Matt Flannagan and Paul Copan’s Did God Really Command Genocide? Summary of Chapter 23: “Turning the Other Cheek, Pacifism, and Just War.”

Did God Really Command Genocide? 

It might be worth asking whether we can say something more general about warfare, moving beyond divinely commanded fighting. Contrary to the claim that the Bible endorses pacifism, certain instances of violent means seem justified to fight injustice. N. T. Wright thinks one of the insights of the imprecatory psalms is that evil is real and that it needs to be actively battled. Yale professor Miroslav Volf affirms the compatibility of loving one’s neighbor and using force to protect the neighbor. Romans 13 affirms that God does not always carry out divine wrath directly but has partly delegated this task to human governments.

Biblical Considerations

               The Teaching of Jesus

Jesus died for the sin of the world and took the curse of our exile and alienation from God on himself. He stormed into the temple to cleanse it. Although many assume Jesus prohibited any use of force, F&C have their doubts.

Jesus tells us to turn the other cheek (Matt. 5:39). But this admonition is not the response to an attack of violence, but to a gross insult. Jesus is prohibiting returning insult for insult. He is exhorting his followers to break the vicious cycle of exchanging insults and to move toward reconciliation and peacemaking with our personal enemies—even with Roman soldiers who might commandeer Jewish citizens to carry their loads for them for a mile.

Jesus does not absolutize loving one’s enemies. He denounces his opponents in very harsh terms in Matthew 23. He exemplified a spirit of remarkable forgiveness on the cross, but for forgiveness to be complete, it presupposes the offender’s repentance. Even when Christ instructs his disciples to forgive extravagantly, he continues saying that those refusing to forgive will incur the wrath of their master and be handed over to the torturers.

When Christians call for the forgiveness of the likes of Osama bin Laden, we must ask: Is that our rightful place? Unlike the Son of God, how can we simply forgive the offenses of others? What about the victims of their assaults? Should we forgive terrorists while they are planning another attack?

What about not resisting the evil person? For one thing, Jesus himself is constantly resisting evil. Matt. 5:39 is better translated as not resisting “by evil means” rather than “the evil one/person.” This is how other NT writers interpret the words. And even if we take this passage in the traditional way, once again we do not have an absolute prohibition of resisting evil persons. Jesus is routinely driving out evil spirits. The God-ordained state is called to resist evildoers, etc.

While Jesus welcomes sinners and forgives them, he also threatens judgment on his opponents. Repeatedly, we see that Jesus himself doesn’t absolutize forgiving enemies.

Other Voices in the New Testament

Elsewhere in the NT we see the imprecatory psalms reenacted. Romans 12 and 13 illustrate the complementarity of the personal and the official. Romans 12 features Paul following Jesus’ commands to break the vicious cycle of personal animosity to work toward reconciled relationships. Rom. 13 features state officials whose role has been ordained of God to protect the innocent and preserve the peace and punish evildoers.

We also encounter general biblical principles that lend support to the idea of a just war. There is a time for war. Soldiers and centurions are treated quite favorably in the NT. Their status isn’t presented as inherently immoral. The scriptures exhibit a complementarity between being a disciple of Christ and involvement in the God-ordained state.

Historical Considerations: Constantinianism and Christian Soldiering

               Before Constantine

Bainton and Yoder have maintained that the church was uniformly nonmilitary from the second century until the rise of Constantine (AD 312). It’s the spirit of Constantinianism, so the argument goes, that has given rise to the church’s compromising entanglement with the state.

The evidence for this uniform pacifism is not all that tidy. NT is not nonmilitaristic. What about beyond the NT? After the NT and up to the mid-second century, we have silence on Christian soldiers. But after this time, we have clear evidence of Christian soldiers in the Roman army. Nonmilitaristic perspective of several church leaders does not necessarily represent a uniformly held, empire-wide Christian belief during this time. We see hints of just war in Tertullian and Origen, and beyond this, there are a number of complicating factors. Perhaps Christians saw some violence as inappropriate, or some causes unworthy of participating in, but that doesn’t mean all.

The Advent of Constantine

With the ascent of Constantine, the Christian outcast minority would become part of the “establishment.” Constantine is often depicted negatively, but surely his rule was a relief to a once persecuted minority. The church made some big mistakes with the temporal power, but Constantine brought about many positive moral reforms—banning gladiatorial games and the abandonment of children, segregated prison cells for men and women, charitable ministries, etc.

A Brief Discussion of Just War

After the rise of Constantine, thinkers like Ambrose and Augustine would advocate principles for a just war—a view that held sway until the twentieth century. Can there be a just war? Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr. are examples of those who brought about change nonviolently. But perhaps it’s worth noting that their nonviolent resistance succeeded because the governments to which they appealed were fairly humanitarian and better informed by biblical values than the vast number of ruthless regimes that have existed over time.

Principles of Just War

The just war theorist attempts to deal realistically with unpreventable violent aggression against the vulnerable. Just war theory recognizes the justice of protecting innocent nations from thugs, bullies, and tyrants, recognizing that attempts at negotiation and peacemaking with ruthless tyrants will often be fruitless and that “trust” may be nothing more than gullibility.

Military historian Victor Davis Hanson reminds us that war or military strength has helped bring an end to chattel slavery in America, Nazism, Fascism, and Soviet Communism. Wars don’t always come about because of failure of communication or misunderstanding, or from poverty or inequality. They begin from malicious intent and the absence of deterrence. Often nations become accomplices to evil through inaction.

When it comes to articulating what just war involves, there are seven criteria, although the first three take priority:

1. Just Cause
2. Just Intent
3. Lawful Declaration
4. Last Resort
5. Immunity of Noncombatants
6. Limited Objectives

F&C elaborate by making several points. First, in the context of just war principles, which are universally applicable and rooted in God’s general revelation to all people, it may be helpful to distinguish between “force” and “violence.” Appropriate force is motivated by both justice and love of neighbor; it is aimed at restoring peace; it is carried out by a proper authority. Second, a nation or group of nations may engage in a truly just war, but the fact that missteps may be made does not undermine the overall justice of the war. Third, a war that is just should ultimately exhibit love for one’s neighbor, but we must not confuse what love requires. Love for the victim may require removing the source of harm, for example. Fourth, the pacifistic understanding of “turn the other cheek” raise questions about protecting the innocent from injustice when it’s in our power to do so. Finally, we should simultaneously support “just peacemaking” efforts to build bridges of understanding and partnership between nations and communities while not neglecting the appropriate use of force against thus and tyrants when necessary.

Image: "Carl Fredrik Reuterswärd (*1934): Non violence, 1995-1999, Bronze" by wwwuppertal. CC License. 

Suffering: from Punishment to Promise

A Twilight Musing

A significant contrast between the Old Testament and the New Testament is seen in differences in the divinely sanctioned relationship between what people do and what they should expect to experience as a result. In the Old Testament, God’s rewards and punishments were almost always temporal in nature and were the predicted result of obedience or disobedience to God.  Two exceptions to this pattern are instructive.  One is the book of Job, where the mismatch between actions and consequences is resolved only by acceptance of God’s sovereign right to violate the expected correspondence between what people deserve and what happens to them.   The second is in the climax of the “suffering servant” section of Isaiah in chapter 53, where we see the redeemer of God’s people suffering unjustly, but as a part of God’s great act of redemption in the future.  As in the case of Job, this picture of God’s afflicting His sinless servant runs counter to the normal expectations of people under the Old Covenant.

In contrast, what stands as an unexplained mystery in the Old Testament becomes in the New Testament a theological principle which is at the core of the message about Christ: the paradox that in this world of sin, doing the will of God finds its deepest fulfillment in patiently enduring undeserved suffering.  Jesus set the new paradigm for God’s dealings with His people.  As Peter expressed it, “This is a gracious thing, when, mindful of God, one endures sorrows while suffering unjustly. . . .  For to this you have been called, because Christ also suffered for you. . . .  He committed no sin . . . , [yet] He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree. . . .  By his wounds you have been healed” (I Pet. 2:19-24, passim; these last words, of course, reflect the language of Isaiah 53.).

In the New Testament, suffering is presented not only as an expected result of doing the right thing, but even more profoundly is seen as a part of the process of our growing spiritually.   Jesus Himself introduced this idea in the Sermon on the Mount: “Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven” (Matt. 5:10).   Paul tells Timothy that “all who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted” (2 Tim 3:12).  James says, “Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness” (James 1:2-3; see similar statements in Rom. 5:3-5 and   I Pet. 1:6-7).  Even of Jesus Himself it is said in Heb. 5:8-9, “Although he was a son, he learned obedience through what he suffered.”

What, then, are we to make of this radical new doctrine of redemptive suffering in the New Covenant?  It can be seen as God’s way of putting the spotlight on the Good News of salvation through the grace of God, in contrast to the Old Covenant, which depended on the willingness and ability of humans to live up to the standards set by a holy God.  It was a means to an end, but not God’s ultimate solution to heal the sinfulness of mankind.  It had some relative success in maintaining through ordered behavior the best society that could be achieved in a disordered, fallen world.  Its lasting benefit was to define a standard of holiness and perfect goodness against which the desperate needs of sinful humankind could be measured.  The book of Romans shows that the Law could not fully meet those needs, and the book of Hebrews demonstrates that the need of humanity to be freed from bondage to sin could be accomplished only by a final and archetypal High Priest who could also be the Perfect Sacrificial Lamb, and in that double role could willingly offer Himself to suffer in cancelling out the world’s debt of sin.  “God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do.  By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit” (Rom. 8:3-4).  Therefore, we to whom the Lamb’s redeeming blood is applied must “suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him” (Rom. 8:17).  In this experience, suffering is not merely punishment, but God’s way of bringing us into full fellowship with Him through identification with His Son.

In Paul’s discourse contrasting the Covenant of Law with the Good News of salvation through faith in Galatians 3, he describes the Law as a “tutor to bring us to Christ” (v. 24, NKJV).  This image aptly captures the wonder of God’s eternal providence in, first, teaching His people to fear God’s righteous judgment; and then building on that foundation to show, through the sacrifice of the Perfect Lamb of God, the mystery of going beyond temporal rewards and punishments to participate in the glorious mystery of redemptive suffering.

Image: "Brooklyn Museum - What Our Lord Saw from the Cross (Ce que voyait Notre-Seigneur sur la Croix) - James Tissot" by James Tissot - Online Collection of Brooklyn Museum; Photo: Brooklyn Museum, 2008, 00.159.299_PS2.jpg. Licensed under Public Domain via Commons

Flannagan and Copan’s Did God Really Command Genocide? Summary of Chapter 22: “Did Old Testament War Texts Inspire the Crusades?”

Did God Really Command Genocide?

One of the most common objections raised by critics of Christianity concerns the Crusades.  I often have heard statements of how the church massacred thousands of innocent Muslims in the holy land in order to obtain riches and retrieve lands for the purpose of establishing holy shrines.  Unfortunately many of these criticisms are based on misinformation about the purpose, nature, and historical events that make up this period of church history.  F &C turn to this topic in the 22nd chapter of their book and expose and address the myths that are often assumed to be true concerning the Crusades.  They divide the chapter into five common myths.

The first myth concerns the purpose of the crusades.  Many think they were “unjustified military campaigns against peaceable, tolerant Muslims.”  F&C point out that this is historically inaccurate.  Beginning with the first crusade in 1095, they show how each crusade was a response to Muslim aggression.  Using the just war language of Augustine, F&C show that the original intent of the crusades was to protect and rescue those Christians in Asia minor (and later Edessa in 1144 and Jerusalem in 1187) from Muslim attacks in those areas. They quote crusade scholar Thomas Madden, who states, “The crusades were in every way a defensive war.  They were the West’s belated response to the Muslim conquest of fully two-thirds of the Christian world.” This is not to say every action in the crusade was morally justified or that abuses did not occur, but the general purpose was to defend innocent Christians and not to pillage and rape innocent Muslims as is often claimed by critics such as Karen Armstrong.

The second myth also concerns the purpose of the crusades.  Some claim that the church’s real purpose was to accumulate great wealth by looting the Muslims.  F&C acknowledge there was a financial aspect to the crusades, but argue this was an incidental aspect behind their purpose. The crusades were very costly to the average crusader and they often had to raise four to five times their annual income in order to make the long journey to the Holy land and fight for the church.  Therefore some form of financial remuneration was expected as a part of being involved.  However, they point out that nobody got rich from the crusades and much more money flowed from the west to the east than the opposite.

The third myth concerns the often held belief that the church was trying to gain converts by force.  F&C point out that there is no evidence for this claim and that “the crusades simply did not have a view to force or pressure Muslims to change their faith” (293).  The purpose was protecting Christians and shrines from attacks by Muslim aggression.  This does not mean that some individuals did not reach out to Muslims, such as Saint Francis, but that was not part of the general purpose.

The fourth myth claims that “Muslims have held the crusades against Christians since the Middle Ages” (293).  F&C show that, while this has become a popular view (expressed in such films as Ridley Scott’s Kingdom of Heaven), this is actually a recent view that has become most popular in the last few years as Islamic fundamentalism and terrorism has arisen.  Cambridge scholar Jonathon Riley-Smith argues that “Muslims had pretty much forgotten about the crusades since they had won.”  The crusades were raised by some Muslims around the same time Israel’s nationhood came about.  It was not a long-standing grudge that Muslims have been holding for centuries.

