Randal Rauser's Blog, page 58

Knock the Little Bastards’ Brains Out: C.S. Lewis and the Cursing Psalms

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Advice on Starting an Apologetics Group at Your Church

The other day, somebody emailed me requesting advice about starting an apologetics group in their church. I thought some other folk might be interested in the question and so I offer my musings here.

Too often, I see church apologetics groups become a self-insulated group where individuals share like-minded interests … like watching and discussing Bill Craig debate videos and reading Lee Strobel books. But beyond that, it never goes anywhere. This isn’t necessarily bad, of course, but an apologetics group could be so much more.

So I would suggest two things: first, as a group, you should consider actively how you can serve the church and help equip people. That means not simply talking to each other within the group but finding ways to reach out and equip the laity. Talk to the pastors or church leadership. See how you can work together in a common vision of equipping people to have a reason for the hope within.

Second, and perhaps even more importantly, I would suggest actively reaching out to other groups from other belief communities to facilitate dialogue so as better to understand one another. Too often, novice apologists want to get to arguments without first devoting sufficient time to listening. They read what Christians have to say about Muslims or atheists, but they never actually talk to a Muslim or atheist. And so, when they finally do, their cup is already full of assumptions about the other person and a long list of rebuttals to whatever they might say.

Here’s my philosophy on apologetics and dialogue/debate: There is no better way to get to know what you believe than to spend time talking with folks who don’t believe it.

Over the years, I’ve gotten to know some people at the Society of Edmonton Atheists here where I live. I’ve spoken at their group a couple of times and participated in a debate that they co-hosted. I’ve also participated in dialogues with Catholics at my seminary and other ecumenical events. (Ecumenists are not that keen on debate, however, so I leave that for other times!) I also have participated in debates and dialogues at churches (including my own) both with atheists and Muslims. Afterward, we always made a point of hosting a reception to encourage participants to speak to one another.

So the Bill Craig debate videos and Lee Strobel books are fine. But it’s important that you’re intentional about moving out of the insular group and into a spirit of service and potentially life-changing conversations.

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Atheism is not Agnosticism

I’ve talked about this before, but I tweeted about it again today. So if you want a brief riposte (though aren’t ripostes, by definition, brief?) here it is:

Online atheists regularly say atheism is not belief in the non-existence of God but merely nonbelief in the existence of God. By that logic, theism is not belief in the existence of God but merely nonbelief in the non-existence of God. Since one may simultaneously have nonbelief in the existence of God and nonbelief in the nonexistence of God, one may simultaneously be an atheist and theist. That absurd conclusion is avoided if we return to the commonsense view that atheism = belief in the non-existence of God.

The issue, in short, is following through the logic of turning a positive affirmation position into a withholding position. If atheism becomes agnosticism about theism, then theism can become agnosticism about atheism.

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Actually, God Can: A Response to Thomas Jay Oord (Part 1)

Last week, I posted a review of Thomas Jay Oord’s book God Can’t. While the book was well written with admirable pastoral sensitivity and compassion for those who suffer, I wasn’t particularly taken with the main argument. Not surprisingly, Dr. Oord was not particularly taken with my review and he posted a response here. Since I just can’t leave well enough alone, I will now respond to his review of my review. I will present excerpts from Dr. Oord’s comments indented and in red and then I’ll offer responses.

To begin with, Dr. Oord charges me with misunderstanding his view. But he then adds,

I suspect some of your misunderstanding would have been avoided had you read The Uncontrolling Love of God, as you admit. But I also know there are always more books to read than time to read them!

Whether I have misunderstood anything remains to be determined. But I do want to highlight, as I did in my review, that there is a tension when you are seen to be evaluating a person’s theology based on their popular presentation of it for a general readership. So it is worth noting, as Dr. Oord has, that he has a longer academic treatment of the same material. Those sufficiently intrigued to pursue his ideas in their fullest form should probably look to that book. However, by the end of my rebuttal, it should become clear why I am not as yet persuaded that the longer work will address my concerns.

A major misunderstanding occurs early on in your review. You wrongly claim my view says “action requires a body.” I don’t believe this and say so many times in the book. I often speak of God’s acting, despite not having a localized divine body.

I did cite several passages straight out of the book to support my interpretation. So if Oord is going to rap my knuckles, he should explain those passages.

In the first chapter, I clarify this point and illustrate by talking about asking my wife to marry me. I said that when doing so, I acted. But for the marriage possibility to become actual, my (then girlfriend) had to cooperate with my action. I then said a bodiless God acts each moment but cannot singlehandedly bring about the results of love.

