Randal Rauser's Blog, page 106

Would a loving God send people to hell?

I just wrote an article for Christian Post on this topic. You can read it by clicking here.

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Does Objective Morality Need God? A Christian and Atheist Debate

Last week I moderated a debate on morality and God between my main man from Dundee, Christian apologist Andy Bannister and atheist philosopher Howard Nye.

I disagreed with Andy’s attempt to argue a necessary link between atheism and nihilism. I also don’t agree with his claim that objective ethics requires theism. That said, he was most certainly the more polished presenter.

As for Howard Nye, I was disappointed that he declined to address the epistemological question and I was not satisfied with his attempt to explain objective moral obligation in terms of moral value alone.

But whatever, who am I, anyway? Here’s the debate so you can judge for yourself.

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Did the biblical concept of God evolve from polytheism to monotheism?

My 2013 book God or Godless (co-authored with atheist John Loftus) is a collection of twenty short debates. In ten debates I argue for a debate resolution and John argues against it. And in ten debates John argues for his own resolution and I argue against it.

That’s the way it was supposed to work, anyway. But it didn’t quite work out like that. Consider chapter two where John chose the following debate resolution: The biblical concept of God evolved from polytheism to monotheism. Presumably, John assumed I would argue against this thesis. But instead, I argued against John’s assumptions that the truth of this thesis should present a problem for Christianity.

With that setup, I present my opening statement.

Five hundred years ago virtually all educated people in the West believed that the earth was the fixed center of the universe. Terra firma was the center of action while the poor sun was a mere satellite revolving around our proud, immovable station. We now know that this picture was, to say the least, a bit off. To begin with, our grasp of the size differential was all wrong. It now turns out that the earth is (if you’ll excuse the expression) the equivalent of a pimple on the sun’s fiery bottom. And as for fixed points, the only thing really fixed is the sun’s inescapable gravitational grip upon our tiny rock which has kept it spinning in lockstep for billions of years. To sum up, a rudimentary survey of our astronomical advances in understanding over the last few hundred years supports the following:

“The scientific concept of the universe evolved from geocentrism (earth-centered) to heliocentrism (sun-centered).”

The shift from viewing the earth as the grand fixed center of the universe to the lowly third rock out from the sun occurred through innumerable small steps and the occasional jolting leap due to the hard work of countless scientists like Copernicus, Galileo, and Kepler. We need not bother ourselves with the intricacies of that history here for the main point is simply this: Nobody thinks that we ought to reject heliocentrism because we once believed geocentrism. To suggest such a thing would be positively absurd.

Now we are in a place to discuss our topic: “The biblical concept of God evolved from polytheism to monotheism.” I don’t actually disagree with this proposition. Instead, I disagree with the implications one might try to draw from it. Allow me to explain. It is true that the biblical conception of God emerged out of a polytheistic culture which only later converged on the austere doctrine of monotheism. In the ancient near eastern milieu in which God first called Abram out of Ur everybody was polytheistic so it is no surprise that Abram was as well. His move was not to monotheism but rather to monolatry, the worship of one God in the midst of many. Centuries later at the exodus from Egypt the Hebrew understanding developed again. As Yahweh soundly defeated each one of the Egyptian gods, the Hebrews moved from “mere monolatry” to henotheism, the view that one God is far superior to all other gods. By the time we get to the writing of Isaiah some centuries later the Hebrew understanding had developed again. God was now understood to be so far superior to other beings that he was in a class by himself while all these other beings were demoted to mere creatures: “I am the first and I am the last; apart from me there is no God.” (Isaiah 44:6) So to sum up, it took several centuries for the Israelites to move from polytheism to monotheism just like it took western astronomers several centuries to move from geocentrism to heliocentrism. If you wouldn’t reject the results of astronomy because it reveals a developmental history why for that reason would you reject the results of biblical theology?

I suspect the perceived problem depends on the dual assumption that the biblical understanding of God is supposed to be revelation, and revelation is supposed to have been given in big leaps rather than little steps. By contrast, this view assumes that science comes in many diligent little steps rather than in leaps that might suggest revelation. But alas, this is a flawed description of both science and theology. So far as science goes, it is full of big leaps of revelatory insights, what scientists have often called “Eureka!” moments. For instance, think of that moment when Michael Faraday discovered the circular flow of electromagnetism based on his belief in the mystical significance of the circle (a belief drawn from his Sandemanian religious sect by the way). And as for the theology end, the theologian makes at least as many little steps as big leaps, including the countless modest steps in which the biblical writers from Abram to Isaiah moved the Hebrews from the chaotic welter of ancient polytheism to the austere grandeur of one creator Yahweh. Eureka indeed.

