[The index for the series is here.]
I am using the Pastor's titles for these posts. The appropriate links are:
[The index for the series is here.]
I am using the Pastor's titles for these posts. The appropriate links are:
[The index for the series is here.]
I am using the Pastor's titles for these posts. The appropriate links are:
[Point seven Jared Wilson's criticism of the "culture wars": (Index)]
Jared Wilson: "The 'culture war' is going to hell because . . ."
7. It makes idols of comfort and safety and propriety and power. The culture war is largely driven by fear. We’re afraid our public schools will ruin our children, we’re afraid gay people will ruin our families. We’re afraid a Democrat will ruin our country, we’re afraid liberals will ruin our neighborhoods. Now, there is nothing wrong with wanting to protect our family, and safety of course is not a bad thing. But neither is it a biblical virtue. Ditto comfort.Read more!
[The index for the series is here.]
I am using the Pastor's titles for these posts. The appropriate links are:
Luke at Common Sense Atheism is continuing his series Arguing about Evil with the post "Plantinga’s Free Will Defense". Go read that.
This was started as a comment there, and then got to long-winded to keep as a comment.
I am not going to continue blogging on the exchange as it continues. I will continue to post the links to the new letters on the original post as I see them. I was fascinated by the discussion, which is why I condensed the first 6 letters into one post. I had originally peppered that post with my own editorial comments, but then deleted them all. There are some things I want to say about the discussion and the topics raised:
I have quoted The Irrational Atheist by Vox Day in three major posts:
[The index for the series is here.]
I am using the Pastor's titles for these posts. The appropriate links are:
C.S. Lewis started his chapter on "Forgiveness" in Mere Christianity with:
I said in a previous chapter that chastity was the most unpopular of the Christian virtues. But I am not sure I was right. I believe there is one even more unpopular. It is laid down in the Christian rule, 'Thou shaft love thy neighbour as thyself.' Because in Christian morals 'thy neighbour' includes 'thy enemy,' and so we come up against this terrible duty of forgiving our enemies.Forgiveness is certainly not just a Christian virture, nor is the direction to love your enemy - many religions and spiritual disciplines share it. Indeed, I am confident that modern psychology would agree that folks who harbor unforgiveness and/or anger towards another harm themeselves far worse than object of that emotion.
Every one says forgiveness is a lovely idea, until they have something to forgive, as we had during the war. And then, to mention the subject at all is to be greeted with howls of anger. It is not that people think this too high and difficult a virtue: it is that they think it hateful and contemptible. 'That sort of talk makes them sick,' they say. And half of you already want to ask me, I wonder how you'd feel about forgiving the Gestapo if you were a Pole or a Jew?'Indeed, today in the US there are folks who would have the exact same reaction toward forgiving Republicans, or Democrats, or . . . well, you fill in your blank here. As we come out of the epidemic of Bush Derangement Syndromes, and see increasing instances - both on the right and the left - of Obama Derangement Syndrome; it might be time to look at forgiving our enemies, what that means, and why we should do it. Certainly, for a follower of Christ the need was made clear - there are so many Gospel messages (Matt, Mark, Luke, John) about forgiving not just your friends but your enemies that I will not even bother listing them here (unusual for me).
Now that I come to think of it, I have not exactly got a feeling of fondness or affection for myself, and I do not even always enjoy my own society. So apparently 'Love your neighbour' does not mean 'feel fond of him' or 'find him attractive'. I ought to have seen that before, because, of course, you cannot feel fond of a person by trying. Do I think well of myself, think myself a nice chap? Well, I am afraid I sometimes do (and those are, no doubt, my worst moments) but that is not why I love myself. In fact it is the other way round: my self-love makes me think myself nice, but thinking myself nice is not why I love myself. So loving my, enemies does not apparently mean thinking them nice either. That is an enormous relief. For a good many people imagine that forgiving your enemies means making out that they are really not such bad fellows after all, when it is quite plain that they are. Go a step further. In my most clear-sighted moments not only do I not think myself a nice man, but I know that I am a very nasty one. I can look at some of the things I have done with horror and loathing. So apparently I am allowed to loathe and hate some of the things my enemies do. Now that I come to think of it, I remember Christian teachers telling me long ago that I must hate a bad man's actions, but not hate the bad man: or, as they would say, hate the sin but not the sinner.Again, this may be the way to love our enemies - but the title of this post is based on the result that Lewis saw if we do not.
