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Cambridge University is too inclusive to allow Jordan Peterson to visit. Seriously.

Jordon (not included) Peterson

On Monday, March 18th, Cambridge University offered Jordan Peterson the opportunity to spend two months at the university this fall as a visiting fellow.

This offer apparently resulted in a meltdown at the school between Cambridge faculty and students outraged at the offer. It didn’t take long for their protests to be heard. Today, Wednesday, March 20th, the university rescinded the invitation, backed up with this statement:

“[Cambridge] is an inclusive environment and we expect all our staff and visitors to uphold our principles. There is no place here for anyone who cannot.”

Cambridge University is so inclusive, apparently, that it is unwilling to include Jordan Peterson.

The irony is unintended, I presume.

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On Strawmen and Steelmen

A few weeks ago, I read the following tweet from an atheist:

Dear child, I love you unconditionally.

Sincerely, God

P.S. If you don’t return my love, I will set you on fire forever. Love you!

It would be one thing if folks all recognized this as a trolling caricature. Just a bit of naughty fun at the expense of Christians.

Unfortunately, many people didn’t recognize it, as such. Instead, they seemed to think it presented an incisive critique of what Christians actually believe about posthumous judgment. As if God is an insecure abuser who arbitrarily strikes out at those who do not obligingly bend the knee by “setting them on fire forever.”

When I pointed out that this tweet was, in fact, a gross caricature of Christian views of the nature of posthumous judgment, the defenses came quickly. One fellow actually scolded me for failing to “steelman” the tweet.

So I should’ve steelmanned the strawman?

Oh, the irony.

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Will there be sex in heaven?

I recently received an emailed question asking whether there will be sexual intercourse in the new heavens and new earth. While I have never undertaken a systematic study of the question, the standard response among theologians has been no.

But why? So far as I can see, one can attribute this response to the following reasons:

First, since Augustine, sin has been commonly linked to coition. While human beings are called to fulfill the creation mandate of populating and stewarding the earth (Gen. 1:28), the means of doing so involves coital acts which necessarily involve some degree of concupiscence (i.e. lust). Such was Augustine’s view, and it tainted views of sexuality for a very long time. To see a memorable example of this, read John Noonan’s classic study Contraception: A History, for it provides a sobering illustration of how many Catholic theologians and ethicists could only justify coition as a means to procreation.

According to Revelation 21:27, nothing unclean will “enter” heaven: ergo, no coition. Also, there will be no new births, thereby undercutting the primary historic justification for coition.

Second, since Jesus describes the institution of marriage as not continuing in the new heavens and new earth (Mt. 22:30), and given that the only framework in this life for the expression of coition is within the covenant of marriage, it is again reasonably inferred that the coital act would cease in the future.

Third, coition has been long interpreted as a symbolic prolepsis of the intimacy that we will enjoy when the church as bride is united with God (Eph. 5:25-30). As Paul wrote, “when the perfect comes, the partial will pass away.” (1 Cor. 13:10, ESV)

Fourth, as I suggested above, there is an absence of a theological tradition endorsing the possibility of physical sexual expression in the post-resurrection state. And while tradition is hardly determinative, we should at least cede some significance to the lack of tradition.

However, we should also consider whether the reasons provided in the tradition are good ones. I think the second and third reasons have some significant force. I do not think the first reason is a good one on its own because it is predicated on a deeply distorted perspective on sexuality.

That said, the first reason does have a moment of wisdom, I think. It recognizes that the fall impacts different aspects of human experience to different degrees, and the effects on sexuality are especially pervasive. The lesson there is that we should be especially conservative about speculating on the nature of human sexuality in eternity.

So what’s the answer? The tentative answer would be no. But I think it is reasonable to count that majority opinion as an adiaphoron (i.e. no essential dogma is contingent on this answer) which could be revised pending good arguments for the contrary view.

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A Christian Argument for Antinatalism

Antinatalism is the philosophical view that the birth of new human beings is, in some sense, a disvalue and should be avoided. However, antinatalists disagree widely on their reasons for assigning a disvalue to the creation of new human life. One person might be an antinatalist because of the anticipated quality of life of the newborn — “I couldn’t bring a new life into a world with all this suffering” — while another person might be an antinatalist because of the impact on  planet earth — “Human beings are a plague species!”

One thing is clear, however: antinatalism would seem to be very far from the Christian perspective. After all, children are consistently viewed as a blessing in scripture (e.g. Genesis 1:28; Psalm 127:3).

While this is true, in this article I’m going to present a brief argument for antinatalism from a Christian perspective. That Christian perspective assumes that it is likely or plausible that posthumous judgment for those outside Christ will consist of a resurrection to judgment that leads to the eternal conscious torment of the individual resurrected. With that in mind, the argument proceeds in straightforward fashion.

(1) The belief that there is a reasonable chance (e.g. more than 20%) that your future child would be born with a horrifying and untreatable disease like Stevens-Johnson syndrome would provide a good reason to avoid having children.

(2) Eternal conscious torment is unimaginably worse than Stevens-Johnson syndrome.

(3) Therefore, if the belief that there is a reasonable chance that your future child would be born with Stevens-Johnson syndrome would provide a good reason to avoid having children, then the belief that there is a reasonable chance that your future child would ultimately experience eternal conscious torment provides a good reason to avoid having children.

(4) There is a reasonable chance that your future child would ultimately experience eternal conscious torment.

