Dialects

Language is a funny thing. It really isn't "out there" somewhere, yet we all use it. It is a cultural thing, really. Words mean things because we all treat them as meaning things--we use them like they mean things, so they do. Imagine someone said something like "the sea is very red today." Now, perhaps the sea is literally the color red, but it is also possible that the speaker is referring to a battle that occurred that day at sea where many people died, thus "red" refers to blood which, in turn, refers to loss of life, and the sea turning the color implies the large amounts. Now, imagine you are talking to someone and they begin to talk about how they are bothered by someone else: they are always saying such-and-such, which this person finds awful. Perhaps, though, you see nothing wrong with that person's position, and even see no difference between it and ideas that the first person has advocated in the past.

Maybe these two people really agree, but they see the concept in such different light, and thus describe it completely differently; or maybe they really do have opposing views, but they have such different views on the world that the descriptions look much the same without a good deal of the underlying conceptual context.

Now, you have no idea what underlying context other people are working with. Even people you know well may switch what they are talking about without you realizing it, sometimes. So there is a good possibility that what they are saying and what you are hearing diverge.

Beyond this, different people may use different words in different ways. Everyone does this, using different words in slightly different ways given different contexts (consider the love of persons versus the love of food). There are also the many possibilities of creative use of language, for example, wordplay or neologisms.

So, let's say that someone says something that makes no sense to you. Can you really say that it is nonsense? Can you be sure (without asking them and their saying that it is)? Perhaps you just don't understand how they are seeing things such that what they said means something. There are haves and have-nots, why can't I say "I want to have." and leave the sentence there? Surely I can make transitives intransitive, intransitives transitive, noun verbs, verb nouns, and on, and on, and on.

So, now, what about communicating? Maybe I want you to get some point, but it's one of those things we all say, so, even though you don't understand, you will think you do if I say it normally. So maybe I say it in such a way that you have to think. Really, ideally, I learn your dialect well enough to say it differently enough from how you would think to say it, or so that I can make you tell me it in such a way that I hear that you get it.

But how do you say things strangely while still saying them? This is the trick of writing. Especially of writing philosophy or theology or anything else where you're trying to get across points about how one sees the world. Often, you cannot read a thing right until you understand it right.

Perseverance Through Doubt

ὑπομονή, ῆς, ἡ: this is usually the word we are talking about when we speak of perseverance. Taking apart the word, it looks like "under-remaining." It is often translated as endurance, patience, or perseverance.

There is a certain way of speaking of "having doubts" which makes it appear that the process of doubting is equivalent to unbelief.

I would like to recommend, then, a mode of doubt which I believe is compatible with faith. There is a mode which is incompatible with strong faith, but it is not the only mode of doubt.

The kind of doubt which is incompatible with faith is the kind which puts itself over God. This sort says "how can it be?" expecting an answer of "it can't." Most agnostics are atheist agnostics: they live like God doesn't exist. Likewise, this kind of doubt is an atheistic doubt: it asks questions as if God will not answer them. It begins doubting irreverently.

One might, however, begin doubting by basically unpacking one's beliefs. One might say--with a certain sense of "to God if you're listening"--"Here is what I'm having trouble accepting, here is what that means to me, here is what I can accept. Show me--give me--what I need!" One might go back as far as "how am I to be saved?" or even "why do I need to be saved?" and "why this way?" and then investigate: what do you believe about these things already? what do you mean by those things? what does God's word say about those things? what does he mean by those things? This mode of doubt, then, is the method of taking God himself as a conversation partner in trying to see what the truth is. Sure, God may not say anything explicitly to you (though he might), but if you go about doubt crying "Where in the world are you, God?" then this is to orient you to look for him in the world. You may begin to see things, as if God were leaving things behind for you to see. You may begin to hear God speaking in the words of others. The doubt inconsistent with faith makes a person see these kinds of things as coincidences, whereas a doubt seeking faith sees them almost as answers to prayer (though you may not have been really praying for it).

