I delivered a paper at the recent annual meeting of the Evangelical Philosophical Society on the consistency of the goodness of the Judeo-Christian God with some of the most morally problematic passages from the Hebrew Bible (Old Testament). This paper was inspired in part by a conference held at the Center for Philosophy of Religion at Notre Dame, "My Ways are Not Your Ways: The Character of the God of the Hebrew Bible" (streaming video here).
Some of the most difficult passages in the Bible have to do with God seemingly condoning and even commanding actions that, to many, are at least prima facie immoral. Passages dealing with slavery, the status of women, and the destruction of peoples such as the Canaanites and Amalekites have seemed morally problematic to both Christians and non-Christians, insofar as they are thought to be inconsistent or at least in tension with the claim that God is morally perfect. A variety of responses have been given with respect to such morally problematic passages. I will set aside several other explanations that have been given for how we are to deal with these perplexing passages. Perhaps the lives of the Canaanites and Amalekites were so bad as to not be worth living. Or perhaps some of the following possibilities described by Plantinga are actual:
Some of the most difficult passages in the Bible have to do with God seemingly condoning and even commanding actions that, to many, are at least prima facie immoral. Passages dealing with slavery, the status of women, and the destruction of peoples such as the Canaanites and Amalekites have seemed morally problematic to both Christians and non-Christians, insofar as they are thought to be inconsistent or at least in tension with the claim that God is morally perfect. A variety of responses have been given with respect to such morally problematic passages. I will set aside several other explanations that have been given for how we are to deal with these perplexing passages. Perhaps the lives of the Canaanites and Amalekites were so bad as to not be worth living. Or perhaps some of the following possibilities described by Plantinga are actual:
….on the other side: how bad is the moral and spiritual corruption, blasphemy, infant sacrifice, temple prostitution and the like attributed to the Canaanites? Maybe it is worse, even much worse, than we think. (Earlier Christians may have been closer to the truth than we are presently inclined to think.) If so, perhaps God’s sentence upon these people is perfectly just. What about the infants and children? Perhaps, as William Craig says, they are spared a life of degradation and sin. Furthermore, Christians, of course, believe that our earthly career is a mere infinitesimal initial segment of our whole life; perhaps the suffering of these children is recompensed a thousand fold (Alvin Plantinga, “Response to Fales,” unpublished paper from the conference “My Ways are not Your Ways: The Character of the God of the Hebrew Bible”).
Some of the other explanations of these passages include the view that they fail to accurately report God’s commands, that the passages include metaphoric and hyperbolic language, or that they are to be read in some allegorical manner. Though I am open to some of these options, and think some may be better than the possibility I explore below, I want to set them aside and focus on one particular response, the Concessionary Morality Response.
The Concessionary Morality Response (CMR), includes the claim that portions of biblical morality are concessionary insofar as they (i) fall short of God’s ideal morality for human beings; and (ii) are instances of God making allowances for the hardness of human hearts and its consequences in human cultures. But what is a moral concession, in this context? A divine moral concession is “God allowing, commanding, or performing actions which he would prefer not to allow, command, or perform, all things being equal.”
It has seemed to some that the following two propositions are inconsistent with each other:
(1) God is morally perfect.
(2) God commanded the Israelites to destroy the Amalekite and Canaanite men, women, children, and livestock (See 1 Samuel 15 and Deuteronomy 20).
What CMR does, in part, is harmonize these two propositions by adding a third:
(3) God makes moral concessions due to the hardness of human hearts and corrupt nature of human culture.
Moreover, in order to fully grasp the import of this response, a further substantive claim must be made:
(4) Moral perfection does not entail immediate benevolence.
One way of understanding these issues from the perspective of normative ethical theory is through the lens of pluralistic deontology (W.D. Ross). On this theory, there is an objective fact of the matter with respect to our moral duties. These duties are prima facie duties. A particular prima facie duty is objectively true and exceptionless, but it may be overridden by a weightier duty in a particular circumstance, such as lying to save the life of an innocent person.