(5) Therefore, you have a good reason to avoid having children.

I am not an antinatalist, but I do think this is an argument for Christians to consider. And if they reject it, as I do, they should be clear on their basis for doing so.

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The Problem of Evil and Biblical Violence: A Conversation with an Exvangelical

Clint Heacock is a former senior pastor with a PhD in theology who has since left Christianity and bills himself as an exvangelical. In this conversation, Dr. Heacock and I discuss his objections to theodicy and the problem of biblical violence in particular. To learn more about Dr. Heacock, you can visit him online at his blog as well as the aptly-titled Mindshift Podcast.

RR: Clint, thanks for joining me in this discussion about theodicy. As I understand your position, you believe this is a failed enterprise and I’d like to hear more. But let’s start with definitions to make sure that we’re on the same page. How do you define theodicy?

CH: Classically, of course, it has to do with “a defense of God” in terms of providing some sort of justification or answer to what appears to be some fairly indefensible actions of God in the Old Testament, such as: commanding Israel to commit genocide on other nations; killing of Egyptian firstborn male babies; and God some laying out some fairly horrific (and extremely harsh) laws in the Pentateuch also.

On the face of it, these do not seem to be the actions of a loving, merciful deity. God has been accused of being actually sadistic and monstrous, which logically seems to be the case if we take the text at face value. The scriptures are clear that he himself commanded it.

I also would say that theodicy touches on the larger problem of evil, and the question of God somehow being potentially responsible for evil’s existence. It also speaks to his character, if he is indeed some sort of monster who both condones and commands genocide.

But I’d also say that your description of my journey is somewhat incomplete. I haven’t “left all the religion stuff behind” in the sense that I am still very much interested in dialoguing about it. In particular, this topic of theodicy is of interest because many ex-evangelicals report that a major reason they left the church is over its doctrine of God, their portrayal of him in churches, and this issue of theodicy. I may more properly be described as agnostic, because I’m still wrestling with a lot of issues. So I haven’t left religion entirely behind.

Theology that appears to provide “an escape clause” for God’s actions is often seen by exvangelicals as little more than creating a justification for letting him off the hook. If God is indeed responsible for evils he commanded, then he is in no way worthy of worship and adoration. He cannot be the loving God as portrayed and worshiped in evangelicalism.

Thus, I do my podcast to talk with people all over the world who have largely left evangelicalism. In these discussions, I have learned much, and have experienced a great range of responses as to their reasons why they left the church (and possibly Christianity) behind.

I therefore act, (perhaps ironically), still in very much of a pastoral role for many of my listeners who have experienced deep religious trauma at the hands of the church–and possibly God too.

RR: Okay, thanks. Etymologically, theodicy comes from the Greek words for God and justice, hence the notion of justifying God’s ways to human beings. Your summary focused primarily on biblical violence, though you also reference “the larger problem of evil”, which, I assume, you would understand to encompass such states of suffering and evil as wicked human moral actions generally(i.e moral evil) as well as the suffering which is often described as natural evil because it obtains apart from the morally culpable actions of moral agents. I’m thinking, for example, of carnivory, predation, parasitism or mass extinction in nature as well as the suffering from natural disasters like earthquakes, volcanic explosions and meteor strikes. And so we face the question of how we reconcile the existence of God with this degree of evil and suffering.

However, I’m puzzled by your description of theodicy as “an escape clause” to get God “off the hook.” What the theist who develops a theodicy is doing is recognizing the existence of an objection to their belief and then presenting a rebuttal to that objection. And it seems to me that this is precisely what reasonable people do when presented with objections to their beliefs. So what’s the problem?

CH: The precise nature of the problem is this: if God is indeed responsible for the commanding of genocide, for example, then the implications of that are huge. This is an even greater problem for biblical literalists, as an example, who (taking the text essentially at face value) don’t seem to want to face up to the fact that the text simply states, “Yahweh commanded his people…” to commit genocide. Were those same actions to take place today, we would classify them, rightly so, as a war crime, and the guilty parties would be judged in a court of law–and found guilty of mass murder of civilians.

So what I mean by the “escape clause” argument is that it somehow seems that even in “reasonable” defenses of God’s actions in the OT, he always appears to escape culpability for instigating hideous evil–and thus is handily provided a way out of being held responsible. Much like the soldiers and officers responsible for the My Lai massacre in Vietnam, their actions were later whitewashed by the US Army, and they never were held to account for their horrific murders of innocent Vietnamese civilians.

RR: I see. So it would seem then that your objection is not actually directed at theodicy per se but rather at a particular range of theodicies which you find implausible. Fair enough, I find those theodicies and the hermeneutics that underlie them problematic too. See, for example, my 2009 Philosophia Christi article “Let Nothing that Breathes Remain Alive,” and my extensive review of Paul Copan and Matthew Flanagan’s book Did God Really Command Genocide? Part 1, Part 2, Part 3.

Nor am I an outlier in this regard. Many Christians offer similar critiques of violent biblical readings and they propose alternative readings of the texts in question. See, for example, the work of Greg Boyd, Peter Enns, Brian Zahnd, Eric Seibert, Douglas Earl, John Collins, Walter Brueggemann, Philip Jenkins, Derek Flood, Mark Roncace, Thom Stark, and Kenton Sparks. Nor is this a new trend: one finds alternative reading traditions throughout church history: consider, for example, Origen (3rd cent.) and Gregory of Nyssa (4th cent.).