The basic difference between these is this: the doubt which is antagonistic to faith says "I can't believe that! Lord, be different, or convince me (if you're really there at all)." whereas the doubt which is compatible to faith says "I want to believe that, but I can't see how I can--Lord help me!"

This kind of doubt--the kind compatible with faith--is not necessarily good in and of itself, but it is not to be feared. It is, however, a kind of trial. Thus why I began this post with "ὑπομονή, ῆς, ἡ". 

"Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.
If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God, who gives generously to all without reproach, and it will be given him. But let him ask in faith, with no doubting, for the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea that is driven and tossed by the wind. For that person must not suppose that he will receive anything from the Lord; he is a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways." James 1:2-8

The doubt here, it seems to me, is the wishy-washy, uncertain kind of doubt. What I am discussing here is the sort of doubt which says "Well, you say this, but... I just don't get it." It is not "Well... maybe so, maybe not," though it may look quite similar. The doubt I speak of is the doubt which tries to be honest before God, not the kind which is trying to hold back from God--the maybe-ish sort of doubt says "I don't want to give that much to God," the doubt I am advocating says "I will give all, even my inability to see God as who he says he is, to God."

"Behold, we consider those blessed who remained steadfast. You have heard of the steadfastness of Job, and you have seen the purpose of the Lord, how the Lord is compassionate and merciful." James 5:11

Job is not the sort of person, I don't think, who we would say had no doubts. He did not have the "maybe God doesn't exist" kind of doubts which we are used to in our day, but he certainly had the equivalent of his day--"maybe God isn't good." Yet, throughout Job, he is asking to be allowed to make his case against God. He wants things set right. He is saying "God, you say you are good... but I just can't see how this is you being good. Show me!" and why shouldn't the rest of us doubt like Job?

There is a core of faith in Job's doubting. He refuses to be finished with God--he perseveres in this. He will not curse God and die. He even has a core commitment to trusting God: "Though he slay me, I will hope in him; yet I will argue my ways to his face." Job 13:15, and this verse sums up quite nicely the attitude which I am trying to argue for as the proper attitude of Christian doubt. Do not put aside your doubt as if it were bad, but argue your ways to his face--trusting him to bring you through the doubt. Doubts do not arise from nowhere. If you doubt, then there is likely something you are missing--find it, seek it, ask for that wisdom from God! Yes he is slaying you! He is slaying your old man, so that the new man who we receive in Christ Jesus might be made all the more evident. Trust him, then, that these doubts are not in vain.

There's a sense in which this all is why I see predestination--that God is the one who saves, that it is not our own doing, that we cannot avoid it, that it is God's right and power to save souls--as core to my thoughts on salvation, as core to what I consider when I consider "How was I saved?" "How can I disciple others--be used as a tool toward the salvation of others?" See, for me, that it is up to God to save me, and not up to me, frees me to doubt and then to believe. See, if it were up to me, I would have given up one of these times when I doubted. But since it is up to God, each time, I have, at one point or another, had to pray something along the lines of "God, I want to give up, so you better be worth it, you better show up, give me some strength to keep doubting," 'cause the alternative was unbelief, 'cause doubting--especially when it's God's real, personal existence you're doubting--is like talking into a void, trying to be heard, and finally it's like... "I feel like an idiot, how long do you want me to keep this up? I don't have anything left to say!" And then you're talking yourself in circles, and... well, may as well give up, right? But then, I've never really wanted to, or, more accurately, I've always to give up into a simple, "I just believe," but that's rarely been an option for me, so the alternative to doubt is often unbelief, but I really, really, want to believe--even when I don't, 'cause it means giving up my life to God, for him to use as he wills, and I don't even get to pretend that I get to direct my life, in the end. So... if it wasn't up to God, then it would probably be up to me, and I really don't think I have the energy for it. I can't make myself see God (and, the past few times, that's been the whole issue of the doubt), so there's really no sense bothering with doubt unless God's in charge of the showing up bit.

