't quite caught the analogy.<br />
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We sometimes say that, when we forgive, we 'absorb' the anger that we felt toward the person who hurt us. <br />
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So perhaps God is doing the same sort of thing. That is, God in the Son 'absorbs' the anger of God the Father. <br />
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This sounds much more palatable.<br />
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But it doesn't work.<br />
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When we say that we 'absorb our anger' in forgiveness, this does not mean that we turn around and 'get angry at ourselves' in order to avoid getting angry at the person who hurt us! No advocate of forgiveness would ever endorse that interpretation. <br />
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And yet that is, in effect, what a trinitarian God is doing: God the Father is re-directing his wrath away from us and turning it instead against God the Son. <br />
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This is 'absorption' only in the sense in which a self-abuser 'absorbs' the knife blade with which he is slicing his own flesh!<br />
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So what do we conclude?<br />
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Well, it looks like Jesus did not die on the cross so that God could forgive us. <br />
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Forgiveness had nothing to do with it.<br />
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Instead, He died so that God could let off some steam. <br />
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Thanks God. But next time, it might be easier if you just booked in to see a therapist.Ken Pulliamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12161943466797514854noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-882699495059104312.post-54433970232451024662010-10-22T12:00:00.000-04:002010-10-22T12:00:04.020-04:00Is Christ held vicariously liable for our sins?--From Sola RationeI have discovered a blog, <i>Sola Ratione</i>, which has some good posts on the penal substitutionary theory of the atonement. With the author's permission, I am going to re-post them here. This one is entitled:<i> <a href="http://rationesola.blogspot.com/2009/09/is-christ-held-vicariously-liable-for.html">Is Christ held vicariously liable for our sins</a>?</i><br />
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<blockquote>"<i>I remember once sharing the Gospel with a businessman. When I explained that Christ had died to pay the penalty for our sins, he responded, "Oh, yes, that's imputation." I was stunned, as I never expected this theological concept to be familiar to this non-Christian businessman. When I asked him how he came to be familiar with this idea, he replied, "Oh, we use imputation all the time in the insurance business." He explained to me that certain sorts of insurance policy are written so that, for example, if someone else drives my car and gets in an accident, the responsibility is imputed to me rather than to the driver. Even though the driver behaved recklessly, I am the one held liable; it is just as if I had done it. Now this is parallel to substitutionary atonement. Normally I would be liable for the misdeeds I have done. But through my faith in Christ, I am, as it were, covered by his divine insurance policy, whereby he assumes the liability for my actions. My sin is imputed to him, and he pays its penalty. The demands of justice are fulfilled, just as they are in mundane affairs in which someone pays the penalty for something imputed to him. This is as literal a transaction as those that transpire regularly in the insurance industry</i>." - <strong>W. L. Craig</strong>, "Question 122, Subject: Penal Theory of the Atonement."</blockquote><br />
Craig is right to say that the owner of a car can be held vicariously liable for any negligence committed by someone to whom they have loaned their car. But what he omits to mention is that the driver must be using the car primarily for the purpose of performing a task for the owner. <br />
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For this kind of imputation to work as a parallel to substitutionary atonement, then, it would have to be the case that when we commit sins, we are acting primarily so as to achieve the purposes of Jesus Christ! Only then could he rightly be held liable for our sinful actions. <br />
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Don't think that one is going to work too well!<br />
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This kind of 'test' is also used when imputing liability to a corporation for the acts of its employees. A corporation can be held vicariously liable for the acts of its employees only if (1) the employee acted within the scope of their employment; (2) their actions, at least partly, benefited the corporation; and (3) it would be reasonable to impute the employee's acts and intentions to the corporation. <br />
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None of these three conditions find a parallel in the doctrine of penal substitution. Quite the opposite in fact. <br />
