“Public Answers to Private Questions” got off to a quick start as an anonymous audience member bluntly asked, “If God is supposed to be all-forgiving, why do some people end up in hell?”
Shaw responded by saying, “I’m not sure that I believe in hell,” pointing out that there are places in the Scripture where no hell is mentioned and concluding that the subject is open to interpretation.
Shaw also spoke extensively on the Lambeth Conference, a convention 10 years running that brings together Anglican bishops from all over the world.
Shaw said that the next Lambeth Conference, to be held in 2008, will focus on world debt, an issue first brought to the attention of world leaders at the previous Conference.
He also said that there will be discussion on issues relating to homosexuality, but it will not be the main topic of discussion.
When asked about a potential split of the Episcopalian Church from the rest of the Anglican Church, Shaw said it would not happen and that things will get worked out in the long run.
However, he did compare the controversy of the consecration of Bishop Gene Robinson, the first openly gay Episcopalian bishop, to the split of the Anglican Church from the Catholic Church during the 16th century. In both cases, Shaw said there was a fermenting of new ideas and a need for change.
“I’m not sure that I believe in hell”
Have him check back with us later. Much later.
I note that there are also places in the Scripture where God is not mentioned. Whatever might that mean? I await Mr. Shaw’s deep thoughts on the issue.
We have about as much reason to believe in hell as we do in Atlantis.
Neither is the law of gravity, but I don’t think Bp. Shaw will be stepping off the John Hancock Building anytime soon.
Of course, what is most interesting is where all the talk of hell comes from. (Hint: it ain’t Paul.)
It’s sad beyond words.
D.C., please don’t stop. Enlighten us all. Seriously!
“Rather, fear Him who can cast both body and soul into Atlantis.”
I feel like a chess player who has seen a series of moves so often he can tell the other player how the game will play out.
• NoUseForAName, I maintain that we have no evidence of the existence of hell.
• Scripturalists will respond that 1) the Bible accurately quotes Jesus as referring to hell, 2) Jesus was God Incarnate, therefore 3) that’s all the evidence of hell we need; indeed, we should not even dare to question the existence of hell.
• My reply: Quite a few thoughtful people — like, most of the world’s population throughout history — have not accepted premises 1 and 2 above, and for good reason (see the postings listed in the right-hand column of my own blog, although I’ve certainly summarized them here often enough).
• Scripturalists aren’t interested in looking at evidence that their premises 1 and 2 above are flawed. ‘My side’ refuses to accept those premises on faith alone, given the absence of persuasive supporting evidence.
• Result: Stalemate.
DC, If I had as little belief in the Christian faith as you do, I’d sleep in on Sunday. Why on earth do you bother getting up; is it some little reflex you can’t shake? Have you seen a neurologist? What possible meaning can your words have discussing a religion you do not believe and having none that you do believe?
What a target-rich environment! A number of whoppers and outright howlers!
Certainly the obvious disagreement with Jesus’ somber warnings about the reality of hell and how many people travel the broad path that leads to destruction. (Yoo hoo, D. C.!…) But here are some from the full article:
[blockquote]As a Jesuit institution, Boston College is no stranger to Catholicism and discussions about the Catholic faith.[/blockquote]
Most Jesuit institutions are strangers to the Catholic faith and promote heresy at times almost as vigorously as the majority of TEC!
[blockquote]”I don’t think the church is about the people on the inside. It’s all about what people on the inside can do for the rest of the world,” Shaw said.[/blockquote]
The social gospel again. Jesus said, “Without Me, you can do nothing.” Likely there isn’t much on the inside of the churches in Shaw’s diocese to feed hungry sheep anyway.
[blockquote]Shaw said that the next Lambeth Conference, to be held in 2008, will focus on world debt, an issue first brought to the attention of world leaders at the previous Conference.[/blockquote]
Where do I start? I thought Lambeth was being stage-managed to have no agenda, but to be a quiet time of prayer and reflection, carefully avoiding the issues that threaten to rip the Anglican Communon to shreds and thus following the lead of Rowan Williams, master avoider. Of course, focusing on dealing with debt may come in handy for the ever-shrinking and oh-so-intelligent TEC!
[blockquote]When asked about a potential split of the Episcopalian Church from the rest of the Anglican Church, Shaw said it would not happen and that things will get worked out in the long run.[/blockquote]
First, there [b]will[/b] be a split of TEC from some part of the Anglican Church. The only question is will it split from Canterbury or from the Global South and affiliates. Second, things will certainly get worked out in the long run. Just read Revelation and large sections of the NT epistles to see how, and don’t miss the many references to hell there, either.
[blockquote]However, he did compare the controversy of the consecration of Bishop Gene Robinson, the first openly gay Episcopalian bishop, to the split of the Anglican Church from the Catholic Church during the 16th century. In both cases, Shaw said there was a fermenting of new ideas and a need for change.[/blockquote]
I will point out that fermenting also means rotting and corruption when not controlled, and many of us can smell the need for a change in TEC’s direction!
[blockquote]In a piece of advice directed toward BC students participating in service trips, Shaw, also a monk, emphasized the importance of prayer for understanding and dealing with the feelings of guilt that students suffer as a result of being well-off.[/blockquote]
More false liberal guilt. If God has seen fit for us to be blessed with the things of this world, there is no guilt in being a good steward of them, certainly including helping widows and orphans and anyone less fortunate, as James put it so well. But perhaps +Shaw and these affluent students should ask the Holy Spirit what the true source is of the guilt they apparently feel instead of looking for a prayer painkiller or antidepressant. The Holy Spirit always convicts with clarity combined with mercy, and gives grace to avoid sin as well as forgiveness for sins confessed and repented of.
[blockquote]He said that religion is not about denial but rather fullness, and compared his devotion to his faith to the way couples are devoted to each other in a healthy marriage.[/blockquote]
Actually, the Christian religion is about both denial of our self-will and taking up our cross every day as we follow Jesus and about being filled with the Holy Spirit “filled up to all the fulness of God”. Ephesians echoes +Shaw’s comparison, and explicitly affirms male-female marriage and the proper roles of both spouses and of the relationship of Christ with His bride, the church.