For a long time I used to think this a silly, straw-splitting distinction: how could you hate what a man did and not hate the man? But years later it occurred to me that there was one man to whom I had been doing this all my life - namely myself. However much I might dislike my own cowardice or conceit or greed, I went on loving myself. There had never been the slightest difficulty about it. In fact the very reason why I hated the things was that I loved the man. Just because I loved myself, I was sorry to find that I was the sort of man who did those things. Consequently, Christianity does not want us to reduce by one atom the hatred we feel for cruelty and treachery. We ought to hate them. Not one word of what we have said about them needs to be unsaid. But it does want us to hate them in the same way in which we hate things in ourselves: being sorry that the man should have done such things, and hoping, if it is anyway possible, that somehow, sometime, somewhere he can be cured and made human again.
Suppose one reads a story of filthy atrocities in the paper. Then suppose that something turns up suggesting that the story might not be quite true, or not quite so bad ass it was made out. Is one's first feeling, `Thank God, even they aren't quite so bad as that,' or is it a feeling of disappointment, and even a determination to cling to the first story for the sheer pleasure of thinking your enemies as bad as possible? If it is the second then it is, I am afraid, the first step in a process which, if followed to the end, will make us into devils. You see, one is beginning to wish that black was a little blacker. If we give that wish its head, later on we shall wish to see grey as black, and then to see white itself as black. Finally, we shall insist on seeing everything - God and our friends and ourselves included - as bad, and not be able to stop doing it: we shall be fixed for ever in a universe of pure hatred. . .Again, I do not think modern secular psychology would disagree - hatred and anger eat up the person feeling without real harm to the one it is felt about. To paraphrase Michael Hargrove, a success trainer,
. . . what really matters is those little marks or twists on the central, inside part of the soul which are going to turn it, in the long run, into a heavenly or a hellish creature . . . In other words, something inside us, the feeling of resentment, the feeling that wants to get one's own back, must be simply killed. I do not mean that anyone can decide this moment that he will never feel it any more. That is not how things happen. I mean that every time it bobs its head up, day after day, year after year, all our lives long, we must hit it on the head. It is hard work, but the attempt is not impossible . . . we must try to feel about the enemy as we feel about ourselves - to wish that he were not bad, to hope that he may, in this world or another, be cured in fact, to wish his good. That is what is meant in the Bible by loving him: wishing his good, not feeling fond of him nor saying he is nice when he is not.
if you feel anger toward someone for over a day - it is you that have the problem and not the person you are angry at. You are locked into "the problem" rather than seeking "the solution"Read more!
[Crossposted to Street Prophets. The index for the series is here.]
I am using Carl Palmer's titles for these posts. The appropriate links are:
Notes:From the Note Sheet: Going deeper in the word . . .
1 tn Grk “much in every way.”
2 tc ‡ Most witnesses (א A D2 33 M) have γάρ (gar) after μέν (men), though some significant Alexandrian and Western witnesses lack the conjunction (B D* G Ψ 81 365 1506 2464* pc latt). A few mss have γάρ, but not μέν (6 1739 1881). γάρ was frequently added by scribes as a clarifying conjunction, making it suspect here. NA27 has the γάρ in brackets, indicating doubt as to its authenticity.
tn Grk “first indeed that.”
3 tn Grk “they were.”
4 tn The referent of λόγια (logia, “oracles”) has been variously understood: (1) BDAG 598 s.v. λόγιον takes the term to refer here to “God’s promises to the Jews”; (2) some have taken this to refer more narrowly to the national promises of messianic salvation given to Israel (so S. L. Johnson, Jr., “Studies in Romans: Part VII: The Jews and the Oracles of God,” BSac 130 [1973]: 245); (3) perhaps the most widespread interpretation sees the term as referring to the entire OT generally.
5 tn Grk “every man”; but ἄνθρωπος (anthrōpos) is used in a generic sense here to stress humanity rather than masculinity.
6 tn Grk “Let God be true, and every man a liar.” The words “proven” and “shown up” are supplied in the translation to clarify the meaning.
7 tn Grk “might be justified,” a subjunctive verb, but in this type of clause it carries the same sense as the future indicative verb in the latter part. “Will” is more idiomatic in contemporary English.
8 tn Or “prevail when you judge.” A quotation from Ps 51:4.
9 tn Or “shows clearly.”
10 tn Grk “That God is not unjust to inflict wrath, is he?”
11 sn The same expression occurs in Gal 3:15, and similar phrases in Rom 6:19 and 1 Cor 9:8.
12 tn Grk “abounded unto.”
13 tn Grk “(as we are slandered and some affirm that we say…).”