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1 Samuel 15 and Paul Copan’s Middling Compromise

This week  “Unbelievable” featured Part 2 of an exchange between Paul Copan and Greg Boyd on Boyd’s new book The Crucifixion of the Warrior God. In Part 2, Justin Brierley and his two guests focus in on particular biblical texts to see how each position deals with the text in question.

The first major text under discussion is 1 Samuel 15:3:

Now go, attack the Amalekites and totally destroy all that belongs to them. Do not spare them; put to death men and women, children and infants, cattle and sheep, camels and donkeys.’”

There is a good reason why Brierley begins with this text since it appears to portray God commanding Saul to commit moral atrocities in the slaughter of innocent non-combatants: men and women (including the elderly and infirm), children, infants, and even domesticated animals. In short, this is ground zero for biblical violence texts. So, how should we interpret this carnage?

The Dilemma

The Christian committed to recognizing the plenary inspiration of all Scripture now faces a dilemma:

Option 1:  retain our moral intuitions that it is always wrong to slaughter non-combatants and thus deny that the plain reading that God commanded mass civilian slaughter is correct.

Option 2: accept the plain reading of the text that God commanded mass civilian slaughter and thus deny our intuitions that it is always wrong to slaughter non-combatants.

To be sure, there are other options. Nonetheless, these are the two most obvious choices. And Boyd clearly chooses option 1. He retains his moral conviction concerning the wrongness of these actions, but he does so at the cost of rejecting the plain reading of the text in favor of alternative readings.

So what about Copan? Since he rejects Boyd’s view does he thereby embrace option 2? Not quite.

The Plain Reading of 1 Samuel 15: Mass Civilian Slaughter

Before we get to Copan’s position, it is worthwhile to consider what an embrace of the plain reading (and rejection of our moral intuitions) would look like. According to the plain reading of the text, God commands the complete eradication of the Amalekite people. The verb haram is commonly translated as consigning to destruction, and that is the way the verb functions here: all the people (and their animals) are to be destroyed. Here is a summary of the text from Eugene Merrill:

“The Lord’s command to Saul (1 Samuel 15:2) is to go and smite (nkh, 15:3; cf. 15:7) Amalek and utterly decimate (hrm, 15:3) it. The herem is to be total (15:3), but Saul spares the king of Amalek and the best of the animals and goods (15:9, 15, 21). This blatant disregard for the seriousness of Yahweh war costs Saul his throne….” (“The Case for Moderate Discontinuity,” Show Them No Mercy, 73).

So to accept the plain reading of the text would entail admitting that God commanded the slaughter of an entire people: men, women, children, and infants (and animals).

Consider this passage from John Calvin’s commentary on Joshua. While Calvin is addressing the Canaanite genocide, his description could readily be applied to 1 Samuel 15:

“Indiscriminate and promiscuous slaughter, making no distinction of age or sex, but including alike women and children, the aged and decrepit, might seem an inhuman massacre, had it not been executed by the command of God. But as he, in whose hands are life and death, had justly doomed those nations to destruction, this puts an end to all discussion.”

Whatever else you think of Calvin’s statement, it retains the plain reading of the text, ethical intuitions be damned.

But that’s not Copan’s response. So what does he say?

Copan’s Indirect Opening Response

Interestingly, Copan’s discomfort with the plain reading places him closer to Boyd than to Calvin. What is more, like Boyd, he rejects the plain reading, though as we will see, his rejection is subtler than Boyd’s. Indeed, Copan appears keen to convey the impression that he is retaining something close to the plain reading when, in fact, he is not.

Brierley’s interaction with Copan begins at 12:00 in the podcast as Brierley poses the specific challenge of 1 Samuel 15. If Calvin were in Copan’s place, no doubt he’d jump right in, unapologetically describe the Amalekite killing as “indiscriminate and promiscuous slaughter, making no distinction of age or sex, but including alike women and children, the aged and decrepit.” And then he’d add that this killing was also perfectly just because it was commanded by a holy God.

But that’s not Copan’s approach. Instead, he begins by pointing out that the New Testament authors do not censure the practice of warfare in ancient Israel. Copan then refers to three passages in the New Testament — Hebrews 11, Acts 7, Acts 13 — which all appear to refer favorably back to the conduct of war in ancient Israel. As Copan says, the text “says that they conquered kingdoms by faith, they were might in war and put foreign armies to flight, by their faith.”

