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Similitude
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| Posted 4/25/2005 8:03 PM (GMT -6) |   | | Sahid, some of what you bring up is about what God could of done for the Canaanites. Why is this issue any different than the question of why didn't God prevent the tsunami? I don't see how this particular problem is only about the bible. Wouldn't it apply to natural evil, too? Is God's killing substantially different than His failure to prevent death (like by the tsunami) since He is omnipotent?
With respect to what the Israelites should of done, maybe they should have offered to adopt the children but didn't for selfish reasons. When self-interest was at stake with respect to taking wives from the Canaanites, they were quick to use their "judgement." Perhaps God would have been perfectly game for them to adopt the children had they had the heart to ask as they did for the wives.
wjsPost Edited (jefscott) : 4/25/2005 8:55:47 PM (GMT-5) | | Back to Top | | |
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MattBrown
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| Posted 4/26/2005 11:18 AM (GMT -6) | | Yo - Sahid, don't you remember...the Canaanite genocide is really all about the Nephilim??? ( http://www.opentheismboard.org/default.aspx?f=9&m=54386 )
All joking aside, I know it is far fetched conspiracy but it is very compelling given the complex implications of the conquest.
I give you props for standing up and fighting for real solutions (or lack thereof) to these hard questions. Not to take sides but I think John is giving some well thoughtout plausable answers to the examples you raise.
In the end I think we need to take or leave script ures with all their difficulties. Picking and choosing what to believe just amounts to creating a God of our own preference. Even if it is a shot in the dark on a cold night, there must be someway, somehow, to make sense of the whole script ure, to find a consistancy/Hermenutic, even one riddled with some amount of mystery and unanswered questions. 
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JEE
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| Posted 4/26/2005 12:00 PM (GMT -6) | | |
He is NOT saying, "I won't EVER repent under any circumstances." Which WOULD be a general principle and would create a contradiction in terms if that's what He were saying. I'm really having a hard time understanding why you don't see this point, Sahid.
What is the point I don't understand? I think he is saying "I won't ever repent under any circumstances." "He is not a man that he should lie or change his mind." Changing his mind is put on the same level as lying. If the changing his mind is particular, then so is the lying. I wouldn't expect that that's a road you want to go down.
God saying "I will not lie" is an idiomatic way of saying, "I'm telling the truth," not unlike when Jesus says, "Verily, verily, I say unto thee..."
...God, as the Bible presents him, is inconsistent. He could do anything. He might die for you; he might kill you and your family before you learn to crawl. I'm not denying any possibilities.
I think the crucial distinction is that God does not arbitrarily kill people (for no reason at all).
If the judgement of a nation involves the judgement of its individuals, then it is likely inconsistent with justice for individuals. Babies are not guilty. Once I was alive apart from the law... Unless you become like one of these... Babies do not deserve life, but neither do they deserve to be killed. The wages of sin is death, but babies are sinful through no fault of their own.
I don't find scripture or Reason to teach that babies are sinful at all--that's the invention of Augustine's Manichean-influenced thinking.
Blessings,
John
May the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit.
JohnE
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Sahid
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| Posted 4/26/2005 12:26 PM (GMT -6) | | |
Ok, I'm calming down. I'll back off the contradictions for now. I agree with what you said about the sinfulness of babies. I only call them sinful with there being a firm distinction between sin and guilt. But how does God's moral government allow for him to kill the innocent. Do ends justify the means? Is that how I am to be holy as He is holy?
Matt, I agree. Although it's far-fetched, the Nephlim is the only way to make any sense of the Conquest that I can see. I can't see Jesus condoning racial cleansing, euthanasia, or the outright hatred that seem to be the only other options. You said we need to take or leave the Bible as a whole. I agree. But can we really take that which is authoritative in the Bible in that way? I love Ecclesiastes. It's a book that has picked me up many times. Sometimes we just need someone to understand the problem without giving trite answers. I don't know if I'd call it "authoritative" though. Same with the Conquest story. Useful for teaching? Yeah. Authoritative? Hardly.