Given that God relates to human beings in a fallen world, there will be times at which two or more prima facie duties come into conflict. When this occurs, the morally proper action is the one that is in accord with the weightier moral principle or principles. Perhaps this is the best way to understand the acts at issue in (2). If we combine this understanding of moral duty with graded absolutism, we gain a way of understanding how God can be morally perfect and yet order the destruction of the Amalekites and Canaanites. Perhaps God’s actions are necessitated by beneficence (improving the lives of some people with respect to virtue, intelligence, or pleasure) and fidelity (keeping promises) at the expense of non-maleficence (not harming others). Non-maleficence remains relevant as an exempted moral principle which makes its presence felt in the situation, but it is overridden by the other two moral duties. In such a situation, it seems that God’s moral perfection is preserved.
To be in relationship with us seems to entail that God must engage in certain forms of moral concessions. Such concessions show respect for persons, grace, forgiveness, and other morally praiseworthy traits. The divine moral concessions present in the perplexing passages at issue here are perhaps a necessary means for the ultimate redemption of human beings, brought back to a state of original justice in communion with one another and God. In this state, human beings attain what Aquinas refers to as the beatific vision: an intellectual vision of God which also engages the upright will and constitutes our ultimate happiness. This, I suggest, is the best candidate for what might ultimately justify the divine moral concessions found in the Bible.
Related Resources
See the forthcoming book by Paul Copan, Is God a Moral Monster?
Also, see the following posts from Matthew Flanagan, at M and M:
Also, see the following posts from Matthew Flanagan, at M and M:
25 comments:
Hi Mike, thanks for the link.
I think the point can be made by appealing to the co-extensiveness thesis (CT)
CT: A perfectly good person prohibits an action iff its wrong to perform the action; God permits an action iff the action is permissible; and God commands an action iff it is morally required.
If you conjoin CT, with pluralistic deontology, from the conclusion that killing the innocent is prima facie wrong and can be overidden in abnormal circumstances when some greater value is at stake, it follows that a perfectly good person can command the killing of innocent people in abnormal circumstances where there is a greater value at stake.
The burden then shifts to the critic to argue that abnormal circumstances did not obtain or that no greater value is at stake.
I am no expert philosopher, but i have read the OT a bit. The Jews had a saying "The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away. Blessed be the Name of the Lord"
God gives life and takes it back for it is His to do so. We are presumptious to judge God's actions just because they clash with our contemporary [and ever changing] scruples. I suspect God has already answered this question in Isa 29:16 and Rom 9:21-24. When we are holy and perfect and omniscient we might be in a position to question God's morality.
In reading this paragraph:
The Concessionary Morality Response (CMR), includes the claim that portions of biblical morality are concessionary insofar as they (i) fall short of God’s ideal morality for human beings; and (ii) are instances of God making allowances for the hardness of human hearts and its consequences in human cultures. But what is a moral concession, in this context? A divine moral concession is “God allowing, commanding, or performing actions which he would prefer not to allow, command, or perform, all things being equal.”
these questions occurred to me:
What is the meaning of the term “biblical morality”? Is there only one biblical morality, or are there multiple biblical moralities? If there is only one, of how many different “portions” does it consist, and if these various “portions” are mutually exclusive, how can they be regarded as portions of a single whole? The observation that “portions of biblical morality” in some cases “fall short of God’s ideal morality for human beings” seems to entail that biblical morality and God’s ideal morality for human beings are not the same thing. In that case, what’s the difference? How is it possible for us to acquire knowledge of God’s ideal morality for human beings if this is something different from biblical morality? How is it possible for an omnipotent being (in making moral concessions) to be compelled to do things that he would prefer not to do? What is the source of this compulsion?
Matt,
Thanks for offering CT, but I wonder about the statement that "God permits an action iff the action is permissible." It may be the blog format, but I can think of many things that happen that are morally impermissible (e.g. human sin), but God still allows such actions. Maybe you could clarify when you get the chance.
Anon,
I think there is a difference between placing oneself over God as judge and seeking to understand how it is that a morally perfect being could do or command some particular action which has the appearance of inconsistency with that being's essential nature.
Havoc,
Nice handle. I'll answer your questions with some short, cryptic responses.
1. What is the meaning of the term “biblical morality”? The general moral view present in and advocated within the bible as expressing the nature of God. As far as I can see, there is no mutually exclusivity present, though I think biblical morality includes the major elements of the 3 normative theories: deontology, virtue, and consequentialism.