For an introduction to a new way of thinking, I’d commend my book The Swedish Atheist, the Scuba Diver and Other Apologetic Rabbit Trails, chapter 21, “Would a Most Perfect Being Command Genocide?”

Okay, so I’ve argued that you shouldn’t dis on the project of theodicy in general because it is simply the task of seeking to address objections to one’s worldview. And while you may reject particular hermeneutical treatments of biblical violence texts, many Christians do as well. Do you have any other major concerns or objections?

CH: My point remains, which is this: I’ve never heard of a theodicy that simply admits to the very distinct possibility that God commanded his people to commit genocide (but to be fair, I haven’t read all of those sources to which you referred above). There may be someone who does, but I haven’t studied that source to date. If you know of any who do, please refer them to me. I want to hear of a Christian who admits that’s simply what the text says; that’s what happened; and then try to come to grips with worshiping that God.

But I can honestly say I’m beyond the point of being “argued back into the Kingdom” on this issue; in addition to theodicy, I have a multiplicity of issues with the God of the Bible, as well as the God of evangelicalism.

I suppose as an exvangelical, one of the major elements of my deconstruction of the Bible and theology was finally just admitting to myself that if I took the text simply at face value, it leaves me with little option other than to admit what I just articulated above. So in all my own attempts at theodicy, as an evangelical, I now see clearly, were merely ways to excuse, or provide an escape clause, for “the elephant in the room”–God told his people to do it.

That reality is incredibly problematic, and I decided that I did not want to live with the cognitive dissonance any longer of trying to find excuses for God’s actions in the conquest of Canaan. Equally disturbing are many horrific and downright cruel laws that God commanded his people to follow, too. Then in nearly the same breath, he commands them to worship him exclusively–on pain of cursing, death and exile. What kind of a healthy, or functional, relationship is that?

Recently I listened to a quite disturbing podcast describing in detail the events surrounding the My Lai massacre, which I referenced above. When one begins to understand even a tiny bit of how horrific and traumatic it was for the unfortunate Vietnamese who were caught up in the massacre, from there it’s not a far leap to put oneself in the position of the Canaanites who were wiped out at God’s command–men, women, children and animals.

Put in the parlance of a modern military, “God the general” ordered his soldiers to murder men, women, children and even livestock. That is extremely psychologically disturbing, and I cannot condone the worship of a God who would command such atrocities on people. Any court in the world would justly condemn such actions as a war crime, and crimes against humanity.

As far as I’m concerned, much of theodicy is on the same level as justifying the perpetrators of the My Lai massacre–and just as angering and disturbing psychologically. Many were rightly outraged when the soldiers at My Lai (as well as the higher-ups) got off basically scot-free. Why shouldn’t we feel the same way in the case of a God who commands genocide?

RR: Clint, I’m not sure that we’re connecting here. You asked whether any of the twelve scholars I referenced believe that God did in fact command genocide. No, they don’t: that’s why I cited them. I was pointing out that many Christians reject the violent reading of the Bible which you cite as a reason to reject Christianity.

You did ask, however, for examples of Christian scholars who do accept that God commanded the eradication of Canaanites from the land. That’s easy enough to do: see the essays by Eugene Merrill and Tremper Longman in Show Them No Mercy. However, as I said, I don’t find those views at all compelling. The point, once again, is that an objection to a particular violent reading of the Bible does not constitute an objection to mere Christianity since mere Christianity does not commit one to a particular violent reading of the Bible. The twelve scholars I cited are evidence of that fact.

I would like to address one other point that you made, however. You referred in your comments to the Christian who accepts a violent reading of the Bible as being one “who admits that’s simply what the text says”. This is a common refrain from Christian fundamentalists and conservative evangelicals. They assume there is one “plain” reading of scripture: “simply what the text says.” Not surprisingly, they also assume that this plain reading matches up perfectly with their reading. So if Genesis 1 says God created in six days then we should believe God literally did create in six days: that’s the plain reading. And if God says in Deuteronomy 20 that the Israelites should destroy every living thing in the land of Canaan, then that’s what the Christian should believe literally happened. That’s simply what the text says.

But this just isn’t true. There isn’t one plain and simple reading of these texts. And the best way to see that is by considering how people who don’t accept your reading of the text came to hold their views. The twelve scholars I cited provide rigorously worked-out theological readings of these texts based on careful exegetical spadework in a complex reflective equilibrium with specific theological traditions, informed by particular reasoning and moral reflection and practical experience. If you examine their proposals carefully and consider how they came to hold them, I think you’ll be able to see that a Christian is not obliged to believe that God commanded putative moral atrocities like genocide.

CH: I don’t want this to descend into an argument about hermeneutics, however; that’s not what I’m pointing out here. The reality is that for most Christian laypeople won’t take the time to read those 12 scholars’ work to which you refer, for example. And they probably couldn’t track the dense theological and biblical language used in those academic works; I have to say that you yourself are guilty of doing some of the same things (“a complex reflective equilibrium with specific theological traditions” as an example). I’m not even sure what exactly that means, and I’ve got a PhD in theology!