What I mean to say is, if it's not about seeing God, then what is it about? and if we can manage the seeing of God, then we should be able to develop a sort of technique for converting people. But if it's up to God to reveal himself, then... it's up to God in his grace to save who he will. And if salvation is of God, then it isn't of me, and I can relax and doubt if need be. 'Cause if I need to find God on my own, then, well, it makes it a lot harder to be honest with myself about my doubts, and it makes me want to hide them from God and others--and myself--even more than I already, in my pride, do.

Pre-empting an Antinomian Slide

"My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin. But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous." 1 John 2:1

There is a very helpful trend in certain evangelical circles in emphasizing God's unmerited grace to us which cannot earn. Along with this trend has come a certain wariness of any saying "ought" or "should," so that it has become hard for me to see what these people do with the many passages which command Christians to do things. There are oughts and shoulds in even the New Testament, and even in the epistles--it is not just in the sermon on the mount, where one might argue that it was Christ reinforcing the impossibility of following the law. We are commanded to love one another, to forgive one another, to be humble. That we will fail is given as well, yet the goal remains "that you may not sin."

It is right to emphasize that we have unmerited grace, and that it is only by God's grace that we live--in Christ! What we must be wary of, however, is that this grace does not become diluted so that there is nothing which our lives affirm us as being saved, or needing to be saved, from. If this grace saves from sin, then our lives ought to reflect that savedness--I say this ought as a logical, not a moral, ought. If this grace is a union with Christ, then this (too?) should appear in our lives.

Look: what we lack is righteousness, and what we receive by grace unmeasured, vast and free is Christ's righteousness--Christ's own life--and this is also what--better: who--we seek. In all of life, we seek Christ, for he is our life. For a Christian, if he truly sees his life as hid with Christ, then, logically, he ought to treat Christ as savior and Lord--as the one who has dominion over his life. If suicide is wrong generally, then how much more denial of Christ! If, then, we receive this life, then we will live in a way that reflects having received the life of Christ. We will live like he lived, for it is he who lives in us.

The danger is in making it all and only grace to us, or all and only the actions we are to do. Rather, it must be Christ alone, much more than grace alone (for grace alone only makes sense as shorthand for Christ alone). It is Christ's life given to us, and Christ's righteousness which we as Christ's body live out. It is because we have a righteousness which is not our own that we also have a life which is not our own, and because it is not our own, but Christ's, it is a life which must be submitted to him. We live, then, as Christ lived, not by our own effort, but because we, by faith, really have Christ's living in us, bleeding out. Nothing I do is righteousness, but only what Christ does in me.

Grace becomes antinomianism when Christ's life is set apart from grace. Christ's life for us is grace to us. Grace may not be left as a mere concept, but must be embodied, lived out in the community of faith, as the life of Christ. Grace therefore requires us to follow hard after Christ. Grace is not grace if it does not bind us to Christ--"let thy grace, Lord, like a fetter, bind my wandering heart to thee." Indeed, grace is grace in that it binds Christ's righteousness and thus Christ's life to our own so that Christ died for our transgressions and was punished for our iniquities, and so that Christ's life of perfect obedience to God is our own. This is grace: not that sin does not matter, but that sin matters so much that God sent his Son to free his people from sin. So, now, since we are free from sin, by God's grace--by following Christ, by being disciples of Christ, by holding fast to the life of Christ (which is to say, by holding fast to the righteousness which we have been given in Christ)--let us live in this freedom, not freedom that allows us to sin, but freedom from sin. To sin is to reject the freedom, and the life which we have by union with Christ.

I write this against any antinomian tendencies which might be about to develop, but I must also provide the caution on the other side. If we ever forget that our actions are by Christ, that our righteousness is only in Christ, and that we are saved by Christ alone. If we ever begin to think that we somehow earned union with Christ, then we will have returned to legalism. The key is this: Jesus Christ. He is our life, and thus our righteousness, our strength, our hope, and our peace. It is in him that we are in love. It is through him that we do what is right, and know what is good. To speak the truth in love it is necessary to know Christ who is truth and to be hid with Christ so that we are in God who is love. Apart from Christ I can do nothing! Yet in him I am used to accomplish things I do not even know. And all the glory must go to God, for it is God in the person of Christ who, by the power of the Holy Spirit, accomplishes all these things in me.