2. I think biblical morality and God's ideal morality are distinct in some cases.
3. We could acquire knowledge of it via revelation--i.e. the Great Commandment--or via reason, but often both.
4. God might be compelled to do certain things out of love that he would prefer not to have to do, he might be limited by metaphysical possibilities and the modal logic of possible worlds, and his own perfect nature. I take it that omnipotence doesn't mean that God can literally do anything, but rather anything that is logically possible for a morally perfect being to do.
Let me give but one of many possible examples that might help to clarify the nature of my previous request for clarification concerning the content of "biblical morality."
In the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew’s Gospel (5:17-20), Jesus instructs his disciples as follows:
“Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets; I have come not to abolish but to fulfill. For truly I tell you, until heaven and earth pass away, not one letter, not one stroke of a letter, will pass from the law until all is accomplished. Therefore, whoever breaks one of the least of these commandments, and teaches others to do the same, will be called least in the kingdom of heaven; but whoever does them and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of heaven. For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.”
It take it that the law to which Jesus refers in this passage is the Mosaic law laid out in the Pentateuch, and the commandments enjoined by this law include, among other things, the observance of traditional Jewish dietary restrictions.
As Paul’s letter to the Galatians indicates, there was bitter disagreement among the leaders of the early Christian community about the question of whether or not it is necessary for Christians to continue to conform to Mosaic law. James “the brother of the Lord,” who was an acknowledged leader of the church in Jerusalem (and presumably in a position to know what Jesus himself had taught) took one side on this issue (a position that is consistent with the one articulated by Jesus in the passage from Matthew cited above), Paul took a different one (which contradicts the one articulated by Matthew's Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount). Which of these two views, the one espoused by Matthew’s Jesus and by James, or the one espoused by Paul, is representative of “biblical morality”? It has been my experience that people who claim, as you do, that "As far as I can see, there is no mutual exclusivity present," either don't see very far (i.e. they don't read the Bible carefully), or, when they don't like what they see, pretend to see something else (i.e. do violence to the text [which presents us with a number of mutually exclusive theological positions] in order to force it into conformity with their theological preconceptions, thereby exposing themselves to the charge of acting [doxically] in bad faith).
To start with, I don't see any examples of mutually exclusive theological positions given in the biblical text. When an apparent example is brought to my attention through my own study and reading, or from another person, I've always found a satisfactory answer that doesn't require violence to the text or bad faith. In my experience, many (not all) people who do argue for inconsistencies of this and other forms sometimes fail to employ the same intellectual rigor and care to seeking out solutions for potential or alleged conflicts as they do when trying to identify such conflicts.
In the example you give, I don't think that Jesus and Paul are offering mutually exclusive statements.
One possible response is that Jesus is not referring to the entire Mosaic law, as I think the term used when discussing the breaking of commandments is not "nomos" but something else. Aside from this, perhaps he is referring to the commandments he is about to discuss, i.e. those concerned with murder, anger, adultery, lust.
Another response is that Paul is not advocating abolishing the law, but rather fulfilling it in a deeper way. Love for one's brother is paramount, as the only thing that counts is "faith expressing itself through love". And this is precisely what Jesus teaches in the larger context of the Sermon on the Mount. Moreover, the pattern that is repeated there of "You have heard that it was said...but I tell you" shows how the law is fulfilled in love. In this and in other portions of the Sermon on the Mount, I take it that Jesus is setting forth the intention of the law which is fulfilled in the inner moral transformation that will be available to his followers who appropriate the indwelling power of the person of the Holy Spirit. It is not too hard to refrain from murder, but it can be very hard to refrain from being angry with your brother, to cite an example given by Jesus of the kind of change he came to bring. So when we as his followers uphold the law of love, we uphold the law by how we live.
Importantly, even Jesus recognized that the law might be set aside on the basis of love (see Mark 2:23-28).
When, in the passage from the Sermon on the Mount that I cited, Jesus says that “not one letter, not one stroke of a letter, will pass from the law until all is accomplished,” he is clearly referring to the Mosaic Law in its entirety. I don’t see how he could possibly have been any more explicit or unequivocal, and I thus find your suggestion that “Jesus is not referring to the entire Mosaic law” implausible.