To be sure, these are legitimate points to raise. But they don’t tell us how to interpret 1 Samuel 15.

Copan on Accommodation

Eventually, Copan turns to the Amalekite text, and when he does he appears to present two reading strategies to soften the ethical shock of the texts: accommodation and group identity destruction.

To begin with, Copan appeals to the concept of accommodation. According to accommodation, God meets people in the messy circumstances of life, accommodating to their inadequate ethical understanding in order to lead them to a fuller understanding. Thus Copan says, “these are not ideal laws or ideal circumstances whether regarding Amalek or divorce or whatever in the Old Testament….” He continues that this was “an incremental step; God is stepping in where people are and seeking to move them in a redemptive direction.” Finally, Copan gives an illustration by referring to the reformation of “a backwards society where they don’t respect human rights.” If you wanted to bring a deepened moral understanding to that society, you would approach the change “incrementally.”

Unfortunately, this is all very vague. In what sense is Copan proposing God accommodated to Israel in 1 Samuel 15? How is his command functioning to bring an incremental increase in moral understanding or even (however bizarrely) “human rights”? And how can this illumine a command to carry out a mass civilian slaughter? Copan doesn’t really say.

Copan on Group Identity Destruction

Copan’s next proposal is even more striking. He suggests that the destruction of the Amalekites “has to do more with identity removal” than actual killing. As best I can understand him, Copan is suggesting that God is not, in fact, directing the Israelites to destroy the Amalekite people by literally killing them. Rather, he is directing the Israelites to destroy their cultural identity, perhaps by smashing all the cultural artifacts that distinguish them as a people.

The first problem with this claim is that this “softened” command would constitute genocide by legal definition. You see, the concept of genocide is a precisely defined legal concept which refers to any systematic attempt to destroy a cultural, religious, and/or social identity. And one can seek to destroy an identity without ever killing a person. Needless to say, it is small consolation that Copan’s abandonment of the plain reading still commits one to God’s commanding a legal genocide.

Second problem: in my view, this interpretation is inconsistent with God’s concern to avoid assimilation between the Israelites and surrounding peoples. There is no hint anywhere that God desires simply to destroy cultural identity, a practice which would effectively make assimilation much more likely because unique cultural markers had been removed.

The third problem, and the primary one for our purposes, is that this abstract group-identity-destruction interpretation is even more detached from a plain reading of the text than accommodation.

One more thing: Copan argues for his reading based on the fact that the Amalekites survive the slaughter of 1 Samuel 15. (For example, Haman, the villain in Esther, is a descendant of the hated Amalekites.) Copan seems to think that reinterpreting the text as concerned with the abstract destruction of group identity is the most plausible way to accommodate this fact. But there is a far simpler and more plausible interpretation: there were Amalekites living outside the territory in which the genocide was carried out. By adding that simple and eminently plausible detail, one can retain the plain reading of the text while accommodating the fact that Amalekites appear later in Israel’s history.

Copan’s NKJV Problem

While Copan attempts to present his reading as a faithful take on the plain reading of the text, his appeal to accommodation and group-identity-destruction are very far from the plain reading. And yet, it is clear that Copan is also keen to critique and chasten our moral intuitions, even as he offers non-natural readings which tacitly attempt to remove the moral offense of the texts.

In my opinion, Copan’s approach suffers from what I call the NKJV Problem. As you probably know, as far as Bible translations go, the NKJV was an unhappy compromise: while eliding much of the KJV’s literary brilliance, it lacked the textual accuracy of contemporary translations like the NIV and NRSV. The result was a middling compromise that pleased nobody.

In my view, Copan’s treatment of 1 Samuel 15 faces a similar problem. Copan lacks Calvin’s straightforward and iron-willed embrace of the text and its reflection of divine sovereignty. At the same time, in contrast to Boyd, he declines to endorse without qualification our moral aversion to slaughtering noncombatants. The result is a middling compromise which should please nobody.

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If you can’t define “being biblical,” don’t accuse others of failing to be biblical

Yesterday I posted the following tweet:

Nobody should be allowed to say "that's not biblical" unless they can give a succinct, coherent, and orthodox statement regarding what it means to be biblical.

