#Paul was great at breaking down theology and arguments

[raz-b-rose]

Paul seemed to suggest in Romans 4:15 that without the law, there is no sin, no "transgression." In context, Paul did not indicate the there was no actual sin, but only that one cannot literally "break" a law unless they are rightly subject to it. Here, Paul again clarifies that point: It's not that sin did not exist before the law of Moses. Of course, human beings have always sinned since the garden. Instead, Paul says that specific sin was not counted against specific people before the law. It was not a transgression in the sense of breaking the written words of the law; it was simply sinful humanity expressing its sinful nature: self-serving, hurtful, deceptive, and immoral. The argument here, as in Romans 4:15, is entirely one of perspective. Humanity does not recognize sin when God does not give us something like the law: in our minds, those sins are not "counted." They are still sins, since we still ought to know better (Romans 1:18–20). The presence of the law does not turn righteousness into sin—it turns supposed ignorance into certain knowledge of our own wrongdoing. Paul has shown that sinful nature every human being was born into resulted in separation from God and in inevitable death.

Bibleref.com

[dailyaudiobible]

07/17/2020 DAB Transcript

1 Chronicles 24:1-26:11, Romans 4:1-12, Psalms 13:1-6, Proverbs 19:15-16

Today is the 17th day of July welcome to the Daily Audio Bible I’m Brian it is an honor and a joy as it is every day to just come around this Global Campfire together and allow the word of God, the Scriptures to be spoken into our lives and lead us further and deeper into the story of the Bible as we take this journey together. So, today we’ll be going back into the story of King David as we continue our journey through first Chronicles before getting back into Paul's letter to the Romans. We’re reading from the Lexham English Bible this week. First Chronicles 24 verse 1 through 26:11.

Commentary:

Okay. So, as we continue deeper and deeper into Paul's letter to the Romans we’re seeing him kind of systematically begin to lay the groundwork for all of his argument, which is essentially his way of kind of dismantling, for the sake of a better word, kind of deconstructing all the pieces of his training as a Pharisee and all his understanding and adherence to the Mosaic law, not so that it can be disassembled and thrown in the dumpster, but rather to lay down the component parts and go, “what do we have here? How does this all line up? Has this all lined up correctly? Have we missed something?” Because for Paul, as a Pharisee and for the Hebrew people, adherence, so open obedience to the law was paramount, like the essential component, the way toward salvation, as it were. And in…in their worldview and in their understanding, Moses is the great prophet God used to bring them out of Egypt and to establish their identity as a people. It was through Moses leadership that this law came to be. And, so, their reverence for him is obvious and is important. And I mean, we read the story of Moses and…and we traveled through all things together as we moved through the Bible this year so we can see why he's that important of a figure. And Paul's not trying to diminish Moses. It's just that Paul had adhered to the law as best as he possibly could and so had the millions and millions of people who went before him and everyone…like it was this common understanding that you're supposed to obey the law, but it's also this common understanding that it's not possible, that nobody had been able to do it until Jesus, but we’ll get to that in the course of time. Nobody had been able to do it, and everybody understood that. And, so, where does that leave you? It leaves you on a treadmill that you can never get off, right?  It leads you chasing something you can never achieve. And, so, at a foundational level after Paul had this encounter with Christ, questions like, “is this really what’s going on…like…is this really how it works, that we will always try but never ever actually achieve, is that how the whole thing is set up? Is that what God wants, to be available if you could get yourself perfect enough?” So, what Paul did, whether this was a revelation from Jesus or something that he really thought about during the time where he was…where after he met Christ, he was very discombobulated and had to figure out what had happened? Whatever he did, whenever he did it, he started back at the beginning, the beginning of the Hebrew story. The first person that originates the story was a man named Abram. And again, we followed his whole story as we went through the Bible and God changed his name to Abraham and told him he would be the father of many nations. Well, Abraham…like this ethnicity called Hebrew is the offspring of Abraham, but was Abraham a Hebrew? This hasn't even been a term coined yet. And did Abraham obey the law? He didn't because it didn't exist yet. And was Abraham made righteous before God because he got circumcised as a sign of the covenant with God? No. According to Paul, quoting the Hebrew Scriptures, “if Abraham was justified by works, then he has something to boast about, but not before God. What does the Scripture say? And Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him for righteousness.” So, the argument is pretty technical, pretty thick with long run-on type sentences for sure. But the argument is, “God was doing things before the Mosaic law, and before Moses. It didn't all start there. Moses was a continuation of a story as, for them, as we all know from our own Scriptures. Abraham didn't do anything, didn't obey any law to become righteous before God. What he did do was believe God, put his faith in God and follow this God to a land he didn't know and believed in his old age, that a child of promise would be born. And this would be the first child of this new thing, this new kingdom of priests that would introduce the world to the one Creator, Father God. So, even though we can read this now, look at his argument, go back to the Hebrew Scriptures, the Old Testament, read and see that, “yeah that's what it says”, and see that the theological understanding that's being argued here has merit. This is a big shift for Paul's hearers. It is complicated and could have incredible implications for their understanding of…of the culture that had been being built for all the centuries. It was polarizing, it was divisive, not on purpose…not for the sake of just stirring up trouble, but it caused people to reconsider. And some, most for that matter, couldn't get on board and branded Paul a heretic because it was breaking down some very, very serious things in their culture, like exclusivity. What Paul is saying is that Abraham believed before there were any Jewish people and that's what made him righteous, not following any law. The law was there to lead people and everything that they did to remind them who God is and who their allegiance is to. But it wasn't the thing that was going to save them. It was their faith. That's what happened with Abraham, which opens up a can of worms because then anybody who believes…anybody who believes can be made righteous. And, so, here we…we see a battle that has been going on and continues until this day, “who gets to be in?” Paul says it like this, “is this a blessing for those who are circumcised, or also for those who are uncircumcised?” Of course, we understand that male circumcision was a sign of the covenant, something that happened at eight days old for male children, a symbol and a sign that would follow them their entire lives in their most intimate moments that they are in covenant with God and that they are this specific, set apart, exclusive people. So, Paul’s like, “is the blessing for those who are circumcised, or also for those who are uncircumcised? For we say”, and he’s quoting the Scriptures again, “faith was credited to Abraham for righteousness. How was it credited then, while he was circumcised or while he was uncircumcised?” And then he tells them, “certainly not while he was circumcised. He was made righteous before God while he was uncircumcised, and circumcision came after as a seal of a covenant. His faith, his belief in God and what God told him even before the rituals were invented is what worked. And, so, Paul’s essentially trying to say, “it’s got to still be that way. Everyone who believes, everyone who puts their faith in God who calls upon His name can enter in.” So, we’re like mostly Gentiles in this community, the Christian faith is mostly a Gentile religion at this point. And, so, we can read this stuff and just go, “okay…well…there's…there's the theology of my faith. This is why it works and it's in the Bible. And, so, that's that.” And we don't understand how unsettling the message of Paul was to his fellow Hebrew people. We do understand that there was a lot of antagonism toward him and assassination plots toward him and imprisonment and all of that. We understand that the mob would form everywhere he went practically, but we don't always understand like, “why? What's the big deal? He’s just saying really nice good things that…that God the Father of all welcomes you, you can come to him. You can be welcomed.” Like, we don't see the problem with the message. This is kind of the deal though. Paul is going back beyond Moses and trying to tell the story from the beginning and it really, really messes with rituals and traditions that have been embedded for centuries inviting the people forward, like inviting and pulling them forward into freedom but they can’t get their minds around it, and it feels like heresy. And, so, they brand him a heretic and do everything that they can to take him out. So, what do we do with that? Well, number one we rejoice. We rejoice that, by faith we can be made righteous before God and invited into an intimate friendship with the most-high God, like a being we can't even possibly comprehend with our minds alone. That's what the good news is. But then we also have to examine our lives. Like are we just living in the good news by faith or do we have our own version  of the rules that we’re like really trying to manage and manage everyone around us? And do we brand people and go after people who don't see it the same way that we do? Or are we confident in our own faith and our eyes are focused on our own life knowing that the Holy Spirit, knowing that the most-high God is all powerful? And as much as we think we might be defending Him. He is all powerful. He is most high. He is that He is, and He will do what he chooses. Like, we do this because we’re scared to get it wrong and we do this because we need to be right. But according to Paul, the way you get it right is that you believe.