[blockquote]Neumeier said the event was primarily meant to answer some questions that students may have about the Episcopal Church; most students know that the Episcopal and Catholic Churches are very similar, but they are not aware of their particular differences and similarities.[/blockquote]
Neumeier must have been one disappointed fellow; the article nowhere describes such questions or their answers. The two churches are only similar on the surface in the appearance their liturgy presents to an unbeliever coming in from the outside or to a nominal churchgoer of either church.
[blockquote]and even as a non-believer, I felt welcomed and listened to,”[/blockquote]
And the best part is, in most Episcopal churches, she can stay an unbeliever and be all the more welcomed and radically included for it! Woe be her if she discovers genuine Christian faith in one of +Shaw’s churches and testifies to it! She may find herself being excluded so that TEC can be more and more inclusive!
[blockquote]”I’m not sure that I believe in hell,” pointing out that there are places in the Scripture where no hell is mentioned and concluding that the subject is open to interpretation.[/blockquote]
I’m not sure that I believe in the Episcopal Church. There are places in Scripture where no Episcopal Church is mentioned, and I conclude that the subject is open to interpretation.
Another enlightened episcopalian bishop who knows more than Jesus. Bishop from the Great Divorce by C.S. Lewis, “If only Jesus had lived into old age,…”
LOL! Good one, DeeBee! I think I prefer D. B.’s view to D. C.’s view any day.
Was this Bishop chosen at random out of the Boston phone directory? I’m not sure if I prefer these responses to be from ignorance or faithlessness.
[i] Comment deleted by elf. Commenter is warned to keep within the bounds of civil discourse
or lose commenting privileges. [/i]
“I’m not sure that I believe in hell,†pointing out that there are places in the Scripture where no hell is mentioned and concluding that the subject is open to interpretation.
Not to defend Shaw, but I should point out that the portion of that sentence that is not within quotation marks is likely the mangled effort of a student journalist to describe something that Shaw said that the student didn’t understand
Elves, what was the problem with my deleted comment? It was not an insult, but an observation, followed by a valid question related directly to a post on this thread.
I don’t understand what was more uncivil about my post, given D.C.’s tone.
[i] Name calling will not be tolerated. This is not a contest between you and DC. [/i]
[blockquote]Ye have heard that it was said to them of old time, Thou shalt not kill; and whosoever shall kill shall be in danger of the judgment: but I say unto you, that every one who is angry with his brother shall be in danger of the judgment, and whosoever shall say, Thou fool, shall be in danger of the hell of fire. Matt. 5.21-22.[/blockquote]
[blockquote]And if thy right eye causeth thee to stumble, pluck it out, and cast it from thee: for it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish, and not thy whole body go into hell. And if thy right hand causeth thee to stumble, cut it off, and cast it from thee: for it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish, and not thy whole body go into hell. Matt. 5.29-30.[/blockquote]
[blockquote] Ye serpents, ye offspring of vipers, how shall ye escape the judgment of hell? Matt 23:33[/blockquote]
[blockquote]The time came when the beggar died and the angels carried him to Abraham’s side. The rich man also died and was buried. In hell, where he was in torment, he looked up and saw Abraham far away, with Lazarus by his side. So he called to him, ‘Father Abraham, have pity on me and send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue, because I am in agony in this fire.'[/blockquote]
D.C. I for one don’t take Plato for the Gospel. I do take the Gospel for the Gospel. But as you pointed out, this shows that our base presuppositions regarding faith and evidence are different. (I would point out that, insofar as current scholarship admits, only two ancient texts, of Plato, mention Atlantis, numerous ancient texts, eventually cobbled together by Jerome and others, mention hell and Jesus’ comments on it – of course this proves nothing). It is a stalemate indeed. Yet you continue to sit down at the board. I find that fascinating. I suspect you are dynamite person to actually play chess with.
nwlayman [#9], I do indeed have a religion. It’s the religion of Jesus, as opposed to the one about him. It can be summarized in the Summary of the Law (paraphrased):
1. Put God first, always — which entails (a) facing the facts, and (b) accepting that you’re not God, and thus your wishful thinking doesn’t make it so; and
2. Seek the best for your neighbor as you do for yourself — and your neighbor is anyone who crosses your path, not just your fellow tribesman.
If we do these two things, we do our infinitesimal bit to help out in the ongoing creation of a universe. We don’t really know what the end product will look like, but all indications are that it will be indescribably wonderful. Just to participate in the project is reward enough, but there’s reason to think the Architect won’t simply discard us when the work is done.
And that’s why I get up on Sunday morning.
D.C., I put my point lightly before, but at least one of the following propositions [b]must[/b] necessarily be true:
There is a hell.
Jesus was not omniscient.
Jesus was quoted falsely about a very important matter in the synoptic gospels.
Which say you?
D.C., why put stock in that section of Jesus’ teaching and not others? God’s very existence is something that cannot be proven. You put a very high value on proof. But belief in God, as other questioners like Hitchens and Dawkins will tell you, can only rest on blind faith. So why believe in God, and why value Jesus’ summary of the law? Could it be because you like these things, and happen to agree with them, and that it is not entirely about proof or lack thereof? You seem to put faith in that which you like, overlook the logical holes in that faith, then poke holes in the faith of others. I find religious liberals and “questioning Christians” like yourself a fascinating bundle of contradiction (mind you conservatives are no better, and we who try to consider ourselves centrists worst of all). If you have logical answers to these questions, I would be fascinated to hear them.
Ed the Roman [#21], truth isn’t a numbers game, but it’s interesting that throughout history, the majority of people in the world have been unpersuaded that Jesus was omniscient (let alone that he was God).
Moreover, consider Jesus’ putative comment in Matt. 24.36, that no one knows the day and hour of his coming at the end of the world, not even the Son. If he was accurately quoted, this suggests either that he really didn’t know — and thus he was not omniscient, QED — or that he did know but was lying about it to his listeners.