Jef, it's not I who have the problem with capital punishment in the Law. It is Jesus. I'm just trying to follow his example. If the law was given as an upper limit to punishment rather than a lower limit, then it is keeping with the law's spirit to bring that limit down all the way to forgiveness as Jesus did. If those who killed the Son of God are forgiven, what place does anyone have to withhold forgiveness? Jesus told a story of a slave who was forgiven much but who would not forgive little.
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JEE
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| Posted 4/26/2005 12:54 PM (GMT -6) | | | But how does God's moral government allow for him to kill the innocent.
Good question. Next one?...
But seriously, folks...
Apparently God had his reasons. If the Bible is to be believed, He apparently drowned untold multitudes of children in the Flood, too.
Do ends justify the means?
I don't think so; not necessarily.
Is that how I am to be holy as He is holy?
One thing I can say with certainty is that now that Jesus has come and given us the FULL revelation of God, we are to emulate Him, so no, I would say killing people is generally speaking inconsistent with Jesus' character, though we do find "the wrath of the Lamb" being poured out on moral rebels in the Book of Revelation, and we do find Jesus will someday "Judge the world in righteousness," which seems to entail that God is still in some sense a righteous executioner. The obvious difference being that only GOD is able to righteously determine what everyone deserves, while we are perfectly unable to judge with such accuracy.
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timlings
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| Posted 4/26/2005 4:42 PM (GMT -6) | | Sahid
sahid said...
But how does God's moral government allow for him to kill the innocent. Do ends justify the means?
Several things to say here. Firstly, God's made a universe where humans are significant and have relationships with loads of other things. So if I sin, it hurts people all over the place, even though they don't deserve it. In the same way that my obedience release blessing to others, sin does the opposite. So with the Cananites persisted in sin, their actions had consequence that affected even innocent babies. God has given us the power to be able to be a blessing to the nations, but if we misuse that responsibility, we can become a curse to the nations!
Secondly, civic government is very different to running interpersonal relationships. God's given us government to stop evil spreading too far within nations. He'd rather we all turn to him, get born again and become good trees who don't need anyone to legislate that we have to love their neighbours because we just do it. But because everyone isn't, and because there are people who love evil and loving sin, God has to have a way of limiting that evil. Hence capital punishment - if a person takes another's life, they lose their own life. That's just fair.
Now in interpersonal relationships, God's got a higher way. I don't demand justice from my enemy, but instead love them, turn the other cheek etc. But that's not the way that nation states can operate, and hence why Israel didn't operate in that way.
However, since Jesus, we do have a holy nation of people who love righteousness (the church) and so those higher laws do apply to us.
sahid said...
You said we need to take or leave the Bible as a whole. I agree. But can we really take that which is authoritative in the Bible in that way?
We can take the whole Bible as authoritative if we realise that the OT is partial revelation but Jesus is the full revelation of God. We therefore interpret the OT through Jesus, looking for him on every page. If our interpretation isn't looking like Jesus, then it can't be right...
sahid said...
I love Ecclesiastes. It's a book that has picked me up many times. Sometimes we just need someone to understand the problem without giving trite answers. I don't know if I'd call it "authoritative" though.
We were looking at that book today in lectures. Good stuff. We do need to let the questions stand for longer than we do at the moment.
But why can't we take it as authoritative? What's your criteria for authority?
from
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MattBrown
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| Posted 4/26/2005 4:59 PM (GMT -6) | | In many of these discussions it's all about defining terms, so that everyone is on the same page, regardless if we eventually agree.
Let's define authoritative. Well I know for starters the NT Greek word also means "power", and I agree that the scriptures are surely powerful. My unschooled mind might say scripture is accurate and from God and therefore authoritative.
You seem on board with Jesus and the NT, it is the OT you are mainly uneasy about. However, it seems like the whole basis for Jesus, his coming, his work, and his legitimacy is rooting in the foundation of the OT. How can someone be on board with Jesus and the NT teaching about him are so heavily dependent on the OT?
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scott_jorgenson
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| Posted 4/26/2005 7:42 PM (GMT -6) | | | Sahid and everyone,
I think the problem is rooted in how we modern evangelicals have come to understand the nature of the Bible: as a repository of propositional doctrine that has been verbally and plenarily inspired by God such that everything in it carries the same kind and degree of authority and incumbency as everything else. Thus everything in it can (indeed must) be considered consistent, binding, and etc.