I haven’t re-read the whole thing, but I don’t recall Jesus saying anything about the indwelling of the “person” of the Holy Spirit in the Sermon on the Mount, so I think this interpretation is gratuitous (I could be wrong, but I don’t think that the Holy Spirit is even conceived of as a distinct hypostasis = persona until the Trinitarian controversies of the fourth century. This underscores what I take to be the broader issue at stake in this and other similar discussions, viz., that theologically conservative Protestants tend not to have learned how to think historically, i.e. non-anachronistically).
You seem to be reading into Matthew’s Gospel ideas that are ascribed to Jesus by the author of John’s Gospel. I can see how someone who regards (as Plantinga does, and as many pre-Enlightenment Christian theologians did) God (and not the human authors) as the principal author of scripture in its entirely might regard this as a reasonable procedure, but its not one that can be adopted by someone who applies the same methods of historical-critical analysis to the study of the Bible that are used to study other ancient texts, i.e. it involves the assumption that the historical causes that led to the production of the Bible are categorically different from the causes that led to the production of all other texts; and since this is not a claim that can be established by ordinary methods of historical inquiry, it amounts to “special pleading.”
I do not dispute that Matthew’s Jesus is enjoining his disciples to cultivate a righteousness that exceeds that of the Pharisees. In Matthew 23 Jesus says:
23 ‘Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you tithe mint, dill, and cumin [i.e. you do more than what the law requires, namely, to give a 10th of one’s wealth annually to support the work of the priests at the Temple in Jerusalem], and have neglected the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faith. It is these you ought to have practiced without neglecting the others.”
An important difference between Matthew’s Jesus and Paul, however, is that, whereas Matthew’s Jesus instructs people to neglect neither the more nor the less weightier matters of the Mosaic law, i.e. to observe it in its entirety (the less weightier including presumably ordinary Jewish observances such as keeping kosher), Paul claims that Jewish Christians no longer need to concern themselves with traditional forms of Jewish religious observance.
The reason why the Jewish authorities were scandalized by the proto-Pauline version of the gospel propagated by Stephen and the Hellenists (Acts 6-7), but not (Acts 8:1 – “all except the apostles,”) the message of Jesus’ Galilean followers (who continued to engage in customary forms of Jewish religious observance, c.f. Acts 2:46), is that they understood the proto-Paulines (who later established the Gentile mission at Antioch [Acts11:19-20]) to be instructing people that the “eternal covenant” (Heb. olam berith) established by God with the people of Israel at Sinai had been abrogated.
From Havoc, part I:
When, in the passage from the Sermon on the Mount that I cited, Jesus says that “not one letter, not one stroke of a letter, will pass from the law until all is accomplished,” he is clearly referring to the Mosaic Law in its entirety. I don’t see how he could possibly have been any more explicit or unequivocal, and I thus find your suggestion that “Jesus is not referring to the entire Mosaic law” implausible.
I haven’t re-read the whole thing, but I don’t recall Jesus saying anything about the indwelling of the Holy Spirit in the Sermon on the Mount, so I think this interpretation is gratuitous (I could be wrong, but I don’t think that the Holy Spirit is even conceived of as a distinct “person” = hypostasis = persona until the Trinitarian controversies of the fourth century. This underscores what I take to be the broader issue at stake in this and other similar discussions, viz., that theologically conservative Protestants tend not (IMHO) to have learned how to think historically, i.e. non-anachronistically).
You seem to be reading into Matthew’s Gospel ideas that are ascribed to Jesus by the author of John’s Gospel. I can see how someone who regards (as Plantinga does, and as many pre-Enlightenment Christian theologians did) God as the principal author of scripture in its entirely might regard this as a reasonable procedure, but its not one that can be adopted by someone who applies the same methods of modern (post-Enlightenment) historical-critical analysis to the study of the Bible that are used to study other ancient texts, i.e. it involves the assumption that the historical causes that led to the production of the Bible are categorically different from the causes that led to the production of all other texts; and since this is not a claim that can be established by ordinary methods of historical inquiry (i.e. empirically), it amounts to “special pleading.”