This is not helpful. When I talk about acting in the world, I am referring to the ability to actualize an intention that realizes a state of affairs. For example, I have the ability to act on my arm if I can will to raise my arm and my arm is thereby raised. I do not have the ability to act on my arm if I will to raise my arm and my arm does not thereby rise. When Oord says he is acting but that the act can be refused, he is saying, in effect, that it is enough to say that he has the power to act to raise his arm if he wills to raise his arm even if his arm does not rise. But that is not sufficient for action.

I fear I may lose some folks at this point, so let me slow down and unpack matters with more precision. We are talking here about two individuals (God/wannabe bridegroom) and two spheres in which each desires to act (creation/the will of the beloved). Oord is suggesting that it is enough to say he has the power to act if he issues a marriage proposal even if it is rejected by the beloved. But since the beloved here parallels creation, he is in effect saying it is enough to say God has the power to act even if God’s action is, in effect, rejected by creation. And that is false.

Thus, Oord’s response is misleading, at best and it goes no distance at all to address the problem that he is proposing a God who is unable to bring about states of affairs in the world in precise analogy to a paramour who cannot persuade his beloved to reciprocate such that he is left singing Bonnie Raitt’s 1990 hit “I can’t make you love me.”

In this section of your review, you say a toddler can do things God cannot. I agree. A bodiless God can’t act in ways a toddler can act, because God has no localized divine body. God can’t flap wings like butterflies, because God is wingless. We could extend this in a wide number of ways. An incorporeal God cannot do what corporeal creatures can. Unless one is a Mormon (Latter Day Saint) who believes God has a body, this shouldn’t be so controversial for Christians.

I’m sorry, but I fear that Dr. Oord is engaging in obfuscation here which calls to mind the tactics of the Mormon missionary who uses familiar terminology to mask a revolution. His comment suggests that I am merely saying that God cannot tweak his nose because he doesn’t have a nose to begin with. And since that is a tautology, of course, that is true.

But theological revolutionaries have been known on occasion to dress up a revolution in the garb of the ordinary and commonsensical (cf. the above-mentioned Mormon missionary) and I fear that may be the case here. The issue is whether God can will to act in the world at least with the immediacy of a toddler who boldly piles his Duplo into a misshapen tower. If God can do at least this, if he can bring about a Duplo tower with an exercise of sheer will that would be just in the right place to prevent a heinous evil action, then why doesn’t he do so? In countless cases, it would take only one Duplo tower of sufficient size to stop the would-be perpetrator of a heinous crime. And yet, God doesn’t act.

The reason is clear enough. The whole drift of Dr. Oord’s revolution is that God never creates that perpetrator-frustrating Duplo tower because he is unable to do so. God is unable to accomplish even the action of a thirty-pound toddler playing with his Duplos. So all this talk about God being unable to tweak his nose because he has no nose strikes me as just so much obfuscation. What we in fact have in Dr. Oord’s theology is a god weaker than a toddler. And a god who is so emasculated that he lacks the power of a toddler is not a being that I am inclined to worship.

One way the tradition has dealt with the problem of toddler being able to do what a bodiless God cannot is to say God can control (in the sense of a sufficient cause) creatures. When God takes control of a toddler or butterfly, we can say God did something. God was the sufficient cause. But this view leads not only to problems with regard to creaturely freedom and butterfly agency. One wonders why this God doesn’t control creatures far more often to prevent evil. In other words, the problem of evil is exacerbated.

As an Arminian and libertarian, I don’t believe that God is the primary determining cause of free human action. But I do believe that God is omniscient and that omniscience includes knowledge of counterfactuals (so-called middle knowledge) and based on this God can oversee events within creation so as to actualize his meticulous will in a delicate dance with the unimpeded will of free creatures.

In the second part of my rebuttal, I will take on the rest of Dr. Oord’s statement. Suffice it to say that I am not persuaded that his view is anything less than a radical reconstruction of the concept of divine power, one which results in an impotent supernatural agent at some distance from the omnipotent deity of Christian piety and theology.

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If God commanded you to sacrifice your child, would you? Here’s my response

If God commanded you to sacrifice your child, would you? The answer is simple: God wouldn’t command that. And if you still want to consider the scenario as a per impossibile claim, you can do that with any moral system, not just divine command theories of ethics.

