When it comes to creation, a number of Christians have sought to reconcile God’s creation in Genesis 1 with scientific observations about evolution, i.e. God creates a process of evolution which he sovereignly controls to bring about his intended creation ‘according to their kinds’. Whether you agree with evolution or not, the principle of God’s transcendence over nature can be accepted. How does God ‘send the rain’? By his sovereign control of a natural weather process. Natural processes in nature are not miraculous, but God is still sovereign over them. A number of Christians have also applied this principle to the ten plagues: whatever changed the Nile to blood brought a plague of frogs, this imbalance in the ecosystem brought a plague of gnats, which in turn brought a plague of flies etc. This doesn’t deny God’s agency (especially because it was predicted through Moses), but can even lead us to appreciate God’s sovereignty through the natural rather than the supernatural.
God’s hands are not tied, he is free to work by a visible hand of miracles or an invisible hand of providence. Only a belief in the god of the gaps (that science can’t explain) seeks to contain the works of God to the miraculous. If this is the case then God has been quite silent for a number of centuries, despite the claim of so many that God has worked in their lives. Of course God can and does do miracles, but he is not limited to only doing miracles. God can work through ordinary people and events to do the extraordinary e.g. reveal himself to someone by their reading of the Bible. Many Old Testament narratives (e.g. Ruth, Ezra, Nehemiah, Esther) reveal God’s work in salvation history through people without supernatural intervention. God works out everything (both natural and supernatural) in conformity with the purpose of his will (Ephesians 1:11).
In this understanding of God’s transcendence, we can begin to approach the problem of God’s sovereignty and human responsibility. How can people be held responsible if God is sovereign over everything (including people)? Because his sovereignty is transcendent to our responsibility, it’s not that the more sovereign he is the less responsible we are, but that he uses our choices (for which we are responsible) to bring about his sovereign will. God’s sovereignty and human responsibility are not in tension but in parallel. God’s will is achieved not instead of human will or because of human will, but through human will, i.e. God is sovereignty is achieved through the very thing that makes us responsible, our will. As people we can do things for God or against God, but never instead of God. God’s sovereignty and human responsibility are parallel such that they never meet in a point of tension where one must trump the other, but rather one (God’s sovereignty) is realised through the other (human responsibility).
At this point, many will be starting to feel uncomfortable with describing human will and responsibility in such mechanistic terms. If God uses our will to achieve his, doesn’t that mean that he is the agent and we’re the mechanisms? It’s starting to sound like an emphasis on God’s sovereignty at the expense of human responsibility i.e. that we’re just robots and therefore should be held accountable for the things that we do. However, this understanding comes from an oversimplification of the complexities of freedom. To have free will is not necessarily the same thing as being free. The Bible describes humanity as having free will (in that we’re responsible for our actions), but as slaves to sin (in that left to ourselves, no one would choose to obey God).
Augustine first distinguished between the freedom of humanity before the fall and their freedom (or lack thereof) after the fall. As a result of the first sin, man lost his liberty but not his free will. Fallen man is in the bondage of sin. He still has the faculty of choosing, a will free from coercion, but now is free only to sin, because his desires are inclined only toward sin and away from God. Viewed in this way, sin is wilful disobedience and therefore we are responsible for it. God is sovereign over our will in that he can move our will to obey (wilful obedience), or hand it over to its desire (wilful disobedience). Either way, God’s will transcends ours. It’s never God’s will or our will, but God’s will through our will.
Confusion often comes because we describe both God’s sovereignty and human responsibility in terms of will (God’s sovereign will and our free will). This often leads to a tug of war between God’s sovereign will and human free will, but this is an oversimplification of God’s sovereignty. Augustine wrote that what the heart desires, the will chooses and the mind justifies. Our choices and our will begin in our heart, but even the king’s heart is in the hand of the Lord, he directs it like a watercourse wherever he pleases (Proverbs 21:1). Why does the heart want what the heart want? Do we have any control over the desires of our heart? Free will is often understood as being able to follow the desires of your heart. To be free is to be free to follow our heart, what we delight in. In this, we are quite different from robots following pre-programmed instructions. We have desires in our hearts that move our will. This I think, is what God transforms in us. He removes our hearts of stone and gives us a heart of flesh (Ezekiel 36:26), but also tells us to set our hearts on things above (Colossians 3:1) and that if we delight ourselves in the Lord, then he will give us the desires of our heart (Psalm 37:4).
Thursday, March 29, 2012
Thursday, February 9, 2012
God's Will Against Evil and Through Evil
Recently I was reading about some different views on creation (the first thing) and eschatology (the last things). In the Triune Creator, Colin Gunton identifies three views on how these two doctrines relate: eschatology as a return to the good creation, as perfection of creation, and as the completion of God’s creation (Gunton, The Triune Creator p11-12). While I struggle to see the tension in these views, Gunton distinguishes the first view (eschatology as a return) in seeing the fall as a step backwards that redemption overcomes, whereas the other two (eschatology as a perfection/completion) as seeing the fall as a step forwards towards God’s new creation. Which one is it? Is the fall a step in the wrong direction that God overcomes, or a step in the right direction towards a better new creation?
An emphasis on the first view (the fall is a step backwards) leads to a weakening of God’s sovereignty, as if a good creation is plan A but our sin necessitates plan B – redemption. However an emphasis on the second (the fall as a step forwards in God’s plan) leads to a weakening of God’s benevolence, as if God is the orchestrator of evil. Or does it? It all depends on how active or passive God was in the fall. If God forced Adam’s hand dooming humanity to sin, evil and eternal condemnation then his benevolence is hard to maintain. But if Adam (and humanity in Adam) freely chose sin then the consequences are on his (and our) own head. Thus the question becomes whose choice was Adam’s sin, Adam’s or God’s?