Prayer:

Father we believe and…and help our unbelief. And help us God to not lose the plot of this story because we’re watching people over generations, over millennia in the Scriptures lose the plot of the story. And we confess, we lose it all the time, big and small, lose it all the time. What we have to do is rest in the fact that there's nothing we can do but put our faith in You, and that's what is required. And that in turn transforms us from within and our actions and convictions follow suit because of the transformation that You are doing within us. All we have to do is believe. All we have to do is stay open. But we close ourselves down all the time. Come Holy Spirit, we open ourselves to You, trusting that You will lead us into all truth, and that all we have to do is believe that You have rescued us and remain in fellowship with You. Jesus, make this real for us. Click it into place. Let it not be a theological formula. Transform it into our reality. There is so much freedom there. We don't have to figure it out for everybody anymore. We don't manage anything anymore. It's all a gift and we are lucky to be here. We carry this in our hearts today. How fortunate we are that You would even know who we are, much less adopt us into Your family as Your children. May we live like that today. Come Holy Spirit we ask. In the name of Jesus. Amen.

Announcements:

dailyaudiobible.com is home base, it is…it's the website, its where you find out what's going on around here at any point.

What's going on around here at the Community section is where the Prayer Wall lives and that is always happening. There’s always prayer going on. There’s always prayer needed. And, so, that is a fantastic resource for that, You can find the different links to the different social media channels that we’re on and stay connected that way. So, check that out.

Check out the resources that are available in the Daily Audio Bible Shop.

You can also check out the newest resource, which is called Heart, a contemplative journey. And that's a guided prayer and…and musical journey that just kind of takes us into the emotions of our heart. And that’s our latest resource and that is available on iTunes in the iTunes store or in the Google play store. So, you can download it there.

If you want to partner with the Daily Audio Bible you can do that at dailyaudiobible.com. There is a link and it lives on the homepage. And deepest, deepest gratitude for those who have clicked that link. If you're using the Daily Audio Bible app you can press the Give button in the upper right-hand corner or, if you prefer, the mailing address is PO Box 1996 Spring Hill Tennessee 37174.

And, as always, if you have a prayer request or encouragement you can just hit that Hotline button in the app, which is the little red button at the top. I love that thing. I love that thing. I love it that we have a hot line, that no matter where we are in world, like we’re connected in some sort of way, like it's always available and I love that. So…so you can hit the Hotline button in the app, or you can dial 877-942-4253.

And that's it for today. I’m Brian I love you and I'll be waiting for you here tomorrow.

[bishopkenneth]

A God Like Old Ben Weaver

“But nothing can be good in Him, Which evil is in me.” - John Greenleaf Whittier, The Eternal Goodness, 1865.

There was an aged man in town who reminded everyone of old Ben Weaver from the Andy Griffith Show. He always kept score and never let a slight against him slide. He was a stickler for doing things right, and the smallest deviation from doing things his way, the right way, was duly noted and registered in his little book that he might well have titled, The Misdeeds of Others. If anyone ever got on his wrong side - which was pretty easy to do - it wasn’t good enough to go have a talk with him, honestly tell him you were sorry, and ask for his forgiveness. He always demanded recompense, and a little extra in the payback. Did your child break his window with a baseball? Apologies be damned, you had to fix the window, which I suppose is understandable, but the way he figured, that wasn’t enough. I mean, the window was perfectly fine before your kid played Nolan Ryan with it and his life was disrupted with all the bother and the mess and the broken glass and the temporary patch job and the loss of peace of mind and house. Your boy saying he was sorry wasn’t enough. Your saying you were also sorry wasn’t enough. Your fixing the broken window wasn’t enough. That didn’t “even things up.” You still owed him because of the, what is it the lawsuits call it - “punitive damages.” And, I mean, he wasn’t wrong, but he wasn’t much loved by his neighbors either.

Have you ever known someone like old Ben Weaver? Did you like them? Did you think they embodied goodness? Would you consider them Christlike? Honestly, would you even want to be around them?

I’m assuming by now you know where I’m taking this - why are these qualities considered less than good in old Ben, but perfectly fine and dandy when we speak of the person of God? Why are the qualities we find reprehensible in fellow humans somehow considered “good,” “just,” and “right” when applied to God? God keeps track of our misdoings - but that’s OK, he’s God. God demands payment for our wrongdoings - but that’s OK, he’s God. God has to be “satisfied,” not only with recompense, but even with punitive damages - but that’s OK, he’s God.

So many times when I bring up this incongruity, people respond with, “Well, the Bible says God’s ways are not our ways.” What does that even mean? Better yet, “What even does that mean?” We can’t throw that line out as some kind of defense of God every time we run across him being attributed qualities which are reprehensible in every other living thing. The truth of the matter is that when God says that of himself (in Isaiah 55.8 and surrounding verses), he is specifically referring to his extraordinary level of mercy, not his “just demands,” or his wrath.

In point of fact, in Amos 1.11, God condemns Edom for these very faults. Edom “cast off all pity,” his “anger tore perpetually,” and he, “kept his wrath forever.”

For the love of God, let’s all please stop saying that something is good when it is in God, but terrible when it is in creatures created in his image. God is not like the sins he condemns. Let me say that again in bold, God is not like the sins he condemns.