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A Quick Word on the Total Evidence for Theism

Occasionally, I hear people make claims about how the “total evidence” does or does not support theism. Those people are incorrect: *nobody* has considered all the expansive evidence for/against that claim. Nor is it feasible that any person ever will.

The total evidence includes not only thousands of publicly available arguments and lines of evidence that can, in principle be examined by all. Some of it is available on Wikipedia and some only in the basement of dusty libraries or the unfinished manuscript of a polymath.

The total evidence also includes the subjective experiences of countless people: e.g. an encounter with a mysterium tremendum et fascinans. Some of these experiences may be available proximately to others through testimony. But even that doesn’t capture the experience itself.

So nobody can ever capture *all* the evidence. And when people speak in sweeping absolutist claims as if they can, that tells you something about their own apparent need to have mastery of this question. For the rest of us, a modicum of humility is the order of the day.

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Should we hope that God has a reason for allowing evil?

Many people find the idea that God has a reason for allowing great evils to be implausible, even offensive. But does that make sense? Should we really prefer that evil occur for no reason at all? Or should we hope there is a reason, even if we can’t understand it? In this video, I take the latter position by way of a reflection on my father’s death.

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The Questionable Comfort of Impotent Love: A Review of God Can’t

Thomas Jay Oord. God Can’t: How to Believe in God and Love after Tragedy, Abuse, and Other Evils. SacraSage Press, 2020.

“Why God?” It is a question that has been asked by countless people. “Why did you allow me to get cancer?” “Why do you allow children to starve?” “Why do you allow a pandemic like COVID-19?” From a philosophical perspective, it is a problem that has been with us at least since Epicurus: if God is all-powerful, there should be no evil; if he is all-good, he should not desire any evil. And yet, there is evil. Why?

The standard Christian theological response has been to explain that even though God is all-powerful and all-good, he nonetheless has some reason why he allows evil. In God Can’t, Thomas Jay Oord takes a different approach. In line with Harold Kushner’s influential book When Bad Things Happen to Good People, he finds the traditional theodicies — greater goods and soul-making, free will, mystery/skeptical theism — to be woefully inadequate: bad systematic theology and bad pastoral theology.

God Can’t

So how should we address this classic trilemma? In Oord’s view, the way forward is to realize that God cannot stop a single evil. At least, God can’t do it on his own. Bad things happen because God’s hands are tied: he cannot control actions and events and processes. Instead, God is limited to a “love synergy” in which he works with creatures to prevent evil. (As an aside, is it just me or does “Love Synergy” totally sound like the name for a disco group?)

Alas, the partnership of this love synergy is simply inadequate to stop all the evils that occur. The practical implication of this theology is seen in a man named Dave who describes how he interprets his own suffering through this perspective:

“‘God could not stop my parents from abandoning me. And God could not stop the male molester who preyed upon me from the age of eleven until I was eighteen,’ wrote Dave. But ‘God smiled when my molester went out with family rather than wait for me on my paper route.” (171)

The appeal of this radical chastening of divine power is to save God’s love. God wishes he could’ve stopped Dave’s molestation but he was unable to do so:

“When we understand that God cannot heal singlehandedly, we solve the problem of selective miracles. If God always works to heal but cannot control anyone or anything, it’s not God’s fault when healing does not occur.” (93)

The motivation to protect divine love is clear enough, but why precisely does Oord believe God is limited in this way? Oord appears to make his case by appealing both to a metaphysical explanation and a moral explanation. I will now take a look at each.

The Metaphysical Theme: Action requires a body

The metaphysical theme is based on the fact that God lacks a physical body coupled with the notion that action in the world is always mediated through a physical body. Here are some excerpts in which Oord describes his position:

“God does not have a divine body with which to block evil or rescue creatures. By contrast, creatures do have bodies to exert bodily impact on others. and creatures sometimes use their bodies to stop evil.” (32)

“Here’s where ‘God is a universal spirit without a physical body’ matters.

“God has no divine hand, literally speaking, to snatch us from the path of oncoming cars or grab us before entering a fire. God has no divine arm and legs to carry people from a warzone. God has no body to stand between gunmen and potential victims. God has no arms to wrap around a distraught person to keep her from cutting herself. But because creatures have localized, physical bodies, they sometimes can prevent evil.