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(1) When we sin, we are acting against what it is that God has demanded of us. (2) It is hard to see how our sinfulness could, even partly, be said to 'benefit' Jesus Christ. (3) It could never be reasonable to impute our sinful acts or our sinful intentions to Christ himself, since he is, by definition, incapable of sin.Ken Pulliamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12161943466797514854noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-882699495059104312.post-84623551180950501762010-10-22T04:00:00.000-04:002010-10-22T04:00:08.041-04:00Punishment is not an Abstract Commodity --From Sola RationeI have discovered a blog, <i>Sola Ratione</i>, which has some good posts on the penal substitutionary theory of the atonement. With the author's permission, I am going to re-post them here. This one is entitled: <i><a href="http://rationesola.blogspot.com/2009/09/punishment-is-not-abstract-commodity.html">Punishment is not an Abstract Commodity </a></i><br />
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<blockquote>"[T]<i>he victim, within limits, has the freedom to decide to what extent and in what manner to inflict punishment. I do not see how this freedom would not extend to accepting a voluntary penal substitute. Take for instance the football player who is late to team practice. The coach of the team punishes the late player by demanding he run 5 laps around the field. The team captain steps forward and asks the coach if he could run the 5 laps in the other's stead. If the coach agrees to such an arrangement, then there does not seem to be anything unjust about this transfer of penalty. I take it this is because in the transfer the initial justification for punishment is still in place – that is the late player's misuse of his team-privileges led to the temporary withdrawal of a team-privilege. Whether the late player of the team captain serves the punishment, the initial justification is the same. And the additional good ends that the punishment is likely to secure (e.g. team unity) are accomplished whether the late player runs the laps or the team captain runs them</i>." - <strong>Steven L. Porter</strong> "Swinburnian Atonement and the Doctrine of Penal Substitution," <i>Oxford Readings in Philosophical Theology: Volume 1: Trinity, Incarnation, Atonement</i>, edited by Michael Rea (Oxford University Press, 2009): p. 325.</blockquote><br />
This is an excellent example of just how counter-intuitive penal substitution really is. <br />
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Can anyone imagine a team captain asking to run 5 laps on behalf of the late football player? And the coach agreeing to this bizarre transaction? <br />
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What message would that send to the late player, let alone his team-mates? 'Don't worry if you do the wrong thing lads. The captain is (literally!) a sucker for punishment, and will cop it on your behalf.' <br />
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I don't know what kind of football players Porter is acquainted with, but you don't have to be a total cynic to see that the team is very unlikely to respond well to the captain's offer. 'Team unity' would not be particularly high on the list of possible outcomes. <br />
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The players are far more likely to ridicule the captain for being such a 'mug' (or words to that effect). And if this were the only time that the captain had made such an offer, then it is not difficult to foresee the players suspecting favoritism . . . or worse: 'Jeez, what does this guy have on the captain?'<br />
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And they would have good reason to question the propriety of what is going on here. This kind of substitution is clearly inappropriate, at almost every level. <br />
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How can Porter be so mistaken in his intuitions? <br />
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I think the root of the problem is that he thinks that punishment is a kind of abstract commodity. Like hard cash, it really doesn't matter who gives it or who receives it. Its value remains the same: 20 dollars is 20 dollars, no matter who owns it. <br />
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Likewise, the value of punishment, Porter thinks, is entirely independent of who it is directed against. If a temporary withdrawal of a team-privilege is warranted by the offending behavior of the late player, then what is required is that there be a temporary withdrawal of a team-privilege. Doesn't really matter who cops it, just so long as they agree to it and know what they're doing. <br />
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We can perhaps see just how bizarre this view is, by creating a similar scenario:<br />
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Suppose it's pay-time for the football team. The coach is about to hand out their individual pay packets, when the team captain steps forward and asks the coach if he could have all the team's pay for himself, instead of it being distributed to the other players as per usual. If the coach agrees to such an arrangement, then there does not seem to be anything unjust about this transfer. This is because in the transfer the initial justification for the wages being paid is still in place – that is, each player has fulfilled their job description for that month. So it really doesn't matter who takes the pay. The initial justification for the wages being paid is the same.<br />