This leads us to the heart of the perceived tension between God’s sovereignty and human responsibility. The Bible portrays God as sovereign over everything, he works out everything (including evil) in conformity with the purpose of his will (Eph 1:11) and that in all things God works for the good of those who love him (Rom 8:28). But at the same time people are held responsible for what we do and will be judged according to what we have done (Matt 16:27, Rom 2:6, Rev 22:12). How can these be held without drawing a dichotomy between these biblical truths? I think it all depends on how you understand God’s will and our will – where they intersect/overlap and where God’s will transcends our will.
Obviously our wills are our own and we’re responsible for how we exercise them (otherwise you couldn’t hold anybody accountable for anything). In this, our wills can be aligned with God’s will or opposed to it. The commands given in the Bible presuppose that we are able to do them (Deut 30:11-15). Ought implies can, on hearing God’s word it’s up to us to put it into practice (Matt 7:24-27). However while religion might restrain your heart, the gospel changes your heart. Christians don’t obey in order to be saved, but because we’ve been saved. Our actions don’t change despite an unchanged will, but because of what God has done for us our wills are changed. Christians are those who offer their lives in view of God’s mercy to be transformed so that our will is to do God’s good, perfect and pleasing will (Rom 12:2). In this, God’s will transcends ours. God softens our hearts (Ezk 11:19; 36:26) and moves our will, even the kings heart is in the hands of the Lord (Prov 21:1).
Just as the account of creation is given from a heavenly perspective (Gen 2:4a – this is the account of the heavens and the earth) and an earthly perspective (Gen 2:4b – when the Lord God made the earth and the heavens), so too the Bible portrays our will and actions from the vantage points of God’s heavenly perspective and our earthly perspective (Prov 16:9). These are not two different things to draw a dichotomy between but rather the same thing from two different perspectives. From our perspective on the ground we have real agency, but the Bible also gives us glimpses of God’s perspective in which he uses our agency as a mechanism for his agency. God is so sovereign that his plans are worked out through our plans, not despite them. For example, how does God keep his people from being snatched out of his hand (John 10:28-29)? Is it by his warnings in the Bible, or by his Spirit changing our hearts, or by the people and circumstances that he puts in our lives, or by our decision to persevere? God can (and does) use any and every means to achieve his purposes, even evil to achieve good (Gen 50:20, Acts 2:23).
And so from our perspective evil is a real hindrance to good and the fall is a definite step backwards. But there are two parts to God’s will, God’s command will was (and is) for us to avoid sin and to worship him, but God’s plan will is to use both our obedience and even our disobedience to the praise of his glorious grace (Rom 5:18-21; 11:30-32). God created us with the ability to choose between good and evil knowing that we would choose evil, but also knowing how his good might be displayed in and through our actions. God’s sovereignty is such that he uses both good and evil as steps forward in his good plan. As Augustine puts it, the God and Lord of all things, who created all things exceedingly good and foreknew that evil things would rise out of good, and also knew that it pertained to his most omnipotent goodness to bring good out of evil things rather than not to permit evil things to be (Augustine, On Rebuke and Grace 10.27).
An emphasis on the first view (the fall is a step backwards) leads to a weakening of God’s sovereignty, as if a good creation is plan A but our sin necessitates plan B – redemption. However an emphasis on the second (the fall as a step forwards in God’s plan) leads to a weakening of God’s benevolence, as if God is the orchestrator of evil. Or does it? It all depends on how active or passive God was in the fall. If God forced Adam’s hand dooming humanity to sin, evil and eternal condemnation then his benevolence is hard to maintain. But if Adam (and humanity in Adam) freely chose sin then the consequences are on his (and our) own head. Thus the question becomes whose choice was Adam’s sin, Adam’s or God’s?
This leads us to the heart of the perceived tension between God’s sovereignty and human responsibility. The Bible portrays God as sovereign over everything, he works out everything (including evil) in conformity with the purpose of his will (Eph 1:11) and that in all things God works for the good of those who love him (Rom 8:28). But at the same time people are held responsible for what we do and will be judged according to what we have done (Matt 16:27, Rom 2:6, Rev 22:12). How can these be held without drawing a dichotomy between these biblical truths? I think it all depends on how you understand God’s will and our will – where they intersect/overlap and where God’s will transcends our will.
Obviously our wills are our own and we’re responsible for how we exercise them (otherwise you couldn’t hold anybody accountable for anything). In this, our wills can be aligned with God’s will or opposed to it. The commands given in the Bible presuppose that we are able to do them (Deut 30:11-15). Ought implies can, on hearing God’s word it’s up to us to put it into practice (Matt 7:24-27). However while religion might restrain your heart, the gospel changes your heart. Christians don’t obey in order to be saved, but because we’ve been saved. Our actions don’t change despite an unchanged will, but because of what God has done for us our wills are changed. Christians are those who offer their lives in view of God’s mercy to be transformed so that our will is to do God’s good, perfect and pleasing will (Rom 12:2). In this, God’s will transcends ours. God softens our hearts (Ezk 11:19; 36:26) and moves our will, even the kings heart is in the hands of the Lord (Prov 21:1).