—————–
Alta Californian [#22] writes: “D.C., why put stock in that section of Jesus’ teaching and not others? God’s very existence is something that cannot be proven. You put a very high value on proof. But belief in God, as other questioners like Hitchens and Dawkins will tell you, can only rest on blind faith. So why believe in God, and why value Jesus’ summary of the law? “
First, it isn’t Jesus’ summary of the law; it was not original to him (it comes from Deuteronomy and Leviticus), but he exemplified it and was faithful to it even unto death.
Second, we need to be clear about what we mean by the term ‘proof,’ otherwise “what we[‘ll] have here is a failure to communicate.”
You’re right that we can’t prove that God exists in the same strict mathematical sense that we can prove that the Pythagorean theorem is correct. (My math degree is a long way in the past, but if memory serves, we can prove that if the lengths of the sides of a right triangle are a, b, and c, then a2 + b2 = c2.)
But we don’t live our lives insisting on that kind of strict proof before we’ll take action, before we’ll conduct our lives in a certain way. I can’t ‘prove’ that my wife loves me. But in the past 20+ years I’ve seen a lot of evidence indicating that yes, she does. I’m sufficiently persuaded that I’ve made some pretty big bets on that proposition.
How much ‘proof’ do we need? It depends on the size of the bet we’d be making. If my doctor were to tell me take vitamin D to help me stay healthy, I wouldn’t need a lot of proof, because that isn’t a hugely-consequential bet. It’d be another matter entirely if the doctor were to tell me I could stave off age-related memory loss by cutting off my leg; for that, I’d definitely want a whole lot of proof. In litigation, courts decide cases in civil matters by a preponderance of the evidence, because usually all that’s involved is money; in criminal matters, on the other hand, the defendant’s guilt must be proved beyond a reasonable doubt, because a much bigger bet is involved.
Concerning the existence of God and the Summary of the Law, there appears to be considerable indirect (‘circumstantial’) evidence that each of these propositions is true. I’ve written a lot on that subject on my own blog. (The canonical illustration of circumstantial evidence: If someone walks into the windowless courtroom wearing a dripping raincoat and shaking out an umbrella, it’s circumstantial evidence that it’s raining.) I’m sufficiently persuaded that God exists, and that the Summary of the Law is the way to try to live one’s life, that I’m willing to make my bets that way.
DC says: “If we do these two things, we do our infinitesimal bit to help out in the ongoing creation of a universe.” At best this is semi-Pelegianism. And in so doing DC earns his way into the presence of God.
DC is not a creedal Christian and does not claim to be. He states that Jesus was just a wise Jewish sage. Jesus is not divine and there is no atonmentment on the cross because we do not need such a thing. But all this is off topic.
I wish the Bishop, instead of apoligizing and avoiding the question and responded in faith and head on. Why not respond to the questioner, “And why shouldn’t God allow people to go to hell?” “What makes you think you deserve to be in the presence of God?” And then the Bishop could have gone into the saving grace of God in Jesus. Of course in order to do this he would have to believe it and therein lies the problem. In his own way he is as much of a nonbeliever as is DC.
Of course Bishop Smithe does not stand in isolation as this article shows: http://www.sacbee.com/101/story/549944.html. I reflected on these items as I read this mornings daily office readings:
[blockquote] Amos 5:18-27 18 Woe to you who long for the day of the LORD! Why do you long for the day of the LORD? That day will be darkness, not light. 19 It will be as though a man fled from a lion only to meet a bear, as though he entered his house and rested his hand on the wall only to have a snake bite him. 20 Will not the day of the LORD be darkness, not light– pitch-dark, without a ray of brightness? 21 “I hate, I despise your religious feasts; I cannot stand your assemblies. 22 Even though you bring me burnt offerings and grain offerings, I will not accept them. Though you bring choice fellowship offerings, I will have no regard for them. 23 Away with the noise of your songs! I will not listen to the music of your harps. 24 But let justice roll on like a river, righteousness like a never-failing stream! 25 “Did you bring me sacrifices and offerings forty years in the desert, O house of Israel? 26 You have lifted up the shrine of your king, the pedestal of your idols, the star of your god–which you made for yourselves. 27 Therefore I will send you into exile beyond Damascus,” says the LORD, whose name is God Almighty. [/blockquote]
and
[blockquote]Jude 1:17-25 17 But, dear friends, remember what the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ foretold. 18 They said to you, “In the last times there will be scoffers who will follow their own ungodly desires.” 19 These are the men who divide you, who follow mere natural instincts and do not have the Spirit. 20 But you, dear friends, build yourselves up in your most holy faith and pray in the Holy Spirit. 21 Keep yourselves in God’s love as you wait for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ to bring you to eternal life. 22 Be merciful to those who doubt; 23 snatch others from the fire and save them; to others show mercy, mixed with fear– hating even the clothing stained by corrupted flesh. 24 To him who is able to keep you from falling and to present you before his glorious presence without fault and with great joy– 25 to the only God our Savior be glory, majesty, power and authority, through Jesus Christ our Lord, before all ages, now and forevermore! Amen. [/blockquote]
[blockquote]I do indeed have a religion. It’s the religion of Jesus, as opposed to the one about him. It can be summarized in the Summary of the Law [/blockquote]
DC,
Your position is absolutely incoherent.
Our only sources for the “religion of Jesus” are the four gospels, which tell us, not only that Jesus preached the Summary of the Law, but also:
1) The central core of Jesus’ message was about the coming Kingdom of God, i.e., an eschatological message.
2) Jesus claimed that this Kingdom was already in some sense present in his actions and his miracles.
3) Jesus interpreted his own role in the eschatological Kingdom as definitive, and he interpreted his mission in terms of titles borrowed from the Hebrew Scriptures, e.g., Son of Man, Suffering Servant, Son of David, Son of God, Messiah. He believed that he had a unique relationship to Israel’s God, addressing God as “my Father” and thus understanding himself as in some sense uniquely “Son.” He distinguished between his own Father/Son relationship with God and that of his disciples.
4) Jesus insisted that one’s position in the Kingdom of God was entirely dependent on one’s relation to him.