Prayer to, Fear of, and Trust in God

I have heard two different people in the past week emphasize the power of prayer. One of the people said something along the lines of "when people pray, things start happening" the other something like "if all the people in [some town--or it may have just been a church] prayed, [said town] would be changed," but it's sort of like... well, yeah, people praying is quite a change, but it isn't the cause of the change, it's an effect. God is the cause of the change, and the further changes might not be along the lines that those people are praying. On the one hand, yes, God hears us when we pray, but on the other hand, while the emphasizing was not in a trivial context, I fear a vending machine god. It seems important to keep the power of prayer as derived from the power of God, and then to keep the fear of God in view.

The Fear of God, so far as I can tell, arises from the acknowledgement that God can do whatever he likes. God is good, yes, but we must be humble and acknowledge that what good may turn out to be in this or that situation may well be something we don't like. The Fear of God is the fear that God will do something we don't like. This Fear of God must, however, be set together with the goodness of God and our trust in him. God is good, and many have realized that God, in his goodness, was calling them to do what they did not want. The Fear of the God who is good appears throughout scripture, note the various times, as with Moses, where God says "I am calling you to lead my people," and the one he is speaking to replies "but I don't want to!" The one God calls ends up going. The realization that God may do that to me should cause me to be, in a way, terrified, or exhilarated (but there is still a sort of fear in exhilaration).

To trust in God, one must place all of oneself in God's hands. But then all of oneself is in his hands, and he gets to do as he likes with you, whether strike you with sores, send you as a missionary, or pastor, or plumber, or truck driver, or accountant, lock you away, sit you in doubt, or whatever else he may choose to do. We may not like it. We may love it. Either way, it is what God has chosen to do in us, and thus we ought to give glory to him for it, for he is good. Wherever God has you now, it is good for you to be there now. This is not to say that you should necessarily remain there, but that your being there now is good. Press on to the goal, but in the knowledge that it is Christ who works in you--your pressing on is also something God is doing with you.

Logical Positivism, Russell, Quine, and the New Atheists

First off, the New Atheists currently bore me. Unfortunately, they do still get some attention from a few people: atheists, agnostics, and Christians, not just other atheists.

Secondly: Bertrand Russell's famous china teapot thought experiment. Thirdly: Quine and Two Dogmas of Empiricism.

Tea! In Space!

Russell's china teapot was one which is a matter for belief. Is it right for me to believe that there is a china teapot orbiting around earth at this moment? The point is that I can't know, nor do I have any way of checking, whether there is or is not a china teapot. I only know that it would be very strange if there were one, as I have not heard of anyone launching a china teapot into orbit, and anyways it probably would not last long (Mythbusters should test that last one, if they haven't yet). But still, there might be a china teapot orbiting the earth. Maybe someone had one specially put into orbit just a moment ago, and I just didn't hear about it.

Russell claimed that one should not, and that it would be silly. This is part the "extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence" argument against theism. I have seen people argue that theism is not such an extraordinary claim, and I have seen arguments to the contrary.

Removing Assumptions

W.V.O. Quine wrote Two Dogmas of Empiricism, which you can read of you click the link above. In that article, he effected the end of Logical Positivism, a line of thinking which involved a theory of truth where a statement had empirical content, which thus must be verifiable through sense experience, in order to be true, and is also thus interchangeable with other statements with the same empirical content. Logical Positivist philosophy is also famous for arguing that the term "God" has no meaning (since it seems to have no empirical content).

The article includes one line where Quine says, "Any statement can be held true come what may, if we make drastic enough adjustments elsewhere in the system," that is, our system of beliefs.