Just as the account of creation is given from a heavenly perspective (Gen 2:4a – this is the account of the heavens and the earth) and an earthly perspective (Gen 2:4b – when the Lord God made the earth and the heavens), so too the Bible portrays our will and actions from the vantage points of God’s heavenly perspective and our earthly perspective (Prov 16:9). These are not two different things to draw a dichotomy between but rather the same thing from two different perspectives. From our perspective on the ground we have real agency, but the Bible also gives us glimpses of God’s perspective in which he uses our agency as a mechanism for his agency. God is so sovereign that his plans are worked out through our plans, not despite them. For example, how does God keep his people from being snatched out of his hand (John 10:28-29)? Is it by his warnings in the Bible, or by his Spirit changing our hearts, or by the people and circumstances that he puts in our lives, or by our decision to persevere? God can (and does) use any and every means to achieve his purposes, even evil to achieve good (Gen 50:20, Acts 2:23).
And so from our perspective evil is a real hindrance to good and the fall is a definite step backwards. But there are two parts to God’s will, God’s command will was (and is) for us to avoid sin and to worship him, but God’s plan will is to use both our obedience and even our disobedience to the praise of his glorious grace (Rom 5:18-21; 11:30-32). God created us with the ability to choose between good and evil knowing that we would choose evil, but also knowing how his good might be displayed in and through our actions. God’s sovereignty is such that he uses both good and evil as steps forward in his good plan. As Augustine puts it, the God and Lord of all things, who created all things exceedingly good and foreknew that evil things would rise out of good, and also knew that it pertained to his most omnipotent goodness to bring good out of evil things rather than not to permit evil things to be (Augustine, On Rebuke and Grace 10.27).
Monday, January 30, 2012
The Problem of Good
Having written on the problem of evil and then recently on the origin of evil and the origin of good, I feel, for the sake of completeness, the need to discuss the problem of good, or as it’s commonly known, the problem of grace. The problem of grace flows from a rigid theology of recompense – that God only gives people what they deserve all the time. While it’s true that people reap what they sow (Galatians 6:7) and that we’re responsible for our actions (Romans 2:6), this doesn’t mean that God can’t (or doesn’t) give people good things that they don’t deserve (grace), even though God doesn’t give people bad things that they don’t deserve (unjust punishment).
The two (grace and unjust punishment) are often confused when the problem of grace is posed. For if God gives good things to one, isn’t he unjust in withholding them from another? How can God bless first world countries with so much while there are so many third world countries in poverty? When phrased like this, the problem of good becomes the problem of evil “how can God allow evil?” with the addition of “while God is good to some”. Those who pose the problem want God to either judge universally or forgive universally, but forbid him to judge one and forgive another, unless of course the one posing the question is (for whatever reason) against the one being judged and for the one being forgiven.
This is well articulated in the Bible in the book of Jonah, when Jonah (finally) gets to Ninevah and preaches, the people repent and God forgives them. But Jonah was greatly displeased and became angry. He prayed to the LORD, “O Lord, is this not what I said when I was still at home? That is why I was so quick to flee to Tarshish. I knew that you are a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger and abounding in love, a God who relents from sending calamity (Jonah 4:1-2). In Jonah’s eyes the people didn’t deserve God’s grace, however this is a contradiction in terms, for grace itself means undeserved favour. No one deserves grace by definition, if something is given by grace, then it is not by works (and therefore deserved), if it were, grace would no longer be grace (Romans 11:6).
It is from this misunderstanding that the problem is posed, for it only becomes a problem when the one posing it feels that the good that is given to them and withheld from others is deserved. That is, that those who are without are getting what they don’t deserve (unjust punishment) rather than the case being that the beneficiary is getting what they don’t deserve (grace). By this rationale its quiet unfair that God creates dogs as dogs and beetles as beetles. Why does God bestow the intelligence, reason, creativity, relational nature, ability to communicate (and so much more) on you, but not on fluffy the sheep? How unjust!
Jesus illustrates this well in the parable of the workers in the vineyard (Matthew 20:1-16). When those who work for the last hour receive the same (previously agreed upon) amount as those who worked for the whole day, they began to grumble against the landowner. ‘These men who were hired last worked only one hour,’ they said, ‘and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the work and the heat of the day.’ “But he answered one of them, ‘Friend, I am not being unfair to you. Didn’t you agree to work for a denarius? Take your pay and go. I want to give the man who was hired last the same as I gave you. Don’t I have the right to do what I want with my own money? Or are you envious because I am generous? (Matthew 20:11-15).
This parable overcomes the objection to predestination (that God chooses whom his grace falls on) and its corollary double predestination (that God chooses whom his justice falls on). For if God’s justice is deserved and his grace is undeserved, then God never gives to anyone worse than they deserve, though he does save some from the treacherous fate that we make for ourselves. Jesus explains this to some people who tell him about some others who suffered injustice. Jesus answered, “Do you think that these Galileans were worse sinners than all the other Galileans because they suffered this way? I tell you, no! But unless you repent, you too will all perish. Or those eighteen who died when the tower in Siloam fell on them—do you think they were more guilty than all the others living in Jerusalem? I tell you, no! But unless you repent, you too will all perish.” (Luke 13:2-5).
God’s justice is not unfair, what’s undeserved is God’s grace. Once you see everything as being given to you rather than being owed to you, the problem of grace disappears. You see God’s grace as it really is – undeserved favour, and God’s justice as it really is – deserved judgment. Knowing this we rightly fear God’s justice but rejoice at his grace, freely bestowed on all who call on the name of the Lord (Acts 2:2, Romans 10:13). Once we see the truth of Jesus’ words, that unless we repent, we too will perish, we see that far from God’s grace being a problem, it’s the only solution to the biggest problem that we have – death.