The final myth goes to the heart of F&C’s project in this book, the relationship of the Old Testament conquests to the Crusades.  Some, such as Roland Bainton, have claimed that the “architects of the Christian crusade . . . drew their warrant from the books of the conquest and of the Maccabean revolt” (295).  F&C acknowledge that there are isolated incidents in which one finds those who used the conquest narratives to justify aggressive actions against others, such as some Puritans who came to America.  However, they marvel that more of this was not done, especially by the one group that one would think would use such texts to justify violence with others, namely, the Jews.  The largest problem with this claim by Bainton and others is that there is simply no evidence to support it.  It is merely an assertion.  We do not find any of the original supporters of the crusades appealing to the conquest narratives in the book of Joshua as scriptural support for the crusades.  In fact the most common scriptural passages appealed to come from the Gospels and the mouth of Jesus.  What is appealed to are passages where Jesus claims one needs to take up one’s cross and forsake all to help others.  So again, another myth is shown to be false concerning the motivation behind the crusades.

While the popular beliefs concerning the crusades continue to cling to the myths we have seen above, serious scholarship continues to reveal those myths to be false and without warrant.  F&C perform a vital service contributing to overcoming the overwhelming mythology promoted by misinformed critics.

Find the other chapter summaries here.

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Twilight Musings: Random Ruminations

• Sometimes a misreading can lead to a new insight, as when I once misread “Love is stronger than death” as “Love is stronger than desire.”  As I thought on the possible meaning of the misreading, I noted that although the first statement expresses a common proverbial sentiment, the second is even more profound.  In fact, It seems to me to be a key to understanding the difference between “love” that is a cover for selfish desire and seeks to satisfy itself even at the expense of the “beloved”; and true, self-sacrificing love that seeks the good of the beloved beyond the satisfaction of the lover’s desire.  One may ask whether God Himself could have shown supreme love had it not gone beyond His “desire” to remain intact in His Holiness.  In loving fallen humans He gave up His immunity to being affected by sin and sacrificed a part of Himself in allowing (indeed, commissioning) His Son to experience all human suffering and to be a sacrifice to redeem sinful mankind.  Since supreme love involves sacrifice, what was God to give that would be a real sacrifice for Him, since He is wholly sufficient within Himself?  He could only give a part of His own nature—His Son.  

• I cannot assess the world honestly without coming to believe in Evil; I cannot believe in Evil without believing in Good; and I cannot believe in Evil and Good without sensing behind their manifestations a metaphysical battle between them.  That leads me to a further understanding that this battle is not only in the world around me, but within myself as well.  By this process I come to realize that the Evil desires my destruction and has the power to bring it about by preying on my fallen nature.  Thus I am drawn toward the One through Whom the Good has been made supremely available to mankind.  

• Humans find it hard to believe that service to God can really involve pleasure.  People feel more virtuous if they “fulfill their duty” or “obey God’s commands,” for this gives one the feeling that he or she has done something meritorious.  The antidote for feeling guilt for legitimate pleasure is not some compensatory duty, but dedicating that pleasure to God.  That is not to say that we will always feel like doing what God wants us to, but at least we need not feel guilty when we enjoy it.

• I think the redeeming characteristic of the apostle Thomas was that he wanted to believe, even though he had doubts.  The reason many people have no doubts is that they have no desire or feeling of need to believe any more than they think they already comprehend.  A searching doubter may well be in a better state than a believer who is too complacent or too fearful to search.

• Sometimes we feel guilty, not because we don’t fulfill God’s image of what we should be doing, but because we don’t fulfill our own image, conceived in pride, of what we should be doing.  The “success” of human ambition, willpower, and energy does not necessarily accomplish God’s purposes.  There is a certain leisure in God’s busyness, and often a gross ineffectiveness in man’s industry.

Matt Flannagan and Paul Copan’s Did God Really Command Genocide? Summary of Chapter 21: “Are Yahweh Wars in the Old Testament Just Like Islamic Jihad?”

Karen Armstrong and Philip Jenkins, among others, have argued that there’s far more violence in the Bible than in the Koran. Jenkins refers to the Old Testament’s ethnic cleansing, institutionalization of segregation, and hate and fear of other races and religions. F&C review some of these themes they’ve already covered: In terms of ethnic cleansing, what we find in the OT instead is “moral cleansing,” and long-awaited judgment on a wicked people whose time had finally come. And God warns the Israelites will experience the same judgment if they commit the same sins. The OT represents a God whose salvation is intended to affect all the peoples of the world. In terms of segregation, Israel was to be distinct morally and spiritually, but they were repeatedly commanded to care for the alien and sojourner in their midst since they too had been aliens in the land of Egypt. In terms of other races and religions, the charge of hating and fearing other races is clearly false, though the Bible is opposed to idolatry, and God brings judgment on ancient Israel for engaging in idolatry and breaking covenant with him after promising to love, cling to, and obey him.

Biblical and Koranic Texts

We see many Koranic references to warfare, and this warfare is not simply defensive but offensive as well. F&C give copious examples; here’s just one: “And those who are slain in the way of God, He will not send their works astray…. And He will admit them to Paradise, that He has made known to them” (47:4, 6).

Clear differences obtain between the Bible and Koran. First, military events captured in a biblical canon are merely descriptive of a unique part of the unfolding of salvation history. Second, whereas the biblical texts offer descriptions of unique history, the Koranic texts by contrast appear to be issuing enduring commands. Islam has exhibited a militaristic aggressiveness from the beginning, and this aggressiveness has been fed by Koranic texts that many Muslims throughout history have taken as normative or binding, enduring throughout history, and worldwide in applicability. Third, the distinctions between divinely commanded wars in the OT and Islamic jihad are much more pronounced than their similarities.

In addition to being unique and unrepeatable events within scripture itself, these wars are restricted to a relatively small portion of land, and accompanied by widely witnessed miracles. By contrast, the “revelations” to Muhammad were private and not publicly available for scrutiny or reinforced by dramatic signs and wonders. What’s more, Israel was an instrument of divine judgment on wicked people, unlike Muhammad, who attacked and overtook even those who were “People of the Book” (Jews and Christians)—part of the global reach to which Muhammed and his followers aspired.

Muhammad’s Example

Consider now Muhammed himself, the supreme human example for Muslims to follow. His goal was “to fight all men until they say, ‘There is no God but Allah.’” He died in AD 632 with his own plans for attacking neighboring nations unfulfilled. In his career, he fought in an estimated eighty-six military campaigns. The first authoritative biography of him covers his battles in 75 percent of its 813 pages, and includes depictions of assassination, rape, and cruelty that met with Muhammed’s approval. In one instance he said, “Kill any Jew that falls into your power.” A number of instances recount his approval of violence. According to the Koran and the traditions about Muhammed (Hadith), he permitted his soldiers to have sex not only with their wives, but also with female captives and female slaves.

The Early History of Islam and Its Ongoing Encounters with the Non-Muslim World

Although the Koran affirms that there should be no compulsion in religion, this verse is contradicted by other passages within the Koran. It’s also contradicted by the example of Muhammed himself. In terms of the word “jihad,” the Koran has a place for an “internal” sense of spiritual struggling or exerting within oneself for Allah, which is called the “greater jihad,” but the Koran also clearly indicates military struggle and connects jihad to physical fighting (the “lesser jihad”). As David Cook indicates in his book Understanding Jihad, there is little support in the Koran and Hadith for the notion of jihad as internal struggle.

Not only did early Islamic history continue the militaristic spirit of its founder; Islam’s history reveals an oppressive stance toward non-Muslims under Islamic rule. F&C adduce several examples.

Conclusions

The claim that the Bible’s warfare texts are “just like” the Koran’s is incorrect. The Hebrew scriptures portray unique, unrepeatable events of Israelite warfare—unlike the ongoing and normative aspect of jihad in the Koran and under the leadership of Muhammed. Unlike the biblical text that stresses God’s judgment against specific people, the Koran and Muhammed placed no such limitations on jihad, as the opponents of Islam are non-Muslims remaining in the “abode of war” rather than the “abode of Islam.” And while the scriptures emphasize a limited geographical area of military engagement, the Koran and Muhammed placed no such limit.

Another point of contrast is the nature of God in the Koran and the Bible. The Koran portrayed a deity who loves only those who love him. Those who reject Islam are “the worst of creatures.” Here God’s love is conditional, depending on the response of human beings. The love of the biblical God is unconditional. He does not merely love those who love him. Rather, God loves all people and even his enemies (cf. Matt. 5:444-48; John 3:16; Rom. 5:6-10; 1 John 2:2). He seeks to make salvation available to all, including the very enemies of his people Israel (e.g., Gen. 12:1-13; Ps. 87:4-6; Isa. 19:23-25; Zech. 9:70).

The contrast between Yahweh war in the OT and Islamic jihad becomes clear when considered are issues of geography, historical length/limit, objects of warfare, objects of God’s love, the standard of morality (God’s loving nature versus Allah’s sheer will that commands indiscriminately), signs and wonders, and the normativity of war.

Find the other chapter summaries here.

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All Saints Day, Scenes from Heaven, and the Resurrection of the Dead

In the book of Revelation we find powerful images of the saints who have gone on before us. We catch a glimpse of twenty-four elders who, along with myriads of angels and other heavenly beings, fall down before the Lamb, worshiping Him in heaven because He alone is worthy to open the scroll (Revelation 5:8-14). In another place we see a portrait of the souls of our brothers and sisters who were slain because of their witness of Christ, longing for God to judge the inhabitants of the earth and to avenge their blood. They are given white robes and told to wait just a bit longer until their fellow siblings and servants join them (Revelation 6:9-11). Again, we catch another scene of a great multitude of people who have come out of the great tribulation—people from every tribe and nation—all standing before the throne of the Lamb in worship (Revelation 7:9-17).

Christians have long held differing views on the timing of when these heavenly events take place, whether in the past or in the present or in the future. Regardless of the timing, we can, nevertheless, capture deep theological truths about the afterlife and our brothers and sisters in Christ who have gone on before us. Namely, these heavenly scenes bring us hope, not only eschatologically, but in the here and now.

Death is the great neutralizer. It is the enemy that none of us escapes. It snatches up our loved ones, bringing heart-wrenching pain and suffering into our lives. Yet these heavenly scenes remind us that we are not to grieve like those who have no hope (1 Thessalonians 4:13). Biological death is not the end; it’s just the beginning.  Our hope is ultimately in the Lamb of God who was slain for the sins of the world. For the same Lamb who was slain is also the one who rose triumphantly from the grave. He has gone before us, and we too shall receive a resurrected body in His likeness. As the Apostle Paul describes it in his first letter to the people of Corinth, “the body that is sown is perishable, it is raised imperishable; it is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory; it is sown in weakness, it is raised in power; it is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body” (1 Corinthians 15:42-43, NIV). Though our bodies may die, we can be assured that that’s not the end. Our brothers and sisters are waiting in anticipation of having a resurrected body, just as we are. The Lamb has defeated death, and His victory has swallowed it up and taken away its sting (1 Corinthians 15:54-57). We who are alive (bodily), along with our brothers and sisters in heaven, await the day when the Lamb of God brings about His sovereign judgment and puts the world to rights.[su_pullquote]The Lamb has defeated death, and His victory has swallowed it up and taken away its sting.[/su_pullquote]

These portraits of the afterlife also remind us that heaven is not a place of inactivity. Because of our limitations, it’s difficult for us to keep in our purview that heaven, and the activities of the saints therein, is just as much a part of reality as our own existence. Though we can’t know the exact goings on of heaven, these scenes provide for us a hopeful glimpse.

Each year Christians from all over the Western world take November 1, or the first Sunday in November, as a time to commemorate the saints who have died. Protestants recognize saints to include all who have been baptized by the Holy Spirit into the body of Christ. This is what it means to be a part of the church universal, which includes all saints, at all times, who have been united by a common salvation in Christ.

All Saints Day is a time to celebrate the great cloud of witnesses who have gone on before us. It’s a time to reflect on and to thank God for their lives. It is also a time to await in eager anticipation when God will one day reunite His family. All who are in Christ will be raised and we will see the coming together of heaven and earth. We can rejoice that there will one day be no more death or mourning or weeping or suffering. God will dwell among us. We will be His people, and He will be our God. All things will be made new (Revelation 21:1-5). Maranatha!

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Twilight Musings: Random Ruminations

(This week and occasionally in the future, the column will be a few unrelated thoughts and observations taken from my notebook files, rather than a systematically developed essay.)

1. (See Mark 4:35-41, Jesus asleep in the boat.)  When we are in the midst of a life-threatening storm, do we believe that Jesus is in the boat with us, and that even if he seems asleep, He will not let us perish?   The implication of Jesus’ reproof to the disciples is that they lacked the basic trust that “the wrath of the storm-tossed sea” could never “swallow the ship where lies the Master of ocean and earth and skies” (“Master, the Tempest Is Raging,” by Mary A. Baker).  So when we feel compelled to wake the Master so that He can save us, He calmly says—not first to the storm, but to us—“Peace, be still.”

2. (See Phil. 1:6: “He who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ.”)  One of my devotional readings brought out a fresh application of this verse: God not only promises us He will complete His work in us, but He sees us as already made perfect in Jesus.  He doesn’t just see the potential in us, He sees us as we will be when He has completed His work to bring us to perfection.  How comforting to know!