“But,” folk respond to me sometimes, “God is so majestic that even a slight sin against him demands justice. He is a great king, and a crime against a king is greater than a crime against a commoner.” Seriously, I’ve been told this, because this is kind of a classic argument from medieval days that has hung around till now. But I say hogwash. If a king has an orchard with 10,000 apples and I steal one, that isn’t a greater crime than me stealing an apple from my neighbor who has only one apple. In fact, the deed done against my neighbor is worse (remember Nathan’s parable to King David). God’s greater majesty doesn’t mean he is more exacting in dealing with offenses. It means precisely the opposite: “Let us fall into the hands of the Lord, but not into the hands of men; for as His majesty is, so also His mercy.” (Sirach 2.18)

Anyway, where was I? Oh, yes, oftentimes when I teach or write about God’s love, his mercy, his forgiveness, I am met with, “Yes, but…” and what follows is a demand that I balance it out with focusing on his justice, and wrath, and righteous punishment. Laying aside for a moment (actually for this whole article) that I believe good, solid, orthodox theology does deal with these issues without abrogating the mercy and love of God, what I find intriguing is that these very same folk, when they hear a sermon or read an article about God’s just demands, his wrath, his punishments, never bring up the, “Yes, but” remark then!

It is almost as if something within our spiritual framework can’t handle the idea of a God who really and truly forgives without demanding payment; that there is something in our spiritual condition that can’t abide a God who acts toward others the way he teaches us to act toward others. I suspect that maybe way down at the bottom of our hearts the reason we don’t want to see God in this light is because it would demand that we who follow him also really and truly live the same way. That “something” in our spiritual framework, that certain je ne sais quoi as the French say with such flair, is what St. Paul would call, “the flesh,” and it isn’t from God, and it isn’t like God.

John Greenleaf Whittier, whom I quoted at the beginning of this article, was a 19th century American poet, and a devout Quaker. When you read the whole of his poem, The Eternal Goodness, you discover that it is a conversation between Whittier and a friend who keeps bringing up the, “Yes, but.”

I walk with bare, hushed feet the ground Ye tread with boldness shod; I dare not fix with mete and bound The love and power of God.

Ye praise His justice; even such His pitying love I deem: Ye seek a king; I fain would touch The robe that hath no seam.

Ye see the curse which overbroods A world of pain and loss; I hear our Lord's beatitudes And prayer upon the cross.

I have a dear pastor friend who was discussing theology and the Bible with me one day, and jokingly said, “I’m going to go home and look it up in Greek, and make it say what I want it to say!” We both laughed, because he wasn’t serious, but he was onto something. Folk can make the Bible say whatever they want it to say. They can find verses here and connect them with verses there, and paint a very Ben Weaver portrait of God. I would suggest, instead, that we look at Jesus. “If you have seen me, you have seen the Father,” he told Philip (John 14.9). The Old Testament saw God, but only in shadows (Colossians 2.17), “but the substance is of Christ.” Abraham, Moses, David, the prophets - they saw God, “in many parts and in many ways…,” the writer of Hebrews tells us (1.1), “in bits and pieces” (Phillips), BUT, “…but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son…He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature” (1.2). If you really want to know what God is like, he is like Jesus.

I really wrote this whole long article to make a single point, which I guess I could have just come right out and said and saved everyone a lot of time and trouble: enough of this seeing something as good in God, but as evil in others. If it isn’t good in old Ben Weaver, it isn’t good in the Almighty either.

Not mine to look where cherubim And seraphs may not see, But nothing can be good in Him Which evil is in me.

The wrong that pains my soul below I dare not throne above, I know not of his hate - I know His goodness and His love.

[catholiccom-blog]

Ellen Gould White’s ‘Original Lie’

The founder of the Seventh-day Adventist denomination, Ellen Gould White, had some choice words to say about the teaching of the immortality of the soul:

The great original lie, which [the devil] told to Eve in Eden, “Ye shall not surely die,” was the first sermon ever preached on the immortality of the soul. That sermon was crowned with success, and terrible results followed. He has brought minds to receive that sermon as truth, and ministers preach it, sing it, and pray it (Testimonies for the Church, vol. 1, 342).

The sermon which Satan preached to Eve upon the immortality of the soul—“Ye shall not surely die”— . . . is the foundation of spiritualism. The word of God nowhere teaches that the soul of man is immortal. Immortality is an attribute of God only. 1Timothy 6:16: "Who only hath immortality, dwelling in the light which no man can approach unto; whom no man hath seen, nor can see: to whom be honor and power everlasting. Amen” (ibid., 344).

White makes two specific errors here that betray a further and underlying problem with her—and Seventh-day Adventists’—understanding of the nature of the human person that is common among the various sects that deny the immortality of the soul. We’ll get to the underlying problem after we clear up the first two errors.

White’s first error

Mrs. White obviously did not comprehend the Catholic (i.e., biblical) understanding of death. She apparently thought that Catholics believe human beings never die,because we believe the souls of mankind are immortal. At least, that is what she appears to say.

Modern Seventh-day Adventists I have talked to have a bit more of a nuanced approach but assert essentially the same thing. They say that Catholics (and those who believe in the immortality of the soul) teach that in death only the body dies, not the person. So it would be improper to say, “Tom Smith died.” For the Catholic—the argument is made—Tom Smith’s body died, not Tom Smith.

This is simply incorrect. In fact, Catholics believe that when a Christian dies, the person dies, not just his body. The real key here is to define just what we mean by death.

I remember learning in philosophy class in the seminary the basic definition of death that goes back to Plato, Socrates, and perhaps beyond: “The reduction of a composite being into its component parts.” This is precisely what occurs when a human person dies: his “component parts” of body and soul are separated. But make no mistake about it; it is the person who dies.

Simple enough. However, at the death of the person there is a sense in which we can say the body dies that the soul does not. The body itself is reduced to its component parts because it no longer has its form, or unifying principle, which is the soul. This is why the body decays or “break down into its component parts.” As Scripture says, “The dust returns to the earth as it was, and the spirit returns to God who gave it” (Eccl. 12:7).

Because the soul is spiritual in nature, there are no “parts” to break down. Hence, the soul continues to live as a substantial, though incomplete, entity. It is in this sense that we say the soul of man does not die, while the body and the person do.

White’s second error

When Scripture says God “only hath immortality,” this does not mean humans and angels do not participate in that immortality that God possesses absolutely. The Fourth Lateran Council declared in its Constitutions:“We firmly believe and simply confess that there is only one true God, eternal and immeasurable, almighty, unchangeable, incomprehensible and ineffable” (“On the Catholic Faith,” ch. 1).

God alone is eternal,according to the council, yet, according to Scripture, “the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Rom. 6:23). This is not a contradiction. Catholic theology makes a distinction between the aeternitas of God and the aevum or aeviternitas of man.

The “eternity of God” has no beginning and no end. The “eternal” life of man has a beginning but no end. There is an essential difference between the two. Man’s eternity, or more precisely, his immortality, is a participation in what God alone possesses absolutely.  

There are two ways to help clear up this misunderstanding biblically. First, we note that even Mrs. White and Seventh-day Adventists believed and believe in the resurrection of the dead. Is this not immortality? St. Paul describes the resurrection of the body in terms of “this mortal nature must put on immortality” (I Cor. 15:53). Jesus said, “He who lives and believes in me shall never die” (John 11:26). That means, at least in some sense, humans will possess immortality.