The two (grace and unjust punishment) are often confused when the problem of grace is posed. For if God gives good things to one, isn’t he unjust in withholding them from another? How can God bless first world countries with so much while there are so many third world countries in poverty? When phrased like this, the problem of good becomes the problem of evil “how can God allow evil?” with the addition of “while God is good to some”. Those who pose the problem want God to either judge universally or forgive universally, but forbid him to judge one and forgive another, unless of course the one posing the question is (for whatever reason) against the one being judged and for the one being forgiven.
This is well articulated in the Bible in the book of Jonah, when Jonah (finally) gets to Ninevah and preaches, the people repent and God forgives them. But Jonah was greatly displeased and became angry. He prayed to the LORD, “O Lord, is this not what I said when I was still at home? That is why I was so quick to flee to Tarshish. I knew that you are a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger and abounding in love, a God who relents from sending calamity (Jonah 4:1-2). In Jonah’s eyes the people didn’t deserve God’s grace, however this is a contradiction in terms, for grace itself means undeserved favour. No one deserves grace by definition, if something is given by grace, then it is not by works (and therefore deserved), if it were, grace would no longer be grace (Romans 11:6).
It is from this misunderstanding that the problem is posed, for it only becomes a problem when the one posing it feels that the good that is given to them and withheld from others is deserved. That is, that those who are without are getting what they don’t deserve (unjust punishment) rather than the case being that the beneficiary is getting what they don’t deserve (grace). By this rationale its quiet unfair that God creates dogs as dogs and beetles as beetles. Why does God bestow the intelligence, reason, creativity, relational nature, ability to communicate (and so much more) on you, but not on fluffy the sheep? How unjust!
Jesus illustrates this well in the parable of the workers in the vineyard (Matthew 20:1-16). When those who work for the last hour receive the same (previously agreed upon) amount as those who worked for the whole day, they began to grumble against the landowner. ‘These men who were hired last worked only one hour,’ they said, ‘and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the work and the heat of the day.’ “But he answered one of them, ‘Friend, I am not being unfair to you. Didn’t you agree to work for a denarius? Take your pay and go. I want to give the man who was hired last the same as I gave you. Don’t I have the right to do what I want with my own money? Or are you envious because I am generous? (Matthew 20:11-15).
This parable overcomes the objection to predestination (that God chooses whom his grace falls on) and its corollary double predestination (that God chooses whom his justice falls on). For if God’s justice is deserved and his grace is undeserved, then God never gives to anyone worse than they deserve, though he does save some from the treacherous fate that we make for ourselves. Jesus explains this to some people who tell him about some others who suffered injustice. Jesus answered, “Do you think that these Galileans were worse sinners than all the other Galileans because they suffered this way? I tell you, no! But unless you repent, you too will all perish. Or those eighteen who died when the tower in Siloam fell on them—do you think they were more guilty than all the others living in Jerusalem? I tell you, no! But unless you repent, you too will all perish.” (Luke 13:2-5).
God’s justice is not unfair, what’s undeserved is God’s grace. Once you see everything as being given to you rather than being owed to you, the problem of grace disappears. You see God’s grace as it really is – undeserved favour, and God’s justice as it really is – deserved judgment. Knowing this we rightly fear God’s justice but rejoice at his grace, freely bestowed on all who call on the name of the Lord (Acts 2:2, Romans 10:13). Once we see the truth of Jesus’ words, that unless we repent, we too will perish, we see that far from God’s grace being a problem, it’s the only solution to the biggest problem that we have – death.
Thursday, December 1, 2011
The Origin of Good
One of the biggest challenges for atheism is the origin of good, that is, if we all got here by the strong eating the weak in evolution, then why do we cry out when we see the strong eating the weak in society? If we accept Dawkins’ self gene theory, then when we see injustice and the oppression of those who aren’t in our family, a consistent atheist should just shrug their shoulders and recognise it as the survival of fittest. But we don’t. People have an inherent sense of right and wrong and we cry out against injustice and oppression, why? Atheism has no basis or explanation for the origin of a good conscience.
This is because science deliberately restricts itself to the objective. Science doesn’t talk about opinion or speculation, only cold hard facts. Ethics on the other hand, is subjective and open to debate. You can’t put right and wrong in a test tube and produce a scientific proof about what someone should do, scientific proofs are limited to what someone can do. This was famously observed by Hume’s Naturalistic fallacy which states that you cannot get an ought from an is, that is, scientific facts can never give you a basis for what people should or shouldn’t do. You can never get an imperative from an indicative.
Sam Harris has challenged this in his book The Moral Landscape. Harris claims that science can give you a basis for ethics because “well being” (his goal for ethics) is something that can be observed and improved by science. However this fails at a crucial point – the subjectivity of well being – what happens when people disagree about someone’s or some group’s best interests? How does science solve a disagreement about one’s well being? Harris writes off the naturalistic fallacy as a trick of language without actually dealing with it as an argument, he simply claims that “well being” is obvious and objective and then steamrolls his western idea of well being over eastern values about women and children.
After Harris promotes utilitarianism based on “common sense” while pretending it’s based on science, he hides this double standard in a medical analogy. If “good health” is hard to define but can be improved by science, then so can “well being”. Unfortunately for Harris, what you should do for “good health” is just as subjective and what you should do for “well being”. Scientific advances in medicine can tell you what you can do to save or to kill, but not whether you should save or kill. Science is completely silent on the issue of euthanasia, it can tell you how to kill someone, but not whether you should.