From Havoc, pt. II:
I do not dispute that Matthew’s Jesus is enjoining his disciples to cultivate a righteousness that exceeds that of the Pharisees. In Matthew 23 Jesus says:
23 ‘Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you tithe mint, dill, and cumin [i.e. you do more than what the law requires, namely, to give a 10th of one’s wealth annually to support the work of the priests at the Temple in Jerusalem], and have neglected the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faith. It is these you ought to have practiced without neglecting the others.”
An important difference between Matthew’s Jesus and Paul, however, is that, whereas Matthew’s Jesus instructs people to neglect neither the more nor the less weightier matters of the Mosaic law, i.e. to observe it in its entirety, Paul claims that Jewish Christians no longer need to concern themselves with traditional forms of Jewish religious observance.
The reason why the Jewish authorities were scandalized by the proto-Pauline version of the gospel propagated by Stephen and the Hellenists (Acts 6-7), but not (Acts 8:1 – “all except the apostles,”) the message of Jesus’ Galilean followers (who continued to engage in customary forms of Jewish religious practice, c.f. Acts 2:46), is that they understood the proto-Paulines (who later established the Gentile mission at Antioch [Acts11:19-20]) to be instructing people that the “eternal covenant” (Heb. olam berith) established by God with the people of Israel at Sinai had been abrogated.
I agree with you Havoc at least at present that Jesus was referring to the Mosaic law. I think the key to understanding this lies in the relationship between the fulfillment of the law in the birth, life, death, and resurrection of Christ, and what that entails.
Now, to some of your other points. It is clear that historically speaking there was controversy and disagreement as followers of the Way, this new offshoot of Judaism, tried to reconcile what it meant to be a follower of Christ. It was a transitionary period, and the struggles, disagreements, and so on are not surprising. However, I think there is consistency in what the church finally decided on these issues.
Here's a reason why I think it is okay to read the teaching of the Sermon on the Mount in a way that is informed by John's gospel, and it is not because I think that God is the principal author of scripture (which I do). The 2 gospels are 2 accounts of portions of the life of Jesus, and so they can be used to illuminate one another. If I had 2 accounts of the life of Aristotle, I would use both to help me understand his teachings. The principle of charity would lead me to interpret them in a non-contradictory way, and to use them to help me understand his overall view. Same thing with the teachings of Jesus.
Finally, for this point, if the ordinary methods of historical inquiry are empirical (I'm not sure what it means to investigate history empirically, but I'll let that slide for now) then they beg the question against the theist who believes that not all of reality is directly accessible via the 5 senses.
Next, I agree that the doctrine of the Trinity took a while to be developed and understood by human beings, but the material is present in the text, given the many attributes of personhood and deity ascribed to the Holy Spirit.
Finally, I think any student of the Bible should make use of all valid forms of inquiry and study as it relates to the text as needed and appropriate. One exercise that would be useful for the more skeptically-minded would be as follows: Assume merely for the sake of argument that the Bible is inspired and God is its principal author. On these assumptions, is there a way to interpret the theology present within the pages such that it is internally consistent?
You say you’re not sure what it means to investigate history empirically. How else could you possibly establish the truth or untruth of historical claims (i.e. including claims about who performed which actions [including such actions as writing, editing and canonizing religious texts] when, and what their motivation for doing so is likely to have been)? Through some kind of a priori method of deductive reasoning? That seems unlikely. Maybe you don’ think that it’s impossible to establish with greater or lesser degrees of certainty in various cases what has happened in the past, but this is a radically skeptical position that I think would be soundly rejected by the overwhelming majority of practicing historians, who have established canons of evidence and reasoning, and who don’t regard as worthy of serious consideration claims that have not been established through procedures that are consistent with these canons.
Perhaps it is true that not all reality is directly accessible via the five senses, but this is beside the point with respect to claims about who wrote which texts when, to whom these texts were addressed, and what the author may have intended to communicate (even if the meaning of the text should prove to be irreducible to the intentions of the author who produced it).
There are a number of potential problems with the analogy you draw between literary accounts of the life of Jesus and literary accounts of the life of Aristotle. These include the following dissimilarities:
• No one claims that the literary accounts of the life of Aristotle that we possess are divinely inspired, or that the principal author of these accounts is someone other than the human beings who wrote them. No one that I know of has theological reasons for discounting variations or contradictions in the historical accounts that we have Aristotle’s life (whereas some Christians have theological reasons for discounting variations and contradictions that appear in different biblical texts).