Seventh-day Adventists agree that, after resurrection, Christians will never die. But that is the definition of immortality! Thus, even according to Adventist theology, I Timothy 6:16 cannot mean God alone is immortal in an absolute sense and to the exclusion of all others in any sense.

Second, we can point to our Lord’s comparison between the immortality of angels and the immortality of the faithful. Jesus said, “Those who are accounted worthy to attain . . . to the resurrection of the dead . . . cannot die anymore because they are equal to the angels” (Luke 20:35-36).

What makes this text significant is the context: our Lord was responding to the Sadducees who “say there is no resurrection, nor angel, nor spirit” (Acts 23:8). It is in this context he makes clear the fundamental truth that angels are immortal. He then uses the example of the angels for the immortality of the resurrected dead. Angels are pure spirits, and therefore “cannot die.”

So how are men “equal to the angels?” Men have spiritual souls that similarly cannot die. So obviously, again, I Timothy 6 must be taken to mean that God alone is immortal absolutely. Angels and men participate in the immortality that God alone possesses in a strict sense.

From here to eternity

Like its founder, the Seventh-day Adventist sect denies the natural immortality of the soul. In 1988, the Ministerial Association of the General Conference of the Seventh-day Adventist Church stated: “The soul has no conscious existence apart from the body. There is no text that indicates that the soul survives the body as a conscious entity” (Seventh-day Adventists Believe . . . A Biblical Exposition of 27 Fundamental Doctrines, 83).

Failing to understand the nature of the human person leads to more errors than space allows us to address here. But another couple of examples are found in White’s take on the resurrection and the judgment:

Thus were serious errors introduced into the Christian faith [by the Catholic Church]. Prominent among these was the belief in man's natural immortality and his consciousness in death. This doctrine laid the foundation upon which Rome established the invocation of saints and adoration of the Virgin Mary. From this sprung also the heresy of eternal torment for the finally impenitent, which was early incorporated into papal faith (The Great Controversy Between Christ and Satan, 2nd ed., 38; p. 58 in the 1884 edition).

Aside from the fact that White misrepresents the Catholic position on Mary—Catholics do not adore her, we honor her—notice how the truth of the communion of saints and even the doctrine of hell go up in smoke with the denial of the immortality of the soul?

In the years I have dealt with Adventists and other sects that deny the natural immortality of the human soul, I have found the underlying problem to lie in the misapplication of texts of Scripture from the Old Testament. Here we find the real foundation of the error for these are the “go-to” verses for Adventists.

We will examine three of them.

Go-to passage: Job

Man that is born of a woman is of few days, and full of trouble. He comes forth like a flower, and withers. . . . For there is hope for a tree, if it be cut down, that it will sprout again, and that its shoots will not cease. . . . But man dies, and is laid low . . . and where is he? . . . Oh, that thou wouldst hide me in Sheol, that thou wouldst conceal me until thy wrath be past, that thou wouldest appoint me a set time, and remember me! If a man die, shall he live again? . . . His sons come to honor, and he does not know it; they are brought low, and he perceives it not (Job 14:1-2, 7, 10, 13-14, 21).

“His sons come to honor, and he does not know it?” To the Adventist, this text is clear: that would mean there is no consciousness after death. Further, the author compares the death of a man to a tree getting cut down and says the tree has the advantage! The tree continues to live, whereas a man will not. Seems like an open and shut case.

But not so fast—if we examine the context, we see a different story. Job is speaking of death being the final end to this life. He is not denying that there is an afterlife. There are four points to consider in order to clear up this apparent difficulty:

Job compares man to a tree, which continues to blossom again; or “return” to this life. Man does not. Job is not denying an afterlife. He obviously believes man will be resurrected. He says as much: “For I know that my redeemer lives, and at last he will stand upon the earth; and after my skin has been thus destroyed, then from my flesh I shall see God” (Job 19:25).

In verses 13-14, as Fr. William Most has said, “[Job] indulges a fanciful wish, saying he would like to hide, without dying in Sheol, the underworld, until God’s wrath has passed” (Catholic Apologetics Today, 228). This is an understandable wish in the midst of terrible suffering. It is in this context that he says, in verse 14, “If a man dies shall he live again?” Job knows that you cannot go to Sheol and return to this life. We know this is what he is referring to because, as we have seen, in Job 19:25, Job explicitly teaches that there will be a resurrection of the body.

What about the part that says the sons of the dead man “come to honor, and he does not know it; they are brought low, and he perceives it not?” Fr. Most writes, “Job and his people thought of life [after death] as a drab survival—which is what it really was before the death of Christ. . . . By way of the beatific vision of God [a holy departed soul] can know what goes on earth. But without that vision he cannot. And that vision was not to be had in the days of Job, not until Jesus died (Apologetics Today, 229-230).

Most importantly, we have to read the next verse, 14:22: “He feels only the pain of his own body, and he mourns only for himself.” Those who deny the natural immortality of the soul seem to overlook this verse. But if the dead man being spoken of feels his own pain, then he must have a continued existence, even though he does not know what is happening “under the sun.” This “pain” in the afterlife of which Job speaks may well be a reference to the separation of body and soul at death and the longing for the resurrection. This makes sense when we again consider Job 19:25. Job said, “I know that my Redeemer lives, and at last he will stand upon the earth; and after my skin has been thus destroyed, then from my flesh I shall see God.” It would certainly make sense that Job would communicate a sense of “pain” in that the righteous dead are awaiting that which will finally complete them as human persons.

Go-to passage: Psalm 6

My soul is sorely troubled. But thou, O Lord—how long? Turn, O Lord, save my life; deliver me for the sake of thy steadfast love. In death there is no remembrance of thee; in Sheol who can give thee praise? (Psalm 6:3-6).

“‘In death there is no remembrance of thee?’ How can it get any clearer than that?” asks the Adventist. Fr. Most, quoting Scripture scholar Mitchell Joseph Dahood, S.J., responds: “The psalmist suffers not because of the inability to remember Yahweh in Sheol [hell] but from being unable to share in the praise of Yahweh which characterizes Israel’s worship” (Apologetics Today, 231).

Psalm 6 is written “to the choirmaster” in order for it to be sung in the context of the liturgical worship of the people of God. This is the worship of God that David loved so much. In Sheol there would be no tabernacle, no temple, no choir, and no grand communal worship. There would be no “remembrance” of God in the liturgy, no “praise” of God in the assembly.

This was the desire of David’s heart all of his life: “One thing have I asked of the Lord, that will I seek after; that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the Lord, and to inquire in his temple” (Psalm 27:4). David does not want to be deprived of the glorious praise of God.

A good way to see vividly the difference between the afterlife occasioned by the Resurrection of Christ in the New Covenant and the afterlife in the Old Covenant is to note the ways death is viewed in each Testament. David, in Psalm 6, does not want to die, because in death existence was less appealing than life in this world. Not just for the damned—of course that would be true—but for the just.

In the New Covenant, we see just the opposite. St. Paul says:

For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain. If it is to be life in the flesh, that means fruitful labor for me. . . . My desire is to depart and be with Christ, for that is far better. But to remain in the flesh is more necessary on your account (Phil. 1:21-24).