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Doesn't really work, does it!<br />
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That's because 'what is deserved' is, morally speaking, inextricably linked to 'the person who deserves it'. Punishment can only be morally justified if it is directed against the person who deserves it. If you break this connection - as is necessarily the case in any penal substitution - the situation immediately becomes morally incoherent, if not repugnant.Ken Pulliamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12161943466797514854noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-882699495059104312.post-89764231585163575062010-10-21T12:00:00.000-04:002010-10-21T12:00:08.268-04:00Can Penal Substitution be Justified on Utilitarian Grounds? --From Sola RationeI have discovered a blog, <i>Sola Ratione</i>, which has some good posts on the penal substitutionary theory of the atonement. With the author's permission, I am going to re-post them here. This one is entitled: <i><a href="http://rationesola.blogspot.com/2009/09/can-penal-substitution-be-justified-on.html">Can Penal Substitution be Justified on Utilitarian Grounds</a>?</i><br />
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<blockquote>"<i>[T]he practice of penal substitution in other scenarios seems wrong. We do not think it good for the mother of a convicted rapist to serve his time in prison. I propose that the reason why such a transfer is morally counter-intuitive is that while the victim still has the right to transfer the punishment, the likely good ends of such punishment would not be served by such a transfer. Given that deterrence and prevention are the main potential goods of criminal punishment it is probably never good that such a penalty be transferred, for there is little hope of achieving these goods through a transfer</i>." - <strong>Steven L. Porter</strong> "Swinburnian Atonement and the Doctrine of Penal Substitution," <i>Oxford Readings in Philosophical Theology: Volume 1: Trinity, Incarnation, Atonement </i>edited by Michael Rea (Oxford University Press, 2009): p. 326.</blockquote><br />
Just when we thought Porter's theory of punishment was retributivist through and through, it turns out that he is a utilitarian after all. What else could he mean by saying that: "<i>deterrence and prevention are the main potential goods of criminal punishment</i>."<br />
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Clearly, there is some confusion in Porter's mind here – and no doubt he would retract this statement, and revert to his usual retributivism, if its consequences were pointed out. But it is worth taking him seriously at this point, just to expose the trouble that a utilitarian version of penal substitution will encounter.<br />
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Let's suppose that the father of a convicted rapist agrees to serve the time in prison on behalf of his son. No one but the judge, the son and the victim knows about this transfer. So far as the public are concerned, the right man has been jailed.<br />
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Let's also assume that the son is duly chastened by his father's amazing sacrifice, and turns his life around. He does not re-offend, and goes on to live his life as an up-standing citizen. <br />
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In such a case, it looks like the penal substitution has brought about the "main potential goods of criminal punishment". We have both specific and general deterrence (so far as that is ever possible) in the bag. <br />
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And yet.<br />
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An innocent man has been punished, with the full knowledge and authorization of the legal system. This is outrageous. It makes no difference at all that the transaction was voluntary, or that the good of deterrence was achieved. <br />
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It is morally wrong to punish the innocent. Period. <br />
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Private citizens, even victims, can offer themselves up as sacrificial lambs if they like. But our legal officials have the right to over-rule this offer – as a matter of justice, and as is their duty as upholders of the 'rule of law' values of impartiality, independence and consistency. As Andrew Ashworth puts it:<br />
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<blockquote>"<i>Just because a person commits an offence against me, however, that does not privilege my voice above that of the court (acting 'in the general public interest') in the matter of the offender's punishment. A justification for this lies in social contract reasoning, along the lines that the state may be said to undertake the duty of administering justice and protecting citizens in return for citizens giving up their right to self-help (except in cases of urgency) in the cause of better social order.</i> " A. Ashworth, "Responsibilities, Rights and Restorative Justice" Brit. J. <i>Criminology</i> (2002) 42: 578-595: p. 585.</blockquote>Ken Pulliamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12161943466797514854noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-882699495059104312.post-70788553171540279292010-10-21T04:00:00.000-04:002010-10-21T04:00:04.775-04:00De Facto and de Jure Penal Substitution --From Sola RationeI have discovered a blog, <i>Sola Ratione</i>, which has some good posts on the penal substitutionary theory of the atonement. With the author's permission, I am going to re-post them here. This one is entitled: <a href="http://rationesola.blogspot.com/2009/09/de-facto-and-de-jure-penal-substitution.html"><i>De Facto</i> and <i>de Jure</i> Penal Substitution.</a><br />