— Randal Rauser (@RandalRauser) January 27, 2018

Some fellow with the Twitter handle @noah_nonsense replied by asking what was wrong with saying “That’s not biblical” without definition. I replied by citing two points:

1. in untold numbers of cases it reduces to “I don’t like that” which doesn’t have anything to do with the Bible, per se. 2. Too often labelling serves as a placeholder for actually thinking.

Noah replied that he saw value in challenging people for failing to have biblical teaching. And I replied in turn:

“What does it mean to check if one’s teaching is biblical? How does one do that?”

Noah, in turn, challenged me to define the criterion of biblical teaching to which I replied:

“I didn’t appeal to that criterion. You did. So the onus is upon you to define it.”

At that point, Noah said he thought he’d “smelled” heresy in my tweets and now he knew he was right! And with that, he promptly blocked me on Twitter (an act for which I’m grateful).

So I guess the answer is that you can smell unbiblical or heretical teaching. Apparently, it’s an olfactory kind of thing.

Frankly, I couldn’t have asked for a better illustration of the original point. If you are unable to define what it means to be biblical, then stop accusing people of failing to be biblical! And for goodness sake, don’t retreat to calling them heretics!

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Dear Christian Apologist, Don’t Cherry-pick Quotes to Make Your Case

I have my share of frustrations with popular Christian apologetics. I also have my frustrations with popular non-Christian apologetics. Nonetheless, Christianity is my tribe, and thus I see a special responsibility to speak out against bad examples of Christian apologetics.

In this article, I’m going to focus on one practice that really frustrates me. I speak here of the practice of cherry-picking quotes that support your chosen thesis. And the particular example I have in mind is when Christian apologists try to argue that atheism entails nihilism, and they support that claim with a sampling of quotes from prominent atheists who seem to have affirmed that view. You know, like Nietzsche, Camus, and Sartre. And don’t forget that great Bertrand Russell quote in his essay “A Free Man’s Worship” about bearing up under “unyielding despair.”

This method is presumably used over and over again because it wins points with audiences, especially Christian audiences. But it is fundamentally disingenuous. If this fact is not patently obvious, imagine if the shoe was on the other foot. Picture an atheist arguing that Christianity is fundamentally misogynistic. And to make the point, she begins by quoting Augustine:

“What is the difference whether it is in a wife or a mother; it is still Eve the temptress that we must be aware of in any woman… I fail to see what use women can be to man, if one excludes the function of bearing children.”

Next, she quotes Martin Luther,

“Men have broad shoulders and narrow hips, and accordingly they possess intelligence. Women have narrow shoulders and broad hips. Women should stay at home; the way they were created indicates this, for they have broad hips and a wide fundament to sit upon, keep house and bear and raise children.”

And so it goes.

The Christian apologist would rightly reply that Augustine and Luther’s misogynistic views should not be taken as an essential part of Christianity. Fair enough. But then by the same token, Nietzche’s and Camus’ nihilistic views should not be taken as an essential part of atheism.

If you want to present a fair case against your opponent, one should begin by steelmanning their position. That would mean that the atheist should begin by recognizing that Christianity includes many individuals who defend the liberation and equality of women. Only then would it be proper for her to attempt an argument that Christianity is misogynistic despite this witness.

Similarly, the Christian apologist should begin by steelmanning atheism. That would mean he should begin by recognizing that atheism includes many individuals who defend objective goodness, meaning, and purpose. Only then would it be proper for him to attempt an argument that atheism entails nihilism despite this witness.

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How I wrote an article critiquing John Piper … and got attacked by egalitarians

Yesterday I posted an article in which I argued that John Piper’s ill-formed and poorly argued prohibition on women teaching in seminary reveals that he is sexist, i.e. prejudiced against the female sex and gender. I did not anticipate that my argument would receive resistance from egalitarians.

Trash!

One individual named Henry Imler replied:

Heirarchy [sic] within the Trinity is trash (innovation Grudem & Piper introduced to frame their argument) Complementarianism is trash; espousal of its views is trash; its lived practice is trash.

As best I can guess, Imler assumes that a condemnation of Piper as sexist on the terms of complementarianism somehow entails a morally culpable tacit endorsement of complementarianism. But this is clearly false. Here I’m employing the very pedestrian form of argument known as assuming arguendo, the discursive device of assuming premises for the sake of argument and then showing problematic consequences based on those premises. This makes it all the more surprising that Henry Imler, an assistant professor of philosophy and theology, should seem to completely misunderstand the argument.

Garbage!