I believe you’ve actually made my point to which I was heading in my last paragraph: the average Christian isn’t going to be able to go through all the “exegetical spadework” to arrive at a satisfactory conclusion that lets God off the hook. Armed with a “straight reading” of the biblical text, and if they’re an inerrantist to boot, then they are in for some real trouble at some point reconciling all of this in their own minds. For all the back-and-forth, I’m still not entirely convinced that you have indeed come up with a theodicy that does excuse him, from what I can tell. Maybe I missed something in all the theological jargon.

I do hope that our conversation is indeed helpful for anyone who is deeply reflecting on this issue. As a former evangelical, I’m still wrestling with the person of God that I was presented with in evangelicalism (and even preached and taught for years). And so it may be that it is precisely that version of God that I’m having trouble with now.

If anyone is interested in my journey out of evangelicalism, here’s the link to my inaugural podcast episode back in January of 2018:

001: MindShift Pilot Episode 2018: The Journey of Deconstruction & Discovery

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Don’t Be Meme! A Friendly Debate and Dialogue

My latest (ninth) appearance on Unbelievable, the premier (pun-intended) apologetics radio show and podcast (hosted, as ever, by the ever-affable Justin Brierley) went live today.

This time out, I have a friendly debate and dialogue with David Smalley. Smalley is the host of Dogma Debate, a radio and podcast show similar to Unbelievable except that Smalley is an atheist who regularly invites Christians on to debate. And while Brierley focuses on playing the (more or less neutral) moderator, Smalley is in the thick of debate.

In this exchange, we debated the proliferation of memes in Christian/atheist exchanges online while focusing in on a few specific memes. You can listen to it here.

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Biography as Theology: A Review

James Wm. McClendon, Jr. Biography as Theology: How Life Stories Can Remake Today’s Theology. Wipf and Stock, nd. (Previously published by Abingdon Press, 1974, 1991.)

I originally decided to read James Wm. McClendon’s minor classic Biography as Theology as a possible text for a new seminary class on theology as autobiography. In this highly regarded book, McClendon purports to develop a novel method for theology by way of personal narrative. McClendon devotes a chapter to each of the following four individuals: Dag Hammarskjöld, Martin Luther King, Jr., Clarence Jordan, and Charles Ives.

King, of course, needs no introduction. But that may be part of the problem: when McClendon published Biography as Theology back in 1974, there was not yet the volume of literature on the great reformer that exists today. While McClendon’s portrait touches on some key moments in King’s life — the Montgomery bus boycott, Letter from Birmingham Jail, the “I have a dream” speech, his prophetic stance on Vietnam — I found few new revelations into King’s thought here.

The situation is somewhat different with Hammarskjöld. While he achieved some fame in the years since his death in 1961, due almost completely to the posthumous publication of Markings, his star has faded significantly in the last thirty years. As a result, his life was unfamiliar to me (though I must admit to having an as-yet unread used copy of Markings somewhere in my personal library). It is perhaps for that reason that I found the portrait of this chapter to be more revelatory in understanding a man who lived out a private and deeply meditative Christian faith in the halls of political power.

The final two figures — Clarence Jordan and Charles Ives — are somewhat more obscure yet. I confess that I was not particularly moved by the great American composer, Charles Ives, not least because I chose to listen to some of his music on Spotify while I was reading the chapter and I found it to be dissonant and, frankly, irritating. Given that McClendon was ambitiously attempting to derive theological images from Ives’ music, actually listening to his oeuvre significantly diminished my appreciation for the chapter. I was also left wondering how one can possibly move from an instrumental piece to a specific theology (a point to which I shall return below).

I most enjoyed reading McClendon’s account of the life of Clarence Jordan, translator/creator of the Cotton Patch Gospel (a highly idiomatic translation of the New Testament which sets the narrative in the American south), founder of the Koinonia Farm (a racially integrated Christian commune) and a key figure in the founding of Habitat for Humanity.

I was riveted to Jordan’s story from his early years when he encountered the following appalling case of racism and hate:

“The environment taught him, he later wrote in his journal, that ‘a nigger was a nigger and must be kept in his place,’ an awareness that struck Clarence with special horror one summer night when he heard terrible groans coming from the nearby chain-gang camp, and realized that a Black prisoner he knew, Ed Russell, was being tortured in the stretcher — the stretcher being a Georgia version of the ancient rack — used in disciplining convicts. What added irony was the boy’s knowledge that the administering torturer was the same Warden McDonald who only hours earlier had been lustily singing ‘Love Lifted Me’ in the Baptist revival choir.” (91)

That was the racist environment in which Jordan grew up, a world in which a pious Baptist could sing hymns Sunday morning and torture a black prisoner Sunday evening. This makes it all the more extraordinary that Jordon resolved to found Koinonia Farm with the intent of integrating blacks and whites with a common purpose of sharing life together. As you can imagine, the locals were incensed, with the nearby Baptist church eventually disfellowshiping all the members of Koinonia from their ranks.

But that wasn’t enough. Next, all the local businesses began to boycott the farm. A reporter recounts the following exchange between Jordan and the local butane salesman who was refusing to serve the Koinonia community:

“Why haven’t you been around?” [Jordan asked a butane truck driver.]

“I can’t,” the man said. “If I do, I’ll lose all my other customers; it’ll ruin my business.”

“It looks to me like you’re on a spot,” said Jordan in his mild voice. “You’re either going to lose some money or you’re going to lose your soul.”

“I know,” the man said, “I ain’t doing right, am I?”