3. I’ve often wondered why, in Ps. 131:2, the image of calmness is of a “weaned child,” not a nursing one, which intuitively seems to be more appropriate.  This morning, I realized that the weaned child no longer merely receives physical comfort from the mother, but values his closeness to her because he knows she is there for him in ways that go beyond his immediate gratification and are rooted in trust and reciprocal companionship.  As the writer of Hebrews says (Heb. 5:11-14), God wants us to advance spiritually from mere milk-drinking to eating solid food.  So as “weaned” children of God, we can have calmness of soul as we launch out beyond the milk-drinking stage in our relationship with our Father/Mother God.  He Who has brought us to birth and tenderly nursed us is still there to protect us as we go through the trials of growing up.

4. One of the results of the Fall was that for humankind, God’s Power became separated from His Essence.   That is, though God in His Power still maintained fallen mankind, it became impossible for humans in their impurity to be in God’s Perfect Presence (His uncloaked Glory and Holiness).   At that point, God chose, in His mercy and love, to exercise His Power outside of and beyond humanity’s flawed nature to begin the long process of reconciliation—enabling mankind to come into God’s Presence in a mediated way on earth (e.g., the Most Holy Place in the Temple or Tabernacle for the Jews; God’s House, the Church, for Christians), so that ultimately God’s people can dwell eternally in the unmediated Absolute Light of His Presence (Rev. 21:22-26).   In the New Jerusalem, God’s Glorious Presence is, like physical light, the pure, irreducible energy of His Power.  There, God’s people will experience the re-integration of His Power and His Essential Presence.

Image:"Backhuysen, Ludolf - Christ in the Storm on the Sea of Galilee - 1695" by Ludolf Bakhuizen - [1]. Licensed under Public Domain via Commons - https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Backhuysen,_Ludolf_-_Christ_in_the_Storm_on_the_Sea_of_Galilee_-_1695.jpg#/media/File:Backhuysen,_Ludolf_-_Christ_in_the_Storm_on_the_Sea_of_Galilee_-_1695.jpg

Interview with John C. Peckham: Author of The Love of God: A Canonical Model

It’s a real treat and privilege to introduce a new regular contributor to MoralApologetics.com: John C. Peckham (PhD, Andrews University). He is associate professor of theology and Christian philosophy at the Theological Seminary of Andrews University in Berrien Springs, Michigan. He is the author of The Love of God: A Canonical Model (Downers Grove, Ill.: IVP Academic, 2015) and The Concept of Divine Love in the Context of the God-World Relationship (New York: Peter Lang, 2014) and has published articles on issues of systematic theology and canon in journals such as Trinity Journal, Philosophia Christi, Andrews University Seminary Studies and Themelios. This interview is about his most recent book: The Love of God: A Canonical Model (Downers Grove, Ill.: IVP Academic, 2015).

1. The topic of divine love is a perennial issue. Why did you write this particular book, The Love of God: A Canonical Model?

God is love. Those three words are at the center of everything I believe about God. Yet, just what does that mean? How does God love us? The term “love” is a rather elastic one, defined in so many ways by different people. Popular conceptions and myths about God’s love abound. Over the course of a number of years of studying the theology of divine love, I came to realize that the beautiful and complex conception of divine love exhibited in Scripture is often muted, or even silenced, by the presuppositions of traditional and non-traditional theological systems. The love of God as depicted in Scripture turned out to be far better and greater than I could have imagined and I’ve had many of my own presuppositions challenged and overturned in the process.

1. Your book engages a number of conflicting conceptions of divine love. Can you introduce our readers to the theological landscape relative to this issue?

While there is a broad spectrum of views regarding God’s love, the main issues of the contemporary theological debate are illumined by two prominent models of divine love that are near the opposite ends of the spectrum. The transcendent-voluntarist model views divine love as unilaterally bestowed beneficence. Conversely, in the immanent-experientialist model, God is universally sympathetic. God necessarily and immediately feels the feelings of all others. Both of these conceptions flow from competing conceptions of the divine nature, the former building on a more traditionalist ontology and the latter rooted in process panentheism. The conflict between these mutually exclusive models of divine love points to the crucial questions at issue in the wider discussion of the nature of God’s love and the God-world relationship, including whether God’s love for the world is volitional or essential, disinterested or evaluative, impassible or primarily passive, unconditional or conditional, and unilateral or reciprocal.

1. With so many competing conceptions of divine love, how did you go about attempting to advance the discussion on this issue?

I employed a canonical methodology to investigate the meaning of divine love in light of the contemporary debate, seeking to exposit the canonical perspective on divine love without assuming the accuracy or inaccuracy of existing models (with regard to love specifically or the nature of God more broadly). I undertook this by first identifying the issues and questions in the current debate, then conducting an inductive reading of the entire biblical canon and isolating any and all texts and/or passages that touched on these questions, even slightly. I then analyzed and organized the extracted data, narrowing and expanding it when themes emerged as more or less significant than originally thought. Finally, I systematized the data into a systematic model and compared and contrasted it with other existing conceptions of divine love.

1. You mentioned previously that God’s love has often been misunderstood. Perhaps some readers will be surprised by your treatment of so-called agape love. Is God’s love agape-love as is so often taught?

Many of us have been taught that the term agape describes a uniquely superior kind of divine love, which involves (among other things) giving but never receiving (i.e. gift rather than need love). However, in the biblical canon, the agape root by itself is not a qualitatively superior term of divine love and should not be elevated above other biblical terms for love. Analysis of the usage of agape in the LXX [ed. note: Septuagint] and New Testament demonstrates that it may convey a broad range of meaning, from the most virtuous love of affection and generosity to a “love” that is more akin to lust and fades quickly after its rapacious selfishness is satisfied. When used of God, agape does convey the best kind of love but this is so not because the agape root inherently conveys only the best kind of love but because God’s love is itself perfect. Moreover, God’s love is also conveyed by many other terms, including the phileo root, which overlaps with the agape root in nearly every respect in NT usage. Further, the kind of divine love depicted via these and many other terms is not restricted to the popular conception of divine love as unilaterally giving but never receiving.

1. You posit in your book a foreconditional-reciprocal model of divine love with five aspects. Can you briefly introduce those five aspects?

John Peckham 

The five complementary aspects of divine love in the foreconditional-reciprocal model are: volitional, evaluative, emotional, foreconditional, and ideally reciprocal. First God’s love in relationship to the world is volitional but not merely volitional. God’s love for the world is neither essential nor necessary to God’s being yet also not arbitrary. Whereas God, as Trinity, is essentially loving, God did not need to create any world but created this world voluntarily. In this way, God’s love in relation to the world is freely bestowed and yet he loves the world in accordance with his essentially loving character. Second, divine love is evaluative such that God takes evaluative delight and pleasure in his creatures (via divine mediation). Third, God’s love is profoundly emotional and passible though not to the exclusion of volitional and evaluative aspects. Fourth, divine love is foreconditional, not altogether unconditional. That is, God’s love is prior to, but not exclusive of, conditions. Finally, divine love is ideally reciprocal. God universally seeks a relationship of reciprocal love but enjoys particular, intimate relationship only with those who accept God’s love.

1. One of the oft-debated issues that holds significance for moral apologetics is the ongoing debate regarding free will. How does the volitional aspect of divine love shed light on this?

In my investigation of divine love, I discovered a great deal of biblical information that indicates a libertarian conception of divine and human free will. Indeed, the biblical data regarding divine love suggest that God is not only significantly free but also grants significant freedom to humans to accept or reject a love relationship with God (bilateral significant freedom). Although God wants everyone to enjoy a love relationship with him for eternity, humans have the freedom to reject God’s love. As such, God’s desires often go unfulfilled.

1. Many conceive of God as wholly altruistic and believe that “pure love” must be entirely self-sacrificial. How does your model of divine love relate to this?

While many believe that “pure love” should be wholly altruistic, to the exclusion of any self-interest, the Bible recognizes proper, wholly unselfish self-love, and God’s love itself includes unselfish self-interest. To say otherwise overlooks God’s rightful command to worship and exalt him and the joy that he takes in love relationships with creatures. However, God’s self-interest is not selfish but includes the best interests of all others. That is, he has voluntarily bound his own joy to the true happiness of his creatures (what I call other-inclusive self-interest). Although humans have no value to bring to God in and of themselves, God enables humans to respond to his prior and enabling action and mediates their meager offerings through Christ. In this way, God can appreciate and enjoy the gifts that humans offer even though they are faulty and imperfect, much in the same way that a father appreciates an intrinsically worthless father’s day gift because it came from his beloved child.

1. Can you unpack a bit more what it means for God’s love to be “foreconditional” as you describe it? If God’s love is not wholly unconditional does that mean humans can merit God’s love?

By foreconditional, I mean that God’s love is prior to all other love and conditions, but not exclusive of conditions. Yet, while divine love is conditional in many ways, it is never merited. We love because God first loved us (1 John 4:19). Nevertheless, we may choose to forfeit a love relationship with God. As such, contrary to popular suppositions, divine love is not unconditional in every respect. Yet, there are aspects of divine love that are unconditional. For example, divine love is unconditional with respect to God’s volition (he always desires to remain in a love relationship with each human) but conditional with respect to evaluation and ongoing relationship (thus humans can finally reject a love relationship with God). Because divine love is inherently relational, although God continues to “subjectively” love even those who reject relationship with him, the “objective” aspects of divine love are contingent upon relationship. God does everything he can to remain in a love relationship with each person short of overriding the freedom that is essential to love. As such, his longsuffering and compassionate love far exceeds all reasonable expectations.

1. What do you think readers of moral apologetics would be most interested in regarding your book?

I hope there are a number of elements that would be of interest to your readers, not only regarding the many intricacies of divine love for us but also relative to the wider conception of the God-world relationship. Understanding God’s love, in my view, goes hand-in-hand with understanding God’s goodness. In particular, I think there are significant implications of the foreconditional-reciprocal model of divine love for the problem of evil. The volitional aspect of divine love, for example, entails bilateral significant freedom and such freedom holds implications for the way God relates to the world. Specifically, this model suggests that, although God is omnipotent, he voluntarily and temporarily limits the use of his power to allow the significant freedom of creatures. Further, by engaging in love relationship with creatures, God is deeply affected by the world.

1. What project(s) do you plan to work on next? 

I have recently completed a draft of a manuscript on canonical theological method and I plan to begin working in earnest on a follow-up to this book that unpacks the implications of this conception of divine love for the problem of evil and addresses central issues of God’s providence.

Thanks, John! You’re doing great work, and we hope this interview helps inspire more interest in this really important scholarship. Readers of the site, please read John’s book The Love of God: A Canonical Model!

Flannagan and Copan’s Did God Really Command Genocide? Summary Chapter 20: “Does Religion Cause Violence?”

Did God Really Command Genocide? 

With Chapter 20, F&C enter the fourth part of their book, which both expands the discussion of the OT God and explores a number of related questions concerning theism and violence.  In this chapter they take on the general question of the relationship of religion to violence.  A number of writers suggest that there is an inherent relationship between religion and violence such that religion will inevitably lead to violent acts.  Charles Kimball declares in his book When Religion Becomes Evil that “religion has caused more violence than any other ‘institutional force in human history’” (259).  Mark Jurgensmeyer states that “religion is violent by its very nature because it tends to ‘absolutize and to project images of cosmic war’” (259). In her book, The Curse of Cain, Regina Schwartz claims it is not just religion, but monotheistic religion in particular, that leaves violence in its wake. Belief in one God is an exclusivistic claim creating outsiders who “will be ostracized, abhorred, even obliterated because they fail to acknowledge ‘the one true God’. Monotheism inevitably leads to an us-versus-them mind-set” (259-260). Instead of religion, these authors endorse the employment of the “enlightenment values” of tolerance, diversity, and pluralism.  These authors suggest that abandoning one’s religious commitments and adopting enlightenment values will significantly reduce the amount of violence in the world.  F&C spend this chapter examining and refuting these charges against religion.

They begin their exploration by examining the meaning of the concepts of “religion” and “enlightenment values.”  One irony they recognize at the outset is that “the pro-enlightenment advocates and/or ‘religion’ attackers are not even clear on what ‘religion’ is” (260).  Because there is little widespread commonality between traditional religions, F&C suggest “we would be wise to think in terms of an all-encompassing ‘worldview’ or ‘philosophy of life’ instead of the misused and abused term ‘religion’” (261). Such a worldview would be marked by three characteristics: comprehensiveness, incapable of abandonment (as it shapes the identity of the self), and of central importance.  Religions certainly fall into this concept but so do many secular worldviews such as humanism, post-modernism, and Marxism.  A second irony noted by F&C is that “political visions – even allegedly secular ones – often take on strongly ‘religious’ overtones” (262). Political leaders such as Hitler, Stalin, and Kim Jung II have been practically deified by many of their followers. “The line between the religious and the secular is quite clearly irrelevant when it comes to the phenomena of exalting dictators” (262). A final irony is that “secular ideologies can readily compete with the most fanatical and dangerous elements found within traditional religion” (262). F&C raise the question, “Why single out religion?”  Numerous examples can be drawn from political and secular instances of violence and war and they list several examples of totalitarian societies, many of which had completely abandoned religion.