5) Jesus interpreted his own death in terms of the Suffering Servant of 2nd Isaiah, as somehow a ransom for and forgiveness of sins, and went to Jerusalem with the deliberate intent of bringing it about.
6) Jesus was crucified not only as a political subversive, but also as a blasphemer and a Messianic pretender.
7) Jesus’s bodily resurrection was God’s vindication of his mission.
8) Oh, yes. Jesus also believed in hell, which makes perfect sense in terms of the centrality of his eschatological message. A warning–Repent! For the Kingdom of God is hand!–makes no sense if there are no consequences for not heeding the warning.
It is absolutely arbitrary to isolate Jesus’s Summary of the Law from the rest of his actions and message, and the interpretation that not only his followers, but he himself put upon them. The evidence for the eight points above comes from the same gospels that give us Jesus’s Summary of the Law. The evidence that, as you put it, “he exemplified it and was faithful to it even unto death” is no more and no less solid historically speaking than any of the above eight points.
So, when you write: “We have about as much reason to believe in hell as we do in Atlantis,” there is one sense and one sense only in which you are correct. In both cases, the only source for our knowledge is authority. For the existence of Atlantis, we have the authority of Plato. For the existence of hell, we have the authority of the gospels who claim that Jesus believed in it. But for the existence of Jesus, we also have the gospels, and for Jesus’s Summary of the Law, and his being “faithful to it even until death,” we also have only the authority of the gospels. We have no more reason to believe that Jesus taught and fulfilled the Summary of the Law than that he performed miracles, regarded himself to be the Son of God, believed that he died for the sins of the world, and rose from the dead. No more and no less.
If the gospels can be trusted for their portrayal of Jesus, then Jesus is whom they claimed him to be, and we have reason to accept his word for the existence of hell, but also for the Summary of the Law. If the gospels are mistaken in either the accuracy of their accounts or in their claims to Jesus’s identity, then we do not have to accept their claims that Jesus believed in hell, nor the authority of such identity claims, but neither do we have reason to accept their authority for Jesus’s proclamation of the Summary of the Law.
It is capricious in the extreme to select out Jesus’s Summary of the Law as the one solid thing in the gospels, and to reject the narrative context without which the Summary is simply a meaningless abstraction. The God Jesus commands us to love is the God whom he called his Father and in relation to whom he identified himself as Son. The neighbor whom he called us to love is the neighbor for whom he claimed to give his life “as a ransom for many.” The Law which Jesus summarized is not a “natural law” (obvious to all persons of good will), but the Law given to Israel at Sinai by YHWH, who had delivered Israel from bondage and Egypt. That is the God whom we are commanded to love above all. That God (and not some generic deist monad) is the God whom Jesus called “Father.” The neighbor we are commanded to love is the neighbor for whose sins Jesus died–that neighbor and no other.
If the eschatological message was mistaken, if the messianic claims were mistaken, if the atoning death was based on a misunderstanding, if Jesus’s decaying bones might conceivably be discovered somewhere in Palestine, if the gospels cannot be trusted about all of this, then the Summary of the Law loses the only context in which it has any meaning. We are not fulfilling the Summary of the Law if the God and neighbor whom we love are not the God and neighbor to which the Jesus of the gospels referred.
Br. M’s response is sound. But, anyway, how can you do anything but laugh at the Bishop’s airs above the ground, kicking his heels to show that he can do it but going nowhere? For heaven’s sake, this is funny, like listening to something by John Cage. Not everything is difficult, subtle, nuanced, and whatever jargon we presently have to avoid saying some thing is simple and straightforward.
As to hell, there is some evidence in the gospels,to be sure. What is there, indisputably, is the notion that we shall all be judged; those who receive God’s mercy as well as his justice will join Christ in His father’s house, the big one with all the rooms. The others? Well, what of them? If one group is rewarded, the other group will be….?
Punished, do you suppose? And there punishment is what, to live forever in New Jersey? That’s awful, I grant, but one suspects that God’s justice is stronger stuff. Dante’s Inferno? I don’t know and neither do you, but if you want to find out th e specifics, be my guest.
DC’s remarks are interesting – his attitude, “If it isn’t in scripture, I don’t buy it” is in fact mine – and he will, perhaps, be answered. For my part, the scriptural evidence that I will in fact face judgment is very clear, this is exactly s it should be and I should indeed receive justice while I hope and pray for mercy, because I really don’t want to find out what happens to me if I do NOT receive mercy. Some risks are not worth taking, after all. Larry
William Witt, I love you. Thank God for you ability to punch through the sophistry.
Anglicanum
26, of course the religion of Jesus was Second Temple Judaism. So if that’s what you want the only recourse is to convert to Judaism. If Jesus was nothing more than a failed Messiah, as you point out in your last paragraph, then there is every reason to become Jewish, if you want to follow in the religion of Jesus. And as a failed Messiah and an ordinary fallible man, there is no reason to alter the tenants of Judaism with anything Jesus said.
# 26 – absolutely correct, but I fear you waste your sweetness on the desert air. D.C. hasn’t a clue how even fairly radical NT scholarship (e.g. Wrede, Bultmann) works, where there is skepticism in spades about a lot of the Gospels, but no doubt at all that Jesus believed in the coming judgment of Gehenna-fire. Yet we shouldn’t stigmatize him for his inadequacy as a biblical historian and scholar, as that is pretty widespread among the upper echelons of TEC. The ‘Jesus’ of D.C. is an ideological cypher, not an historical person.
Br. Michael [#24] writes: “… there is no atonmentment on the cross because we do not need such a thing.”
We definitely need help. We don’t know everything, and all the evidence suggests we’re organically incapable of acquiring such knowledge. Nor do we even put the knowledge we do have to optimum use (again, probably because of our organic limitations): we regularly make bad decisions, sometimes catastrophic ones.
Circumstantial evidence suggests that we get that help somehow, in ways we don’t even begin to fathom: Despite the Second Law of Thermodynamics, somehow collectively we struggle along and, over time, manage to improve our little corner of Creation. (As Gregg Easterbrook points out, the odds are that you wouldn’t agree to permanently trade places with a random person who lived 100 or 1,000 years ago.)