“I don’t think so. Winter is coming on. We got a lot of children out there on the farm, and without gas those children are going to be cold. They’ll huddle in their coats and, when they get cold, they’re going to cry. You’ll be sitting here in your nice warm office and when that old north wind begins to howl, maybe you’ll be hearing the crying of those children in the howling of the wind.”

… “My God, Mr. Jordan, I don’t know what to do. This thing has got me so messed up I got a headache. I want to keep serving you, but I’m afraid. If I do, I’m going to get my truck blown up someday.”

Jordan waited a moment…. “I feel sorry for you. All you got to do is stand up on your hind legs and act like a man. Maybe you’d lose your truck, but you’d lose your headache, too.”  (97-8)

And with that kind of boldness, stoicism, and good humor, Koinonia managed to survive boycotts, cross burnings, and gunshots ringing out in the night.

Alas, this is the point where I tell you that I decided not to use Biography as Theology as a textbook. But why?

I have already noted that I had somewhat mixed responses to the chapters on King and Ives, but that’s not the reason. The real reason, to put it bluntly, is that Biography as Theology has not aged well. It was written in a time when theologians were greatly concerned to meet modernistic challenges to the method of and justification for theological discourse. And McClendon’s proposal fits neatly within that concern: his approach to theology through biographical narrative provides a way to circumvent traditional skeptical objections to theology in ordered propositions. By basing theological discourse on specific lives that lived out the Gospel, McClendon is attempting to root theology in the putative foundation of ethical experience in a way that recalls to mind all manner of other exercises in foundationalism (e.g. Kant’s ethical foundationalism; Schleiermacher’s aesthetic/subjective foundationalism).

This becomes evident at several points in the book. For example, McClendon describes seeking to pursue “theology on the basis of experience” so as to avoid the “twin threats of superstition and vacuity” (71). (Within this rubric, superstition would appear to be equivalent to benighted precritical theologizing while vacuity is what is left of theology if the critical skeptic is not answered.) Theology through individual narratives provides a way through the horns of the dilemma, a genuine means to ground and so justify theological discourse. As McClendon puts it,

“our biographical subjects have contributed to the theology of the community of sharers of their faith especially by showing how certain great archetypical images of that faith do apply to their own lives and circumstances, and by extension to our own.” (75)

In these biographies, McClendon focuses on considering what these four individuals can teach us about the doctrine of atonement, in particular: “by instantiating atonement as a central motif of their own image-governed lives, these two [Hammarskjöld and King, but also Jordan and Ives] had powerfully reinforced the viability of that doctrine for Christians in our times.” (143)

Note that all-important reference to viability. Without justifying narratives such as these, atonement is apparently not a viable doctrine for our age. And so, the viability of atonement is established in King’s emphasis on God leading the people of Israel into the Promised Land or Jordan’s movement of God which is heralded in such holistic and countercultural communities as Koinonia Farm. By considering atonement manifested in these concrete ways, we can justify and so render viable atonement discourse while sidestepping the interminable and problematic debates of traditional propositional theology over such arcana as the concept of imputation or the object of a Christic ransom, to say nothing of the gap between the Jesus of history and the Christ of faith.

Well-intentioned though McClendon’s effort may be, in my view it is wholly unsatisfactory. To see why, we can consider a hypothetical objector to his project. McClendon imagines this interlocutor posing the following objection:

“What you have so far shown [in these four lives] is at best related analogically to the actual Christian doctrine of atonement. The lives you have reported may indeed be inspired by the biblical concept, and that, if true, is an interesting fact about Hammarskjöld, King, Jordan, or Ives. However, it goes no distance at all to showing that the objective, biblical doctrine is true — to showing that Christ died for our sins or that in him the world is truly redeemed.” (147)

This imaginary interlocutor is on to something. While McClendon concedes in his response that there is still a place for propositional theorization in theology (p. 149), I simply don’t see that he goes any distance to answering the question that he himself posed via the interlocutor. For example, there are countless lives that have been lived in accord with many non-Christian belief systems from Gandhi (Hindu) to Izzeldin Abuelaish (Muslim) to Stephenie Meyer (Mormon) to Ayann Hirsi Ali (atheist). How, precisely, does recounting any of these lives and their fit with their beliefs itself provide a justification for those beliefs?

This leads me to the second problem. This is the problem of underdetermination which I touched on briefly above vis-a-vis the challenge of moving from Ives’ dissonant musical corpus to theological images of atonement. To be sure, McClendon believes he can overcome the gap as he writes hopefully that listening to pieces like the Fourth Symphony or 114 Songs will illustrate that “Ives’s quest for unity is of a piece with the Christian work of atonement.”(145) The problem here is that other music critics will no doubt draw completely different “declarations” for the simple reason that the music underdetermines specific theological interpretation. And it most certainly underdetermines any specific Christian doctrine of atonement.

That which is true of Ives’ music is also true of the lives of each of these individuals. While one can interpret various actions in their lives in accord with a specific understanding of atonement, one must begin with that propositionally articulated doctrine as an interpretive framework rather than having it arise organically out of the life lived.