14 tn Grk “whose.” Because of the length and complexity of the Greek sentence, this relative clause was rendered as a new sentence in the translation.
Biblical Studies Press. (2006; 2006). The NET Bible First Edition; Bible. English. NET Bible.; The NET Bible. Biblical Studies Press.
4 . . . To them belong the adoption as sons, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the temple worship, and the promises. 5 To them belong the patriarchs, and from them, by human descent, came the Christ, who is God over all, blessed forever! Amen.Carl points out that God has given the Jews tremendous blessings. They were given the Law and the prophets so that they could have three great priviledges:
In the series The Problem (?) with Evil I have focused on God's disconnect from the cause of evil - us actually. It really isn't part of the question of whether the existence of evil proves the non-existence of an all-good, all-knowing, and all-powerful God - but the question of what God does to promote good and discourage evil amongst the creatures that were "made in his image" is an important one.
Obviously, as Santiago put it in the Street Prophet's comment threads, it would be "less than satisfying" if God just sat back and watched while we used our freedom to do evil to each other. Not only that, there has to be mechanisms by which God uses us to accomplish his aims even in, and using, people who do not believe in him. So the question here is: Does God Actively Encourage Good and Constrain Evil?
I believe God does. Two of the four witnesses God uses are forms of conscience: According to theologians of the Middle Ages (5th century to 15th century), the conscience is divided into two parts. Synderesis (probably a misreading of suneidesis) is the faculty in human beings that knows God's moral law; this faculty remained unaffected by the Fall and the expulsion from the Garden of Eden. Conscientia is the faculty by which human beings apply the moral to concrete cases; it dictates what should or should not be done under particular circumstances. Whereas synderesis cannot err, conscientia is fallible - Encarta
So:
Deep conscience is the reason a person who says they do not believe in right and wrong may shrink from murder; why even a man who murders may have pangs of remorse; and why even if the man has deadened himself to remorse shows other symptoms of deep-buried guilty knowledge.
However, even if we twist our deep conscience at the surface conscience level in the above ways it still is there to point us the right direction and convict us of wrong actions.
Conscience has a number of faces:
The most common way this happens is through the first fury: remorse . . .this is the least of the furies: we do not always feel remorse when we do wrong, and some people never feel it. Even if we do not feel remorse, guilty knowledge generates objective needs for confession, atonement, reconciliation, and justification. These other furies are the greater sisters of remorse: inflexible, inexorable, and relentless, demanding satisfaction even when mere feelings are suppressed, fade away, or never come. This leads to the most harrowing mode:
Our conscience therefore acts as teacher, judge, or executioner depending on the mode it operates in. It is also one witness to the character and plan of God - as said above our deep conscience is
If we do not do "feed" the furies the right way; then they will be fed in some other way - driving our lives further out of kilter. For example: the faculty in human beings that knows God's moral law; this faculty remained unaffected by the Fall and the expulsion from the Garden of Eden.
However, whatever one thinks the source of deep conscience is - the actions of deep conscience are clear: "pursued by the five furies, a man becomes both wickeder and stupider in a progressively downward spiral: more wicked because his behavior becomes worse, more stupid because he tells himself more lies. Of course, he intended to become wicker and stupider - that is what obstinacy and denial are all about." -- J. Budziszewski.
J. Bud points out (as anyone who has experienced redemption by "bottoming out" will know) the persons only hope is to become even wickeder and stupider than planned - to become so wretched that they come to themselves.
I am starting the fifth post in a series on the apologetics surrounding whether or not God's existence, or at least His existence as a good God, can be disproven because of the existence of evil. I have been following Norman Geisler and Ronald Brooks treatment of the issue in When Skeptics Ask
This has not been a series about:
The extent of evil poses a problem. Surely there doesn't have to be this much evil to fulfill God's purposes. Couldn't there have been one less rape, one less drunk driver? That wouid have made the world better. And, of course, that "one-less" theory can be extended until there is no evil at all. This can even be taken to the extreme case: What about hell? Wouldn't it be better to have one less person in hell? Since both of these questions have the same answer, lets deal with the extreme case.Social/political: Society, parents, etc. also cannot force folks not to do evil. As Geisler points out, it really is the person doing the evils decision. Certainly, there are things society can, and cannot, do in order to limit the instances of evil folks choose to do - but it still comes down to the choices folks make everyday.To answer this objection, we go back to the subject of free will. It is true that God desires all men to be saved, but that means that they have to choose to love Him and believe in Him. Now, God can't force anyone to love Him. Forced love is a contradiction in terms. Love must be free: it is a free choice. So in spite of God's desire, some men do not choose to love Him. All who go to hell do so because of their free choice. They may not want to go to hell (who would?), but they do will it. They make the decision to reject God, even though they don't desire punishment. People don't go to hell because God sends them; they choose it and God respects their freedom.