F&C apply these three ironies in their examination of the “religious wars” of 16th and 17th century Europe and ask the question, did the enlightenment make a difference?  To begin with, they point out that, with the onset of the enlightenment, the political power of the church was replaced by that of the state.  The 20th century shows that violence and tyranny can be just as, if not more, prevalent in the name of nationalism and atheism (witness the holocaust, and the atrocities of Stalin and Pol Pot, just to name a few).  Second, “the ‘religious wars’ were in fact not predictably divided along doctrinal lines, but rather political ones” (264). F&C list a number of examples of the so-called religious wars of the 16th century. Third, the supposed “enlightenment values” that are often touted by today’s critics of religion were not nearly as enlightened as they are often promoted to be.  For example, many “enlightened” thinkers supported slavery while it was mostly the Christian church that opposed it.  David Hume referred to those who believe in miracles as “ignorant and barbarous” peoples – an obvious reference to non-white religious people.  Third, rather than opposing violence in general, many of these modern enlightened thinkers (including the new atheists) advocate violence against traditional religionists. Sam Harris advocates a nuclear strike against Islamic fundamentalists while Christopher Hitchens advocate beating and killing the “enemies of civilization” (religious persons).

F&C go on to point out that not all religions are the same and that they should not be lumped together and treated as if they are.  There are religions that have done much good for society and some that have been harmful.  They argue that Christianity falls into the former group on the basis of three lines of evidence.  First, many scholars, including some atheists, have documented the benefits that Christianity has brought into the world.  They quote at length from Jürgen Habermas, Jacques Derrida, and the Time magazine correspondent David Aikman, among others, who praise many of the humanitarian accomplishments done in the name of the Christian faith.  Progress in the west has been attributed to the Protestant work ethic by a number of scholars.  Second, Christian faith has not only elevated the west, but has made a significant impact in non-western nations as well.  Robert Woodberry performed a study of the impact of western missionaries and shows how they were responsible for “the development and spread of religious liberty, mass education, volunteer organizations, most major colonial reforms . . . and the codification of legal protections for nonwhites in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries” (268-269). Third, F&C point out that any attempt to attribute these gains to other sources, such as Greek ideals or the enlightenment, is inadequate.

In the final sections of this chapter, F&C take on the particular criticism by Regina Schwartz that somehow monotheism or the biblical account of the curse of Cain are ultimately responsible for much of the violence in the world.  They ask first why one should think that God’s oneness has anything to do with violence?  Besides the fact that Yahweh is often described as compassionate and patient, there is nothing about oneness that automatically sets up an “us-or-them” mentality.  Second, there are plenty of examples of violent polytheistic religious tribes as well as non-religious groups responsible for much violence.  Finally, even if monotheism could be held partially responsible for certain wrongs, it should not be considered the sole factor.  As far as the curse of Cain, Schwartz does not take a number of factors into account in her criticism of the story from Genesis.  First, Cain wasn’t so much chosen by God to be cursed as he himself chose to disobey and dishonor God.  He was given opportunities to alter his course and chose not to do so.  Second, the same opportunities were given to Jacob and Esau.  God did not play favorites.  Third, God’s election of Israel as the chosen people, rightly understood, was nothing that they could brag about – it is made clear in scripture that they were not chosen because of some superiority on their part.  Fourth, Schwartz fails to distinguish between the non-elect and the anti-elect.  Most nations were of the former category and Israel was allowed to engage in cordial relations with them.  It was only three nations (Amalekites, Canaanites, and Midianites) that they were to have nothing to do with.

F&C close this chapter with a reference to William Cavanagh’s observation that “the notion that religion causes violence is one of the most prevalent myths in the West” (274).  Such a charge is simplistic at best and misguided and misleading at worst.

Podcast: C. S. Lewis and the Problem of Personal Suffering with David Baggett

In this week's podcast, we hear from Dr. David Baggett as he discusses two of C. S. Lewis' most psychologically insightful works, A Grief Observed and The Great Divorce. Dr. Baggett helps us understand how Lewis thought we should deal with intense emotional pain, how the love of God "has teeth," and how moral transformation may require much suffering.

In this week's podcast, we hear from Dr. David Baggett as he discusses two of C. S. Lewis' most psychologically insightful works, A Grief Observed and The Great Divorce. Dr. Baggett helps us understand how Lewis thought we should deal with intense emotional pain, how the love of God "has teeth," and how moral transformation may require much suffering.

Will, Self Identity, and God’s Order

A Twilight Musing

C. S. Lewis, in The Problem of Pain, makes his famous statement about pain being “God’s megaphone” to make us attend to His voice. Leading up to that, he comments on the nature of the Fall and the core of what humans lost there. He says that paradisal humans were endowed with the natural ability to conduct their lives in submission to God.  It was not a struggle, because human will functioned as a part of the natural order, and it was their will that gave man and woman personal identity.  None of the other sentient creatures thought of themselves in a self-conscious way, so as to say, “I am Joe the elephant” or “John the otter.”  Having only instinct to govern them, they were merely a part of their deterministic environment.  When humans were faced with the alternative of using their will to step outside God’s order, for the first time they considered the possibility of “bettering” themselves, of discovering something beyond the natural order that God had given them.  They were seductively invited to use their power of choice to bring about a new order that made themselves—their self-aware identity—creators in their own right.  They thus gave up their natural ability to govern the flesh without struggle, and threw themselves into a world where they were captives of all the needs and desires of their physical bodies, and ultimately to decay and death.

Thus, ironically, they crossed the line into territory that brought, indeed, a new potential for them, but one that radically diminished their unique self-identity and brought them closer to the other animals, hemmed in by their appetites and instincts.  Nevertheless, they still had the diseased remains of a will that could choose, albeit only through continual struggle to maintain an order that before had been essentially effortless.  Moreover, before sinning, they would not have even thought to ask the questions, “What is the purpose of our existence?  What is the meaning of life?”  They were thrown into a state of existence where the only meaning they could find in their lives had to come through a supernatural redemptive intervention by their Creator, the goal of which was (and is) to bring mankind back to that state of being where human will and the natural Good are in perfect harmony.

In His process of redemption and restoration, God calls us to “be perfect, as [He] is perfect,” a call that is impossible to fulfill while we still inhabit these bodies made mortal and vulnerable through sin.  In this vale of tears we can have only relative success in closing the gap between our diseased wills and God’s perfect Will; but Jesus closed that gap completely, for all mankind and for all time.  And through His supreme act of complying with God’s will, we have assurance that by God’s mercy we will live an eternity with Him where, once again, we will be incorporated into an order without struggle.

Image: "the doors of redemption" by Rob. CC License. 

Matt Flannagan and Paul Copan’s Did God Really Command Genocide? Summary of Chapter 19: “The Role of Miracles and the Command to Kill Canaanites.”

Morriston raises this question: If God decrees something at variance with universal commands by special revelation through a human representative, then how can the commandee know that this mouthpiece accurately speaks for God and that this command is neither a delusion nor a demon? This chapter will give a further response to Morriston’s worry. Imagine you’re a skeptical soldier in Moses’s or Joshua’s army and that you ask yourself the question, “Why should I obey Moses’s call to war against the Canaanites?” How would one know that a good, just God is behind such a command? And could one find warrant for condemning violence done in the name of God in the present?

The concern is that in very unusual circumstances in the past, God commanded people to kill the innocent, exempting them from a moral principle that otherwise binds them. But if God did this in the past, why not now? But if awareness of such an exemption comes through one’s mere inner (subjective) sensing, there would be no way to verify this is God’s will. So there would be no way to know whether or not the individual was really commanded by God to kill innocent people.

Miracles and the Will of God

Matthew Rowley has written an essay on sacralized violence in the exodus under Moses and during the conquest under Joshua. His argument addresses this concern. His key argument is that the biblical narrative suggests that in those situations, God desired to safeguard against the misunderstanding of his will; so he chose to validate this new knowledge with clear displays of miracles. When a new revelation issues the extraordinary command of taking another’s life, it does not come through one’s mere inner subjective sensing. Rather, God chooses to unite this new knowledge with miracles, in such a way that the individual or onlooker can validate the message. (See Josh. 3:7.)

Miracles in the Old Testament Narrative

Rowley identifies several different categories of miracles. Category 1: Miracle of creation, showing God’s power, intelligence, and creativity. Category 2: 2L (lesser), 2M (moderate), and 2G (greater)—on an epistemic spectrum. 2L miracles are visions, dreams, or small-scale events like a burning bush. 2M are smaller miracles that go against the normal pattern of nature, meriting skepticism. These experiences should be held loosely. 2G miracles are harder to misinterpret and are impossible to fake, like God feeding Israelites for decades with bread from heaven.

Unlike private revelation claims made by Muhammad or Joseph Smith, Moses’s prophetic message is authenticated by Category 2G miracles. See Exod. 9:15-16; cf. Rom. 9:17.

Evidence, Miracles, and Moses’s and Joshua’s Believability

Imagine a skeptical soldier in Israel under Moses or Joshua who wonders whether a harsh command is truly from Yahweh. The Israelites, soldiers included, were to learn two chief lessons from the miracles surrounding the exodus out of Egypt: first, that Yahweh is supreme above all gods in power and authority and, second, that Moses was “like God”—God’s representative—before Egypt and Israel (Exod. 7:1; cf. 4:16). The narrative suggests that they should have been believed because of the confirming miracles God performed through them. No wonder that at the exodus itself, the people “believed in the Lord and in his servant Moses” (14:30-31).

Moses’s unique role further confirmed in the dreadful direct revelation at Sinai (Deut. 5:23-27), which the Israelites could see, hear, and feel. The Ten Commandments begin with the affirmation of the exodus miracle to confirm both Yahweh’s and Moses’s believability. A large number of the commands in the Mosaic law are grounded in the exodus event. The questioning Israelite solder doesn’t simply have to take Moses’s word for it; he is in a position to see firsthand God’s miraculous actions.

As for believing Joshua’s commands, scripture uses the same language as it does of Moses. And the Israelites themselves and their enemies knew that Yahweh was truly with Joshua. Remember these two points: God’s presence was highly visible—ever “in the sight” of Israel whether on the move or settled. And second, the tabernacle would continue to move until a more permanent house of God—the temple—was established where God would cause his name to dwell and where the glory of God would be visibly manifested. Not only did the Canaanites and Philistines hear reports of Yahweh’s miraculous activity, but they also could see the manifestation of Yahweh’s presence as Israel camped or moved about.

The Storehouse of Divine Validation

Unlike any person today who advocates violence in the name of God, the Israelites who engaged in life-taking obedience had a storehouse of indicators of miraculous divine validation. The large cluster of weighty miracles performed while Moses led Israel would reinforce the believability of the less-weighty miracles like the burning bush. The shock and awe 2G miracles gave more credibility to the 2L miracles. Looking back, the soldier can come to trust Moses’s testimony about the burning bush because he is gazing at the pillar of fire in front of him.

Moses, Miracles, and the Ancient Near East

The miracles recorded in Exodus through Joshua uniquely single out Moses and Joshua. It is the difference between saying, “I speak for God,” and “I speak for the God who just dried up the sea, who is leading you by a pillar of fire, and who is feeding you daily with bread from heaven.”

Prophetic Punctuated Equilibrium and Inheriting Ripples

The biblical narrative suggests a pattern—namely, large-scale miraculous activity and increased prophetic utterances are connected to a call to restore order from chaos through destruction. F&C see a connection between evidentially weighty miracles and sacralized violence—what Rowley calls prophetic punctuated equilibrium: spurts of miraculous “mutations” occurring within a short time—clustered around the old covenant and new covenant—followed by longer periods when relatively fewer miracles take place.

The conquest narratives serve as a reminder of God’s clear and inimitable workings in the course of salvation history and a call to remember his faithfulness in bringing his purposes to fruition.

Conclusion

In a post 9/11 environment, Morriston’s arguments strike a significant chord. But F&C have made several points here. First, Morriston’s argument wrongly assumes that prophetic utterances like those recorded in scripture continue after the closing of the biblical canon. Second, one can rationally attribute to God a command that under ordinary circumstances would be immoral to carry out only on two conditions: (1) that the command does not contradict a nonnegotiable moral principle, and (2) that, on the background evidence accepted by a biblical theist, the claim that God issued the command is more likely than the claim that the action is wrong. Third, even if the command meets these criteria, further tests must be passed—tests not met by contemporaries who claim God told them to kill: alleged prophets must have a track record of true predictions and have proved themselves authentic; their message must not contradict previous revelation or commands recorded in scripture; their character must show fruit of the Spirit in their life, and must have a lifestyle of sincere obedience to God’s commands; and if prophets announce an exemption from the normal rules against killing, this message will be authenticated by Category 2G miracles.

Image: "Andrea Previtali 005" by Andrea Previtali - Web Gallery of Art:   Image  Info about artwork. Licensed under Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons - https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Andrea_Previtali_005.jpg#/media/File:Andrea_Previtali_005.jpg

Judas at the Last Supper

A Twilight Musing

A close reading of John 13 reveals two levels of narrative, as well as details about Judas and the Last Supper that, among the four Evangelists, only John relates.  On the surface level, Jesus is having an intimate last meal with His select Twelve before he is catapulted into the violence of arrest, torture, and crucifixion.  But threaded through this emotional leave-taking are several references to Jesus’ acute awareness of the impending betrayal by Judas, the “bad apple” of His chosen group.   Additionally, in counterpoint to the perfidious apostasy of Judas, the interactions between Peter and Jesus reveal an unperceived weakness that ends in Peter’s predicted triple denial of the Lord he has sworn to protect with his own life.  But though Peter, like Judas, betrays his Lord, his true repentance when he realizes what he has done is in clear contrast with Judas’s hard-heartedness and token repentance.  The mini-drama with Judas ends with his being sent out by Jesus to “do quickly” the deed that he had already decided on, immediately followed by Jesus’ unexpected affirmation that a process of glorification of both God the Father and God the Son has been paradoxically set into motion by Judas’s horrible plan.