• There are many more sources of information about the life of Aristotle and the historical milieu in which he lived than there are of Jesus (which allow for the possibility of confirming or disconfirming historical claims about Aristotle’s life).
• The people who wrote accounts of the life of Aristotle were presumably not influenced in doing so by a desire to awaken in their readers a conviction that the events of Aristotle’s life involved the fulfillment of prophetic oracles delivered centuries beforehand, or that Aristotle was the incarnation of a pre-existent divine being, whereas the authors of practically the only historical sources of information about the life of Jesus of Nazareth were influenced by these considerations (cf., for example, infancy narratives of Luke and Matthew). Obviously, if we suspected that someone were motivated by an interest in presenting Aristotle in an idealized light in order, say, to magnify certain of his qualities (his wisdom, for example), then we would need to adjust our estimation of the historical reliability of this persons testimony accordingly.
• It is abundantly evident from both canonical and extra-canonical (including, for, example, Gnostic and Ebionite) sources that many different groups of people in the ancient world who proclaimed the gospel of Jesus had significantly different understandings of who Jesus was and why his life and/or teachings were important. One needs to take into consideration, among a number of other things, the genre of the literary texts to which one appeals as sources of evidence for historical claims.
My point about empirically investigating history is that I don't see how one could empirically investigate the motivations of those in writing, editing, and canonizing religious texts. I'm not skeptical about historical investigation, I just am unclear how it is done empirically, i.e. how is the motivation of a dead author or editor available to me in an empirical way? (However, using the canons of historical work, we can be strongly justified in the belief that Jesus was raised from the dead, but we'll save that for another time.) In fact, some of the steps of reasoning are a priori when we seek to understand an author's intentions, even if the data is in some way empirical.
Of course there are many differences between Jesus and Aristotle, my point is merely that we can draw from different sources having to do with one person's life and teachings in order to get a fuller picture of them. I would use Aristotle's Metaphysics to help me interpret his Ethics where appropriate, and I would use John's gospel to help me interpret Matthew's gospel where appropriate. I am very sensitive to genre, I just think that the gospel writers were motivated by many things in their writings, but primarily by reporting truth.
Returning to the initial issue concerning the consistency of biblical morality and the alleged contradiction between Jesus and Paul on eating unclean foods, see Mark 7:14-23 (http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Mark%207&version=NASB) and Luke 11:39-41.
It is my understanding that, although a few of the works attributed to Aristotle in the Middle Ages have been shown to be pseudonymous, the Aristotelian authorship of most of the writings traditionally attributed to Aristotle is undisputed. By contrast, Jesus appears not to have written anything, and the accounts that we have of his life are generally agreed to have been written approximately 40-70 years after the events that they purport to describe (and which they each describe differently, sometimes in theologically quite significant ways).
Furthermore, although, as you suggest, the authors of the canonical gospels were interested in proclaiming the truth (so, for that matter, were the authors of non-canonical gospels subsequently labelled "heretical"!), the form that this proclamation took was in each case determined by the polemical circumstances in which they found themselves vis-a-vis the Jewish community and other Christian communities representative of a wide plurality of religious views during a time (after the destruction of the Temple in 70 CE) in which issues of religious identity among both Jews and Christians were fiercely contested. With all due respect, your method of reading the Bible fails in my view to grapple in a responsible way with the complexity of the hermeneutical issues that these circumstances present.
I don't think you grasp how I read the bible, first of all. My way of reading the bible and grappling with the issues is responsible, contrary to your claim. You may disagree with my views, but that is a separate issue.
Second, I agree that this statement is true, suitably qualified:
"the form that this proclamation took was in each case determined by the polemical circumstances in which they found themselves vis-a-vis the Jewish community and other Christian communities representative of a wide plurality of religious views during a time (after the destruction of the Temple in 70 CE) in which issues of religious identity among both Jews and Christians were fiercely contested."
I agree that the "form" was determined by this, and the arguments given, and the content that was selected to be included was influence by this. But I also that at the same time those arguments reflect the truth. And that this is all consistent with a view of the text as inspired by God. I don't see any resolution for you and I here, at present, Havoc, so we'll have to agree to disagree.