Another response came from JR Forasteros (who wrote a great book that I endorsed last year). JR wrote: “I’m really way over allowing for Complementarianism. Also misogyny. Also garbage theology.” (You can read his tweet, which is one of many in our long conversation, here.)

First observation: JR also seems to misunderstand the form of assuming arguendo. I’m only, as JR puts it, “allowing for complementarianism” in the sense that I demonstrate Piper is sexist even on complementarian principles.

Second observation: this is simply a terrible way to open a meaningful and potentially transformative dialogue with a complementarian. (I admit it: I am assuming that one might want to open a meaningful and potentially transformative dialogue with a complementarian.)

So I replied like this:

“Yesterday I participated in an ecumenical service with Catholics for Christian Unity week and I sat beside Father John for lunch. I’d like to think I have more to say to his views on gender and ministry than ‘garbage theology.'”

The bottom line is that if we really value those with whom we disagree, we should invest the time in finding ways to dialogue with them which will bring about transformation. Using harsh rhetoric — whether or not it is accurate — is likely to have the opposite effect. To quote Dale Carnegie for the umpteenth time, “If you want to gather honey, don’t kick over the beehive.” And while I love Carnegie’s quote, let’s be clear that this ain’t some sophisticated psychology: it’s simply emotional intelligence 101.

As we continued our exchange, JR made it clear that he was dissatisfied that I had not explicitly condemned complementarianism in the article. But that is a baldly unreasonable standard. As I pointed out to JR, a Trump-critic can write an article critiquing Trump’s brazen violation of the emoluments clause without being obliged to add, “Oh, and he’s also an amoral, narcissistic demagogue who is seeking to undermine the foundations of democracy.” Indeed, to state what should be obvious, adding such an inflammatory declaration would likely ensure only that the Trump supporter would miss your persuasive and measured critique of the man with respect to the emoluments clause. Again, I ask: are we concerned with seeking potentially tranformative conversations, or not?

That which is true of Trump is also true of Piper: one can critique Mr. Piper’s appallingly sexist barring of women from the seminary faculty without being obliged to add a generalized critique of complementarianism.

What gives?

At first blush the failure of my interlocutors to recognize (or acknowledge the legitimacy of) the common discursive tool of assuming arguendo is surprising. The same can be said of JR’s invocation of such an unreasonable demand as that any critique of some aspect of complementarianism must include a critique of complementarianism simpliciter.

So, what gives?

I assume that both individuals are familiar with assuming arguendo and do not think that critiques of an aspect of a view require a critique of the view simpliciter. Thus, my best attempt to explain the stridency is that they are both passionate about this topic and this passion has distorted their objectivity, leading them to an uncharitable and incorrect reading of my article and an imposition of unreasonable and inconsistently held discursive standards.

To be sure, I’m sympathetic with such passion, but ironically enough, I don’t think it serves the interests of egalitarians because rather than stimulate those transformative conversations, it merely entrenches divisions.

Conclusion

I noted above that my argument has one significant virtue: it is far more likely to foster meaningful dialogue with the complementarian than tossing epithets like “Complementarianism is trash!” and “Garbage theology!”

I will conclude, however, by noting that my approach in this article has another specific advantage as well. By defending the place of women on seminary faculties, I defend the single greatest catalyst for the adoption of egalitarian views, i.e. the practical encounter with women expressing their gifting in pedagogical and leadership settings. In my experience, nothing is more effective at changing minds than this.

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John Piper’s Sexism

Yesterday John Piper posted a podcast answer to the question “Is There a Place for Female Professors at Seminary?” (A hat tip to Matt Mikalatos for tweeting this.) Piper stipulates that his answer to the question of whether women should be teaching in seminaries is predicated on an assumption that complementarianism is true. (Complementarianism is the view that men and women are equal but different such that particular leadership roles in the church and home should be reserved for men.) And so, Piper is addressing the question, assuming that complementarianism is true, should women be allowed to teach in seminaries?

Piper Says NO!

His answer is a big NO. Why? Piper explains:

“If it is unbiblical to have women as pastors, how can it be biblical to have women who function in formal teaching and mentoring capacities to train and fit pastors for the very calling from which the mentors themselves are excluded? I don’t think that works. The issue is always that inconsistency. If you strive to carve up teaching in such a way that it’s suitable for women, it ceases to be suitable as seminary teaching.”

As I respond to Piper I want to be clear that while I am not a complementarian, I’m willing to grant his assumption for the sake of argument. Thus, my response proceeds as follows: even if we grant the truth of complementarianism, it does not follow that women should not teach in seminary.