The overall theme of Jesus’ Last Supper with His closest friends is the Master’s desire to impart to these men who are to carry on His ministry an understanding of what the relationship between them is to be when He is with them no longer.   He graphically demonstrated when He washed their feet that they were to serve one another in humility, and He admonished them afterward to love one another as He has loved them (vv. 34-35).  But even in the midst of telling about these delicate instructions, John alludes three times to Jesus’ acute awareness of immanent betrayal by Judas (vv. 2-3, 10-11, 18-19).  The Savior’s troubled spirit finally bursts out in the revelation that “one of you will betray me” (v. 21).  Jesus realizes that Judas’s treachery is to be the catalyst that begins the process of His being arrested and crucified, a cup of suffering that He dreads but knows is the very purpose for which He was brought into the world.  But when Jesus tries to share His burden, the disciples’ reaction doesn't show the indignation that might be expected from them, nor a determination to protect the Master from the traitor, but rather anguished inquiries as to the identity of the villain—each one assuming, it seems, that it is not himself (see Matt. 26:21-25).

The final moment in this mini-drama about Judas comes when Jesus reveals the identity of the traitor to the disciple “whom Jesus loved” (usually presumed to be John).  At the same time Judas engages in the identifying act of taking the morsel of bread from Jesus (vv.26-27), “Satan entered into him.”  In the other accounts (Matt. 26, Mk. 14, Lk. 22), Judas is referred to as merely dipping his bread in the sauce at the same time Jesus did, or even merely dipping in common with the rest of the disciples.  John is more precise about this instant than are the other evangelists, and that is understandable if he was the one sitting next to Jesus and even leaning in His direction.  It is possible that only John realized the full truth of Jesus identifying Judas, since the rest of the disciples seem not to understand Jesus’ parting words to Judas, “What you are going to do, do quickly” (v. 27).

Jesus’ next statement seems a strange reaction to the tension and anguish which have characterized these events so far.  “When he had gone out, Jesus said, ‘Now is the Son of Man glorified, and God is glorified in him.   If God is glorified in him, God will also glorify him in himself, and glorify him at once’” (vv. 31-32).  It is not clear at first what the connection is between Judas’s perfidy and Jesus’ being glorified.   Jesus has had to endure both the treachery of Judas and the spiritual density of the rest of the disciples as they proved to be more concerned about their own self-image than about Jesus’ safety.  In the face of all this, Jesus’ reference to being glorified as His betrayer goes out the door to deliver Him to His enemies and to death is puzzling.  But the connection becomes clear when we consider that in the events for which Judas’s betrayal is the catalyst, Judas’s tragic decision to betray His Lord is turned on its head, as God uses even the traitor’s evil heart as an instrument for accomplishing the salvation of the world through the Supreme Act of redemptive suffering.[su_pullquote]God uses even the traitor’s evil heart as an instrument for accomplishing the salvation of the world through the Supreme Act of redemptive suffering.[/su_pullquote]

Although Jesus predicted (vv. 37-38) that Peter, like Judas, would betray his Master, Peter’s offense, in contrast to Judas’s, is a manifestation of an unsuspected weakness, not a premeditated betrayal.  Peter’s ingenuous boasting is seen initially in this passage when he tries to reject Jesus’ washing of his feet, perhaps thinking that it would demean his Master and compromise Peter’s devotion to Him.  But when Jesus makes it clear that to refuse His offer is to “have no share” with Him, Peter goes overboard in the other direction.   Peter’s naïve feelings of superiority are made even more explicit when he boasts that he is willing to die for Jesus (v. 37), whereupon Jesus predicts Peter’s denials.   Peter wants to distinguish himself from the other disciples, and he ends up doing so, but not in the way he imagined and boasted of.

However, the responses of the two men to their realization of sin are starkly and significantly different, as seen in Matt. 26:69-27:5.  When Peter became agonizingly aware of what he had done, “he went out and wept bitterly” (27:75).  Judas, on the other hand, after making a gesture of repentance by returning the blood money to the chief priests and their cohorts, went out and hanged himself.  Although Judas heard, saw, and participated in the same lesson about humility that Peter did, he did not understand it and therefore learned nothing from his horrible mistake.  Peter, on the other hand, turned his bitter humiliation into an attitude that would eventually enable him to recognize how suffering is the path to the glory of fellowship with Jesus.

You may want to look at a couple of poems posted elsewhere on this site, “Son of Perdition” and “Cock-Crowing,” which depict the states of mind in Judas and Peter just after they have done their shameful deeds.

Image: "The Last Supper (1886), by Fritz von Uhde" by Fritz von Uhde - kunstgeschichte.uni-muenchen.de. Licensed under Public Domain via Commons - https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:The_Last_Supper_(1886),_by_Fritz_von_Uhde.jpg#/media/File:The_Last_Supper_(1886),_by_Fritz_von_Uhde.jpg

Lying and Reasonable Expectation

Here’s a simple question: What is lying?

“Ah, well, that’s easy,” you might think. “Lying is telling an untruth.”

But this brief definition doesn’t quite get at the heart of the matter. For we might think it casts some things as lying which ought not to be so regarded, such as telling a fictional story, making a joke, or even playing certain kinds of games.[1] Further, it may exclude some things from qualifying which we want to say are lies. For example, if the teacher asks the class, “Did one of you draw that picture of me on the whiteboard?” and no one responds, no student told an untruth. However, supposing at least one of them is responsible and/or knows who did it, their silence would likely count as lying to the teacher about their involvement. So, it appears this definition is both too broad (including things we don’t want) and too narrow (excluding things we do).

So, suppose you reconsider and reply: “Lying is deceiving others.”

This at least accounts for lying by omission, as in the case of the teacher. But this runs into a problem we’ve seen before: it includes things we do not really want to say are actual lies. For example, consider your favorite football team. They often come to the line of scrimmage attempting to disguise their defense, or on offense make a fake move before unleashing their real play, and so on. Are these all lies, all moral violations, and hence evil? It would seem not.

So, suppose you think for another moment and suggest this: “Lying is an attempt to have another person x believe P, when not-P is true, and x should have a reasonable expectation (or a ‘right’) to receive the truth about P.”

Now this has some merit. In order to defeat a proposed definition, one will typically want to show it is either too broad or too narrow. Does this definition survive? Let’s test it against some of our examples: First, if we’re telling a fictional story, we get the right answer that we are not lying, since x does not have a reasonable expectation that he will receive the truth about P.[2] Making a joke is also excluded, as are games. There is, of course, the worry that jokes or stories are taken too far—but we tend to agree it’s not in virtue of these being jokes and stories that they are lies. This definition of lying also includes lying by omission.

The “reasonable expectation view” also provides what many of us take to be the “right” answer in some classic ethical quandaries. Consider the family hiding Jews in WWII Germany and the Nazis come by. They ask, “Are there any Jews here?” If you answer “no,” then you are lying and thereby violate a moral norm. If you answer “yes,” however, you are not protecting the innocent (at least not very effectively, anyway). There are some who vigorously defend the “yes” position, perhaps because of a Kantian influence. Kant is notorious for claiming that lying is always wrong, because it is always predicated on a maxim that cannot be universalized or consistently willed to become a universal law. This is also called the “categorical imperative.” A good example is lying to secure a loan. Knowing you cannot pay it back in a timely fashion, you lie to get the loan anyway. If everyone in such circumstances did so, the very institution of truth-telling, promise-keeping, and money-lending would disintegrate. Kant would say what makes lying wrong is not the bad consequences of what would happen, but rather the implication that one’s beliefs or desires are in contradiction. If we were to universalize the maxim in question—that it is permissible to lie about repaying a loan in a timely fashion—the result would be the destruction of the loaning institution, or the very thing that makes money-lending possible. So one both wants the institution to be there and, in virtue of following such an unworkable maxim, does not want the institution to be there.

The matter, however, is not that easy. For it is not clear at what level of generality the maxim should be cast. This matters because, depending on how the maxim is cast—ranging from “It’s okay to lie whenever one wants” to “It’s permissible to lie when doing so is the only way to avoid a grave injustice”—sometimes the maxim can be universalized and sometimes it cannot. Kant’s sweeping conclusion, then, that lying is always irrational and immoral seems unwarranted.

Contra Kant, most typically want to say protection of the Jews by saying “no” is morally justified. But it also seems bizarre to claim lying is ever morally right or permissible. In fact, it’s a violation of the ninth commandment (Exodus 20:16)! But on this view, answering “no” is not lying. The Nazi does not have a reasonable expectation for the family to tell him the truth about the Jews, given that he intends to persecute, torture, experiment on, and ultimately kill them. So my solution to the conundrum is not to say that lying is sometimes justified, but rather that withholding the truth or even projecting a falsehood on occasion is not lying at all.

A worry arises here about rationality. Suppose the Nazi thinks, “They know, or should know, that telling me an untruth about the presence of Jews will result in their incarceration or death, and the risk that I will check their home anyway is decent. Thus, the rational thing for them to do is to tell me the truth.” Here, it seems the Nazi has a reasonable expectation after all (is it really unreasonable, given the thought process?). But this is why I added “the right” portion above. Given that persecution of the Jews is a moral atrocity, if such people are hiding Jews, it is because they have moral sensitivities (most likely); if that is the case, does the Nazi have the right to expect such people to move against these sensibilities and answer him, revealing the presence of the Jews? It seems not. The one committing a moral crime is not necessarily owed—or does not have the right to reasonably expect—the truth in a particular situation in which he is involved directly with moral evil.

And now we can apply this to a biblical narrative. In an ethics/moral philosophy course, we were once asked how many of us thought Rahab’s lie to cover for the pair of Jewish spies was justified, and how many thought it was not. The professor noticed my hand not going up for either, and I communicated I did not think it was a lie at all. We moved on for the sake of discussion, but I think it is the right answer. It was not truth-telling, but as the enemies of God they did not satisfy what I am calling the reasonable expectation condition, and so should not have expected to hear the truth. Again, it must be noted that this condition deals with the rights one has to the truth in a given situation involving direct moral issues. Perhaps some of the more difficult biblical passages in which non-truth-telling and/or deception seem to be endorsed may benefit from this account of lying in their interpretations, and show that the Bible is not ethically mistaken after all!

Notes: 

[1] Here I am thinking of the game “Two Truths and a Lie,” where the winner is the one who convinces the others of the truth of the story when it is in fact false.

[2] Note also that if one protests that we could tell x “What I am about to tell you is absolutely true,” that it would be a lie. But this comports perfectly well with the definition given: in those circumstances, all being equal, x does have a reasonable expectation to be given the truth.

Image: "fingers crossed" by DGLES. CC License. 

Flannagan and Copan’s Did God Really Command Genocide? Summary Chapter 18: “What if Someone Claimed God Commanded Killing the Innocent Today?”

Did God Really Command Genocide?  

In this chapter F & C wish to examine a concern that many have: “If we say that God commanded an exemption to the crucial moral principle in scripture and that he commanded an occasion in which the killing of the innocent was justified in the past, what is to stop some religious fanatic from claiming that God would do the same today?”  At first glance, this may seem like a legitimate concern.  However, in this chapter F & C suggest several safeguards and criteria to test such a claim as genuine.

Before addressing the main question, F & C tackle a related objection often raised by the skeptic: Unless one can know the reason for why God would issue such a command, one is not justified in saying they know that God issued such a command.  F & C point out a number of problems with this objection.  Using Alvin Plantinga’s well-known noseeum inference (pronounced no-see-um) which he effectively employs in discussing the problem of evil, they show that just because one does not know the reason for why God might command something does not entail that he has no reason.  This is to confuse an ontological problem with an epistemological one.  The fact that I do not know something exists (including a reason in the mind of God) does not necessarily mean that it does not exist.  F & C raise the idea of the skeptical theist, one who acknowledges that God may often act without explaining why he does so, as a realistic concept that completely counters this objection.  In fact, if this objection really had any power, then it would entail that we could not know that God had ever made any moral commands because, ultimately, we do not know why God commands that any good be promoted and any evil avoided.  As F & C put it, “The problem this poses is obvious: if we can’t justifiably attribute a command to God unless we know why he commands it, then we won’t be able to attribute any commands to God, even a general command to not kill.” (235)

F & C approach the main question by referring to Wes Morriston’s hypothetical situation in which a Texas governor believes God has spoken to him and commanded that all members of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints should be killed.  Morriston suggests that such a situation is analogous to the Old Testament reports of divinely mandated genocide.  If we would reject such a command to the Texas governor as coming from God, we need to do the same with those in the Old Testament.  F & C, though, suggest a number of reasons why such a scenario is disanalogous and why God wouldn’t make such a command today.

While they do not deny that divine revelation is not limited to the biblical era, they affirm that individual divine guidance is different from the authoritative utterances proclaimed by God’s appointed prophets and apostles of biblical times.  All three branches of Christianity affirm that the biblical canon in closed and that there are no new divinely authoritative utterances equal to that of the prophets and apostles.  F & C state, “We have good reason to accept that the Scriptures are the sure and final authority for the believer and that with the death of the apostles, there is no longer any authoritative revelation on the level of Moses and Paul.” (238) [Note: It would have been helpful and made their case stronger had F &C gone into what exactly these reasons might be rather than just asserting that they exist.]