Hume’s naturalistic fallacy and Harris’ challenge of it is actually historically verifiable. If you can think of a single instance in history where science has changed human morality then Harris is right, if not, Hume is right. This doesn’t include areas of morality that science has opened up e.g. bioethics, but situations where people used to believe that A was right or B was wrong, and then a scientific discovery has proved that A was wrong or B was right. It has to be a scientific discovery that settles an ethical debate. I can’t think of a single one but Harris claims that science should be able to settle them all.
If there is no God and therefore no outside third party to dictate right and wrong, then our idea’s of right and wrong are nothing more than our ideas. Who am I to tell a con artist that what they are doing is wrong? If a group of pedophiles could somehow convinced the majority of a country’s population that pedophilia was ok then they would have no choice but to legalise it. Our rationality can function as a justification for our ethics, but it can never be an objective basis for ethics. We can rationalise our ethical decisions, but our rationality will never rebuke our morality, and neither will science.
This is more than just an argument for the attractiveness of faith, it’s an argument for its truthfulness because of our inherent sense of right and wrong. Why do we cry out against injustice? Why do we care when the weak are oppressed? Atheism has no basis or explanation for our morality, Dawkins’ selfish gene theory contradicts the evidence of our selfless concern for the marginalised. Atheism simply cannot account for the origin of the good in our morality.
This is because science deliberately restricts itself to the objective. Science doesn’t talk about opinion or speculation, only cold hard facts. Ethics on the other hand, is subjective and open to debate. You can’t put right and wrong in a test tube and produce a scientific proof about what someone should do, scientific proofs are limited to what someone can do. This was famously observed by Hume’s Naturalistic fallacy which states that you cannot get an ought from an is, that is, scientific facts can never give you a basis for what people should or shouldn’t do. You can never get an imperative from an indicative.
Sam Harris has challenged this in his book The Moral Landscape. Harris claims that science can give you a basis for ethics because “well being” (his goal for ethics) is something that can be observed and improved by science. However this fails at a crucial point – the subjectivity of well being – what happens when people disagree about someone’s or some group’s best interests? How does science solve a disagreement about one’s well being? Harris writes off the naturalistic fallacy as a trick of language without actually dealing with it as an argument, he simply claims that “well being” is obvious and objective and then steamrolls his western idea of well being over eastern values about women and children.
After Harris promotes utilitarianism based on “common sense” while pretending it’s based on science, he hides this double standard in a medical analogy. If “good health” is hard to define but can be improved by science, then so can “well being”. Unfortunately for Harris, what you should do for “good health” is just as subjective and what you should do for “well being”. Scientific advances in medicine can tell you what you can do to save or to kill, but not whether you should save or kill. Science is completely silent on the issue of euthanasia, it can tell you how to kill someone, but not whether you should.
Hume’s naturalistic fallacy and Harris’ challenge of it is actually historically verifiable. If you can think of a single instance in history where science has changed human morality then Harris is right, if not, Hume is right. This doesn’t include areas of morality that science has opened up e.g. bioethics, but situations where people used to believe that A was right or B was wrong, and then a scientific discovery has proved that A was wrong or B was right. It has to be a scientific discovery that settles an ethical debate. I can’t think of a single one but Harris claims that science should be able to settle them all.
If there is no God and therefore no outside third party to dictate right and wrong, then our idea’s of right and wrong are nothing more than our ideas. Who am I to tell a con artist that what they are doing is wrong? If a group of pedophiles could somehow convinced the majority of a country’s population that pedophilia was ok then they would have no choice but to legalise it. Our rationality can function as a justification for our ethics, but it can never be an objective basis for ethics. We can rationalise our ethical decisions, but our rationality will never rebuke our morality, and neither will science.
This is more than just an argument for the attractiveness of faith, it’s an argument for its truthfulness because of our inherent sense of right and wrong. Why do we cry out against injustice? Why do we care when the weak are oppressed? Atheism has no basis or explanation for our morality, Dawkins’ selfish gene theory contradicts the evidence of our selfless concern for the marginalised. Atheism simply cannot account for the origin of the good in our morality.
Sunday, November 27, 2011
The Origin of Evil
One of the corollaries of “the problem of evil” is its origin. If God created everything good (Gen 1:4, 10, 12, 18, 21, 25) and together it was very good (Gen 1:31), then how does one account for the presence (and prevalence) of evil? This presents a major issue for the Christian theology of creation, if God created everything, then who created evil?
In an attempt to protect God’s sovereignty, some have suggested that God created evil in the short term to bring about ultimate good in the long term, expanding on Romans 5:20 – “the law was added so that the trespass might increase. But where sin increased, grace increased all the more”. But only two chapters later, Paul defends the inherent goodness of the law – “so then, the law is holy, and the commandment is holy, righteous and good” (Romans 7:12). God’s will expressed in the law shows us how bad we are, it is not the source of our rebellion.
Realising that we can’t hide behind the law, some have even tried to hide behind God himself as the ultimate cause of evil. Calvin translates Isaiah 45:7 as – “I form the light and create darkness, I make peace and create evil. I, the Lord, do all these things” (Calvin, Institutes I.17.viii). The trouble is that the word translated evil here, can equally mean “distress”, moreover, distress is to peace as darkness is to light – translating “distress” preserves the obvious parallelism. Unlike creating evil, creating trials and suffering for God’s good purposes is supported by the rest of the Bible (Genesis 50:20, Job 1-2, Romans 5:3-5, 1 Peter 1:6-7).