A Two-Point Rebuttal

I’ll make my case via two points. First, seminaries are full of students who are not pursuing lead pastoral positions (the realm complementarians restrict to males). My seminary is typical in this regard. Thus, while the MDiv is the standard ministerial degree, we offer two additional Master’s degrees: the MAICS, and MTS.The MAICS equips students for various forms of cross-cultural work while the MTS provides a basis for post-graduate academic study or personal enrichment. Meanwhile, the MDiv serves students pursuing a broad range of ministerial outcomes beyond the lead pastorate, all of which would in principle be open to women even under the terms of complementarianism. Thus, the typical seminary includes many students who are not pursuing the vocational office which Piper believes is limited to men. On this point alone his entire exclusionary argument fails.

For my second point, we can focus on that relatively small subset of individuals who are seeking the role of lead pastor, a group that complementarianism insists must be male.  Here we can address Piper’s question directly:

“how can it be biblical to have women who function in formal teaching and mentoring capacities to train and fit pastors for the very calling from which the mentors themselves are excluded?”

Actually, this is quite simple, Piper: these female professors are not exercising the role of lead pastor over their male students. The fact is that for Piper’s argument to work at all, he must assume that the complementarian is committed to a pedagogy in which every seminary professor must model the office of lead pastor for every student seeking the vocation of lead pastor. And that is absurd.

To sum up, Piper’s attempt to exclude women from the seminary is based on 1) a completely spurious narrowing of the function of a seminary to equipping lead pastors and 2) an absurd pedagogy which requires that every professor model the office of lead pastor.

Piper is Sexist and Sexism is Sinful

Now we face a question: why would a seemingly intelligent man present an argument excluding women from teaching in seminary based on such inexplicably bizarre, demonstrably false, and straight-up tendentious assumptions? I submit the most obvious answer is motivated reasoning. That is, Piper wants to exclude women from teaching in seminary, and he then seeks to construct some sort of ad hoc arguments to justify his desired outcome.

Excluding women from a role irrespective of their ability to fulfill that role based only on their gender? That, folks, is the very definition of sexism. And so, we come to our hardly surprising conclusion: John Piper is sexist.

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The Violent God Debate: An Unbelievable Review

This week’s episode of Unbelievable features a debate between Paul Copan and Greg Boyd regarding Boyd’s new book The Crucifixion of the Warrior God. I will not be rehearsing the various arguments here, so I definitely advise you take the time to listen to this excellent exchange (the first of two rounds). Instead, I will offer my own succinct response. (Well, maybe not that succinct. It’s over 1500 words… but worth every one of ’em.)

Before getting into my response let me note first that both Copan and Boyd have critically engaged with my 2009 paper on the topic, so I’m not a stranger to these debates. Second, while I’ve read both of Copan’s books on the topic, I have yet to read Boyd’s so my critical engagement with his ideas is limited to the presentation in this episode of “Unbelievable”.

Finally, I know Copan and I can attest to him being one of the nicest guys working in Christian philosophy today. Rumor has it that the same is true of Boyd, so it is no surprise that their exchange was both rigorous and pleasantly irenic. Indeed, the latter point is worth underscoring. You see, I know scholars who share views similar to Boyd’s but who argue their point by way of scorched earth rhetoric. As one of my friends has observed, it is ironic indeed that someone should exert such rhetorical violence in defense of a non-violent reading of Scripture! So the peaceableness of both Copan and Boyd was welcome indeed.

Now down to business.

What is at stake in this debate?

Boyd noted in passing that for many people the violence of Scripture presents a stumbling block for their faith. The point can hardly be over-emphasized. Can you imagine what it does to a Christian’s faith when they realize that the Bible portrays God as commanding and commending prima facie moral atrocities? At that point, many face a terrible choice: either reject the faith they’ve known or deny the deliverances of their most basic moral knowledge.

It’s important to understand what I’m talking about when I refer to denial of one’s most basic moral knowledge. So let’s begin by highlighting what I don’t mean. When he was a young married man with a pregnant wife, William Carey became convinced God was calling him to travel to India to spread the Gospel. And so, Carey faithfully boarded a ship for the distant subcontinent. To many, that action would be a fundamental abdication of his role as a husband and future parent: it might even be considered immoral. Nonetheless, the Christian will concede that the radical call of the kingdom may lead to such radical acts of self-devotion. In some cases, prima facie immoral acts can be justified in light of kingdom priorities. This I do not deny.