Only an understanding of the immortality of the soul and the glory of the beatific vision awaiting the faithful after the Resurrection of Christ can make sense of this text. If there is nothing—but nothing—in death, then St. Paul should be saying with David, “I don’t want to die!” St. Paul says plainly that death in friendship with Christ is “far better” than life in this present world.

Go-to passage: Ecclesiastes

“For there is no work or thought or knowledge or wisdom in Sheol, to which you are going” (Eccl. 9:10).

That sounds like we should join the local Seventh-day Adventist community, doesn’t it? But, as always, the key is context. If we back up to verse five of this same chapter, we read:

For the living know that they will die, but the dead know nothing, and they have no more reward; but the memory of them is lost. Their love and their hate and their envy have already perished, and they have no more for ever any share in all that is done under the sun. Go, eat your bread with enjoyment. . . . Enjoy life with the wife who you love . . . which he has given you under the sun. Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with your might; for there is no work or thought or knowledge or wisdom in Sheol, to which you are going. Again, I saw that under the sun the race is not to the swift.

Notice how many times the inspired author writes “under the sun”—three times in these few short verses! He does not say the dead have no existence at all. The context reveals that he was saying the dead have nothing to do, and no knowledge of, what is happening “under the sun” as I’ve said before. But, in the end, the writer of Ecclesiastes knows that justice is coming in the next life. He is so certain of this that he can say in the final two verses of his book:

The end of the matter; all has been heard. Fear God, and keep his commandments; for this is the whole duty of man. For God will bring every deed into judgment, with every secret thing, whether good or evil (Eccl. 12:13-14).

The writer of Ecclesiastes is focusing upon what happens “under the sun” until the very end, when he tells us that the afterlife is the place where everything will finally make sense. He does not attempt to give us an in-depth teaching of the nature of the afterlife. He simply assures his readers that ultimate justice awaits in God’s good time.

[bernatk]

An Essay Against Calvinism

As a premise to this essay I want to note that I write all this as a Christian, I go to a Baptist church but I was also greatly informed by many of the Catholic Church’s teachings on numerous matters. In this context it is plain to see that I don’t intend to negate the validity of a Calvinist’s faith, however I truly believe that there are some completely mistaken ideas that are either introduced by Calvin himself or held sacred by contemporary Calvinist cells. Connecting to this last sentence I must add that many of my complaints and reflections come from contact with actual Calvinist theologians and from current -- sometimes underground -- publications by them.

First of all I want to present the claims and concepts of the Calvinists that I’m going to argue against. (#1)Out of many articles of teaching they are most boastful of the center of their theology, which they say is God and they contrast it with other denominations’ different focuses -- or at least as they perceive that this contrast can be legitimately made. At the core of their Scripture interpretation lie two crucial elements: (#2)the Predestination “fact” derived from Paul’s letter to the Romans; and (#3)a very broad incorporation of the Old Testament’s teachings. There’s also the doctrine of (#4)“Total Depravity”, which states that men can do only bad things -- meaning all men at all times do only bad things.  And lastly there is (#5)a contradictory stance held by Calvinists on the principle of “Sola Scriptura”.

#1: As it will be explained in the point about Predestination, Calvinists support and try to resolve the internal conflict of their theology by referring to God’s infinite greatness, his infinite power, and the infinite influence of his rulings. They use these attributes of Him to get rid of all logical counterarguments because, quite undeniably, He’s above all human intellect, so we cannot take up a fight against Him in any way, not even dialectically. This comes together with -- again from another point -- the faith that God decides about everything constantly. Predestination to them means that God actively makes unbelieving souls believe, by His own selective choosing. This is always irresistibly happening, but in fact this is the case with all things in the world: God makes everything happen.

Without spoiling my second argument too much, this, in a nutshell, is why they think the focus of their theology is God -- they refer to Him about everything. This is usually put in contrast with how other denominations treat the questions of faith and Christian conduct: all other schools of Christian faith believe there is an active human component in these matters. For example: when somebody is converted to Christian faith a generic Christian will say “He found God”, whereas a Calvinist will make the same assessment through these words “God made him believe”; another illustration is that in generic terms someone would “sin”, in Calvinist terms someone would “not be forced to do good things by God”. I hope this clarifies it: Calvinists do not in fact put God more at the core of their focus than other denominations, they only erase other words from their dictionary*. This trickles down to their theology in a peculiar way, as they find it arrogant of other Christian theology’s to involve positive action and human initiative in their tenets because those are not autonomous, instead made directly by God. Why would anyone mention something else, or explain something through other means than God’s work, when that is all there is? goes their argumentation. 

I find it to be a serious misunderstanding of the contrasted denominations to say about them that they don’t put God at the center of their theology in the same exact way as them. In fact they say the same things with regards to God: He is all-powerful, all-encompassing -- the real difference is what Calvinists think about human beings. In a way they don’t believe in humanity. Not in the way that they don’t praise humanity or believe in its power to save itself, rather they don’t believe in its existence. More on this denial later, back to the point. As I’ve said, these theologies follow the same pattern, all believe there’s no salvation through actions, only through Christ but Calvinists laugh at the idea, when other denominations teach the believers about everyday conduct or talk about the search for purity. And they can’t avoid but laugh, since for them it is futile speech, men can do nothing on their own. Men’s every minute is ruled by God, if they be pure, God made it, if they be bad, God didn’t make them be pure.

This is an important mistake because all of Jesus’ warnings against pride and evilness fade in the shimmering light of denying the need for any Christian to strive to follow the teachings of the Bible -- after all, he’ll follow if God rules it, and he necessarily won’t if God doesn’t, he has no internal agency to act or remain inactive. Probably another point will bring more light on this...

#2: In Romans 8:29-30 Paul talks about how God has known and decided about His own before time to become like His Son. I was paraphrasing because I tried to both encapsulate the part that Calvinists base their teachings on and remain true to the text, not to accidentally bend it toward anything I might unconsciously prefer to be there -- I even tried to utilize the original Greek’s meaning for the most attainable truthfulness. The other bedrock of the Predestinarian Calvinist faith is the first part of the ninth chapter of Paul’s letter to the Romans.

It is an extremely dubious thing what the Calvinists do: they pose an interpretation of these scriptures and claim it is explicitly the content. I say it’s dubious because somehow non-Calvinists didn’t take up this mental and it’s never really been the canon interpretation. So they rely on one very revered source of the past: Augustine. His turn from Manicheism gave the Christian tradition one of its greatest theologians and philosophers, yet he shouldn’t be named as the one Calvinists will rely on. Augustine first championed the existence of free will, then, arguing against other schools of thought, went on more and more to shrink away from it. In The City of God he introduced the concept of God’s election for His salvation. It was much more moderate than Calvin’s but about near the end of his life, Augustine got to a point, where he, in a way, denounced free will and got to the point Calvin did. The reason he’s not an ideal theologian predecessor is that he never rested at any one state of opinion on the matter of predestination but kept it changing from work to work. Its evident reason is that he was continually arguing against others and in this fashion of reactionism were his interpretations born. Today we’re not having a discussion with the Plageans, there’s no actuality of his works, they should be inspected with a much more contextual approach and more analytically, not accepted as, well, Scripture. I want to note that I don’t intend to discredit Augustine, as there’s absolutely no way for me to do that, as he’s clearly my intellectual superior and I’d be a predestined loser in a sparring match, still, it’s important to see that there’s something forced in the Calvinist approach to legitimize their claims of predestination.