We appear do our best work in improving our corner of Creation 1) when we face the facts, remembering that we’re not God and that wishing doesn’t make it so; and 2) when we seek the best for our neighbors as we do for ourselves. Sounds familiar, doesn’t it? It’s no accident that the recent correspondence between Muslim and Christian scholars has focused on the centrality of Great Commandment and Summary of the Law.
Back to the original point: Yes, we need help, and we seem to get it somehow.
What we don’t need is atonement for an imaginary disobedience that caused the whole human race to be cast out of an imaginary Garden of Eden.
Neither need we berate ourselves for being unworthy wretches who, absent the cross, would merit eternal pain. When we do this, we’re implicitly boasting that our misjudgments are so enormous, so important to God, that we forced his hand, leaving him no choice but to assume human form and suffer torture and death. What naivety; what narcissism.
————–
Br. Michael also writes: “In his own way he is as much of a nonbeliever as is DC.”
Muslims say we’re all “nonbelievers”; draw your own conclusions.
[blockquote] Neither need we berate ourselves for being unworthy wretches who, absent the cross, would merit eternal pain.[/blockquote]
Although your summary of atonement theology borders on caricature, the Jesus who gave us the Summary of the Law clearly believed that his death provided what you are saying we do not need.
Arguing with people about some of this stuff is like wrestling with a pig in mud. Both get dirty but the pig loves it! I’ll leave it to the reader to pick categories because I’ve been told I can be piggish! The people said of Jesus “ He speaks plainly and we can understand him†The Gospel is presented for simple folks like me who studied in other areas of life to do other things than parse the words of stories told by fishermen and tax collectors two thousand years ago. If there is no hell why did Jesus have to die? Jesus died to save us or help us from or with what? If we all end up with God in the end with or with out Jesus what’s the point of Christ’s death?
Wm. Witt [#32], you’re forgetting that Jesus didn’t “give us” the Summary of the Law.
Also, it’s not at all clear that Jesus “believed that his death provided what you are saying we do not need.” It seems equally plausible (and equally conjectural) that those NT passages represent words put in Jesus’ mouth by later writers, whose own idiosyncratic views about the meaning of his death shaped their accounts.
For example: It’s perfectly plausible that Jesus predicted he might be executed, but the post-crucifixion actions of his disciples make it unlikely he predicted he’d be raised on the third day, as opposed to (say) at the end of the world. The Eleven might have been uneducated, but they weren’t obviously stupid. If Jesus had in fact predicted a third-day resurrection as often and as clearly as the Gospels say, we would expect his followers to have eagerly awaited his return to the living and to have joyously greeted him when they saw him. According to the Gospels, that’s not the way it happened: The disciples were shocked and frightened by the reports that he had been sighted, and again when they encountered him.
(My own conjecture is that the disciples expected that Jesus would be raised at the end of the world. They were terrified by the third-day sightings because they assumed it meant the end of the world was at hand, a scary proposition indeed.)
Which is to say: We don’t have very good evidence that Jesus himself believed that atonement would come via the cross. It’s not an assertion that justifies making any significant bets.
Br. Michael also writes: â€In his own way he is as much of a nonbeliever as is DC.â€
Muslims say we’re all “nonbelieversâ€; draw your own conclusions. /I>
D.C., there are no possible conclusions to draw from these two statements, as the subjects are not the same and the predicates are not identical either. One person says one thing, another group says another. But they are not saying the same things. Br. Michael is saying two people are unbelievers IN CHRISTIANITY. Muslims are saying that we all, I presume all we >non-muslims, are unbelievers IN ISLAM, which is true.
What possible conclusion can be drawn except the redundant one: that people make judments about who are believers?
I’m sure you think there is something else obvious there, but more predicates are required.
DC writes: “What we don’t need is atonement for an imaginary disobedience that caused the whole human race to be cast out of an imaginary Garden of Eden.” And I would suspect that this idea is also behind Bishops Smith’s statement.
But we have been down this road with DC. He tends to argue, if he disagrees with the NT then the early church made it up and added it, but Jesus really didn’t say it. If he likes it then Jesus said it, but for the life of me I can’t figure out why the Jesus he believes in is in any way athoritative? I also note that he likes to engage in speculation that is not supported by the text.
If Jesus quoted the Summary of the Law from the OT, as DC correctly points out, as Son of God the Messiah and and God Himself, then it is worth taking note of. But if he is just another Rabbi, (who said things like this all the time by the way because it was standard Rabinnical discussion at the time (Rabbi Hillel said much the same thing)), and if he is a failed messiah who got himself crucified then his words have no authority whatsoever, so why should we care what he said.
[blockquote]It’s perfectly plausible that . . . make it unlikely he predicted . . . My own conjecture is that . . . We don’t have very good evidence that[/blockquote]
D.C., The only evidence that we have at all is the evidence that we find in the synoptic gospels. We have very good evidence for all of the eight points I mentioned, and which you studiously ignored.
Those eight points have multiple attestation throughout the four gospels, they provide a coherent narrative, and they connect it. Disregard the connecting points of the narrative and the whole thing collapses. If the eight points do not provide a context to tell us who Jesus really was, then we really do not know at all who Jesus was.
This was the realization that led to the skepticism that followed the original quest for the historical Jesus. Once it was realized that the documents are kerygmatic from beginning to end, it was also realized that once one removed the original kerygma, there really wasn’t enough left to build an account of the historical Jesus.
So the choices are stark. One either accepts that the kerygmatic Jesus of the gospels (the Christ of faith) is an accurate portrayal of the earthly Jesus who really lived (the Jesus of history) or one just gives up on the whole process of historical construction as an impossible process.
It is, of course, possible to play the game . . . as you do here– “It’s perfectly plausible that . . .”–but one’s speculations simply become arbitrary. One picks and chooses the bits that one finds congenial to one’s own previous existing worldview. The gospels become as Luther wrote, a “rubber nose,” to be twisted as we see fit.
Once one disregards the kergymatic content, it is equally speculative to assert that Jesus affirmed the Summary of the Law as any of the other. After all, there are only two accounts of the Summary of the Law–both from the highly conjectured Q source–and in one, Jesus does not provide the summary, a lawyer does.