Given that lives and actions radically underdetermine specific theological proposals, it is hardly surprising that there is very little by way of actual atonement theology in this book.  To note one rather unsettling example, McClendon writes that while Jordan was an “incarnationist”, “this did not mean that his Jesus was a God-man, a masquerading deity. Rather, in the man Jesus we learn that God is not an absentee landlord.” (112)

Er, what’s that supposed to mean? I’m not sure, though the fact that Jordan’s position “might have satisfied [death of God theologian] Thomas Altizer” (112) is hardly confidence inspiring. With comments like this, McClendon shows a disturbing dismissiveness toward orthodox metaphysical accounts of incarnation: Jesus is not merely a man who was uniquely open to God’s presence in his life. Conversely, orthodox theanthropism is not “a masquerading deity”. But let’s not miss this point: if McClendon leaves us with a very low christology, this is an all-too-predictable result of a method which hobbles him at the outset from saying much more.

And that brings me to the final problem: all this hand-wringing over justification is perhaps the most dated aspect of the book. It reminds me of philosophers in the 1960s assuming that metaphysics is dead. Such concerns seem positively quaint now. Keep that in mind as we turn to McClendon’s own worry: “For a century or more, theology has agonized over the historicity fo the portrait of Jesus in the Gospel accounts, now affirming more, now less, of that portrait.” (85) McClendon’s appeal to biography aims to cope with that “agony”: “there is no hint in the religious experience of Hammarskjöld or King, that these events or teachings, or any other, must be validated by more historical research before faith can flourish.” (85) Be that as it may, today we have far better and more direct ways to deal with this so-called agony including fulsome critiques of the underlying epistemological and text-critical assumptions that drive it. (For the former, see my Theology in Search of Foundations. For the latter, see Richard Bauckham, Jesus and the Eyewitnesses.)

I’ve been mostly negative in this review, I fear. And frankly, that isn’t quite fair, so let me end on a positive note. In some key respects, Biography as Theology was ahead of its time. Most notably, McClendon heralded the turn both to narrative and metaphor in theology which would become very significant in the 1980s. For those points alone, his book is an important step in twentieth-century theology. However, its significance lies primarily as a historical document to be read in historical context rather than as an enduring proposal with primary significance for our age.

My thanks to Wipf and Stock for generously providing me with a review copy of Biography as Theology. I remain grateful to Wipf and Stock for making important and long-out-of-print books like this available to a new generation of readers. You can purchase a copy of Biography as Theology here.

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Pelagian Calvinism

Today, Steve Hays posted a response at Triablogue to a comment I posted on my website in the discussion thread for the article “Does Calvinism entail that I might love my child more than God does?” Let’s begin with Hays’ quotation of me:

“Imagine a doctor who has enough antidote for an entire population inflicted with a fatal disease. The doctor’s choice to provide the antidote only to a subset of those inflicted would invite the reasonable question: why only some? Why not all?

And replying “He didn’t need to save anyone” is not a response to the question “Why didn’t he save everyone?”

https://randalrauser.com/2019/03/does-calvinism-entail-that-i-might-love-my-child-more-than-god-does/#comment-4366664262

Well said, if I do say so myself! But not according to Hays who then replies as follows:

“Imagine the entire population of Cambodia has a fatal disease. A doctor has enough antidote to cure everyone, but he refuses to treat the Khmer Rouge. He only treats Cambodians who aren’t members of the Khmer Rouge.” (source)

The first problem with Hays’ “rebuttal” is that the doctor’s behavior would constitute a gross breach of the Hippocratic Oath. Sadly, Hays doesn’t seem too worried about that! (Perhaps he should consider taking a class in bioethics before invoking more doctor analogies?)

Setting aside the egregious ethical nature of the doctor’s conduct, the biggest problem with Hays’ response is that the doctor (who obviously parallels God) distinguishes between two groups: the innocent Cambodians who are worthy of being saved (i.e. the “elect”) and the wicked Khmer Rouge who deserve to die (i.e. the “reprobate”). However, if the analogy is to be relevant then it follows that God distinguishes between the elect and reprobate based on the worthiness of the elect (relatively innocent citizens) and the unworthiness of the reprobate (genocidaires!).

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is what Pelagian Calvinism looks like.

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Does Calvinism entail that I might love my child more than God does?

Last week, I presented a simple argument against God as defined in Calvinism and Islam. The core shared theological content of both Calvinism and Islam that was under consideration concerned perfection and the denial of omnibenevolence. Thus, the objection was not, in fact, an objection to Calvinism and Islam simpliciter but rather an argument against any version of Calvinism and/or Islam which denies omnibenevolence.

Just to keep the conversation going and unpack the intuition a bit more, I’d now like to present another brief argument that covers similar territory. This time, the focus shifts slightly to the concept of love, both creaturely and divine. Of course, love can mean many things. But in this context, I’m going to be talking about the concept of love in what I understand to be its minimal, essential metaphysical sense, namely, the desire that an entity would achieve shalom (wellness, peace, joy). Thus, to love an entity is to desire that that entity achieve shalom.

With that in mind, here’s the argument:

(1) If I desire that my child achieve shalom and God does not desire that my child achieve shalom, then God loves my child less than I do.

(2) I desire that my child achieve shalom.

(3) If Calvinism is true then possibly God does not desire that my child is elect.

(4) If God does not desire that my child is elect then God does not desire that my child achieve shalom.

(5) Therefore, if Calvinism is true then possibly God does not desire that my child achieve shalom.

(6) Therefore, if Calvinism is true then possibly God loves my child less than I do.

(7) It is not possible that God loves my child less than I do.

(8) Therefore, Calvinism is false.

This is very far from a definitive argument. But at least it is a conversation starter. So let’s talk.