The danger in attributing the creation of evil to God, is that one can easily conclude that if God creates evil, then God himself is evil. The law of works states that a person’s (or being’s) character is inseparable from what they do, if what they are doing is evil then they cannot be wholly good and vice versa. This is even made known in popular culture in the movie Batman begins – “It’s not who I am underneath, but what I do, that defines me.” If God is the ultimate author of evil then he himself must be partly or at least at certain times, evil (i.e. when he’s creating evil).
So then who created evil? There is a problem inherent in the question, for evil is not something that’s created, it’s something that’s chosen. God didn’t create disobedience, it’s something that originated in the human heart (Gen 3:6). God created people with the ability to choose good and evil (Gen 2:16-17), but we are the ones who chose, God did not force our hand. Evil is created by our desires (James 1:15). Contrary to what Buddhism teaches, our desires cannot and should not be completely eliminated. Some of our desires are inherently good desires – for relationship, for well being, for the enjoyment of creation – but sin twists our good desires so that they give birth to evil, e.g. a desire for well being (self-interest) can lead us to step on other people to get what we want (selfishness).
Once we stop desiring the one who gives us all good things and set our desires on the things themselves, they become idols, and we become ungrateful children who spend our efforts trying to get more from our parents rather than making the most of our relationship with our parents. Such a child can hardly blame their parents for the ingratitude and greed that they themselves chose. Though most of us think that we’re good, this is the reality of our relationship with God, the very thing that we were created for.
The world is not inherently evil, but ever since the fall, the human heart has been. This is not to say that people are as evil as they can possibly be, but that we cannot draw a line and say “We’re the good and they’re the bad”, for the line between good and evil runs through every single human heart. Christians don’t (or at least shouldn’t) claim to be good people, but bad people that know that they’re bad. When G.K. Chesterton was asked “What’s wrong with the world?” He replied “Dear sirs, I am”. Christians believe that we are the authors of evil and God is the author of good. The line isn’t between the good and the bad, but between those who are humble enough to accept God’s forgiveness and those who are too proud to be saved by anyone other than themselves.
In an attempt to protect God’s sovereignty, some have suggested that God created evil in the short term to bring about ultimate good in the long term, expanding on Romans 5:20 – “the law was added so that the trespass might increase. But where sin increased, grace increased all the more”. But only two chapters later, Paul defends the inherent goodness of the law – “so then, the law is holy, and the commandment is holy, righteous and good” (Romans 7:12). God’s will expressed in the law shows us how bad we are, it is not the source of our rebellion.
Realising that we can’t hide behind the law, some have even tried to hide behind God himself as the ultimate cause of evil. Calvin translates Isaiah 45:7 as – “I form the light and create darkness, I make peace and create evil. I, the Lord, do all these things” (Calvin, Institutes I.17.viii). The trouble is that the word translated evil here, can equally mean “distress”, moreover, distress is to peace as darkness is to light – translating “distress” preserves the obvious parallelism. Unlike creating evil, creating trials and suffering for God’s good purposes is supported by the rest of the Bible (Genesis 50:20, Job 1-2, Romans 5:3-5, 1 Peter 1:6-7).
The danger in attributing the creation of evil to God, is that one can easily conclude that if God creates evil, then God himself is evil. The law of works states that a person’s (or being’s) character is inseparable from what they do, if what they are doing is evil then they cannot be wholly good and vice versa. This is even made known in popular culture in the movie Batman begins – “It’s not who I am underneath, but what I do, that defines me.” If God is the ultimate author of evil then he himself must be partly or at least at certain times, evil (i.e. when he’s creating evil).
So then who created evil? There is a problem inherent in the question, for evil is not something that’s created, it’s something that’s chosen. God didn’t create disobedience, it’s something that originated in the human heart (Gen 3:6). God created people with the ability to choose good and evil (Gen 2:16-17), but we are the ones who chose, God did not force our hand. Evil is created by our desires (James 1:15). Contrary to what Buddhism teaches, our desires cannot and should not be completely eliminated. Some of our desires are inherently good desires – for relationship, for well being, for the enjoyment of creation – but sin twists our good desires so that they give birth to evil, e.g. a desire for well being (self-interest) can lead us to step on other people to get what we want (selfishness).
Once we stop desiring the one who gives us all good things and set our desires on the things themselves, they become idols, and we become ungrateful children who spend our efforts trying to get more from our parents rather than making the most of our relationship with our parents. Such a child can hardly blame their parents for the ingratitude and greed that they themselves chose. Though most of us think that we’re good, this is the reality of our relationship with God, the very thing that we were created for.
The world is not inherently evil, but ever since the fall, the human heart has been. This is not to say that people are as evil as they can possibly be, but that we cannot draw a line and say “We’re the good and they’re the bad”, for the line between good and evil runs through every single human heart. Christians don’t (or at least shouldn’t) claim to be good people, but bad people that know that they’re bad. When G.K. Chesterton was asked “What’s wrong with the world?” He replied “Dear sirs, I am”. Christians believe that we are the authors of evil and God is the author of good. The line isn’t between the good and the bad, but between those who are humble enough to accept God’s forgiveness and those who are too proud to be saved by anyone other than themselves.
Thursday, October 20, 2011
Theological Aspect
While the Bible describes God as sovereign over everything that happens (Ephesians 1:11) and people as responsible for the choices they make (Romans 2:6), it makes no apologies for any perceived contradictions and offers no explanations of how these two truths hold together. They are essentially seen as different sides of the same coin, or better, the same events from different perspectives, that is, from different theological aspects.