<blockquote>"<i>If the friend gives the offender a gift sufficient to pay the fine, we have a de facto case of penal substitution. Whoever may sign the cheque, it is the friend who mainly suffers the loss that was meant to be the offender's punishment. . . . If we were single-mindedly against penal substitution, and yet we saw that preventing it in the case of fines was impractical . . . we ought to conclude that fines are an unsatisfactory form of punishment. . . . We might not abandon fines, because the alternatives might have their own drawbacks. But our dissatisfaction ought to show. Yet it does not show. The risk of de facto penal substitution ought to be a frequently mentioned drawback of punishment by fines. It is not. And that is why I maintain that all of us, not just some Christians, are of two minds about penal substitution. . . . [B]oth sides agree that penal substitution sometimes makes sense after all, even if none can say how it makes sense. And if both sides agree to that, that is some evidence that somehow they might both be right</i>." - <strong>David K. Lewis,</strong> "Do we believe in penal substitution?" in <i>Papers in ethics and social philosophy</i>, Volume 3, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000): p. 134-35.</blockquote><br />
This is hardly a ringing endorsement of the doctrine of penal substitution, which is not surprising given that Lewis is an atheist. Even so, Lewis's argument is flawed.<br />
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The chief problem is that he has used an example involving a <i>de facto </i>penal substitution to defend the moral coherence of a <i>de jure </i>penal substitution. But the two are miles apart, morally speaking.<br />
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The criminal justice system cannot prevent a friend from, clandestinely, paying an offender's fine on their behalf. But this is very different from the court authorizing such a transaction, treating it as if it were a right and lawful exchange. No judge would ever explicitly sanction, let alone impose <i>de jure </i>penal substitution – even if they are unable to prevent the <i>de facto </i>version. <br />
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Yet, the penal substitution of Jesus Christ was pre-planned, authorized, carried out and proclaimed from the hill-tops by God, 'the righteous judge of all'. There is nothing <i>de facto</i>, illicit or behind-the-scenes about 'Christ dying for our sins' at all. <br />
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It gets worse.<br />
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Theologically, the victim of our sinfulness is none other than God in the person of Christ. So imagine, if you will, a judge turning to the victim of an offence in open court and saying, 'Look, the offender clearly can't pay the fine. So I'd like you to pay it for him. What do you think?' <br />
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Even if the victim agreed to this transaction ('Thy will be done'), can you imagine the outcry? <br />
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Or again, suppose the fine was so colossal that the victim would be made utterly bankrupt by paying it off: he would lose his house, all his possessions and any savings. Under this scenario, we can well imagine that the victim might be 'sweating blood' over the thought of his impending sacrifice!<br />
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But how likely is it that the judge would get away with this bizarre request? Would it not be universally denounced? Politicians, penal theorists, victim groups and journalists would, with one voice, condemn the transaction. <br />
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It doesn't change things in the least to suppose that the victim, in this case, is also the judge himself (as is the case in the divine transaction). For a start, this equation would only weaken the analogy even further, since no judge would ever be permitted to serve in a case in which he or she was the victim in question! <br />
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But let us suppose that this was legally possible, and that the judge, as the victim, offered to pay off the offender's debt himself. This would still not be morally or legally acceptable. The judge's wish would be interpreted by the public and the entire judiciary as little more than a kind of self-harming exercise, or a misguided martyrdom. His own views and preferences would be over-ruled– as they often are – by the public interest and the rule of law. <br />
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If anyone is to be punished, then justice demands that they deserve it; and they can only deserve it if they are personally culpable for the wrongdoing in question. <br />
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In short, the concept of <i>de jure </i>penal substitution, in the human context, would violate the fundamental principles of any retributive theory of justice, not to mention the central purpose and rationale of our entire legal system. <br />