A second reason F & C believe that Morriston’s hypothetical scenario is disanalogous concerns recognizing moral defeaters.  Morriston wonders how we know when a command is from God as opposed to when it is not?  The answer: when it accords with our moral and religious practice.  F & C point out that one aspect of appealing to moral practice is to consider it from within the Christian moral community of which one is a member. Christians as a community affirm certain doctrines as being true and they operate from within these doctrines and may appeal to them when considering claims of commands coming from God.  In addition, F & C suggest two guidelines that help in determining when a purported rare incident might occur in which God’s command would be an exception to the crucial moral principle.  These two guidelines are:

1. One should dismiss any purported divine command that violates a non-negotiable moral belief
2. One should reject any purported divine command to do X that contradicts a negotiable moral belief when the claim “Action X is wrong” has greater plausibility or is more validly knowable than the claim that God commanded it. (239)

With these two qualifications in place, F & C show that the rare exception is not a problem for the Christian theist.  A true prophet will not affirm a command from God that violates guidance #1, so if our Texas governor’s scenario involves something of that kind, it will be rejected.  If it violates a negotiable moral belief, it will be judged by criteria of plausibility that will probably, indeed almost certainly, arrive at the conclusion that the Texas governor is not a prophet or apostle in the line of a Moses or Paul.

F & C finish off this chapter by listing a number of other scriptural criteria for testing if one is a prophet with divine authority to declare the commands of God.  They first consider the nature of the medium and ask if the word was received through some form of divination.  Second, one criterion of truth asks if the prophecy actually does come true.  Does the person proclaiming the command have a track record of true prophetic fulfillment in the past?  Third is the consistency with previous revelation.  Is it consistent with other doctrines we know to be revealed by God?  Fourth is the moral character of the person proclaiming the command. Does he or she live a virtuous life?  All of these could be applied to the Texas governor scenario to help in determining if his proclamation was really of divine origin and had divine authority behind it.

Find the other chapter summaries here.

Image:"Christian Wilhelm Ernst Dietrich - The Sacrifice of Isaac - WGA6338" by Christian Wilhelm Ernst Dietrich - Web Gallery of Art:   Image  Info about artwork. Licensed under Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons - https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Christian_Wilhelm_Ernst_Dietrich_-_The_Sacrifice_of_Isaac_-_WGA6338.jpg#/media/File:Christian_Wilhelm_Ernst_Dietrich_-_The_Sacrifice_of_Isaac_-_WGA6338.jpg

“God saw that it was good."

A Twilight Musing

In the Genesis 1 account of creation, we are told five times that God judged what He had created “good,” including his looking at the completed creation and saying that “it was very good” (Gen. 1:31).  In chapter 2, it is made clear that the setting of the Garden of Eden was the perfect environment for mankind to partake of and participate in all of this goodness.  It had “every tree that was pleasant to the sight and good for food” (2:9).   Only in the prohibition against eating of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil is there any mention of evil.  In chapter 3, however, we have the disastrous substitution of human judgment of what was “good for food” (3:4), and the natural good of God’s creation was overturned.  What was formerly “very good” is turned into inhospitable ground and difficult farming, sorrow, pain, and death.  The light with which God’s good creation began has now been turned into darkness which, like the sin-cursed ground, has to be tilled at great sacrifice to bring God’s good out of it again.

The fact that light was the first element spoken into existence in God’s creation, which He repeatedly endorses as “good,” indicates that there is an elemental connection between Light and Goodness as characteristics of God.  Together they show the intertwining of God’s existential indefinability (as physical light is paradoxically both wave and particle) and His non-referential Moral Perfection.  All light and all goodness are derived from Him.  God’s Light was foundational to the rest of creation so that in that Light could be seen God’s Goodness in the rest of His creation.  God judged it to be good only by the Light that He Himself had created; and as long as the morally enabled and responsible humans He had created judged their lot by that same Light, all was well.

When Eve consented to the suggestion of Satan that she change the way she perceived the forbidden fruit (she “saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise” [3:6]), the result was, ironically, that “the eyes of both [Adam and Eve] were opened, and they knew that they were naked” (3:7).  It was just as the Serpent promised, that “when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil” (3:3).  What he does not tell them is that seeing what God sees without His essential Light and Goodness as protection turns all goodness on its head and brings disorder and destruction, rather than the blessing of seeing only what God has granted us to see at the time.

Although the short poem below is in immediate reference to the gathering of daily manna, it has a broader application, and the last two lines are especially relevant to the Fall of Adam and Eve.

SUFFICIENT

(Exodus 16: 19-21)

Sufficient to the day

Is the good thereof:

Honey-sweet wafers,

Dawn's measure of graceful bread.

But dread of want tomorrow

Crowds out the bounty of today;

Blessings seized out of season

Turn to worms and decay.

                                                -- Elton D. Higgs (1977)

Image: "Beams" by Furbychan. CC License. 

Paul and Socrates: What Athens Has to Do with Jerusalem

Pursuing a simultaneous, side-by-side comparison and contrast of the early Socratic dialogue Euthyphro and the apostle Paul’s speech at Mars Hill in Acts 17 affords the chance for a fascinating and instructive exploration. The most obvious similarity is geographical. Separated by time but linked in space, ground zero for both epic events was Athens, the intellectual cradle of the western world, the birthplace of philosophy. Presocratics like Thales and Heraclitus hailing from Ionia were the warm-up act; Socrates and his student Plato, and Plato’s student Aristotle, were the main actors in bringing philosophy to life, and Athens, at the edge of the fabled Aegean, was center stage.

In Paul’s case, the speech before the Areopagus took place at Mars Hill, carved into the rocky hillside containing, at its zenith, the Acropolis—prominently featuring the Parthenon and other temples and shrines—and overlooking the agora, the marketplace, further down. In that marketplace, Socrates, in whose lifetime the Parthenon was completed, tried out his ideas, engaging people in conversation and needling them with questions whose effect was far from effective at ingratiating himself to his unfortunate interlocutors.

The apostle Paul, too, nearly five centuries later, took it to the streets of the agora—“When In Athens.” The Areopagus—the name for both the Athenian council and the meeting place of the council—was known as Mars Hill because it was the place where Ares, the son of Zeus, was thought to have been tried for having killed his uncle Poseidon’s son. When the Romans co-opted the Greek pantheon of gods, Zeus became Jupiter, Artemis Diana, and Ares Mars, the Roman god of war. Thus Mars Hill.

The setting of the Euthyphro is the porch of the King Archon, one of nine Athenian magistrates whose quasi-religious functions included presiding over cases involving impiety and homicide. Socrates is there to inquire further into the accusations levied against him by Meletus of corrupting the youth, denying the existence of the old gods, and inventing new ones.

Paul and Socrates had started in the agora, but both ended up in trouble, answerable to reigning Greek authorities, for a surprising number of overlapping reasons. Paul was on his second missionary journey when he stopped at Athens, whereas Socrates, who had spent his whole life in Athens, was nearing the end of his earthly pilgrimage. Socrates had gained a following, especially among the young men of Athens. The core of his followers, including his star student and biographer extraordinaire Plato, was devoted and loyal. Paul, too, while at Athens, garnered a following— in the sense of converts to the faith he was proclaiming. This happened in most of the places he went, Athens no exception. The two examples of new “followers” the passage adduces are Dionysius the Areopagite and a woman named Damaris, “and others with them” who go unnamed.

In addition to gaining enthusiastic followers and new adherents, both also generated quite a bit of opposition. This is hardly surprising, since each of them made points that challenged prevailing convictions, including longstanding views and customs considered largely sacrosanct. Opposition was something to which they had both grown accustomed. Again, in the immediate context, each was in a state of being challenged to defend his ideas. Socrates was accused by Meletus (and Anytus and Lycon, we find out in the Apology) of corrupting the youth and impiety regarding the gods, and would soon face those charges in court. Euthyphro initially thought that Socrates had nothing to worry about regarding such charges, but of course he would turn out to be quite tragically wrong about this matter. Paul was brought before the Areopagus after having argued in the synagogue with the Jews and God fearers—those Gentile sympathizers with monotheism and with second temple Judaism—and also in the marketplace every day with those who happened to be there. The latter methodology was a bit new for Paul, who more typically preached, proclaimed, and dialogued in the synagogue. To venture into the agora is a clear parallel with Socrates, whose common practice this was—for no charge, unlike the Sophists who taught rhetoric for a fee. Euthyphro’s first question to Socrates in Euthyphro is why he’d left the Lyceum—a public meeting place in a grove of trees in classical Athens. In Athens both Paul and Socrates were very public philosophers indeed. For those who think Paul wasn’t much of a philosopher, it might be instructive to know that Antony Flew said of Paul numerous times that, in his own estimation, Paul had a first-rate philosophical mind. His ability at Mars Hill to engage in informed and insightful discourse with the reigning philosophies of his day provides partial evidence of this.

Paul was brought before the Areopagus because this was the protocol when someone wished to introduce new gods to be revered and worshiped, and this was what Paul was thought by the Athenians to be doing. The new gods they took Paul to be proclaiming were Jesus and Anastasis—resurrection. Since the category of resurrection was so foreign to Greek ears, they naturally took his reference to it—transliterated anastasis—as a reference to a new goddess; and now Jesus and Anastasis needed to be defended—their existence, their credentials, their benefits. The protocol for introducing new deities required Paul to address the Areopagus, so his address had for its ostensible purpose to answer questions posed to him, specifically, who were these new gods, and why did they deserve a place among the gods recognized in Athens? Some of the philosophers present, Stoics and Epicureans, had impugned the quality and caliber of Paul’s proclamations, accusing him being a babbler, cobbling together bits and pieces of a variety of worldview and religious perspectives. If such were the case, his new ideas would hardly be worthy of recognition, but rather of categorical exclusion if not downright derision.

Socrates also did something thought problematically “new.” In his career he had made it clear that he was following what he took to be a divine directive—an inner voice that he assumed had come from God—to inquire more fully into the revelation from the Oracle of Delphi that there was no one in Athens wiser than him. He had been incredulous to hear this, because he claimed to be ignorant of nearly everything. To disprove the thesis he was the wisest, he sought wisdom from others, but had discovered through a process of searching questions that his interlocutors were just as ignorant of him. The only difference he thought he could find was that, while they claimed to be wise and were ignorant, he disavowed having wisdom himself. In this sense, he finally concluded, perhaps the Oracle was right—he was the wisest after all for knowing of his own ignorance, unlike others. Socrates saw ignorance as the epistemically humble path the judicious trod. If the evidence wasn’t there or wasn’t strong enough for a view, he remained skeptical about it, carefully apportioning belief to the evidence.

Introducing the Apology, Edith Hamilton and Huntington Cairns wrote about Socrates in these rhetorically glowing terms: “Great spiritual leaders and great saints adorn the pages of history, but Socrates is not like any of them. He is, indeed, the servant of the divine power, living in complete obedience to God; yet he always views the world of men with a bit of humor, a touch of irony. He spends his life in the effort to kindle into a flame the spark of good in every man, but when he fails, when he comes up against blind obstinacy or stupid conceit or the indifference of egotism, or when he draw down on himself bitter enmity, then along with his regret—because he cares for everyone—is mingled a little amusement, a feeling, as it were, of rueful sympathy, as if he said to himself, ‘What silly children we are.’”[1]

To what are they referring when they write of Socrates as the “servant of the divine power” and “living in complete obedience to God”? The dialogue itself provides the answer about this Socratic innovation. Despite his skepticism about the Greek pantheon of manmade gods, references to the divine recur time and again. “However, let that turn out as God wills. I  must obey the law and make my defense” (19a); “real wisdom is the property of God” (23b); “That is why I still go about seeking and searching in obedience to the divine command…” (23b); “…when God appointed me, as I supposed and believed, to the duty of leading the philosophical life, examining myself and others…” (28e); “…I owe a greater obedience to God than to you, and so long as I draw breath and have my faculties, I shall never stop practicing philosophy and exhorting you and elucidating the truth for everyone that I meet” (29d); “I shall reprove him for neglecting what is of supreme importance, and giving his attention to trivialities…. This, I do assure you is what my God commands, and it is my belief that no greater good has ever befallen you in this city than my service to my God” (30a); “I do not believe that the law of God permits a better man to be harmed by a worse” (30d); “It is literally true, even if it sounds rather comical, that God has specially appointed me to this city, as though it were a large thoroughbred horse which because of its great size is inclined to be lazy and needs the stimulation of some stinging fly” (30e); “I am subject to a divine or supernatural experience…. It began in my early childhood—a sort of voice which comes to me, and when it comes it always dissuades me from what I am proposing to do, and never urges me on” (31d); “This duty I have accepted, as I said, in obedience to God’s commands given in oracles and dreams and in every other way that any other divine dispensation has ever impressed a duty upon man. This is a true statement, gentlemen, and easy to verify” (33c); “Now it is time that we were going, I to die and you to live, but which of us has the happier prospect is unknown to anyone but God” (42a).