The Calvinist concept of predestination is as follows: God, in his sovereignty, elects certain individuals for salvation. Others He elects not, as everybody is worthy of damnation, which even further glorifies His loving kindness and goodness, since He does elect some by His grace. 

First of all it is crucial to remember that, despite what Calvinists claim, only the Calvinist interpretation of the texts from Romans is the above one. Other denominations and schools of faith never taught that this is the meaning of Paul’s words. Mind you, despite the claim that this is explicitly what he says. This statement of mine must be amended because the Calvinist interpretation isn’t completely dissimilar to others, traditionally Christians have believed that God works in people to help them to get to faith and on their own people wouldn’t be able to find salvation. Even so, this is what the work of the Holy Spirit in us is most often credited for: He helps us to break free from our flesh and eventual death, in order to be resurrected. This I do not argue against. Yet, it’s not identical to the Calvinist version.

The reason why predestination isn’t an interpretation that Christians traditionally believed is that salvation has been connected to Christ’s sacrificial death on the cross, His resurrection, and faith in it. Even though Paul doesn’t speak of any of these things in these verses. His mention of the Pharaoh, of the Jews and Gentiles, seem to show God’s workings on Earth. Especially so, since in these cases there was no Gospel, at the time of Moses the Jews didn’t have a concept of any afterlife or salvation, yet they were elected. If this election means election for salvation, then God’s saving works used to be happening completely without the sacrificial death of His Son, which I think is blasphemy. If we make the step as to say chronology is irrelevant from the point of view of God, there still seems to be a problem with Evangelization: if people were saved unknowingly, why does the Bible put an emphasis on the spreading of the Good News? Why does it matter? The question of afterlife for people before Christ’s time is quite mysterious for us but the Calvinist answer is outright contradictory, to say the least. It seems that Paul could possibly mean something other than God would choose on His own accord to save some and damn others, and like most Christians believe, there likely is a reality on the part of human initiative with regards to faith, even if not achieved completely alone.

Now there are Calvinist responses to these:

Predetermination is argued against because it seems illogical, whereas it seems so only because humans are much lesser beings and what constitutes logic**? Human constructions, whereas God’s great works far exceed those. He wills what He wills, that is His sovereignty and we are not to understand it but to abide by it and make ourselves subjects to it.

This is problematic only because predetermination seems to reflect solely the Calvinist vision, and I suspect they refer to God’s sovereignty only in order to prove themselves, as His rulings are indeed inarguable. Traditionally this isn’t the interpretation, logically it isn’t the interpretation, there is no reason to accept it, other than Calvin and Augustine said it and that falls into the category of tradition, which proves weaker than the entire Christian tradition; whereas if someone claims to have come to the same conclusion about predetermination, they used their logic, which is again overruled by sounder logic.

God is great, in fact He is the greatest in existence. It is arrogant to assume He needs our assent, that is, our initiative, our, so called, faith, in order to save us. If He wills to save someone, He cannot be stopped with any obstacle and if He wills not to save someone, those cannot somehow get into salvation.

My answer to this is that God’s irresistible greatness is made evident in His work of Salvation through Christ. That cannot be undone by anyone or anything, it is done forever. It is superfluous to go as far as to assume He must decide for us. This is, of course, assuming that it is possible for humans to autonomously believe. I will explain this later but it is a crucial question because Calvinism tends to express its stance not dissimilar to disbelief in human existence. So the problem with the Calvinist argument is that they believe non-Calvinists think God needs us to repent, on our own, is because He couldn’t otherwise save us and that makes Him look incapable of overcoming our will. And yes, evidently He can harden and soften people, but were it the case that people could decide to believe or disbelief, He could let them. God’s all-powerful work is that we can be saved and if we believe there’s no circumstance that can take us out of salvation -- simply, Calvinists reject the notion of free will.

#3: Now it is universally true that for sound doctrine it is necessary to incorporate the entirety of the Bible, that is, including both Testaments. Why Calvinists differ from other Christians in their doing so is that they look at it normatively (not differing from all schools of faith, as fundamentalist interpretations usually follow the same pattern). This is problematic because in the New Testament it becomes quite evident that Gentiles are not required to conform to old Hebrew rules and patterns and in the light of the Gospel the Old Testament’s essence seems to be revealed to be something completely beyond normative texts: it is a narrative gradually moving toward the final revelation, which is Christ as the Son of God and as the Savior. Paul also talks about the role of the Law in the Christian life, and in addition to this, many texts of the Old Testament, especially the ones concerning normative parts, philologically seem dubious, as in attributing rules and laws to Moses whereas they were created much later. This makes it questionable in the context of usefulness as normative texts and it seems just more likely that they are included in canon for other reasons, namely for context, or helping to create the image of Christ throughout the Old Testament. Now this is not as elaborate as the previous arguments but I hope I have at least made this argument at least an inspiration for understanding the underlying problem with this trait of the Calvinist faith.

#4: Calvin introduced the concept of Total Depravity in Institutes. It’s based on several verses from the Bible and he concludes that all men at all times are doing evil things and they cannot help but do that.

I will present three counterarguments to this, the first one I consider a weaker one, the second one I consider a more powerful one, and the third as an auxiliary one.

Firstly, through empirical inspection it is quite visible it’s untrue. Not only in the sense that not all people are doing the most vial crimes imaginable at all times but also seen in how sometimes people perform completely innocent acts. There’s familial love and care, which isn’t universal but at least general and usually observable. To this can come a counterargument of selfishness. People can perform seemingly innocent acts but be, in their spirits, totally depraved while doing so. Selfishness is widely accepted as a manifestation of sinful nature and when a mother takes care of her child, she wants gratification, she wants some subtle pleasure in return. This is understandable and eerily similar to Kant’s moral criteria of the categorical imperative. Still, many idealists, who aren’t Christians, show self-sacrifice for the sake of a good cause, without any hope or desire to be remembered or praised for their achievement. It is a rare, noble behavior, but nonetheless observable. Of course, what is empirical evidence, when a man can be deceived, or can misunderstand what’s before his eyes? This is why it’s a weak argument, when dealing with higher things than base natural science.