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A Conversation with Catholic Apologist Trent Horn (Part 2): Is There One True Church?

This is part 2 of my conversation with Catholic apologist Trent Horn. You can read part 1 here.

RR: Let’s switch gears, Trent. Personally, I don’t believe that God calls everyone to be part of one church. I believe, instead, that he calls some people to be Coptic and others to be Congregational. He calls some to be Presbyterian and others to be Pentecostal. And he calls some to be Catholic and others to be Baptist. (I devote a chapter to my own calling as a Baptist in What’s So Confusing About Grace?)

I can put my thesis of ecclesiological pluralism modestly as follows:

At least one person (e.g. Billy Graham) faithfully fulfilled his calling to follow Christ apart from becoming a member of the Roman Catholic Church.

Would you agree with that?

TH: Before I answer the question it may be fruitful if you contrast your ecclesiological pluralism with general religious pluralism. Some have argued, “I don’t believe that God calls everyone to be part of one religion, He calls some people to be Trinitarian Christians, others unitarian Christians, Jews, Muslims, and even atheists in some cases. Do you think at least one person has followed Christ’s will even though he or she never became a Christian (e.g. Gandhi, Aung San Suu Kyi, etc.)? I ask the question because it may provide insight into my explanation for why I am not an ecclesiological pluralist (which I promise to answer shortly) and perhaps find some common ground between us.

RR: Since Vatican II the Catholic Church has embraced Karl Rahner’s concept of anonymous Christians according to which it is possible that (for example) a sixteenth-century Buddhist monk who never hears of Christ may nonetheless be saved by Christ, all while participating in his Buddhist community. Are you denying that this sixteenth-century Buddhist monk could have been called to salvation in Christ by participation in that Buddhist religious community?

TH: It may be helpful for us to distinguish inclusivism from indifferentism. Indifferentists would claim that salvation is probable, or even definite, for non-Christians because there is no ideal faith for them to embrace and so it doesn’t matter what they believe. Inclusivists, on the other hand, claim it’s possible for someone to be saved even if he never manifests Christian faith (something Catholicism affirms) but that it is still ideal if this person were to become a Christian. However, even if they don’t accept the Christian faith God can still act through this non-Christian’s life in order to accomplish certain goods.

From the Catholic perspective, “many elements of sanctification and of truth are found outside the visible confines of the Catholic Church” (Catechism of the Catholic Church 819). But, it is still ideal for non-Catholic Christians to belong in full communion with the universal or “catholic” Church that Jesus Christ established (in paragraph 838 in the Catechism says non-Catholic Christians have a certain yet imperfect communion with the Catholic Church).

If attending a church were just a matter of finding a nice building in which one praises God and has fellowship with like-minded people, then indifferentism would seem to follow. But belonging to a church also entails accepting its theology, which leads me to ask, “Does our call to ‘follow Christ’ include believing a particular, ideal theology that has positions on issues like predestination, sacraments, Church authority, eschatology, and serious moral issues?”

Remember, one could accept the ideal exists but acknowledge that genuine, saved Christians who do a tremendous amount of good in the world may not achieve it (inclusivism) or one could say there is no such ideal theology and that as long as one “follows Christ” that’s all that matters (indifferentism). And of course there’s a spectrum between these positions but your answer will help me better address your thesis in my next reply.

RR: There’s no question that a Christian ought to prefer a Buddhist become a Christian so the position you refer to as indifferentism is off the table. But the scenario I proposed is one in which a Buddhist has no access to Christianity. In that case, it would appear on an inclusivist theology that God calls the Buddhist to Godself within the context of Buddhism. And that’s consistent with saying that counterfactually had it been possible in that circumstance for that Buddhist instead to be called to Christianity, then that would have been preferable. But that’s not the situation in which that individual finds himself.

If you’ll grant that much, then you should also grant that if a Baptist missionary is the first Christian to visit that Buddhist’s village, then it is preferable for that Buddhist to convert to Baptistic Christianity over remaining a Buddhist.

Finally, let’s fast-forward twenty years. That formerly-Buddhist village has now converted to Christianity en masse and there are two churches. The first church is run by indigenous Baptist natives who speak the language and know the culture intimately. They exude the love of Jesus as they help the poor and feed orphans and widows. The second is run by a corrupt Catholic priest from Spain who does not speak the language and who is known to have beaten many of the children.

Now I’m not suggesting for a moment that Baptists are better than Catholics: far from it. I’m only asking this: is it not reasonable to believe that in this third case God may be calling at least some of those villagers to the Baptist church rather than the Catholic one? And if that is plausible, then how do you know the same reality doesn’t obtain in various other places worldwide?

TH: It depends on what you mean by “calling.”

If you mean God will accommodate those who did not receive the fullness of his revelation because there was an obstacle in their path (like a gravely sinful priest), then I agree God may choose to reveal himself to that person through other means (like a non-Catholic Christian pastor). He would then judge that person according to the revelation he or she received. Paragraph 2125 of the Catechism even says the moral culpability for disbelief is lessened by Christians who are, “said to conceal rather than to reveal the true nature of God and of religion.”

However, if you mean God positively wills these people away from the fullness of divine revelation, which includes his presence in sacraments like the Eucharist or Reconciliation, just because he wants to spare these indigenous people of suffering then I must disagree. We are not in a good position to know how God can use suffering to facilitate a person’s ultimate good, which is eternal life with him. St. Martin de Porres was a wonderful example of a saint who courageously faced racist Catholics and, instead of becoming bitter or faithless, became an example of Christ’s humility and generosity to the poor of 17th century Peru.