Back to Russell's for Tea

My point in all this is that "x is true come what may" may be translated as "x is 100% likely to be true." Thus, since what Russell is saying when he says that theistic belief is an "extraordinary claim in need of extraordinary evidence" is that theistic belief is not 100% likely to be true, Quine has also removed that argument from the game as it stands.

This is not to say that an argument might be able to be worked out that said "x is unlikely, and we have no proof for it, so let's not believe it." It is, rather, to say that such an argument rests on the assumption that x is unlikely. Russell's argument from unlikelihood really is a nothing argument. To make it a real argument against the existence of God, he would have to show that God's existence is actually unlikely. This is what the problem of evil tries to do, and why it is so successful (when met in person, rather than in a classroom, at least).

To those who debate atheists: congratulations, you both take God's existence or non-existence as true come what may. A Christian sees no problem of evil because he has the belief that God exists, and God is good, so the problem of evil poses no real problem for his belief. On the other hand, the atheist sees the problem of evil quite clearly, and is not satisfied with the Christians faith in a good God without some kind of answer to the problem of evil. Now, I'm not saying that there is no use to trying to figure out how it can be that God exists and there is apparent evil in the world, just that a lack of explication is not grounds for dropping one belief over the other, only grounds for holding an unresolved tension with the expectation that it can be resolved, or for dropping one of the two beliefs. What I am saying is that when a Christian and an atheist debate such things as faith, they are coming at it with largely different views on the matter, such that the problems one has with the other person's view may not even make sense to the other person. So, yeah, good luck (I'll save my thoughts on how to do apologetics well for later).

Also: I do not see why God's existence is so much more unlikely than, say, living in a world where there is matter and energy (and they can be converted into one another--that is weird) and your senses can actually, rather reliably, tell you what that matter and energy is doing. (I'm sure there are numerous other things of the same sort)

How to Prove God's Existence

If God exists, then he must matter to life. He must show up in lives and in the world. I do not doubt that he shows up in lives, however few...

The question is, does he show up in the world enough to say that he is a personal, good, wise, powerful God? This is to ask whether he shows up in ways that are separable from how he shows up in people's lives particularly as a personal, good, wise, powerful God.

This morning I overheard people saying that both the God of the old testament and new testament were both good and angry. Well sure! And you can point to verses to support each statement. But what if I want to know whether God is both a good God and an angry God? I have not seen God avenging his people, or rescuing the oppressed. Certainly, you can spiritualize it, but then God appears to have become weak! Can he no longer work in the world in physical ways? Is he not the creator of the world, both physical and spiritual?

The problem of evil would not be a problem if we could see that it was a good God who hated sin who was in control of the whole world who we were dealing with. Then the problem would be, "Weird, what is he up to?" and not "how could there possibly be such a God?" since we would see that God. So this is the real problem: not the problem of evil, but the problem of the hiddenness of God. And for those who have faith the problem is "weird, what is he up to?" Faith solves problems, because faith is the assurance of God, and particularly Christ.

This problem is to say "whatever happened to miracles?" It is also to say "the change which you say God has brought about in your hearts is not so great." And this latter is a problem for Christians. The change which must be brought about is a change to a sort of love which is impossible apart from God--how else could it be the way that the world can tell who is Christ's disciple? I have seen it here and there, but if Christians are salt and light, then the part of the world I get to see needs more salt, and we're working with candles over here (or I'm just cranky). And this love which is to prove God by being shown in Christians, it must not be faked--it cannot be faked--it must be real, genuine, not forced. It cannot be something learned, in the way that one learns to follow the rules, rather it must become a real part of one's character so that it is what comes out when one drops all inhibitions--drunk Christians should still be loving (which is not to say that Christians should get drunk, since it is hard to see how one would get rid of one's rationality in a loving way).

Miraculous love: love the unlovable without hesitation. I don't care if it does not happen often with you, but that is the love of God you say has been put in your heart. Is it really there or not? Don't lie. Lying won't fix this problem, it is counterproductive to fixing this problem.