Secondly, Calvin seems utterly and irreverently selective with regards to his choosing of Bible verses. From the time of Noah, when everybody was evil, yet a man truly just before God existed, through the Psalms, which describe evil and good people, to Paul, who was quoting the Psalmist, everywhere in the Bible there is a dichotomy of Good and Evil persons. It’s very important when dealing with this matter. Even outside of the community of generally accepted believers there seems to be, at least portrayed, gracious characters in the Bible and contrary to a selection of decontextualized verses, the Bible never categorically claims that people would be inherently incapable of doing anything but evil. In fact, it would be futile to call anybody to do good or resist evil, were it impossible for them. While sinfulness in nature is apparent, its totality is Calvin’s invention. Other schools of faith teach the doctrine of deprivation in the way that all men are sinful and cannot achieve salvation, therefore are in need of God’s mercy, realized in Christ and His work of salvation.

The reason I find need for an auxiliary argument is that with total deprivation comes the incredible doctrine of human-denial. The ultimate response to any criticism about total deprivation is that men can do only wrong and God can make them do good, when He decides so. He does that for the sake of His own children’s benefit. This means that humans are bound to take the course of evil, unless by God they are bound to do good. The horror in it is that for anything to be alive it must have agency, it must be autonomous but if we are truly not doing things on our own accord, as we cannot possibly alter our will to decide between good or bad, we are not in fact real agents, we are not in fact alive (in terms of soul or spirit). Also, this claim is self contradictory, as if men were incapable of doing anything good, the evil they do would not be their own responsibility. For, are we responsible for things we don’t decide to do? Are we responsible for things we are forced to do? This can’t be a true state, as God is just and righteous, He isn’t condemning people if they are not responsible but they are. In Romans 9 we see a seemingly similar line of argument, only that applies to the election and that has already been discussed above.

#5: The principle of “Sola Scriptura” is that faith is based solely on the Scripture. Yet, this is, illustrated by my previous arguments, far from realized in the Calvinist system. They have their own inventions, their own interpretations and they cling to it and often choose to change the scripture to fit to their doctrines. There are visibly higher authorities than the Scripture among Calvinists and not only Jean Calvin himself -- but he certainly is --, but Councils and texts declaring doctrines. Of course, many denominations utilize extra-biblical sources to base their rituals and modes of teaching on, what separates the Calvinists is the hypocritical nature of it. While a church may have an influential tradition, it is possible to remain true to the Scripture, theologians only have to know which is which; in contrast with the Calvinist way, where tradition and authority is said to be the Scripture or its only right interpretation.

In conclusion to this essay I’d like to add a few notes. Most importantly the reason behind writing this is twofold: on the one side I find a few great errors in Calvinism, especially the kind I encounter through certain theologians and their influence, and I am worried it would spread (evidently more and more people are impressed by it); and on the other side I haven’t seen any denomination in my life be as actively critical and hostile toward other churches as the Calvinists, and it’s important to see that the ones who call the Catholics non-Christians and non-Calvinists as lessers, do in fact comprise the greatest sect in Christianity. These last few words might seem very harsh and I only half-mean them but in light of the above arguments I find myself strongly leaning away from them. Ultimately, I mean no harm, I intend not to hurt any Calvinist’s feelings, I’d be thrilled to continue it as a conversation on faith, and, most importantly, I don’t think Calvinists can’t be saved by God because of their mistakes.

Before commenting consider the following: this is not a scholarly work; I have written it truly as a Christian, don’t try to mix into this essay any other religion or atheism.

NOTES:

*In James there is a lot said about acts and while they’re still no way of salvation, he points out they are necessarily part of a living faith. It is for this reason that non-Calvinists typically mention good acts and even include it in their teachings, since, according to James, a good conduct is inevitably paired with faith. (I wonder if Calvinists are ever puzzled by James’ words.)

**Logic is often associated with humans, as inherently flawed, just like them, whereas in reality logic is the formalization of the paths to right conclusions. In this way it’s easy to see logic can’t be blamed, as it, by nature, cannot err. Where there’s failure in the conclusions, there’s a lack of sound logic. It’s a little bit beside the point, that’s why it’s a note, nevertheless, I thought it important to remind us all that logic is never the culprit, it’s not human-like in any way, it is a precise way of formulation, much like language is a way of expression, yet we -- while language is often unable to fully express something -- don’t make it the Big Bad and reason of false ideas.

***”schools of faith” is a phrase here, referring exclusively to Christian theological teachings and nothing of other religions, nor pseudo-Christian ones

[sgreffenius1]

Ecumenical musings

C: I like to talk to you because I don’t have to worry about subject matter, or what I say, or how you’ll receive it.

D: How do you mean?

C: Religion, for example, something we don’t talk about with other people. If you write an essay about God, or religious beliefs, or quote from the New Testament or the Old Testament, what do people think?

D: What?

C: They wonder right off what your background is! They want to know if you’re a religious or secular Jew, main-line Christian, born-again or evangelical Christian, practicing or fallen-away Catholic, Muslim, Sikh, Methodist, Baptist, Anglican, Mormon, Hindu, Buddhist. They might guess you’re heterodox. They’ll probably guess you’re not a Communist.

D: I’m a Muslim, in case you’re interested.

C: No, you’re not!

D: I converted a few months ago. I joined the great awakening of the pandemic.

C: People don’t wake up, then become Muslim! Don’t be silly.

D: Sure they do. Look at St. Paul.

C: That’s not a good example. You’re the one who struck him blind.

D: That woke him up, didn’t it?

C: As you like. I’m just saying God can’t count himself among the born again.

D: Why not?

C: It contradicts the whole concept of being reborn. You weren’t born in the first place.

D: I have to think about that a little more. For the past year, though, I haven’t had to worry about what I say, just as you say you don’t have to worry about what you say to me.

C: How do you mean?

D: Well look. If parents want to send their children to school, and teachers say that wish contradicts their anti-racist creed, doesn’t that indicate the kind of sectarian division that the horned one always tries to exploit?

C: How did Satan get into the picture? I merely want to know why you think you can say anything you like. How did the past year of turmoil free you up to say stuff you couldn’t say before?

D: Let me give you another example. Two presidents who could not be more different - Donald Trump and Joe Biden - convinced themselves that distributing sizable tax rebates was a good way to help people accept the hardships of government lockdowns. With that line of thought, anything goes.

C: Do you want to argue that the more illogical people get, the more freedom you have to say what you like?

D: That’s part of the argument. Another part is that when leaders like teachers and presidents offer up hokum, or should I say suspicious-sounding credos, they tend not to be too skeptical about the things I say.

C: When words lose their meaning, you don’t have to worry what people think. Seems you want to make religious discourse just another expedient form of political argument.

D: Yes, except that these political arguments aren’t really political, and they’re not really arguments. They are stand-ins for political discourse.

C: I really don’t want to lose you here.

D: You won’t. My comparison between political and religious discourse is pretty simple. Take an example from the early centuries after Christ’s death. Theologians developed the idea of a triune God. A lot of people were skeptical about that. They were used to the idea of many gods - polytheism - but the idea of three gods in one was unfamiliar.

C: I’m with you so far.

D: Well people argued a lot about this idea. It practically destroyed the church. You had schisms and wars and all kinds of trouble because people could not agree about what they worshiped. Each side accused the other of idolatry.

C: After a brief break, those sorts of fights continued right up through the Reformation.