What is at stake in biblical violence is something quite different. In this case, the actions in question are ones that appear properly subject to an absolute and unqualified moral condemnation. I’m thinking, for example, of slaughtering infants in battle or punitive legislative actions like pelting children to death with rocks or amputating limbs. If we read of actions like these occurring today in a place like the Middle East or North Africa, we would condemn them without qualification as absolute moral atrocities. And yet, the Christian is asked to believe that these very same actions were morally praiseworthy three thousand years ago.

That’s what I mean by the denial of one’s most basic moral knowledge. And so, that’s the dilemma that the Christian has often faced: either reject the Bible or reject one’s moral knowledge. For the devout Christian, that’s a terrible choice indeed!

My Response: Interpretive Pluralism

My personal approach to the resolution of the problem shares more with Boyd than with Copan. Nonetheless, my method for dealing with the cognitive dissonance is rather different than Boyd’s. Rather than endorse one view as the proper view for all Christians, my focus is instead on arguing that the church has always allowed for a range of interpretive options in seeking to interpret biblical violence. I refer to this emphasis as interpretive pluralism.

To be clear, I’m not arguing a relativism according to which contradictory positions are true. Rather, I’m arguing the more modest thesis that the Christian tradition has allowed many different views on this matter just as it has allowed different views on matters such as election (e.g. Calvinism vs. Arminianism).

And so, I’m content to concede that nominalist divine command theories which allow for such radical actions as divinely commanded genocide via herem holy war are consistent with the Christian tradition as surely as are peace traditions that utterly renounce such divinely sanctioned violence.

Moreover, I emphasize that this interpretive plurality — and in particular, non-violent interpretations — is not a relatively new (i.e. post-Enlightenment) phenomenon. Rather, interpretive plurality regarding these texts has been a hallmark of the Christian tradition since the beginning. And so, for example, one can find in the fourth century Gregory of Nyssa proposing a non-literal reading of the killing of the firstborn in Egypt because of his moral aversion to a literal reading.

The lesson, so I argue, is that Christian communities should recognize a plurality of interpretation including both Copan’s and Boyd’s as being consistent with orthodoxy, doctrinal fidelity, and popular piety. There is room for everyone at the table. And nobody should be asked to go against the most basic dictates of conscience in the name of piety.

Now for my objections.

Boyd and the Beastie Boys Objection

To begin with, while Boyd’s cruciform reading of the Bible is sophisticated and subtle, I submit that it also faces the Beastie Boys objection.

Let me explain.

If you grew up in the 1980s you no doubt remember Beastie Boys’ 1986 hit “Fight for your Right (to Party),” a childish, bawdy teen call to rebellious partying. What you may not know is that the song was written and performed tongue-in-cheek: the Beastie Boys were aiming for a subversive parody of childish rock rebellion songs. (Think, for example, of Twisted Sister’s “We’re not Gonna Take it.”)

The problem is that the Beastie Boys’ audience of young, puerile teen boys didn’t hear sophisticated subversive satire. Instead, what they heard was a decidedly straightfaced bawdy call to rebellion. This went on for a few years until the Beastie Boys grew so deflated at the complete misreading of their ironic subversion of cheezy rock party songs that they stopped performing “Fight for your Right” altogether.

Greg Boyd may be correct in his sophisticated cruciform reading of biblical violence. Nonetheless, his reading can hardly be considered mainstream in the history of the church. While there has been interpretive plurality in the history of the church, it is fair to say that the vast majority of average Christians have not interpreted the texts in question with the non-violent, cruciform sophistication that one finds in Boyd. Rather, much as the Beastie Boys fans heard a straight-ahead party anthem, so Christian readers have tended to read relatively straight-ahead endorsements of divine violence.

(As a case in point, Boyd himself assumed the correctness of such violent readings up until a decade ago when he initially set out to write a book on the topic.)

In short, if Boyd is right, then the Bible is full of non-violent texts which have been widely read incorrectly for two millennia by Christians as violent texts. When their audience missed the point, the Beastie Boys stopped performing their song after a few years. So why would God persist literally for millennia in maintaining a text that produced such serious, enduring misunderstanding among his devotees about such pivotal ethical and theological issues?

Copan and the Swallowing Camels Objection

Now for a quick objection to our second interlocutor in the debate, Paul Copan. In his response to Boyd, Copan largely focuses on enumerating a series of biblical texts that present a problem for Boyd’s thesis.