I'll post sometime soon about some of the reasons I take the canonical gospels to be reliable, perhaps this will move our discussion into new avenues.
You write: "My point about empirically investigating history is that I don't see how one could empirically investigate the motivations of those in writing, editing, and canonizing religious texts." This statement is so astonishing that I'm not sure what to make of it. You can't be serious. Read Eusebius, who discusses at length the considerations that influenced the fourth-century bishops who decided which books to include and which to exclude from the canon as they defined it. I really don't mean to be rude, but have you every heard of the discipline of philology? I think you ought to better inform yourself about the methods of investigation that have been developed by students of ancient literature since the Renaissance, and, more narrowly, the Enlightenment, before staking out a position on these questions.
I agree that our basic assumptions are so far removed from one another that it is difficult to engage in a constructive discussion, and that we may, for the time being, have to agree to disagree, which I am prepared to do most respectfully. Yesterday I read cursorily through William Lane Craig's chapter on Inspiration in Vol. 2 of the Oxford Readings in Philosophical Theology, which explores issues about which I am interested in continuing to reflect. Perhaps one way to set our discussion on a more constructive basis would be for us to examine together the philosophical plausibility of various possible theories of inspiration. I'm not suggesting that we need to do this immediately.
My point about the motivations of the writers is merely that when done in the way you describe, it is not empirical in the sense that many other modes of inquiry are empirical. It is empirical insofar as we can examine the documents, the historical context, and so on. But the steps of reasoning to get from the empirical aspect of the examination to the conclusion that the author had motivation x, y, and z is not empirical. It involves non-empirical processes of reasoning and perhaps other assumptions as well. My previous comments were not precise enough, and so your point is well taken as far as it goes. And I've heard of philology.
This thread also demonstrates to me at least why it is important for people to talk face to face about these and other important issues, as you and I have occasion to do, Havoc. There is much less of a chance of misunderstanding and the like during a conversation. When I canvass discussions on blogs and have occasion to participate, it often seems to get nowhere at the end of the day. That' why we need more bowling leagues...
"i.e. it involves the assumption that the historical causes that led to the production of the Bible are categorically different from the causes that led to the production of all other texts; and since this is not a claim that can be established by ordinary methods of historical inquiry (i.e. empirically), it amounts to “special pleading.”"
The problem i have with this comment is that as a Christian i do in fact believe in the divine inspiration of scripture ie there is something categorically different about the way the Bible came to be cf all other historical texts.
I can see that this will never be an acceptable argument to non=Christians but i must admit its always going to colour my understanding of scripture and the doctrine contained there in.
With respect to Jesus cf Paul on the law. Pauls comments are post the death and ressurection of Christ [thus fulfilling the requirements of the law].For Paul to maintain the requirements of the law would be for him to deny the death and ressurection of Christ, the very thing he was preaching. It would reduce Jesus to a nice moral teacher who was totally deluded about himself.
I am the same person who posted as "anon" [jeremy]
"the appearance of inconsistency with that being's essential nature."
I think that was my point, our perceptions limit/colour our understanding and we need to be very careful we seek to compete our understanding, especially in light of what God has had to say on the subject.
sorry that was
'we need to be very careful when we seek to complete our understanding'
Havoc
On the Mosaic law issue, did it occur to you that Paul and Jesus are addressing different audiences.
In Matthew Jesus is addressing a Jewish audience, the Mosaic covenant was made with the nation of Isreal.
In Galatians, Paul is addressing a mixed gentile and Jewish church where it was being contended that the Gentiles must "be circumcised and obey the law of Moses".
So I am not sure I see the contradiction here. The contradiction only seems to follow if you assume that the Mosaic law applied to all both Jew and Gentile. But even Jewish exegetes of the 1st century denied this.
Mike you write"Thanks for offering CT, but I wonder about the statement that "God permits an action iff the action is permissible." It may be the blog format, but I can think of many things that happen that are morally impermissible (e.g. human sin), but God still allows such actions. Maybe you could clarify when you get the chance."
Sure, I am using permit in the sense of does not forbid, does not issue a command requiring people to refrain from the action. So in the cases you mention, God might allow them to occur or not prevent them occuring but they still are actions he has prohibited.
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