D: Religious disputes became political disputes, just as political disputes become religious disputes in a secular society.

C: And if no one really cares what the other other side thinks, then who cares what anyone says?

D: Exactly. That includes me. I can say what I like, and no one cares.

C: Except priests, rabbis, and clergy.

D: Even there, look what happened with Pope Francis.

C: What happened.

D: After he made the morality, or immorality of capitalism the center of his public theology, people had no reason to pay attention to what he had to say about God, or religious faith, or a well-lived life. He consigned most of his followers to secular hell because of their economic practices.

C: Didn’t that discourage you?

D: Sure it did. You usually get discouraged when you confuse religion with politics, or vice versa.

C: I think you said that’s what we see now: we confuse politics with religion.

D: The only way to get people to settle down is to keep these two ways of thinking entirely separate. Political parties don’t hold the keys to truth, any more than religious modes of thought - in the form of secular religions - hold the keys to power.

C: You can’t run your car on water, and you don’t want to boil gasoline for your dinner.

D: That’s a crude way to put it, but captures the main point.

C: Won’t we have disputes no matter what, humans being human?

D: Yes, but wise people know how to use conflict to grow in understanding. Do you see wisdom in the way people conduct their conflicts now?

C: No.

D: If power corrupts, it corrupts wisdom first. Then it corrupts balance. At last it corrupts discernment. Then you have nothing left.

C: So what do we do?

D: Wait and pray.

C: That does not sound so urgent.

D: Urgency makes no difference.

C: How so?

D: Urgency concerns time. I don’t live in time.

C: I understand that. I also understand that it’s time for me to retire. So I believe I will.

D: Goodnight, my friend.

C: Goodnight, Dio... One more question: do you care whether people love you and respect you?

D: Of course I do.

C: As I thought. So why don’t you care what they think about your words?

D: I expect them to take my words on my own authority. No one need argue about them.

C: That’s good enough for now. See you later.

D: See you later, Don Carlos.

[ramrodd]

Richard Carrier: Acts as Historical Fiction

COMMENTARY:

I think it more accurate to describe Richard Carrier to have published "peer reviewed" books on Jesus that are largely ignored by everyone but evangelical anti-theist like himself. Among other things. he has positioned himself as the essential proponent of Jesus as myth lacking actual physical existence. It is a lonely citidel he commands but it seems to appeal to the credulous enormously.

A problem he has with his Bayesian methodology is that, by definition, miracles, generally, and Resurrection, in particular, operate beyond probability.  

This, of course, undercuts Carrier's assertion that Christianity could have happened without Jesus because it is Resurrection that is the essential driver cited in the contemporary accounts of its proliferation among the Romans, who had absolutely no expectation of Resurrection before the fact as a general expectation. Even His closest followers had no expectations before the End Times of God breaking into history in that manner. It was the Roman culture which became the essential media of its proliferation and adoption as a state doctrine.  And, as I trace in my comments, it is the Roman soldiers who are agents of His execution and witness to His resurrecton that sends the details of the event as they understood it up the chain of command immediately to Tiberius's attention, resulting in the label "Christian" being introduced to  the Senate in Rome by 36 and before Paul has returned from his sojourn in Araby and recruited by Barnabas. The fact that Resurrection violates Carrier's naturalism is exactly the point: God, or the self-aware Taoist universe, announced its epistemological necessity about as emphatically as possible.

And, in his role as a former Coastie, I find it disingenuous on Carrier's part to ignore the impulse of ANY military organization to report an event so beyond the boundaries of probability in favor of the absolutely improbability that they would ignore and NOT send it up the change of command. Carrier had a shore billet, but the military, generally, and the maritime services, in particular, log in EVERYTHING that happens on a watch and it is exactly that impulse from which the Gospel of Mark emerges.

Along these lines, much of Carrier's deconstruction depends upon anchronism, especially the lack of a public record of these events: he implies, in effect, that the lack of a NY Times headlines "Messiah LIVES" substantiates his assertions. And a great deal depends on what he, Richard Carrier, would do, now, in the same circumstances "I wouldn't do this" or "I would have ensured this record would have been made" etc.

And it infects all his commentary. For example, he complains that Peter's recruitment couldn't have happened the way it did because he, Carrier, who enlisted in the Coast Guard when there wasn't a war going on, wouldn't have responded to Jesus's invitation to "Follow me", but would have foregone adventure like the Rich Young Man in Mark 10:17, a prospect that would be far more believable if he, Carrier, hadn't enlisted.

And his entire oeuvre is riddled with disqualifying premise of a similar nature. For example, his conclusion that Hitler's view of Christianity "resemble Kant's with regard to the primacy of science over theology in deciding the facts of the universe, while remaining personally committed to a more abstract theism." (Richard Cevantis Carrier: Wikipedia). The problem is that Kant's position is that science is an expression of epistemology as a synthetic process and that the a priori is the necessary element of metaphysical knowledge within that process. If Carrier is in a position to deny the a prori, he has assigned himself to the same category as Ayn Rand and his entire output becomes little more than a vanity construct.

I, personally, haven't published anything of my conjectures because I'm still gathering material defending them and the path of research has led me, recently, to expand my inquiries into the influence of Melchizedek not only in the early development of what will become Judaism but throughout the Medeterranean at the same time that began the shift from societies organized by the Aesthetic (such as Homeric Greece) to the Ethic of the Roman Republic: Socrates death is a marker in that process that seems to have begun about the same time as Abraham's encounter with this mysterious king. . Whereas Resurrection is the basis of Paul's legal argument to the Romans within a Hebrew context, the Epistle to the Hebrews, which I propose is a finding prepared by a Roman officer in the Praetorian Guard accepting the ethic of Jesus Paul's Romans presents, is anchored in the dual track of Melchizedek's influence coming down through the Torah, on the one hand, and through the Eutruscans to the 7 kings of Rome, on the other. It is probable that the Magi in Matthew emerge from whatever it is Melchizedek represents, perhaps an early iteration of Freemasonry. Abraham wasn't a Jew: Judaism doesn't begin until Jacog wrestles with the angel to become Israel, but Melchizedek set that process in motion.

And, just for the record, Jacob's latter is a vision of the epistemology in the Lord's Prayer describing the processes of the scientific method, the transfer of the a priori in "Heaven" (or Plato's realm of the Forms) to practical expression in the physical universe.

In terms of the scientific method, the Resurrection of Jesus validates the God Hypothesis and makes it possible for believers to factor infinities out of their observations of the physical universe and allows them to establish a calculus on the same basis as atheist and evangelical anti-theists like Richard Carrier, Isaac Newton being the ultimate expression of that tradition of epistemological inquiry that defines the epistemology of Kant's Catagorical Imperative.

I've been working on the premise of Cornelius as the author of Mark since 1990: I am in no hurry to publish.

And, just for the record, I have had an increasingly active and satisfying working relationship with the Holy Spirit since 1954, so Carrier's Bayasian conceits are entirely wasted on me.

You, of course, are free to consume any bilge that satisfies your narcissism.