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It cannot, therefore, be used to lend analogical support to the Christian doctrine of penal substitution.Ken Pulliamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12161943466797514854noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-882699495059104312.post-4438321864627322332010-10-20T12:00:00.000-04:002010-10-20T12:00:06.753-04:00Why Did Jesus Choose to Die?--From Sola Ratione I have discovered a blog, <i>Sola Ratione</i>, which has some good posts on the penal substitutionary theory of the atonement. With the author's permission, I am going to re-post them here. This one is entitled: <i><a href="http://rationesola.blogspot.com/2009/09/why-did-jesus-choose-to-die.html">Why Did Jesus Choose to Die</a>?</i><br />
<blockquote>"<i>It is either foolish or suicidal to die voluntarily unless there is some great good that can only or best be accomplished by voluntarily dying. . . . [So] Christ must have had a great good in mind that could only or best be accomplished by voluntarily dying [on the cross]. . . . The only great good that can justify a voluntary death is if that death saves other lives, and the only theory of atonement that makes sense of why the death of Jesus would save other lives is the theory of penal substitution. . . . Therefore, the doctrine of penal substitution is the only adequate explanation of Christ's voluntary death on the cross</i>." - <strong>Steve L. Porter</strong>, "Dostoyevsky, Woody Allen, and the Doctrine of Penal Substitution", in Paul Copan and William Lane Craig, eds., <i>Contending with Christianity's Critics</i> (Broadman and Holman, 2009) 233-248: p. 244-45, 248.</blockquote><br />
If Porter is right here, then it follows that Christ must have thought that his death on the cross would act as a 'penal substitute' and thereby save us from physical and spiritual death. Put another way, Porter is implying here that Christ believed in the doctrine of penal substitution. <br />
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I have argued elsewhere that Porter's article gives us no reason to think that this doctrine is morally defensible. But since Porter's view is that penal substitution is the only 'great good' that could have justified Christ's voluntary death, it follows that he must have given up his life for no good reason. <br />
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Of course, Jesus would not have been the first person in history to have sacrificed his life in vain. Nor the last. There are countless men and women who have mistakenly believed that the only way someone's life could be saved would be if they sacrificed their own. <br />
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Some of these brave souls clearly should have given the matter a little more thought before they took the fatal plunge. We can often know, well in advance, that laying down our life will not save the life of another. Porter gives us a useful example:<br />
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<blockquote><i>"We think it either foolish or suicidal when a person jumps in front of a speeding train proclaiming love for a friend. Unless, of course, the friend (or someone else) is in front of the speeding train and jumping in front of the train was the only way to save that person</i>." (p. 245)</blockquote><br />
But being foolish is not the same as making an honest mistake. It is more likely that Jesus was simply applying the (flawed) moral concepts and theological principles available to him at the time. In that case, he was just unlucky rather than foolish.<br />
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Porter, of course, thinks that Christ's decision to submit to death on the cross could not have been an act of foolishness; nor could it have been just an honest mistake on the part of Jesus. But both of these explanations can only be ruled out if the theory of penal substitution can be morally justified – which, as I (along with many others) have argued, it is not.Ken Pulliamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12161943466797514854noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-882699495059104312.post-23157668791707783502010-10-20T04:00:00.000-04:002010-10-20T04:00:06.740-04:00Is the Doctrine of Penal Substitution Morally Plausible?--From Sola RationeI have discovered a blog, <i>Sola Ratione</i>, which has some good posts on the penal substitutionary theory of the atonement. With the author's permission, I am going to re-post them here. The first one is entitled: <i><a href="http://rationesola.blogspot.com/2009/09/is-doctrine-of-penal-substitution.html">Is the Doctrine of Penal Substitution Morally Plausible</a>? </i><br />
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<blockquote><i>"In order to establish the moral framework that grounds the central claim of penal substitution it will be argued that (1) punishment is an appropriate response to intentional human wrongdoing and (2) it is good in some circumstances for humans to exact that punishment. We will then proceed to argue from the human context to the divine context: (3) punishment is an appropriate divine response to intentional human wrongdoing and (4) it is good in some circumstances for God to exact that punishment on wrongdoers, and (5) the goodness of such punishment can still be achieved by God's taking that punishment upon Himself in the person of Jesus Christ." </i>- <strong>Steve L. Porter,</strong> "Dostoyesvky, Woody Allen, and the Doctrine of Penal Substitution", in Paul Copan and William Lane Craig, eds., <i>Contending with Christianity's Critics </i>(Broadman and Holman, 2009) 233-248: p. 238.</blockquote><br />