Now, that may be the kind of scripture that critical rationalism would demand of any God worth his salt, but it is (I believe) not what we have actually been given. For one thing, and for my part at least, it simply requires too much mental gyration in order to see how everything in scripture actually is consistent, justifiable, understandable, binding to this day, and so forth - all necessary so as to comport with that understanding of scripture. And for another thing, that understanding of scripture simply isn't reflected that much in how scripture treats itself, so far as I can see - what with (for example) the Deuteronomist occasionally conflicting with the earlier Pentateuchal books; the Chronicler occasionally conflicting with Samuel-Kings; Isaiah setting aside part of Deuteronomy; Jesus setting aside part of the Pentateuch; James and Paul (in Romans) putting such markedly different emphases on deeds and faith (not to mention, in the same regard, the Jesus in the Synoptics versus John's Jesus); and etc.
To me, it makes much better sense of scripture to understand it as a collection of human literature produced out of the Jewish community's experience over time as they developed in faith toward God. As human literature, scripture accordingly reflects different literary genres extant at the time (poetry, proverb, prophecy, and much narrative - the latter encompassing everything from parable and story, through history - albeit according to ancient standards - and ranging all the way in some cases to legend), and is framed in words, metaphors, and every kind of cultural artifact of the day including social and political but also scientific and even moral. With their literature reflecting their experience, the community passed on evidence of, and witness to, their increasingly clear understanding of the things that matter to God: his nature, our nature, and how we are to live and believe in submission to him.
And so where is God in the development of scripture? In the growing of his people, by progressively inspiring faith among them and providentially arranging circumstances around them so as to capture and propagate such faith. But even so, God was always accommodating to his people's cultural surroundings - meeting them where they were at in terms of their knowledge, tradition, morality, technology and etc - so as to ensure that his message - his inspired concepts - were always receivable and never too great a burden or challenge to bear and pass on. This is just as we teach what is needed to a growing child progressively, starting with the basics and proceeding as the child is able, never overwhelming him, always adding to and fleshing out the child's knowledge as he grows, and even refining, clarifying, and - yes - contradicting prior teaching as the child becomes able to come into fuller knowledge of the truth.
How then is this canon of literature "authoritative" for the church today? Not in and of itself, as simply a container of doctrine, but because it evidences where we have come from: how those in whose footsteps we follow dealt with understanding the things of God. We stand on, or look over (whichever visualization you prefer), their shoulders. God used their community to reveal himself to the world - and so it is their witness to that which must be primary material for us to base our beliefs and way of living upon, for we operate in a substantial vacuum of wisdom and experience if we neglect it. As an analogy for this: The reasons we study history in general, and - for example - base our lives as Americans upon an understanding of where America came from and how it developed so as to ensure that our trajectory is inline with our roots - those reasons Americans look to American history are basically the same reasons we Christians ought still look to the Bible, even the Old Testament, today. It should be accepted as authoritative for us today in a way analagous to how the writings of the American "founding fathers" are "authoritative" for Americans today. In my humble opinion, of course.
No, this is not a conservative evangelical view of scripture, and it is not one that the Southern Baptist Convention would consider orthodox. Because of scripture's significant human dimension, I cannot affirm biblical inerrancy or infallibility in the strong sense of those terms as they are commonly used by evangelicals; nor can I affirm verbal or plenary inspiration of scripture (as opposed to the inspiration of faith concepts within the community that produced scripture, which I can affirm). In fact, this view of scripture has much more affinity with neo-orthodoxy than evangelicalism (though you will find some who call themselves evangelical who would basically affirm it, despite quibbles they might have with me over some of the details). But it is what makes sense to me, and what has saved me from either continuing in greater confusion or rejecting the faith.
Best regards,
Scott
PS. Some good light academic reading on this is Paul Achtemeier's slim volume, Inspiration and Authority: Nature and Function of Christian scripture. Walter Brueggemann has a lot to say about this too, I hear - eg scripture as collected literature, particularly story, reflecting the community's experience over time. But for enjoyable reading on this subject (and much more), I think nothing approaches Brian McLaren - for example, his A New Kind of Christian trilogy.