I can guess what people might want to say to defend themselves from this: "but we are all broken, right?" Well, yeah, but you could at least try to be honest about it. Or at least be honest about your dishonesty! Can you at least say "we are all broken, but we really aren't showing each other as much as we should be..." and mean it. And by mean it I mean, be distressed by the fact that you are dishonest and hiding your brokenness. Besides, you don't talk like God matters, or like he is personally involved in your life. And when you do? It sounds cliche a lot of the time, it sounds fake usually (and I don't doubt that it is usually fake). What kind of Christians do you think fake being good and talk about God as an abstract ideal, or as a model of right behavior to be followed? I thought he lived in you! I thought he was with you! Act like it, or admit he isn't. Faking it is ugly, and it sometimes makes me think "well, if they have to fake it, God must not be with them at any rate."

I do believe that Christianity is true. I'm just not sure I know many people who know Christ.

On the Logical Possibility of Single Predestination

A Calvinist will argue that God predestines some to be saved and equally predestines others not to be saved. This is called double predestination. A Lutheran, on the other hand, will argue that God predestines some to be saved and merely fails to predestine the others either way, so that they default, due to their sin nature, to being damned. They are left in their condition, not actively predestined to be damned. This is single predestination.

It may be noted that I have, before today, regarded single predestination as logically absurd. That line of thinking goes like this: God is omnipotent, thus he is able to do whatever he wills. A lack of willing to save is, given what he knows (i.e., given how things are), indistinguishable in its results from a willing to damn. Thus, if God does not will to save some, then those he wills to damn. I am not now changing my position, only raising an objection to such an over-simple argument against single-predestination which will require further investigation as to whether God must intend all that occurs or merely knowingly cause all that occurs (this distinction should become clear soon, if it is not already).

In the philosophy of morals, there is a suggested moral principle, which appears to be at work in most human moral reasoning, called the principle of double-effect. This principle, which may be regarded as an outcome of Kant's second formulation of the categorical imperative (always to treat humans as ends, never merely as means), is that one may cause harm in doing good if the harm is a side-effect of doing good, and not necessary to the doing of that good. This does not yet provide a basis for single predestination.

Let us consider a variation of the classic trolley dilemmas: There is a trolley coming down the track, and if nothing is done, it will run over five men. I am at a switch. If I pull the switch, then the trolley will go on another track which reconnects to the original track before where the five men are (so that if nothing happens on the side-track, the trolley will still run over the five men). Now, let us suppose there is a large weight on the track which will stop the trolley, thus saving the five men if I pull the switch (I should note that this version of the trolley dilemma did not originate with me, but it also seems to be in a variety of places, so I am unsure of the source).

The principle of double effect may be considered as the rule that one may knowingly cause harm, but one may not intend harm. This gets us closer to understanding a possible basis for single-predestination. If I do an act, one might ask me what I am doing, and I may say "pulling a switch," and they may ask me what I am doing that for, to which I may respond "saving five people from being run over by a trolley." They may then ask how it will save them, to which I may respond, "it will make the trolley hit that large object, and thus stop before it returns to the track." Now, if there is a man standing in front of the weight, this makes no difference to my intent. However, if the weight is, itself, a very large man, then I am intending harm to a person. The first is allowed, given the principle of double-effect, the second is not.

Now, to return single-predestination, the point of single-predestination is that God intends those who are saved to be saved, but that God does not intend the damnation of the others, despite the fact that he knows that they will be damned. The argument of single-predestination is that there is no action which God does where you could ask what he is doing in any way so as to get the answer "damning some."

Now, the moral problem of an omnipotent God saving some and not others is much more complicated than any trolley dilemma (for one, most would argue that God could have saved all, or none, if he had wanted), and it is not clear that it is right to argue that anything happens in the world which God does not intend, rather there are those who hold, and take comfort from, the belief that God intends all things for his glory and our good. The above was simply to show that, implicit in the disagreement between those who hold single-predestination and those who hold double-predestination, is a disagreement about whether God intends everything or simply knowingly causes everything, while intending only a part.