[blockquote]Wm. Witt [#32], you’re forgetting that Jesus didn’t “give us†the Summary of the Law.[/blockquote]
And, of course, I did not forget at all that Jesus did not “give us” the Summary of the Law. He gets it from Dt. 6:5 and Lev. 18:5. In both cases, the Law is the Law given to the covenant people of Israel by YHWH at Sinai (as I pointed out above). Moreover, Lev. 18:5 follows immediately on Lev. 17, which contains that notorious sexual prohibition that makes progressives so uncomfortable. Christopher Seitz has argued persuasively that Lev. 17:8-Lev. 19 provides the summary of Law that was expected not only of Israel, but of the sojourner in the land, and that it is this material that becomes normative for Gentile behavior in the NT church. That is, the NT church interpreted Jesus’ summary of the law in terms of this material, and that is what is being reflected in the the Jerusalem Council in Acts 10. And, again, it is this church that gives us the gospels. Luke-Acts is one narrative, written by the same author.
There is simply no getting away from it. The gospel accounts of Jesus stand and fall as a whole. Once one rejects their kergymatic framework, any account of the historical Jesus becomes incoherent, and an arbitrary construction based on the whims of the one doing the reconstruction.
Your arbitrary construction has similarities to that of early Deists like Lord Herbert of Cherbury. Bishop Butler effectively refuted that, and Feurbach and Schopenhauer placed the earth on the grave. Nietsche poked at the exhumed corpse, and demonstrated the logical moral dead end. A Christianity that worships a moral teacher will inevitably end with the popular nihilism that defines our current culture.
One can, of course, make arbitrary stopping points along the way, as it seems you have. But the stopping point is still arbitrary, and the nihilist conclusion inevitable.
I cannot add to the magnificent observations of Mr Witt.
True learning is always enlightening, even if one has heard the message many times before.
I cannot follow your reasoning, D.C. What Philosopher’s Stone do you use to distinguish from authentic and inauthentic texts? How do you determine which is the real Jesus and which is the Jesus invented years later? You have a method of some sort; at least that much is clear. But HOW?
I would observe that the changes for the better of which D.C. writes have occurred in parts of the world where the Gospel has been widely proclaimed. Not China. Not India. Not (at least until recently) Africa. But in Europe and the United States.
As Gov. Romney so aptly observed, there was a common thread of faith among the Founders of the United States. And freedom itself must derive from a faithful people.
So, D.C., there no Santa Claus, no Easter Bunny, but there is indeed a Hell. And I do not wish to go there.
As for Atlantis, very persuasive arguments have been made that Plato misread or misinterpreted a single unit of distance, and was off in all of his remarks by a factor of 10. The fragments of Minoan culture left behind in Crete are suggestive of an enormously active and advanced civilization! Just look at the current maps of Santorini, and much of Atlantis can be picked out with ease.
Wm. Witt [#26] [somehow I missed some comments earlier] writes: “The Law which Jesus summarized is not a ‘natural law’ (obvious to all persons of good will), but the Law given to Israel at Sinai by YHWH, who had delivered Israel from bondage and Egypt.”
Um … it’s becoming generally accepted that, over the long run, seeking the best for others as we do for ourselves appears to have been a key evolutionary strategy for the human race (and for other species too).
Still another key survival strategy is facing the facts and living in the world God wrought (instead of insisting on living in a fantasy world of our own making), which is a corollary of loving God with your whole mind.
So in a very real sense, the Summary of the Law appears indeed to be a ‘natural law.’ Evidently it’s a basic algorithm, and perhaps the basic algorithm, for maximizing evolutionary success, both personally and for the species. One can recognize it as such without having to accept the OT stories at 100% of their face value.
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WW also writes: “. . . if the gospels cannot be trusted about all of this, then the Summary of the Law loses the only context in which it has any meaning. We are not fulfilling the Summary of the Law if the God and neighbor whom we love are not the God and neighbor to which the Jesus of the gospels referred.”
There’s that all-or-nothing thinking again. According to your argument, WW, Jews and Muslims are deluded when they treat the Summary of the Law or its Islamic analog as central, because it supposedly can have no meaning outside the context of the Gospels. That seems more than a bit presumptuous, indeed arrogant.
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Br. Michael [#29] writes: “. . . there is every reason to become Jewish, if you want to follow in the religion of Jesus.”
Sure, some of my views do fit in fairly well with those of Reform Jews. But to me the Jews’ claim to be the Chosen People is neither compelling nor attractive.
Besides, one’s church is like an extended family. You don’t walk out on your family no matter how screwy you think their views are. You never know: someday you might conclude it was your own views that were screwy.
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Mathman [#38], my reading of the NT documents is informed mainly by two things: 1) Early training and experience in science and engineering in the military, which tends to instill an insistence on squarely facing the facts, no matter how inconvenient those facts might be; and 2) many years of doing technology litigation, which entails among other things trying to assemble a coherent picture of past events from often-inconsistent documents and witness testimony; it amounts more or less to being an in-the-trenches historian. (When people want to investigate ‘what really happened” in an important recent event, it’s no accident that they bring in litigators to get to the bottom of things.) Litigation is another line of work that tends to instill a face-the-facts ethos, because your claims will be harshly scrutinized by opposing counsel, and at the end of the day the judge and/or jury will decide whether or not you’ve been sufficiently persuasive.
[blockquote]There’s that all-or-nothing thinking again. According to your argument, WW, Jews and Muslims are deluded when they treat the Summary of the Law or its Islamic analog as central, because it supposedly can have no meaning outside the context of the Gospels. That seems more than a bit presumptuous, indeed arrogant.[/blockquote]
Indeed, it is all-or-nothing. Jews and Muslims derive their Summary of the Law from the same place as Jesus did–from Leviticus and Deuteronomy, the context of which, again, is not natural law but the revelation of YHWH to Israel at Mt. Sinai. The crucial question between Jews, Christians, and Muslims is wherein lies the fulfillment of the covenant God made with Israel at Sinai.