This is an analogical argument. Porter argues that there are key similarities between human and divine punishment; so if the former is morally plausible, then the latter is likely to be as well.<br />
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But it takes little more than a cursory reading of the quote above to notice that the human context, upon which the analogy is based, is missing a key element. <br />
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Let's accept, for the sake of argument, that, from (1) and (2), we can infer, by analogy, (3) and (4). But upon what basis do we arrive at (5)? And is not (5) the chief cause of the moral controversy about the doctrine of penal substitution? <br />
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Earlier in the piece, Porter tries to divert our attention by suggesting that the real reason why so many have rejected this doctrine is that punishment, per se, is felt, by many, to be morally unnecessary, if not repugnant.<br />
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<blockquote><i>"[There is] and increasing tendency to see an emphasis on punishment as in some sense outdated or inhumane. The common idea is that we, let alone God, have moved beyond such primitive and violent ways of dealing with our anger. . . . [This] shift in intuitions regarding punishment . . . helps to explain why there has been a recent resurgence of objectors to penal substitution</i>." p. 234.</blockquote>This is a red herring. The vast majority of those who reject a penal substitutionary theory of the atonement do so because they cannot see how it could be morally acceptable for the punishment that is deserved by an offender (human sinners) to be 'taken on by' or 'transferred to' the innocent victim (God in the person of Jesus Christ). Or, as Porter puts it:<br />
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<blockquote><i>"[T]he central claim [of the doctrine of penal substitution] is that in His voluntary suffering and death, Christ takes on the penal consequences of sin on behalf of human sinners." </i>p. 237 </blockquote>Moreover, those who have objected to this doctrine typically do so by arguing that this transaction has no (morally defensible) analogy within the human domain. It is this key objection that Porter, in this article, seems to side-step altogether. <br />
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To explain: <br />
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The problem with penal substitution is that it entails that someone can be punished even if they in no way deserve this treatment - even if they are the innocent victim of the wrongdoing in question. The doctrine breaks the moral connection between culpability and punishment. The guilt or innocence of the person being punished is beside the point. <br />
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This violates one of the most widely held moral intuitions that we have. The most serious wrong that can be committed by our criminal justice system is to punish the innocent. And it is far worse if it does so knowingly. It is precisely to honor this deeply embedded intuition that we have such elaborate and expensive court systems. This principle is part of what we mean by 'the rule of law'.<br />
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None of this is given even a passing mention by Porter. He more or less just asserts that it does not matter, from a moral point of view, who is punished. What is important about punishment is not that it is directed against the guilty. Rather, it is that the punishment must objectively re-express the value of the victim, and that the wrongdoing is seen to be taken with utter seriousness. And this expressive function, he supposes, can be achieved even if the punishment is taken on by an innocent victim.<br />
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<blockquote>"<i>The goodness of the punishment is still seen in that Christ's going to the cross for our sins takes sinners and their sin with utter seriousness and objectively reexpresses the value of the God head in response to the devaluing of the Godhead expressed by human sin. By looking to the cross, we too can perceive the importance God attaches to us, to the gravity of our offense, and to the right valuing of the Godhead</i>." p. 243.</blockquote>But it is not difficult to see how there could be no morally justifiable human parallel to this claim. Imagine if a judge were to sentence the innocent victim of a crime to 10 years in prison, and used the following justification in his supporting statement:<br />
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<blockquote>"<i>I believe that sentencing the victim to 10 years of penal servitude takes the offender and his crime with utter seriousness and objectively reexpresses the value of the victim in response to the devaluing of their human dignity and worth expressed by the crime</i>."</blockquote>The judge would, with absolute justification, be removed from the bench within seconds. <br />