In linguistics, the verbal aspect of an action performed is of great significance. A bird’s eye view of an action as a whole is called perfective aspect, and the street view of an action unfolding around the viewer is called imperfective aspect. This is the kind of difference that we see in the way that the Bible describes events in human history, with the hindsight of a bird’s eye view God’s sovereignty is clearly seen (Job 42:9-17), but from the perspective of those involved in the events as they happen, people are responsible for the choices they make (Job 42:1-8).
Therefore, from our perspective there is real evil that its perpetrators are held accountable for, a real imperative to repent and believe the gospel, and real warnings to heed against falling away. But from the perspective of God’s sovereignty (which we only catch glimpses of in his word), there is no such thing as evil (for God works all things ultimately for good), unconditional election (predestination), and irresistible grace resulting in the perseverance of the saints. From heaven we see that all of our days are written in the book of life (Psalm 139:16), but from earth we know that we are still writing our history.
Points of tension between God’s sovereignty and human responsibility are often derived from a confusion of theological aspect. If we paint the glimpses that we have of God’s perspective over the reality that we see on the ground, there are bound to be some discrepancies. When we try to force God’s absolute sovereignty (from his perspective) onto our experience of evil (from our perspective), we create the problem of evil – how can God be good and sovereign over evil? However this is like reading an imperfective action (evil) as having perfective aspect. As stated above, from the perspective of God’s sovereignty, there is no such thing as evil – all things are achieving their created purpose and will result in God’s glory (Romans 9:17).
From the ground however, evil is very real and those who do evil must be held responsible for it. Reading God’s sovereignty into this imperfective aspect often results in vain attempts to blame God for our sin. He is sovereign over it, but we are the perpetrators of it. We are the authors of our sin, but God is the author of his grace which uses, restrains and triumphs over our sin. Christians therefore live knowing that we are responsible, and pray knowing that God is sovereign. Both perspectives are needed for a complete picture, but when you put them side by side they are clearly different perspectives.
Some scientific illustrations may help. According to Einstein, if you could travel away from a clock faster than the speed of light, you would be overtaking the light reflected from the clock and so you would see the clock ticking backwards. From the perspective of the stationary clock you would be travelling back in time, but from the perspective of your wrist watch you would be travelling forward through time as normal. From the perspective of someone else on earth I may be standing still, but from space I’m spinning around the world at 10,000 kph and from outside the solar system I’m rotating around the sun at 100,000 kph.
Many of the truths we cling to depend greatly on our own point of view. The truth from a bird’s eye view is different from but complementary to the truth from the perspective on the ground. Tension between God’s sovereignty and human responsibility arises when we confuse the theological aspects of human history from God’s perfective aspect and our imperfective aspect. Now we see in part, but it’s only from the perspective of the end that one can see the whole.
In linguistics, the verbal aspect of an action performed is of great significance. A bird’s eye view of an action as a whole is called perfective aspect, and the street view of an action unfolding around the viewer is called imperfective aspect. This is the kind of difference that we see in the way that the Bible describes events in human history, with the hindsight of a bird’s eye view God’s sovereignty is clearly seen (Job 42:9-17), but from the perspective of those involved in the events as they happen, people are responsible for the choices they make (Job 42:1-8).
Therefore, from our perspective there is real evil that its perpetrators are held accountable for, a real imperative to repent and believe the gospel, and real warnings to heed against falling away. But from the perspective of God’s sovereignty (which we only catch glimpses of in his word), there is no such thing as evil (for God works all things ultimately for good), unconditional election (predestination), and irresistible grace resulting in the perseverance of the saints. From heaven we see that all of our days are written in the book of life (Psalm 139:16), but from earth we know that we are still writing our history.
Points of tension between God’s sovereignty and human responsibility are often derived from a confusion of theological aspect. If we paint the glimpses that we have of God’s perspective over the reality that we see on the ground, there are bound to be some discrepancies. When we try to force God’s absolute sovereignty (from his perspective) onto our experience of evil (from our perspective), we create the problem of evil – how can God be good and sovereign over evil? However this is like reading an imperfective action (evil) as having perfective aspect. As stated above, from the perspective of God’s sovereignty, there is no such thing as evil – all things are achieving their created purpose and will result in God’s glory (Romans 9:17).
From the ground however, evil is very real and those who do evil must be held responsible for it. Reading God’s sovereignty into this imperfective aspect often results in vain attempts to blame God for our sin. He is sovereign over it, but we are the perpetrators of it. We are the authors of our sin, but God is the author of his grace which uses, restrains and triumphs over our sin. Christians therefore live knowing that we are responsible, and pray knowing that God is sovereign. Both perspectives are needed for a complete picture, but when you put them side by side they are clearly different perspectives.
Some scientific illustrations may help. According to Einstein, if you could travel away from a clock faster than the speed of light, you would be overtaking the light reflected from the clock and so you would see the clock ticking backwards. From the perspective of the stationary clock you would be travelling back in time, but from the perspective of your wrist watch you would be travelling forward through time as normal. From the perspective of someone else on earth I may be standing still, but from space I’m spinning around the world at 10,000 kph and from outside the solar system I’m rotating around the sun at 100,000 kph.
Many of the truths we cling to depend greatly on our own point of view. The truth from a bird’s eye view is different from but complementary to the truth from the perspective on the ground. Tension between God’s sovereignty and human responsibility arises when we confuse the theological aspects of human history from God’s perfective aspect and our imperfective aspect. Now we see in part, but it’s only from the perspective of the end that one can see the whole.