- The greatest good is to save all men.
- Even one person in hell would be less than the greatest good.
- Therefore, God cannot send anyone to hell.
"There are two kinds of people in the end: those who say to God, 'Thy will be done,' and those to whom God says, in the end, 'Thy will be done.' All that are in hell, chose it." -- C.S. Lewis, The Great DivorceNow if that is how eternal destiny is decided, then it is not one person in hell that is evil; it is one more than is really necessary (i.e., one who did choose God but was sent to hell anyway). Granted, a world in which some men go to hell is not the best of all conceivable worlds, but it may be the best of all achievable worlds if free will is to be maintained [my emphasis]. Likewise, the world might be made better by one less crime, but it must be left to the would-be criminal to make that choice.
Part I examined what evil is; Part II what causes evil; and part III why God has not yet destroyed evil. However, for most folks the "why" is more about . . .
Part II looked at Where Evil Came From - with the conclusion that we, as moral creatures, are the cause of evil through the actions taken by our free will. We are therefore responsible - as moral creatures - for our actions and the good, and bad, results of those actions.
The next question Geisler and Brooks approach in Chapter 4 of When Skeptics Ask is
I am following Norman Geisler and Ronald Brooks discussion in When Skeptics Ask on the problem of evil.
The comment that started me thinking on this was:
To me, the "problem of theodicy" is one that offers a devastating and unrebuttable logical argument against the notion that a god could be omniscient (all-knowing), omnipotent (all-powerful), and omni-benevolent (all-loving) all at the same time, and yet evil in the world could still exist. Few Christians (in my experience), be they Catholic, Protestant, Mormon, or any other variation, would stipulate that their idea of God excludes any of those attributes. Yet when I have presented the theodicy problem to them, I must confess the cognitive dissonance they experience when confronted with the logical inconsistency therein has been painful to watch.While this issue has never caused my any discernable dissonance - I think he is right that the existence of evil is a difficult theological problem
In the beginning was God and He was perfect. Then the perfect God made a perfect world. How did evil come into play? Let us summarize the problem this way:Geisler examines the truth that what makes men morally perfect is choice - we are free to chose what we do. This is because it allows us to love freely; because forced love is rape. Also, if we have no choice there is no morality at all - the concepts of moral and immoral are meaningless without choice.
. . . Some have concluded that there must be some force equal to God or beyond his control. Or maybe God isn't good after all. But maybe the prolem lies with the conception of perfection itself.
- Every creature God made is perfect
- Perfect creatures cannot do what is imperfect
- So, every creature God made cannot do what is imperfect
- God made everything perfect
- One of the perfect things God made was free creatures
- Free will is the cause of evil
- So, imperfection (evil) can arise from perfection (not directly, but indirectly through freedom)
That doesn't make Him [God] responsible for evil. He created the fact of freedom; we perform the acts of freedom. He made evil possible; men made evil actual. Imperfection came through our abuse of our moral perfection as free creatures.Geisler defines free will as follows:
. . . a better definition is that it is the ability to decide between alternatives. Desire is a passion, an emotion; but will is a choice between two or more desires . . . Freedom is not in unlimited options, but in unfettered choice between whatever options there are. As long as the choosing comes from the individual rather than an outside force, the decision is made freely. Free will means the ability to make an unforced decision between two or more alternatives.The social/political ramifications of this are that we were created to make free choices between good and evil; and we are responsible for those choices.
When we sin, ultimately we (by our wills) are the [first] cause of the evil we do. -- GeislerNeither the Devil or anybody else forced the act (or it wasn't free - and therefore had no moral content whatsoever). However, God is good and perfect so . . .