When Socrates, however ingenuously, offered to become Euthyphro’s disciple, it was perhaps in part motivated to underscore something ironic. Euthyphro was there at court not defending himself, but pressing charges against another, specifically, his own father. His father had bound a slave who had murdered a house servant. While awaiting directions as to how to proceed, the father allowed the slave to die from hunger and exposure, having had him tossed in a ditch while awaiting further instructions. Athenian custom would dictate Euthyphro to assign primacy to loyalty to his father, and his revisionism in suing his father for wrongdoing was a real departure from normal customs. Socrates’ own innovations, though, in heeding what he thought was a divine mandate while being skeptical of the capricious, finite, and feuding deities of the Greek pantheon was the reason he was in trouble. With some justification, Socrates’ gesture toward taking on the younger and confident Euthyphro as his mentor—relegating himself to the role of protégé—accentuated the irony that Euthyphro’s radical departure from custom was unquestioned while his own innovations were cast as objectionably problematic. The Socratic subtext was that this state of affairs betrayed a real inconsistency that ought to be rectified.

This is both an interesting point of comparison and contrast with Paul. Paul believed in the importance of evidence, too, and what he considered the most important evidential factor to consider will be discussed momentarily. But his view concerning ignorance was quite a bit less sanguine than that of Socrates. Far from wearing ignorance as a proverbial badge of honor, or celebrating as sufficient an altar to an unknown god, Paul explicitly said, “While God has overlooked the times of human ignorance, now he commands all people everywhere to repent…” (Acts 17:30). Paul thought that, with the resurrection, a vitally important truth about God had been revealed, the surprising piece of the puzzle that, now that it’s shown up, makes possible the puzzle’s solution. Theology was no mere exercise of blind faith or empty conjecture, but of definitive truth now made clear. Among what had been revealed was something that the philosophers in Paul’s audience would find anathema: that there was a judgment to come. The world would be judged in righteousness, by a man whose credentials have been established.

On this issue of judgment for wrongdoing, incidentally, Paul echoed a theme that both Socrates and Euthyphro seemed to agree on entirely, namely, that a wrongdoer deserves punishment. The shared nature of this belief might suggest that this insight is part of what some might call “general revelation.” In Summa contra Gentiles Aquinas wrote that the knowledge of God accessible independent of specific revelation pertained to (1) what may be asserted of God in Himself, (2) what may be asserted about the procession of the creatures of God, and (3) about the ordination of the creatures towards God as their ends. A particularly poignant piece of natural theology is morality; there is something morally instinctive, deeply intuitive, wildly instructive, and patently obvious about the idea that justice demands that wrongs be addressed. The failure to effect such justice leaves an injustice in place and not properly fixed—which would be in intractably irrational feature of reality. In one sense or another, human beings are morally accountable for their actions. The famous Boyle Lectures of Samuel Clarke deal, in this order, with the existence of God, the attributes of God as Creator and Moral Governor of the world, the certainty of a “state of rewards and punishments,” as truths assumed to be capable of formal demonstration.

To the contrary of questioning an assumption about moral justice, Socrates gave it his wholehearted endorsement. His claim of ignorance didn’t include claims about moral responsibility; he never disavowed the category of moral accountability. He acknowledged the difficulty on occasion of identifying which actions were instances of wrongdoing; for example, he was much less confident than Euthyphro that Euthyphro’s suing of his own father was morally right. Rather, he entertained grave doubts about its piety or holiness. But an actually impious or unholy action was an action he thought merited punishment for the wrongdoer. This is clear, among other junctures in the dialogue, when Socrates discussed the alleged enmities and contentions among the gods. He wrote, concerning the gods, that they don’t venture to argue that the guilty are to be unpunished, even if they do argue that they aren’t actually guilty. Like Euthyphro and Socrates, there is both agreement and disagreement among the gods; they disagree on whether particular instances of alleged wrongdoing are actual ones; they agree, though, that genuine examples of wrongdoing deserve punishment.

“Paul thought that, with the resurrection, a vitally important truth about God had been revealed, the surprising piece of the puzzle that, now that it’s shown up, makes possible the puzzle’s solution.”

Paul’s later assertion, then, that there is righteous judgment to come would correspond with at least a dimension of Socrates’ convictions, for Socrates agreed that justice demands punishment for wrongdoing. And this is a rather intuitive conviction for most. Few today can hear of atrocities committed by members of ISIS like roasting people alive or public beheadings without feeling a strong conviction that justice demands such horrors to be judged—though rather inexplicably some seem rather more exorcised by relatively trivial indignities, a failure of the moral imagination reminiscent of C. S. Lewis’s “men without chests.” After witnessing unspeakable and horrific injustices perpetrated on innocent people in his homeland, Miroslav Volf wrote, “Though I used to complain about the indecency of the idea of God’s wrath, I came to think that I would have to rebel against a God who wasn’t wrathful at the sight of the world’s evil. God isn’t wrathful in spite of being love. God is wrathful because God is love.”

Of course Socrates didn’t have Paul’s rich theology, but the parallel in pointing to the moral appropriateness of judgment and punishment for wrongdoing is a conspicuous one. Socrates wasn’t responsible for fully anticipating all the details of additional special revelation to come; but by Paul’s context, in the fullness of time, the hour of ignorance was over. Socrates pointed to the lack of evidence for the Athenian gods; Paul agreed, but Paul was the new gadfly, extending the point in a positive direction: the evidence for the right theology was now available. The finite, fallible gods were dead; the God who is the Ground of Being, the Creator and Sustainer of the universe, the God in whom there’s no shadow of turning, is alive and well.

Others have pointed out germane overlaps and salient similarities between Paul and Socrates. Some of the early Christian apologists pointed out similarities between Socrates and Jesus, in fact, and others have pointed out the similar structure of Paul’s address at Mars Hill and that of Socrates in the Apology: Dialogue, accusation, explanation. As noted, they were both profoundly skeptical of the gods worshiped all around them. Socrates had heard the myths of the gods inherited from playwrights and poets, legends and lore. Homer and Hesiod had fired the Greek imagination, populating it with an array of capricious and contentious gods, and reinforcing a view of the world according to which fate was the ultimate determinant. Socrates sought a better way, a world of reason, regulated by structure, a cosmos rather than a chaos. For him the legends strained credulity, for they revealed a world full of fallible gods filled with foibles, gods pretty clearly made in the image of men. He admitted that he found such legends hard to believe, whereas Euthyphro, credulously embracing all the stories with nothing but the most wooden literalness, affirmed his assent to their veracity, despite their inherent tensions, conflicting claims, and warring gods. Deity, for Socrates, if it exists at all, must be free of such imperfections and flaws.

Paul of course would concur, and his Jewishness alone would no doubt suffice to make him grieved and distressed at all the idolatry in Athens. The most axiomatic Jewish conviction was that there is one God alone; this is why Jews would each day repeat the “Shema,” taken from Deut 6:4: “Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God. The Lord is one.” The Hebrew verb for “hear” is shema.

The mentality of the Athenians seemed to be one of “covering bases,” as it were; after all, devotion and payments of homage to the gods was the surefire way of securing divine blessing on the city. So they must have figured better to be safe than sorry; worshiping the full panoply of gods, the full pantheon of deities, an expansive range of divinities, could maximize the likelihood of securing desired blessings. Euthyphro, similarly, had thought that a religious orientation called for such credulity. There was little fear of holding wrong beliefs among these who had adopted (what we can call) the Homeric spirit; it was rather a picture of an expansive range of beliefs in order to be on the safe side. This way there was less chance that some capricious god or goddess would withhold their blessing.

Paul’s contrasting approach is rather in the Socratic spirit. It wasn’t about covering one’s bases or being safe rather than sorry; it was a matter of caring about the truth. And Paul was adamantly committed to the truth that one God exists, not a plethora, not a panoply, not a pantheon, but one God. And rather than arguing that this one God deserved a place among the temples and shrines in Athens, Paul’s point was radically subversive, startling his audience. This one God was the only true God, and all the other alleged gods and goddesses were a sham, unreal, nonexistent, powerless, mere idols. Moreover, this one God was the Creator and Sustainer of all, and hardly able to be contained within a man-made temple or booth or building. He was the God of all creation, and whatever the cosmology of his audience, they knew the world was a big place. This God was bigger and greater yet, and not afflicted with the limitations or weaknesses or flaws of the gods of Athenian lore. As much as Socrates, Paul was skeptical both of the legends and of the Homeric spirit that privileges an ambitious range of beliefs to cover one’s bases over a serious examination of where the evidence points.

This leads to an important insight of contemporary relevance. Although cooperation, dialogue, and shared missions between those of divergent religious traditions is surely a worthwhile goal, there remain irremediable theological differences that can’t be simply discounted and ignored, as if they were easily eliminable and unimportant. Those core convictions are at the heart of those groups’ essential identities. Paul was little interested in forging a working relationship with those he thought were missing the truth, setting aside as trivial their worldview differences. It was exactly a focus on those differences that led to his faithful and uncompromising proclamation. Ignoring the differences—even when they show diametrically opposite worldview convictions—is to privilege a Homeric spirit; retaining the proper place for objective truth claims that matter and for which we’re responsible is to privilege the Socratic spirit. Paul is a paradigmatic example of the latter camp.

Perhaps most fundamentally, Paul and Socrates agreed that people ought to be skeptical of the right things, and convinced by the right things. Where evidence is lacking, suspension of belief is appropriate; Socrates was skeptical of the pantheon of old gods and the traditional myths, and he should have been. Paul was likewise convinced that the gods worshiped in Athens were mere idols.

Socrates also, however, hearkened to what he considered a veridical divine voice—emanating from a source other than the traditional gods whose imperfections and contentions were legend. It was a voice that would dissuade him from courses of actions he would consider, and a voice that made him think he was on a divine mission for which he would be held responsible. “When Gentiles, who do not possess the law, do instinctively what the law requires, these, though not having the law, are a law to themselves. They show that what the law requires is written on their hearts, to which their own conscience also bears witness; and their conflicting thoughts will accuse or perhaps excuse them on the day when, according to my gospel, God through Jesus Christ, will judge the secret thoughts of all” (Rom 2:14-16).

Paul, too, had received a special and personal divine revelation of Christ, but, interestingly, his appeal to others was not based on that experience, but on the resurrection itself, which provided evidence for everyone. God “has fixed a day on which he will have the world judged in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed, and of this he has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead” (Acts 17:31; emphasis added). With a Jewish audience Paul made the case for the necessity of the resurrection from the scriptures; in the heart of Athens, he instead used Gentile and Stoic poets to make connections before pointing to the resurrection, often coopting the words and categories of those writers for his own purposes of proclamation. Like Socrates, Paul was skeptical of the pantheon of gods, but equally insistent that his listeners be willing to follow the evidence where it leads. Paul started where his audience was, but took them to where he knew they needed to go; as foreign as reference to a resurrection was, this was the pivotal event and confirming evidence that the God of whom he spoke was real.

Paul Copan writes that “the fact that people can recognize evil in the world suggests a moral compass that is not arbitrary. Kant spoke not only of the starry heavens above but also of ‘the moral law within.’ If real evils exist in the world—evils we associate with Stalin, Hitler, Pol Pot, and Mao Tse-Tung—then we are assuming an objective design plan of sorts: there is a way things ought to be, and evil is a departure from that. But if there is no design plan and nature is all there is, then why think things should be any different from the way they are? And maybe the evils in the world, especially when they directly affect us, can serve as something of a wake-up call for us. The familiar cry for justice—as old as humanity itself—suggests a transcendent moral standard above national laws and social contracts. Not only does evil remind us that things ought to be different from the way that they are; it also reminds us of the need for outside assistance to address profound evils both outside of us and within our own hearts. We all have a deep longing that evil will not have the last word.”

Or as the other Paul might put it: the hour of ignorance is over; the truth has been made manifest; and there will be a reckoning.

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With his co-author, Jerry Walls, Dr. Baggett authored Good God: The Theistic Foundations of Morality. The book won Christianity Today’s 2012 apologetics book of the year of the award. He recently published a sequel with Walls that critiques naturalistic ethics, God and Cosmos: Moral Truth and Human Meaning. They recently completed a third book in the series, a book which chronicles the history of moral arguments for God’s existence. Dr. Baggett has also co-edited a collection of essays exploring the philosophy of C.S. Lewis, and edited the third debate between Gary Habermas and Antony Flew on the resurrection of Jesus. Dr. Baggett currently is a professor at the Rawlings School of Divinity in Lynchburg, VA.  

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Notes: 

[1] Plato: The Collected Dialogues (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1961), ed. Edith Hamilton and Huntington Cairns, p. 3.

Matt Flannagan and Paul Copan’s Did God Really Command Genocide? Summary of Chapter 17: “Is It Rational to Believe God Commanded the Killing of Innocent?”

Did God Really Command Genocide? 

It’s been argued that it’s rational to believe the Crucial Moral Principle is not absolute and this claim is rationally believable when the grounds for thinking God issued such a command are stronger than the ground for thinking killing innocent is always wrong. But does the biblical theist have adequate grounds for thinking that God on these unique occasions issued such an exemption? Wesley Morriston has recently argued that the biblical theist can’t have adequate grounds for thinking this. His claim is twofold. First, the relevant biblical texts explicitly state what God’s reasons are for issuing the commands. Second, we have good grounds for thinking these reasons are inadequate ones for commanding the killing of innocent people. The four relevant texts to consider are Deut. 20:16; Deut. 7:2; Numbers 31:15; and 1 Samuel 15:3.