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In short, so far as this article is concerned, Porter has not provided us with any reason to think that "Christ's suffering the penal consequences of human sin on behalf of sinners" is remotely plausible from a moral point of view.Ken Pulliamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12161943466797514854noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-882699495059104312.post-37155292805586261632010-10-19T03:59:00.004-04:002010-10-19T07:09:24.947-04:00Grasping at Straws Part Fourteen--Evangelicals Defend Genocide<div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhdvznbwB_7YVeyc43bpILfCnUE2hUo7jEQcWKecDKWyQ3bQ_rIOTIoWnaTgu1qMXcgLF1SN6AN_296vxKMgS0d3EaQbDP3uJfRA6FK6OVNVRsRxPjINByWMIkFDF4zjOjCGCeIy-og2oI/s1600/untitled.bmp" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" ex="true" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhdvznbwB_7YVeyc43bpILfCnUE2hUo7jEQcWKecDKWyQ3bQ_rIOTIoWnaTgu1qMXcgLF1SN6AN_296vxKMgS0d3EaQbDP3uJfRA6FK6OVNVRsRxPjINByWMIkFDF4zjOjCGCeIy-og2oI/s640/untitled.bmp" width="348" /></a></div><br />
Well, I have discovered another attempt to defend the Canaanite genocides to add to my <a href="http://formerfundy.blogspot.com/search/label/Grasping%20at%20Straws">grasping at straws series.</a> This one is defended by <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chuck_Missler">Chuck Missler</a>, a layman who through the urging of Hal Lindsey embarked on a speaking and writing ministry. For over 20 years Chuck was a Bible teacher at Calvary Chapel in Costa Mesa, CA and regularly appeared on TBN with Paul and Jan Crouch.</div><br />
He believes that the Canaanites had to be completely eradicated because they had <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nephilim">Nephilim</a> dwelling in their midst. These Nephilim were descendants of the cohabitation that took place between the sons of God (fallen angels, aka demons) and human females in <a href="http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Genesis+6%3A1-4&version=NIV">Genesis 6:1-4</a>.<br />
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<a href="http://khouse.org/articles/1997/22/">He writes</a>:<br />
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<blockquote><i>One of the disturbing aspects of the Old Testament record was God's instructions, upon entering the land of Canaan, to wipe out every man, woman, and child of certain tribes inhabiting the land. This is difficult to justify without the insight of a "gene pool problem" from the remaining Nephilim, Rephaim, et al., which seems to illuminate the difficulty. </i></blockquote><br />
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See the video below by William Cooper:<br />
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<iframe frameborder="0" height="265" src="http://player.vimeo.com/video/10976353" width="400"></iframe><br />
<a href="http://vimeo.com/10976353">Genocide in the Bible?</a> from <a href="http://vimeo.com/chann3l">Ano</a> on <a href="http://vimeo.com/">Vimeo</a>.<br />
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Because Israel did not fully obey this command to wipe out all of the Canaanites, the Nephilim survived and are still with us today. Missler believes they are the creatures that fly the UFO's.<br />
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If you can stomach more of his science fiction, he explains below how the Nephilim are behind UFO abductions:<br />
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Lest you think this is some extreme fringe position within Evangelicalism, keep in mind that Missler is a best selling author and a regular on the Christian television circuit. His position is also endorsed by Hal Lindsey, the best selling author (Christian or non-Christian for the decade of the 1970's).Ken Pulliamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12161943466797514854noreply@blogger.com15tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-882699495059104312.post-35241711278787736382010-10-18T17:35:00.002-04:002010-10-18T17:45:54.999-04:00"Morals Without God?" by Frans de WaalThere was an interesting article in the NY Times yesterday (10/17/10) by <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frans_de_Waal">Frans de Waal</a>, the renowned primatologist, entitled: "<a href="http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/10/17/morals-without-god/">Morals Without God</a>." Regular readers of my blog know that I hold to a form of Ethical Intuitionism or better yet, Evolutionary Intuitionism (see <a href="http://books.google.com/books?id=zgnQszaBBrwC&printsec=frontcover&dq=Evolutionary+intuitionism:+a+theory+of+the+origin+and+nature+of+moral+fact&hl=en&ei=CLq8TLLGLMH-8AaVntjsBA&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CCgQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q&f=false">the book of the same title by Brian Zamulinski</a>).<br />
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While I certainly have not worked out all of the details of the theory to my own satisfaction, I feel that there is a strong scientific basis for this idea of moral instincts. In the NY Times article by de Wall, he states:<br />
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<blockquote><i>Charles Darwin was interested in how morality fits the human-animal continuum, proposing in “The Descent of Man”: “Any animal whatever, endowed with well-marked social instincts … would inevitably acquire a moral sense or conscience, as soon as its intellectual powers had become as well developed … as in man.” ...<br />