To claim in any sense to be a Christian is to affirm that the fulfillment is in Jesus–and, as I pointed out above, Jesus’s own summary of the Law makes absolute no sense apart from its kerygmatic context.
No matter how hard you try to rationalize, DC, you cannot have Jesus without the incarnation, atonement, and resurrection.
DC, I would submit that technology litigation is not a good background for assessing the historical reliability of the biblical texts for the simple reason that all of the biblical documents presume a Primary Actor who, to the best of my knowledge, is not generally a subject of technology litigation.
Some training as an ancient historian would likely be more valuable, but good training in metaphysical argument would be even more so. Given that the Primary Actor appears so frequently as a character in the biblical narratives, to presume that he does not really act as the texts say he does bespeaks more metaphysical prejudice than competent historical expertise.
Well, DC you claimed you wanted to follow the religion of Jesus, your words not mine, and that is the religion of Jesus. If you want to pick and choose, that that is a different religion entirely.
[blockquote]Um … it’s becoming generally accepted that, over the long run, seeking the best for others as we do for ourselves appears to have been a key evolutionary strategy for the human race (and for other species too).[/blockquote]
DC,
This is an argument for pragmatism, not theism. As our secular friends remind us, people who believe in gods do things like fly airplanes into towers. Alas, pragmatism is itself an unstable philosophical position, and eventuates in nihilism. The argument presumes without justification that we have a moral obligation to preserve the human race.
[blockquote]Still another key survival strategy is facing the facts and living in the world God wrought (instead of insisting on living in a fantasy world of our own making), which is a corollary of loving God with your whole mind. [/blockquote]
We only are able to face the facts and live in the world which God wrought if we have reason to believe that God has indeed wrought it. Historically, it seems that apart from biblical revelation there is no reason to believe in a (single) God who has created such a world. The greatest thinkers of the ancient world never arrived at such a monotheistic creator god. Aristotle, Plato, and the Stoics did not remotely imagine the existence of the One that ancient Hebrews, Jews and Christians believed in because they were told about him.
God’s covenant with Abraham, and Moses’ deliverance of Israel from Egypt seems to be the indispensable historical contingency that created belief in the Creator God. Competent biblical scholars tell us that the creation narratives of Genesis 1 and 2 are later theological reflection, and the product of covenantal monotheism. Again, the God who created the world, and whom we are commanded to love above all in the Summary of the Law is the God who spoke at Sinai.
A monotheistic creator deity who did not speak to Moses, deliver Israel from Egypt, and deliver his Law at Sinai is the real invention of fantasy.
Wm. Witt [#41] writes: “… technology litigation is not a good background for assessing the historical reliability of the biblical texts for the simple reason that all of the biblical documents presume a Primary Actor ….”
I don’t understand your reasoning. Positing the existence of a Primary Actor doesn’t necessarily mean we even grasp, let alone fully understand, the nature of his interaction with humanity.
Second, your conclusion that “technology litigation is not a good background for assessing the historical reliability of the biblical texts” doesn’t follow at all. Technology litigators are comfortable dealing with what actually goes on in God’s creation (that’s the technology part; cf. Romans 1.20). They know about sifting through sometimes-inconsistent documents and testimony to try to figure out what went on the in past. They’re painfully aware that witnesses and document authors can have agendas to advance; scores to settle; reputations to protect; and axes to grind. As I remarked above, when folks want to know what really happened — a question that is crucial to the claims of Christianity — the people who get called in to do the investigation usually are not ancient historians, but litigators. So yes, I do claim that my professional background is of some modest use in assessing the stories and claims of the New Testament authors.
[blockquote]I don’t understand your reasoning. Positing the existence of a Primary Actor doesn’t necessarily mean we even grasp, let alone fully understand, the nature of his interaction with humanity.[/blockquote]
Your caesura omitted the key sentence in my paragraph that followed: “Given that the Primary Actor appears so frequently as a character in the biblical narratives”
Exactly what special competence would a technology litigator have in determining the likelihood that the Primary Actor in the biblical texts would or could actually Act as the texts repeatedly affirm he has? The only way that we could even begin to “grasp, let alone [even begin to] understand, the nature of [The Primary Actor’s] interaction with humanity,” is in fact if he has so interacted, which the texts affirm from beginning to end, but which the technology litigator seems to have presumed a priori could not have happened.
Given again, as I pointed out, that the NT texts are entirely kerygmatic (there’s that Primary Actor again), what competence would a technology litigator have in determining which bits of the minimal non-kergymatic material are historically reliable once he or she had determined on grounds entirely unrelated to technology litigation that the kerygmatic bits could not be true?
DC writes: “Technology litigators are comfortable dealing with what actually goes on in God’s creation (that’s the technology part; cf. Romans 1.20).” The problem is that that may tell us something about the bus, but very little about the bus driver.
DC is a confirmed skeptic and argument cannot do what only the Holy Spirit can. DC cannot say Jesus is Lord. We can only pray that someday he can.
Bue on his own terms I simply cannot understand upon what basis he views Jesus in anyway authoritative or that his words have any value.
Wm Witt [#43] writes: “This is an argument for pragmatism, not theism.”
Who can say categorically that God isn’t a pragmatist?
See what you think of these propositions:
1) For at least the past 13.7 billion years (approximately), the universe has been taking shape. Early in its life, it was a largely-undifferentiated collection of subatomic particles. Over the millennia, it evolved to where it now has stars, planets, and life forms, not least us. This is pretty well accepted, although there’s a lot we don’t know about just how it happened.
2) The existence of a Creator is the best explanation anyone has yet come up with about why this has all been happening.
3) It’s quite plausible that the Creator has been utilizing this cosmic evolution to build the universe; to what end, we don’t know.
4) It’s also plausible that he has been using us, and perhaps other life forms, as construction workers. That makes some sense, given that on the whole, our corner of the universe is a bit more organized than when humanity arrived on the scene, due in part to our contributions.