Part I: What is Evil?: Brain Cramps, Street Prophets
Part II: Where did evil come from?: Brain Cramps, Street Prophets
Part III: Why Can't Evil be Stopped?: Brain Cramps, Street Prophets
Part IV: What is the Purpose of Evil?: Brain Cramps, Street Prophets
Part V: Does there have to be so much evil? Brain Cramps, Street Prophets
Sidetrack: Does God actively encourage good and constrain evil? Brain Cramps, Street Prophets
Is the existence of evil an insurmountable "defeater" for belief in God - or more particularly a
logical argument against the notion that a god could be omniscient (all-knowing), omnipotent (all-powerful), and omni-benevolent (all-loving) all at the same timeIt is not that the "problem of evil" is a new thing - theologians have been discussing it for thousands of years. Indeed, just about as long as folks have believed that God was
omniscient (all-knowing), omnipotent (all-powerful), and omni-benevolent (all-loving) all at the same timeSomehow Christians have continued to believe that God is "all that and a bag of chips" even with the evil in the world. Are we fools just waiting for this fate:
Yet when I have presented the theodicy problem to them, I must confess the cognitive dissonance they experience when confronted with the logical inconsistency therein has been painful to watch.The general theological answer is expressed well here:
My own approach assumes that God can do all things, but not all things at once without doing violence to some of them. For instance, God can't make 2+2=4, and 2+2=5, both be true without fundamentally changing the concept of either 2, 4, 5, plus, or equals. Thus, I conclude that the existence of evil was the byproduct of some other condition that God desired to bring about in creation. The work of theology then would be to attempt to develop an understanding of what that desired condition was, and how it was that the existence of evil was a necessary byproduct thereof.In the past I have pointed to a list of books recommended to me by one of my pastors. One of those books is When Skeptics Ask, by Norman Geisler and Ronald Brooks. Chapter 4 is "Questions about Evil". I am going to go through Geisler and Brooks arguments in a series of posts; but first I want to deal with what I am trying to accomplish.
I cannot say why God chose how he chose - all I can do is offer one (of many) logical arguments about why He might have done what He did.All it takes is one in fact, and there are many answers.
The first premise is true. So it appears that in order to deny the conclusion we have to deny the reality of evil (as the pantheists do). But we can deny that evil is a thing, or substance, without saying that it isn't real. It is a lack in things. When good that should be there is missing from something, that is evil. After all, if I am missing a wart on my nose, that is not evil because the wart should not have been there in the first place. However, if a man lacks the ability to see, that is evil. Likewise, if a person lacks the kindness in his heart and respect for human life that should be there, then he may commit murder. Evil is, in reality, a parasite that cannot exist except as a hole in something that should be solid.Augustine was a bit more dialectic in his argument than Geisler/Brooks:
In some cases, though, evil is more easily explained as a case of bad relationships. If I pick up a good gun, put in a good bullet, point it at my good head, put my good finger on the good trigger and give it a good pull. . . a bad relationship results. The things involved are not evil in themselves, but the relationship between the good things is definitely lacking something. In this case, the lack comes about because the things are not being used as they ought to be. Guns should not be used for indiscriminate killing, but are fine for recreation. My head was not meant to be used for target practice. Similarly, there is nothing wrong with strong winds moving in a circle, but a bad relationship arises when the funnel of wind goes through a mobile home park. Bad relationships are bad because the relationship is lacking something, so our definition of evil still holds. Evil is a lack of something that should be there in the relationship between good things.
What is evil? Perhaps you will reply, Corruption. Undeniably this is a general definition of evil; for corruption implies opposition to nature; and also hurt. But corruption exists not by itself, but in some substance which it corrupts; for corruption itself is not a substance. So the thing which it corrupts is not corruption, is not evil; for what is corrupted suffers loss of integrity and purity. So that which has no purity to lose cannot be corrupted; and what has, is necessarily good by the participation of purity. Again, what is corrupted is perverted; and what is perverted suffers loss of order; and order is good. To be corrupted, then does not imply the absence of good; for in corruption it can be deprived of good, which could not be if there was the absence of good." - Augustine, On the Morals of the Manichaens, 5.7.The social/political implications of this are obvious to me: if you believe Evil is a thing or a separate force then you are almost committed to destroying what you see as evil upon deciding it is such. However, if you believe evil is a lack of good (or a "hole" in the good), or a corruption of good - then you can believe focus on the good and attempt to fill the hole or heal the corruption. C.S. Lewis touched on this in Mere Christianity :
In other words, something inside us, the feeling of resentment, the feeling that wants to get one's own back, must be simply killed. I do not mean that anyone can decide this moment that he will never feel it any more. That is not how things happen. I mean that every time it bobs its head up, day after day, year after year, all our lives long, we must hit it on the head. It is hard work, but the attempt is not impossible. Even while we kill and punish we must try to feel about the enemy as we feel about ourselves - to wish that he were not bead, to hope that he may, in this world or another, be cured in fact, to wish his good. That is what is meant in the Bible by loving him: wishing his good, not feeling fond of him nor saying he is nice when he is not.
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