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Fortunately, there has been a resurgence of the Darwinian view that morality grew out of the social instincts. Psychologists stress the intuitive way we arrive at moral judgments while activating emotional brain areas, and economists and anthropologists have shown humanity to be far more cooperative, altruistic, and fair than predicted by self-interest models. Similarly, the latest experiments in primatology reveal that our close relatives will do each other favors even if there’s nothing in it for themselves.<br />
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Such findings have implications for human morality. According to most philosophers, we reason ourselves towards a moral position. Even if we do not invoke God, it is still a top-down process of us formulating the principles and then imposing those on human conduct. But would it be realistic to ask people to be considerate of others if we had not already a natural inclination to be so? Would it make sense to appeal to fairness and justice in the absence of powerful reactions to their absence? Imagine the cognitive burden if every decision we took needed to be vetted against handed-down principles. Instead, I am a firm believer in the Humean position that reason is the slave of the passions. <b>We started out with moral sentiments and intuitions, which is also where we find the greatest continuity with other primates. Rather than having developed morality from scratch, we received a huge helping hand from our background as social animals</b> [emphasis mine].<br />
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At the same time, however, I am reluctant to call a chimpanzee a “moral being.” This is because sentiments do not suffice. We strive for a logically coherent system, and have debates about how the death penalty fits arguments for the sanctity of life, or whether an unchosen sexual orientation can be wrong. These debates are uniquely human. We have no evidence that other animals judge the appropriateness of actions that do not affect themselves. The great pioneer of morality research, the Finn Edward Westermarck, explained what makes the moral emotions special: “Moral emotions are disconnected from one’s immediate situation: they deal with good and bad at a more abstract, disinterested level.” <b>This is what sets human morality apart: a move towards universal standards combined with an elaborate system of justification, monitoring and punishment</b> [emphasis mine].</i></blockquote><br />
See the video below for de Waal's contention that there is a biological basis for the 'golden rule.'<br />
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<embed allowscriptaccess="always" flashvars="diavlogid=31538&file=http://bloggingheads.tv/diavlogs/liveplayer-playlist-ramon/31538/31:52/36:28&config=http://static.bloggingheads.tv/ramon/_live/files/offsite_config.xml" height="288" id="bhtv31538" name="bhtv31538" src="http://static.bloggingheads.tv/ramon/_live/players/player_v5.2-licensed.swf" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="380"></embed>Ken Pulliamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12161943466797514854noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-882699495059104312.post-11697396686195396762010-10-18T04:04:00.001-04:002010-10-18T09:27:09.149-04:00The Calvinist God and the Chilean Miners<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQeWeVT2YBwRroH0gKvXt60IWfzMzJElPtR9E-i7iieTHIMGBfCIZdfuRCxxzJ9DcKCVdWddhgmIRuVC6b5Px0hS_oVQzrUtAyHXNCrGM0DclwLM5myP1TQTvEDrMrK6-h8zWOQT4gPEw/s1600/chile.bmp" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" ex="true" height="265" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQeWeVT2YBwRroH0gKvXt60IWfzMzJElPtR9E-i7iieTHIMGBfCIZdfuRCxxzJ9DcKCVdWddhgmIRuVC6b5Px0hS_oVQzrUtAyHXNCrGM0DclwLM5myP1TQTvEDrMrK6-h8zWOQT4gPEw/s400/chile.bmp" width="400" /></a></div><br />
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I found an interesting post on a site called <a href="http://thearminian.net/2010/10/15/god-and-the-miners/">TheArminian.net</a>. The author asks:<br />
<blockquote><i><br />
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)<br />
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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. ...<br />
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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?</i> </blockquote><br />
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:<br />
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<blockquote><i>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…</i></blockquote><br />
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?<br />
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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.<br />
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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?<br />
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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.<br />
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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.<br />
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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.Ken Pulliamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12161943466797514854noreply@blogger.com89