5) Here’s where pragmatism comes in: Human beings seem to be programmed to want things for themselves and to try to change the world to make it the way they want. But they’re also programmed to be altruistic, to seek the best for others and not just for themselves. Both of those qualities have contributed to our ability to shape our corner of the universe. Perhaps the Creator “programmed” us that way as part of his master construction plan.
6) We don’t understand why we want things. We don’t understand where, say, scientific inspiration comes from.
7) Here’s my naive speculation, to use John Polkinghorne’s phrase: From time to time, in ways we don’t even recognize, let alone understand, the Creator influences individuals to think and/or act in certain ways, “nudging” us in directions that, in the long run, contribute to his construction project. By any definition known to me, THAT is theism.
“2) The existence of a Creator is the best explanation anyone has yet come up with about why this has all been happening.”
Natural materialists would disagree. They argue that the explanation is simply random events over time. God (theism) simply does not exist.
Wm. Witt [#45] writes: “Exactly what special competence would a technology litigator have in determining the likelihood that the Primary Actor in the biblical texts would or could actually Act as the texts repeatedly affirm he has?”
For starters, good litigators recognize when someone is assuming facts not in evidence — another term for which is wishful thinking, or living in a fantasy world if you will.
Good litigators develop a sense for when a witness’s or document author’s story might be biased. They can dig in to explore whether the witness or author is “remembering” things that never really happened, or that didn’t happen quite that way. They can spot when the witness or author is recounting things that s/he wasn’t in a position to observe.
Good litigators have seen the way stories can get distorted as they’re retold — sometimes in the mind of the very first reteller.
When certain human OT author(s) say that God expelled Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden; that he delivered the Ten Commandments to Moses on stone tablets, etc. — good litigators immediately ask: How exactly do they [the OT authors] know?
Moreover, good litigators, especially those trained in the sciences, constantly look for alternative explanations of the observed phenomena. They want to find the “best fit” with the available data — because the last thing they want is to be surprised by their adversary’s having found a better explanation that resonates more with the judge and jury.
The problem DC is that all the witnesses are dead, and you have no way to get behind the text. You have made this agrument before and it simply does not work outside the courtroom, which is itself an artificial constuct with its rules of evidence designed to keep out evidence.
As you well know Appellate Courts do not go behind the record that is on appeal. Here we have a cold record. You want to relitigate the facts, yet all we have is the record in the Bible.
And I might add that is what juries are for. The purpose of the jury is to decide what the fact are. Hopefully the facts that the jury decides are what actually happened, but they need not be. It is on the basis of those jury determined facts that the law is applied. The jury may be totaly wrong, but for the sake of the process they are the final arbitrar of the facts in a particular case and what they say is what, at law, actually happened, even if it didn’t in reality.
The law and court room proceedure is not as exact as you are trying to portray it.
[blockquote]When certain human OT author(s) say that God expelled Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden; that he delivered the Ten Commandments to Moses on stone tablets, etc. — good litigators immediately ask: How exactly do they [the OT authors] know?[/blockquote]
Or, to ask another question, how did the writers of the New Testament know that God raised Jesus from the dead?
Without presuming ahead of time that delivering the Ten Commandments to Moses on stone tablets or raising Jesus from the dead is the kind of thing that the God who created the universe would not do, one might well ask something like the following:
Is it possible to account for the history and beliefs of Israel without presuming that the Exodus events did indeed take place? Is it possible to account for the existence of the New Testament Church if the resurrection of Jesus from the dead did not indeed take place?
If careful reconstruction (insofar as possible) of the pre-canonical sources of biblical texts repeatedly leads back to a Sinai covenant that is presupposed in all later Hebrew religion, and if careful analysis of the pre-canonical sources of NT texts (both epistles and gospels, and, again, insofar as possible), never leads us to recover a Jesus who was not the kergymatic Jesus, then we are forced to conclude the following:
Either the documents are completely unreliable, in which case there is no way to account for the rise of Hebrew religion or the faith of the early church, or, since the documents consistently point that way, the account that the biblical texts give of their own origins must be the correct one. The God who created the world really did make a covenant with Israel at Sinai and really did raise Jesus from the dead.
Having been driven back to this dilemma, a litigator is no more competent to answer the question than others.
Of course, litigators can examine individual pericopes (as do historians in general), and assert, based on comparative evidence that a given pericope shows theological development from a historical original (redaction criticism). Litigators who are competent in Aramaic (as were NT scholars like Joachim Jeremias) might well discover (as did Jeremias) that translating the Greek sayings of Jesus in the gospels back into Aramaic produces surprising results (e.g., rhyme schemes) that indicate that the gospel sayings are translations of Aramaic originals that almost certainly lead back to Jesus. Litigators who also knew a bit about ancient Roman law might (as did classical historian A. N. Sherwin-White) discover that the New Testament documents consistently portray Roman law and society as it actually existed during the time of Jesus and Paul, and not as it existed only a few decades later. A litigator who knew something about ancient culture might trace Paul’s journeys as recorded in Acts and move from agnosticism to belief in the process (as did William Ramsay). A litigator (like J.N.D. Anderson or J. W. Montgomery) or a trained journalist (like Frank Morison) might examine the historical evidence for the resurrection, and find it convincing.
But at bottom, the problem remains. The texts are what they are. Throughout they speak of a Central Actor who speaks and acts. A litigator (as litigator) has no more competence than anyone else to decide ahead of time whether or not the Central Actor would speak and act as the texts say he did. The Central Actor is so central to the entire narrative of the texts that, if they can be relied on in their central claim, the texts provide a coherent narrative. If not, we must be skeptics. But whether or not the claim about the Central Actor is true is one that is entirely beyond the competence of a litigator (as litigator) to decide. As Job discovered, one cannot cross-examine the Deity.
Wm Witt [#52], a good litigator would try to take into account all the facts you point out. As I’ve said, a litigator’s job is to try to reconstruct the story in a manner that takes into account all of the evidence, not just a cherry-picked portion of it.
And by no means do I totally reject the witness of the NT writings. I think much and even most of it is probably factually accurate.
But I’ve had far too much experience with story distortion to accept all the NT claims at face value, especially in view of some of the serious inconsistencies contained therein.
Gotta run — off to church.