“A bodiless, universal spirit cannot do what embodied creatures sometimes can.” (33)

“God has no hands or body parts to cause a hurricane or volcanic eruption. Nor can God literally step in front of a hurricane or sit on a volcano. God cannot use a divine finger to stop a virus or rearrange rocks in a landslide.” (132-33)

The way that I read these passages calls to mind the trope of a ghost desperately attempting to communicate or interact with the living world but then discovering to her dismay that she is unable to be seen, heard, or manipulate objects because of her lack of a body. She is nothing more than a mere spectral wisp.

I find this to be an enormously problematic picture. Not only does it suggest that God has less ability to actualize particular states of affairs within creation than does an embodied human toddler. It also misses an obvious parallel between the human being’s action upon their body and God’s action upon creation. Consider, my action upon my body is immediate: I will to raise my hand and my hand raises. As a dualist, I would say this is an example of dualist interactionism in which the soul/mind can act immediately upon the body and then through the body with the world. By analogy, I understand God to be a soul/mind that is non-embodied (sans incarnation) and God acts with a parallel immediacy in the world to our action on our bodies.

Some panentheists have suggested we go further and argue that creation should be thought of as God’s body. One need not make that leap to recognize the general point that God’s action on creation is immediate and need not be mediated through a physical body. Still, those inclined to explore a panentheistic model could simply say that the world is in some sense God’s body. And thus, if I can control my body with immediate discrete action, so God can control his world with immediate discrete action: if I can raise my arm at will, then God can stop the abuse of a predator.

Admittedly, some Christian theologians may not find that dualist framework for divine action to be workable given their commitment to a reductive or non-reductive physicalist account of the human person. However, that is not Oord’s view. On the contrary, his account of the person appears to be strongly dualistic, if not gnostic. To illustrate, he offers two possible views for the afterlife: either we continue to exist as disembodied souls or we receive spiritual bodies that replace our current physical bodies (99). Curiously, he never considers the mainstream orthodox Christian view that our resurrection bodies are numerically the same bodies that we possess now just as the firstfruit of resurrection, Jesus himself, had his same body resurrected (with the tomb left empty). So not only are Oord’s views on the human person a curious departure from orthodoxy, but their dualistic nature also begs the question of why he doesn’t consider divine action in creation in analogy with human action on the body.

Suffice it to say, I find his metaphysical argument to be without merit.

The Moral Theme: Love is Non-Coercive

While the impossibility of disembodied action is a comparatively minor theme within the book, the major theme centers on Oord’s claim that love is non-coercive. If God were to intervene in particular moments in creation, God would be coercive. But because God is always loving, God cannot coerce. And so it follows that God does not, and indeed cannot, intervene: “Love doesn’t control, in the sense of being a sufficient cause. Therefore, it’s impossible for a loving God to control others.” (153)

It is important to understand the sweeping nature of Oord’s claim. It isn’t simply that it would be unloving to override the will of evil actors such as the molester who was assaulting Dave (though that is problematic enough). It is also unloving to alter the trajectory of even one subatomic particle. God cannot intervene at any level in the nexus of causes because any such intervention would be unloving.

So how does God influence creation? As noted above, according to Oord, God acts through “love synergy.” After reading the book, the nexus between divine influence and the natural continuum of causes is pretty foggy to me, though I suspect Oord offers more clarity in his more academically-oriented book The Uncontrolling Love of God: An Open and Relational Account of Providence. 

However, I do want to argue at this point that I simply find Oord’s attempt to exonerate God by appealing to love synergy to be uncompelling and to offer no advantage over conventional notions of providence. Here I’ll make two points.

First, I simply don’t accept the claim that any particular divine action in nature would thereby be coercive for the simple reason that action in nature generally is not automatically coercive. I am not coercing anything when I type this review or sip my morning coffee, for example. But let’s take a more robust case, one that involves human beings and potential suffering. Let’s say that I know you are struggling with alcohol and that if there is alcohol at the family get together this weekend, you’ll drink and end up going on a bender. So I call ahead and ask the hosts not to serve alcohol. They agree. We all go to the family get-together and have a great time, you see no alcohol, and you don’t go on a bender. Alls well that ends well, right? I certainly didn’t coerce you to do anything. I did persuade the hosts, but they freely decided not to serve the booze after I informed them of the situation. Suffice it to say, if I can interact in the world non-coercively for your benefit, I fail to see why God is suddenly engaging in verboten coercion the second he manipulates a single subatomic particle.