Let’s replace your example with wicked Baptists and morally virtuous Mormons. I don’t think God would positively call someone to a deficient Christology just because of some sinful Baptists. Likewise, I don’t think God would positively call someone to a deficient ecclesiology and soteriology for the same reason.

Finally, I’m concerned thought experiments like these might prejudice our thinking to an incorrect intuitive conclusion (similar to Daniel Dennett’s intuition pumps). In the vast majority of cases, the choice is not between a wicked church and a welcoming one, but Churches of differing theologies with relatively welcoming clergy and laity (though I admit as Catholics we could learn from Evangelicals on how to be more welcoming at mass!). In that case, don’t you think a person should examine these Church’s respective theologies and try to discern which contains the fullness of divine revelation?

RR: Okay, so you agree that God may draw people to himself outside the Catholic Church at least in cases where there are  “obstacles” to people finding God in Catholicism. I’m glad we agree on that point. I would add that we really have no idea what kind or range of obstacles might be sufficient for God to call people into specific communions which otherwise deviate from the divine ideal. Assuming, as you believe, that the Catholic Church is that ideal, for all we know, non-Catholic churches may be full of people called to those alternatives because they present the best opportunity for those people to find fullness in Christ.

Let’s unpack this a bit. Imagine two churches: doctrinally speaking, Church A is 80% correct and Church B is only 70% correct. With that in mind, could God call Jane to Church B despite the fact that it has more incorrect doctrines? Well, imagine that these are the two possible outcomes:

Scenario 1: If Jane attends Church A, after five years she will have 60% correct doctrine and be 20% sanctified.

Scenario 2: If Jane attends Church B, after five years she will have 70% correct doctrine and be 30% sanctified.

In scenario 1 the church has more true beliefs than Jane ends up holding after five years of membership/participation. In scenario 2, Jane ends up holding all the true professed beliefs of the church (i.e. 70% of the total of true doctrinal beliefs). Hopefully, this isn’t too confusing. The idea is that church A has more true beliefs but is less effective at getting Jane to hold the true beliefs it professes.

Given those alternatives, it is very plausible that God would call Jane to Church B because while this church has less correct doctrine overall, it will bring about greater doctrinal and personal transformation in Jane.

What is more, God does not only call people to specific churches for their own sake. There could be many reasons God might call Jane to Church B beyond her own personal formation. For example, maybe Jane is a great teacher and she could have the most transformative impact on the kingdom in the non-Catholic church where she is at.

So I don’t see any problem in imagining that God would call a person to a church with a deficient theology. After all, every church in history has some degree of doctrinal deficiency: no church is batting a thousand! (Cf. 1 Corinthians 13:12.)

With all that in mind, I’d like to return to my ecclesiological pluralism thesis:

At least one person (e.g. Billy Graham) faithfully fulfilled his calling to follow Christ apart from becoming a member of the Roman Catholic Church.

Agree? Disagree?

TH: Since this will be my last reply, let me first thank you for this discussion. I think it’s important for Catholics to continue to dialogue both about what divides us as well as what unites us when it comes to spreading the Gospel. The Catechism says, “All who have been justified by faith in Baptism are incorporated into Christ; they therefore have a right to be called Christians, and with good reason are accepted as brothers in the Lord by the children of the Catholic Church” (818).

I agree with your statement in the sense that some people have done wonderful things to build up the kingdom and save souls without becoming Catholic. The Catechism says, “ Christ’s Spirit uses these [non-Catholic] Churches and ecclesial communities as means of salvation, whose power derives from the fullness of grace and truth that Christ has entrusted to the Catholic Church” (819). God has called non-Catholics to practice works of mercy (like feeding the hungry and comforting the sorrowful) and evangelism that leads to salvation. So some people “faithfully followed Christ” by saying yes to these specific callings without becoming Catholic.

But I can’t agree with your statement if it means that a person faithfully followed Christ by saying “yes” to God’s call to be Protestant rather than Catholic. God would never positively will someone away from the explicit means he gave us to have eternal life. God may work through whatever means of salvation the person stumbles upon (such as a virtuous Baptist over a sinful Catholic) in order to draw him closer to himself, but that would be an example of ecclesiological accommodation rather than ecclesiological pluralism.

I also disagree with your assumption that all Churches have theological deficiencies. In 1 Corinthians 13:12 Paul is talking about our knowledge of heaven being incomplete rather than the Deposit of Faith entrusted to the Church. While the Catholic Church has many deficiencies because it is composed of sinners, I trust God’s promises that the Church is the pillar and foundation of truth (1 Tim. 3:15) and that the gates of hell will not prevail against the Church (Matt. 16:18). This means that Christ’s Church will not definitively teach theological or moral errors.

Finally, I hope you won’t take my defense of Catholicism as some kind of triumphalism or mere desire to “get more converts.” I truly feel it would be selfish of me to hide what I find to be beautiful about Catholicism, like the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist, the infusion of Christ’s righteousness into the soul in justification, and the teaching authority of the Church derived from the apostles and “hide it under a bushel basket.” Instead, I desire to share it with others, answer their questions in response, and continue to “reason together” (Isa. 1:18) so that we can attain the fullness of God’s truth and grace that lead to eternal life.

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