Deuteronomy 20:16: “Save Alive Nothing that Breathes”

Morriston cites Swinburne’s defense of the destruction of various peoples. Swinburne likens the spiritual condition of the relevant peoples as an infectious lethal disease in need of eradication. Morriston replies that such reasons for their destruction are inadequate. He says the obvious worry is that this line of argument may have wider application than Swinburne intends it to have. Should a law be passed to silence or kill evangelical atheists?

F&C argue there are three problems with Morriston’s argument. First, contrary to what Morriston asserts, Deut. 20:16-18 does not explicitly state that God’s reason for issuing the command was to prevent the Israelites from being taught to follow the abhorrent practices of the Canaanite nations. It gives the Israelites a reason to obey a command God has already laid down. The reasons for issuing a command and the reasons why people should obey the commands are not always the same. As Richard Brandt argues, what justifies someone in promoting the acceptance of a code or set of rules is not necessarily the same as the motivation or reason people have for following those rules.

A second problem with Morriston’s argument is this: all his argument shows, if successful, is that Swinburne has failed to defend these reasons. The failure of one person to defend a position is a far cry from the claim that the position itself is problematic.

Third, Morriston’s critique of Swinburne is unpersuasive because it misses some important disanalogies found in Swinburne’s defense. Swinburne doesn’t just mention “spiritual infection”; he refers to a specific type of infection that includes child sacrifice. It was a defensive measure necessary to preserve the identity of the people of Israel and was limited to the nations the Lord gave them as an inheritance. Such features call into question Morriston’s analogies. If Dawkins was trespassing on church property, refusing to leave; leading people not just to apostasy but to human sacrifice of infants; and threatening the entire community of God’ s people, in principle frustrating God’s mission to bring salvation to the world, then perhaps he should be silenced or isolated from the rest of the population!

Deuteronomy 7:2: “Destroy Them Totally”

In this passage God is reportedly commanding the Israelites to totally destroy the seven Canaanite nations. Morriston makes two claims. First, he asserts that this passage teaches that God’s reasons were to prevent the Israelites from marrying Canaanites and worshiping other gods. Second, he offers an argument that this reason is inadequate. F&C think both moves are questionable.

First, the text doesn’t portray God as commanding genocide. Nor does the command commit Israel to kill people with the intention of physically destroying the whole or a substantial part of an ethnic or religious group. The text states that the Israelites must totally destroy the Canaanites after God had driven out these Canaanite nations. Only those who stayed behind to fight would be subsequently defeated. And again, the text doesn’t cite the prospect of intermarriage as the reason God issued the command. Contrary to what Morriston says, in this passage God doesn’t state explicitly what his reasons are at all.

Morriston’s second assertion is also problematic. He argues that intermarriage and apostasy does not constitute a sufficient reason for God to command such violence. He provides two grounds for rejecting this purported reason for God’s command: (1) God had other (presumably less morally reprehensible) means of achieving this goal, and (2) this method failed to achieve the goal in question anyway.

Morriston’s first point proves too much by making this assumption: A loving and just God would not command people to suppress some evil he desires to be suppressed if God has a more efficient means of suppressing that evil himself. But this is clearly false. If it were true, then we would have to give up almost everything we take for granted about morality. Consider, for example, the existence of courts which suppress crimes such as theft and rape. Clearly God could suppress such crimes far more efficiently without relying on human beings. Does it follow that a loving and just God would never permit human beings to set up courts that punish crime? Of course not.

Similar problems afflict the second justification for Morriston’s argument—that God’s chosen method did not get the job done. The biblical record shows that the Israelites did not follow God’s command and that the Canaanite nations and religion were not destroyed. The problem is that this is again true of many actions which a loving and just God would plausibly prohibit. God would command people not to murder, steal, and cause harm, but people continue to do so. Does this mean God would not issue commands to refrain from such actions?

Number 31:15: “Have You Allowed All the Women to Live?”

The third example Morriston cites to make his point is the defeat of Midian as recorded in Numbers 31. The Israelites fought against Midian, as the Lord commanded Moses, and killed every man (v. 7). After the battle, however, Moses commanded Israel to kill all the boys and every woman who has slept with a man, but save for yourselves every girl who has never slept with a man. Morriston says Yahweh was angered by the fact that some young Israelite men had worshiped Baal alongside their new Midianite brides, writing, “Not only must the Israelites be punished, but the Midianites must be punished for causing the Israelites to be punished.” God’s stated reasons, according to Morriston’s thinking, are inadequate.

But Morriston appears to have misread the text. First, consider his claim that the text explicitly states that God’s reason for commanding the killing of the Midianite women and boys was “spiritual infection” because “some young Israelite men had worshiped Baal alongside their new Midianite brides.” There are several problems with this.

First is the fact that, in the text Morriston cites (Num. 31:17-18), God himself does not explicitly command Israel to kill all the Midianite women and boys. God’s command to Moses regarding the Midianites is actually recorded in Numbers 25:17-18 and 31:1-2. God explicitly commands Israel to respond to the Midianites’ spiritual subterfuge by fighting against the Midianites and defeating them. The reasons why Israel is to obey isn’t the spiritual infection of women as Morriston says, but rather the fact that Midian has been hostile toward and deceived Israel.

The Numbers 31 text does not explicitly attribute the command to kill the women and boys to God, but to Moses. Morriston acknowledges this, but suggests three reasons why this observation doesn’t come to much. (1) Moses is regularly characterized as being very close to Yahweh, faithfully obeying his instructions most of the time; (2) Yahweh expresses no disapproval of anything Moses does in this story; and (3) Yahweh himself is the principal instigator of the attack on Midian.

These responses, however, are inadequate. Consider the last point first. The fact that someone is the “principal instigator” of an attack doesn’t entail that he approves of every single action that takes place within the battle in question. Similarly with 2: the lack of explicit disapproval in the text does not entail approval. Morriston’s argument is an appeal to ignorance; absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. It is not uncommon in biblical narratives for authors to describe sinful behavior without expressing explicit disapproval. In most cases, no doubt, the author expects the reader to know certain actions are right and wrong.

Finally, regarding 1, the fact that someone is portrayed in the text as close to God or faithful to him does not mean that every action he is recorded as doing is commanded or endorsed by God. Consider David, or Abraham.

A second instance of Morriston misreading the text is that not only does he attribute Moses’s reasons to God; he also misstates the reasons Moses does give in the context. The real issue is that the Midianite women had been following the devious advice of the pagan seer, Balaam, who had been explicitly commanded by God not to curse Israel. Balaam had led the Israelites into acting treacherously at Baal-Peor. This is the clearly stated issue (31:16). What occurs, when the background is taken into account, is not that some Israelites marry Midianite women, but rather these women use sex to seduce Israel into violating the terms of their covenant with God—an event that threatened Israel’s very national identity, calling, and destiny. This act was in fact deliberate.

So Morriston’s comments are far off the mark when he insists that the Midianites could not have been trying to harm the Israelites by inviting them to participate in the worship of a god in whom they obviously believed. The whole point of the exercise was to get God to curse Israel so that a military attack could be launched by Moab and Midian. The picture isn’t one of innocent Midianite brides, but acts tantamount to treason and treacherous double agents carrying on wicked subterfuge.

Note that the problem wasn’t God’s opposition to Israelites marrying Midianites per se. Indeed, Moses married Zipporah, a Midianite, and he received wise counsel from his father-in-law, Jethro, a Midianite priest.

1 Samuel 15:3: “Do Not Spare Them”

Morriston’s final example is the account of Saul’s destruction of the Amalekites in 1 Samuel 15, which he juxtaposes with Deut. 25:17-19. He rejects interpretations of the passage proposed by Stump, who suggests that God made a reckoning of what the Amalekites had done hundreds of years previously. Morriston dismisses this as unsupported speculation, which fails to do justice to the text. He writes that the implied reason for waiting a while to deal with the Amalekites has nothing to do with future Amalekite transgressions, but with the urgent need to get the Israelites safely settled in Canaan.

But Morriston’s own claim that the reason for waiting a while to deal with the Amalekites has nothing to do with future Amalekite transgressions is refuted by the text. 1 Sam. 15:18 puts the emphasis on the present wickedness of the current Amalekites. Likewise with Agag’s personal involvement in aggressive wars. In chapter 14 we see evidence of Amalek’s present aggression against Israel, and a reason for Saul’s military response.

So F&C suggest the best way to understand this passage is not just to read it alongside Deut. 25:17-19, but also alongside a passage like Jeremiah 18:7-10, which makes clear that announcements of future judgment against a nation are conditional, and can change if the nation repents. The book of Jonah makes a similar point. If prophetic pronouncements of doom are conditional, then this nicely explains what we see in 1 Samuel 15. Morriston similarly misreads 2 Kings 23:25-27.

Final Thoughts on Divine Judgment

How do we square God’s judgment with God’s love? God’s judgments are done with a heavy heart. God states emphatically that he does not take pleasure in punishing the wicked. Divine judgment can’t be characterized as indifference. Judgment is not opposed to God’s love and compassion, but rather springs from the character of a loving, caring God. F&C quote Yale Theologian Miroslav Volf, who experienced the horrors of war in the former Yugoslavia, who comments on the relationship between the two, concluding this: “Or think of Rwanda in the last decade of the past century, where 800,000 people were hacked to death in one hundred days! How did God react to the carnage? By doting on the perpetrators in a grandfatherly fashion? By refusing to condemn the bloodbath but instead affirming the perpetrators’ basic goodness? Wasn’t God fiercely angry with them? Though I used to complain about the indecency of the idea of God’s wrath, I came to think that I would have to rebel against a God who wasn’t wrathful at the sight of the world’s evil. God isn’t wrathful in spite of being love. God is wrathful because God is love.”

Son of Perdition (Matt. 27:3-5)

A Twilight Musing

Did all the powers conspire

To make me plant that kiss?

And why did what He sowed among the Twelve

Bear bitter fruit in me alone?

I was called and sanctified

And given power to exorcise—

Even held the purse for all the rest.

He alone could see the secret fires

That burned my soul away,

And yet He left me to my course

And urged me from His presence

In the Upper Room.

My doom is His to bear as well;

This day we meet in hell.

He let himself be killed,

Poured out the ointment

Meant as alms for all,

While I, at least, have

Dared to test my worth

And act my will.

Even now,

When emptiness engulfs me,

I cannot be still

Beneath the scourge of God;

I shall die on a tree

Of my own devising.

                              --Elton D. Higgs

                                (Sept. 22, 1979)

Image: "The-Last-Supper-large" by Carl Heinrich Bloch - http://www.carlbloch.org/The-Last-Supper.jpg. Licensed under Public Domain via Commons - https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:The-Last-Supper-large.jpg#/media/File:The-Last-Supper-large.jpg

Yahweh, Glory, Goodness

A Twilight Musing

There is much to learn from the following passage that tells us of Moses’ audacious request to see God in all His glory.

18 Moses said, "Please show me your glory." 19 And he said, "I will make all my goodness pass before you and will proclaim before you my name 'The Lord.' And I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and will show mercy on whom I will show mercy.” 20 “But," he said, "you cannot see my face, for man shall not see me and live." 21 And the Lord said, "Behold, there is a place by me where you shall stand on the rock, 22 and while my glory passes by I will put you in a cleft of the rock, and I will cover you with my hand until I have passed by. 23 Then I will take away my hand, and you shall see my back, but my face shall not be seen."  (Ex 33:18-23, ESV)

God has already promised (v. 14) that His presence will be with Moses as he continues to lead the people of Israel, but Moses wants to take that promise a step further and requests to see personally the very Essence of God (which he designates as His Glory).  In response, God gives him both more and less than he asked for (in my experience that is the kind of an answer God often gives).  Initially (v. 19), God seems to substitute His “goodness” and His “name” for the requested vision of His glory.  But then God makes clear in v. 22 that His “glory” still describes what Moses will be able to see indirectly when the Lord passes by him.  We may conclude, I think, that we have a triad of descriptors of God’s essential Essence, with differing but delicately interlinking nuances that equally reflect who God is.

It is understandable that after Moses’ encounter with the Glory of God on Mount Sinai he should refer to God’s Essential Self as His “glory.”  That God follows this request immediately with reference to His Goodness and His ineffable Name,  “The LORD”, seems to indicate that the Absolute Presence of God is characterized not only by His over whelming power (glory), but also by His absolute moral perfection and holiness and the irreducible and non-referential nature of the Name Above All Names (the I AM, or YHWH of Ex. 3:14).  He then reinforces this triad of Absolutes by affirming the Absolute Sovereignty of His Will, which creates and defines the actions springing from His Goodness (the graciousness and mercy that go beyond mere law and judgment).

So it turns out that Moses’ request can be met only partially, because God’s Holiness and Absolute Moral Perfection cannot be endured by sinful human beings    (“. . . man shall not see me and live”).  But on the other hand, what God does grant to Moses is even more marvelous than what he originally asked for.  God’s generous solution is for Moses to be hidden in “a cleft of the rock” while he is covered there by God’s hand, so that he can see, as it were, God’s back .  Through His Sovereign Will, the LORD reached beyond the withering force of His Glory and the fire of His Holiness to manifest His merciful Goodness to a faithful servant.  In this Sovereign act of merciful Goodness we see a foretaste of God’s eternal bridging of the gap between His holiness and fallen mankind.

Image: By Sébastien Bourdon - www.oceansbridge.com, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=10586813