Thursday, September 15, 2011
God's Sovereignty and Our Will
One of the distinctions that has been used to understand and explain the tension between God’s sovereign will and our will is the distinction between what is necessary and what is voluntary. From the perspective of God’s sovereign will, human rebellion is necessary: “They stumble because they disobey the message – which is also what they were destined for.” (1 Peter 2:8), but from the perspective of our will, human rebellion is a free choice that we all make: “Light has come into the world, but men loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil.” (John 3:19).
Don Carson explains this with an analogy: “A man may be locked in a room, but not want to get out. He therefore cannot get out, but equally he does not want to get out.” (Divine Sovereignty and Human Responsibility, page 207). While this helpfully illustrates the necessity of the lock and the voluntariness of his will, it still pits the two against each other. The implied question remains, is he locked in or has he locked himself in? There is still a tension between God’s sovereign will and human will.
However, I propose that the tension is between human will and God’s moral will (the imperatives of the bible), not God’s sovereign will (everything that happens), that is, we rebel against God’s will for us to be selfless (loving God and our neighbour), not against his will for us to learn the consequences of selfishness the hard way. To push the analogy, God created us knowing which room we would chose, and he graciously leads some people out into his room, but there is no lock. God doesn’t force peoples to sin, but he does hand people over to their sin. Predestination doesn’t mean that God is stopping people who want to become Christians from becoming Christians, because no one actually wants to become a Christian, left to ourselves, we all chose ourselves over God.
While this may sound like I’m simply pushing the tension into God’s complex will, it’s not quite that simple. Because God is omniscient (all knowing) and omnipotent (all powerful) he can actually use evil to achieve good, that is, God can use peoples rejection of his moral will, to ultimately achieve his moral will inside his sovereign will. The classic example is that of Jacob, where his brothers rebel against God’s moral will and harm Jacob, but God uses that event to prevent the harm of many in his sovereign will (Genesis 50:20). The ultimate is example is that of the cross, where God uses the greatest act of evil by humans to achieve the greatest good for humanity (Acts 2:23). Whether we listen to his will in the bible or learn it the hard way, it always part of God’s master plan, our will may be for or against God’s will, but never instead of God’s will.
This may also sound like God is just an awesome chess player, constantly responding to situations that we create, but God uses our acts of evil for good by his “set purpose and foreknowledge” (Acts 2:23). God’s sovereign will transcends our will such that there is no dichotomy between them. The realities of God’s sovereign will and our will is not either/or, it’s both/and. God created humanity knowing that they would chose to sin and so he planned and purposed for Jesus to come to save us, but he did not force Adam’s hand. God allows us to be tempted (1 Corinthians 10:13), but he himself does not tempt anyone (James 1:13).
After the fall Adam’s first thought was to blame the circumstances (Genesis 3:12), but we are all responsible for the choices we make. “No temptation has seized you except what is common to man. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can stand up under it.” (1 Corinthians 10:13). God gives us every opportunity to see the rooms (or slaveries – Romans 6) of sin and righteousness for what they are, and gives us our life to chose which we will live in for eternity.
Don Carson explains this with an analogy: “A man may be locked in a room, but not want to get out. He therefore cannot get out, but equally he does not want to get out.” (Divine Sovereignty and Human Responsibility, page 207). While this helpfully illustrates the necessity of the lock and the voluntariness of his will, it still pits the two against each other. The implied question remains, is he locked in or has he locked himself in? There is still a tension between God’s sovereign will and human will.
However, I propose that the tension is between human will and God’s moral will (the imperatives of the bible), not God’s sovereign will (everything that happens), that is, we rebel against God’s will for us to be selfless (loving God and our neighbour), not against his will for us to learn the consequences of selfishness the hard way. To push the analogy, God created us knowing which room we would chose, and he graciously leads some people out into his room, but there is no lock. God doesn’t force peoples to sin, but he does hand people over to their sin. Predestination doesn’t mean that God is stopping people who want to become Christians from becoming Christians, because no one actually wants to become a Christian, left to ourselves, we all chose ourselves over God.
While this may sound like I’m simply pushing the tension into God’s complex will, it’s not quite that simple. Because God is omniscient (all knowing) and omnipotent (all powerful) he can actually use evil to achieve good, that is, God can use peoples rejection of his moral will, to ultimately achieve his moral will inside his sovereign will. The classic example is that of Jacob, where his brothers rebel against God’s moral will and harm Jacob, but God uses that event to prevent the harm of many in his sovereign will (Genesis 50:20). The ultimate is example is that of the cross, where God uses the greatest act of evil by humans to achieve the greatest good for humanity (Acts 2:23). Whether we listen to his will in the bible or learn it the hard way, it always part of God’s master plan, our will may be for or against God’s will, but never instead of God’s will.
This may also sound like God is just an awesome chess player, constantly responding to situations that we create, but God uses our acts of evil for good by his “set purpose and foreknowledge” (Acts 2:23). God’s sovereign will transcends our will such that there is no dichotomy between them. The realities of God’s sovereign will and our will is not either/or, it’s both/and. God created humanity knowing that they would chose to sin and so he planned and purposed for Jesus to come to save us, but he did not force Adam’s hand. God allows us to be tempted (1 Corinthians 10:13), but he himself does not tempt anyone (James 1:13).
After the fall Adam’s first thought was to blame the circumstances (Genesis 3:12), but we are all responsible for the choices we make. “No temptation has seized you except what is common to man. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can stand up under it.” (1 Corinthians 10:13). God gives us every opportunity to see the rooms (or slaveries – Romans 6) of sin and righteousness for what they are, and gives us our life to chose which we will live in for eternity.
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