Copan certainly raises some legitimate objections to Boyd’s interpretation. But at times his critique also has the whiff of straining gnats whilst swallowing camels. For example, Copan twice asks how Jesus could have said it would be better for a person who causes a “little one to stumble” to have a millstone tied around their neck and thrown into the sea (e.g. Luke 17:2). Apparently, Copan believes this vivid metaphor is too violent for Boyd’s Jesus. Perhaps that is a problem, but is it a bigger problem than Copan’s belief that the same God who invited little children to sit on his knee also commanded the genocidal slaughter of Amalekite infants (cf. 1 Samuel 15:3)?

And yes, I referred to the slaughter in question as genocide and I do so advisedly. While Copan and Flannagan attempt to argue it isn’t genocide in their book Did God Really Command Genocide?, I counter that their analysis fails. In other words, according to international law, the actions described in biblical passages like Deuteronomy 20, Joshua 6, and 1 Samuel 15 would be considered both genocide and ethnic cleansing (see the short version of my argument here). Thus, Copan’s reading of the Bible requires one to conclude that sometimes acts of genocide and ethnic cleansing are morally permissible and even morally required by the people of God.

Swallowing camels indeed.

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Conversations with Radical Doubt Part 2: How do you refute solipsism?

Solipsism is the view that only the individual exists. In that respect, the precise content of solipsism shifts with respect to every individual who holds it. If I am a solipsist then I believe only I exist and everything else I experience (including you) are contents of my mind and nothing more. If you are a solipsist then you believe that only you exist and everything else you experience (including me) are contents of your mind and nothing more.

Solipsism is a standard skeptical stop on the mainline of the skeptical epistemology train (along with idealism, brains-in-vats, and no-other-minds). In each case, by contemplating the views of the skeptic, the epistemologist is challenged to fine-tune justifications for “commonsense” beliefs she accepts without question.

This suggests that solipsism is, by and large, a philosopher’s mental exercise, a fanciful what-if scenario, a thought-experiment. But is it something more? Are there solipsists in the world? People who genuinely believe it is really all about them — and generated by them?

Here’s a practical way to put the question: have you ever met a solipsist? Alvin Plantinga has. In his autobiographical essay in the book Alvin Plantinga (Profiles, Vol. 5; ed. James Tomberlin and Peter van Inwagen; University of Warsaw, 1985), Plantinga recalls a memorable experience during his tenure at Wayne State University when he met a genuine solipsist, a professor who was teaching in another university department. Let’s call him Dr. X. After their pleasant visit as Plantinga turned to go, one of Dr. X’s colleagues quipped, “We treat Dr. X really well here because when he goes, we all go!”

[Cue the laugh track.]

It isn’t surprising that Plantinga still recalled that anecdote twenty years later because meeting a genuine solipsist is a truly rare occurrence. Idealists are, by comparison, a dime a dozen.

So it was noteworthy when I was contacted the other day by a person expressing concern that solipsism might indeed be true. I assured this person (via email) that I did, indeed, exist. But of course, once a person has bought into solipsism, it becomes a universal skeptical acid in which any possible defeater (such as my testimony that I exist independent of the solipsist’s perception of me) can be explained away as yet another permutation of the individual whose mind is generating all reality.

In short, once a person’s epistemological Jeep is stuck in the solipsist bog, how do you ever winch them out?

My second — and more serious — approach went like this. “Solipsism shouldn’t bother you because there is absolutely no reason to believe that thesis is true.” To unpack that point, note that there is an infinite number of equally implausible “global skeptic theses” which (1) can be reconciled to any data we experience but which (2) are all utterly implausible just the same, including the thesis that we’re all regularly deceived by a Cartesian demon, or that we’re dreaming our existence, or that the universe was created five minutes ago with apparent age. If we don’t worry about these global skeptic scenarios, why select solipsism for particular concern? My point, in short, is that concern about (or belief in) solipsism is hopelessly arbitrary.

At that point, I moved from comparing solipsism to other global skeptic theses and on to a final line of critique in which I compare it to known risks which, though minimal, are still far more prima facie likely than solipsism. “Indeed,” I continued, “there is far better evidence prima facie that an undetected asteroid will annihilate life on earth tomorrow, but I don’t worry about that possibility and I suspect you don’t either. But then it is irrational to worry about a far less plausible thesis [e.g. solipsism].”

I’m not sure if that reasoning made a dent in this individual’s lingering solipsism, but I did my best. How would you seek to rebut the global skeptical acid of solipsism?

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