Second, there are plenty of circumstances where coercion would be welcome. Yes folks, that means that I reject outright Oord’s claim that love never engages in non-coercive action. It is obvious that any human person would be loving if they prevented that molester from abusing Dave. But why is it that the necessarily existent God who created and sustains everything is hamstrung by a non-intervention clause? God forbid, if my child were the victim of abuse, I’d want to scream at God for following a non-intervention policy that would allow predators to molest small children under the notion that any intervention would be coercive. What kind of love is this that declines to “coerce” a child predator by preventing him from perpetuating his evil? Please God, coerce the bastard!

Other Theodicies

Oord’s treatment of other theodicies in the book is quick and dismissive if not outright strawmanning. For example, this is what he says about soul-making theodicies:

“I believe God uses suffering to mature us. And God responds to evil by helping us and others in positive ways But I don’t think God causes or allows suffering and evil for this purpose. After all, evil doesn’t always produce a mature character.”(134, first emphasis added)

Oord poses a false dilemma here by assuming that if soul-making cannot explain all suffering or evil then it cannot explain any of it. But of course, that doesn’t follow at all. Most theodicies are not exclusive and the theodicist may thus believe that soul-making explains some degree of evil and suffering which may be supplemented by other theodicies. Oord’s treatment of other conventional theodicies is, in my view, equally dismissive and unsatisfactory.

Theology and the Pastoral Concern

Oord believes that the pastoral appeal of his synergistic love theodicy is a major selling point which should carefully be considered by critics:

“I know, of course, some people will oppose the view I’ve presented. Some will find it alarming or unsettling. Despite the comfort it gives those who hurt, critics will reject it.” (182)

But note that these words can be turned back on Oord.

I know, of course, that Oord and some other people oppose meticulous providence. Some will find it alarming or unsettling. Despite the comfort it gives to those who hurt, critics will reject it.

I think we can safely say that subjective responses do not settle the issue. However, it is worth noting that contrary to what Oord seems to think, millions of Christians do take comfort in the orthodox conception of the meticulous divine governance of all creation. Indeed, in the book, he spends significant time discussing one of them: Joni Eareckson Tada. So why doesn’t her opinion count, to say nothing of the millions of others like her?

Much of Oord’s case against traditional theodicies rests with the revulsion people who are suffering rightly feel to hamfisted and insensitive explanations on why they are suffering. However, Oord seems unaware that when people are in the midst of searing pain, any theological explanation is likely to be salt in the wound. If you’ve just lost your infant child to SIDS, you will not likely want to hear John Piper prattling on about meticulous providence. But neither will you want to hear Thomas Jay Oord prattling on about how God couldn’t stop your infant child’s death because of his non-coercive love synergy. When people are suffering, every theodicy is prattle. When people are suffering, they want to cry and scream and lament. And they want you to sit with them on their mourning bench while they do it.

A Pragmatic Conclusion

Near the end of the book, Oord tells us that he lost his faith in his early twenties and he only regained it after adopting the theology outlined in this book (180). Further, he notes throughout the book other individuals like Dave, the victim of child molestation, who likewise found faith only after surrendering divine omnipotence. I can’t say that I’d rather people reject Christianity altogether than that they be Christians with the theology of this book. But I will say that I hope those who find Oord’s arguments persuasive may one day find their way back to a more orthodox conception of divine sovereignty.

Thanks to Thomas Jay Oord for a review copy of the book. To purchase your own copy of God Can’t, click here.

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Is God punishing us with COVID-19? Here’s My Answer

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Raised to Die Again? And Other Fiery Debates

The other day, I received an invitation from Chris Date to appear on his YouTube program Rethinking Hell. I knew Chris Date from the time he handed Al Mohler his lunch on Unbelievable. Chris’s only weakness was that he knew too much about the topic and was trying to pack nine points into every thirty-second segment. As far as weaknesses go, that ain’t bad! So when Chris invited me to come on his show to talk about hell and annihilationism, I was like, “Yeah, sure!” The only downside: my wife told me I need to switch out my t-shirt for a button-up shirt or “people won’t respect you.” Yeah, okay, well that didn’t stop Chris, now did it?

Even if that shirt-change was not necessary to attain anyone’s respect, it was probably a good thing just the same since I’ve been wearing the same t-shirt for days. Such is the COVID-19 life that we all live. (Come to think of it, maybe my lovely spouse just wanted me to change my shirt…?)

But I digress. Here it is, broadcast (actually, streamed) a couple of hours ago: a friendly dialogue with some debate (especially near the end) about the nature of hell. (I’m aghast at Date’s view of the damnation of children, but since that was an addendum to the debate at hand, I didn’t say much; I’ll leave that for a future conversation.)

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