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Sahid
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| Posted 4/27/2005 4:24 AM (GMT -6) | | Scott, I'm with you for the most part. But what about what Jesus said in Matt 5? I've been mostly arguing on the "conservative" side so far, but the "liberal" side has that big roadblock too. Did Matthew just get it wrong, or is there something specific (not the right word) for us to take from the passage? If Jesus kept the whole Law and Prophets and those documents are partially inaccurate, what's he trying to pull?
Jef, is it your contention that Jesus would not have forgiven them if they had known what they were doing? Is Christ's forgiveness only available to the ignorant? I hope not. What about Zaccheus, the woman caught in adultery, Peter...? I say those who have received forgiveness should extend it. In the model prayer we are only forgiven as we forgive others. That includes all, repentant or not, knowledgable or not. We must always remember that we are no better. And where do y'all keep finding the word "particular?" Do I have an old version of the Bible or something? Sure, it could be, but how can you state it as fact? Maybe Jesus really did love people that much.
Matt et al, when I say "authoritative" I guess I mean "something good little Christian boys and girls like us should believe." Dictionary.com has this:
I go with all three. So holding Ecclesiastes as authoritative would mean: official Christian docrine is that at the time of writing everything was meaningless. Maybe from his perspective it felt that way, but I would expect most Christians to disagree i.e. hold part of the Bible to be unauthoritative. It would also be official Christian doctine that God commanded the killing of all Canaanites in the land, and then changed his mind after a few chapters.
timlings said...
Several things to say here. Firstly, God's made a universe where humans are significant and have relationships with loads of other things. So if I sin, it hurts people all over the place, even though they don't deserve it. In the same way that my obedience release blessing to others, sin does the opposite. So with the Cananites persisted in sin, their actions had consequence that affected even innocent babies. God has given us the power to be able to be a blessing to the nations, but if we misuse that responsibility, we can become a curse to the nations!
Secondly, civic government is very different to running interpersonal relationships. God's given us government to stop evil spreading too far within nations. He'd rather we all turn to him, get born again and become good trees who don't need anyone to legislate that we have to love their neighbours because we just do it. But because everyone isn't, and because there are people who love evil and loving sin, God has to have a way of limiting that evil. Hence capital punishment - if a person takes another's life, they lose their own life. That's just fair.
Which is it? In the Conquest story was it karma on steroids that killed the babies or men acting under the command of a personal God. If there was a personal God responsible for the execution, what is going on? Is he unable to distinguish the innocent from the guilty? The idea of our actions inspiring divine retribution against our children doesn't make sense if God is smart and just. In your first paragraph it sounds like you're describing an impersonal consequence of the Canaanites' sin. In the second you have a personal God acting. I can see how an impersonal force could get "confused" and kill the innocent along with the guilty, but God? The narrative has God consciously choosing to kill the innocent not God being forced by the evil parents to kill their children.
timlings said...
Now in interpersonal relationships, God's got a higher way. I don't demand justice from my enemy, but instead love them, turn the other cheek etc. But that's not the way that nation states can operate, and hence why Israel didn't operate in that way.
And that is why all nation states are inherently evil. But I digress...
timlings said...
However, since Jesus, we do have a holy nation of people who love righteousness (the church) and so those higher laws do apply to us.
If Israel couldn't be holy as a nation, why did God make them into a nation? Why would God command his people to make something that was bad? The phrase "holy nation of people who love righteousness" would apply to Israel centuries before any Christian would have a chance to say it.
John, correct me if I'm wrong but doesn't Jesus do the fighting himself in Revelation? Even there I don't see the Bible condoning a man killing another man. Only God would have the perspective and character needed.
The flood is another example. Hadn't even thought of that. Maybe we need to revise free-will once again. Not only can your will become determined; your parents can do it for you.
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Similitude
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| Posted 4/27/2005 6:03 AM (GMT -6) | | Sahid: Jef, is it your contention that Jesus would not have forgiven them if they had known what they were doing? Is Christ's forgiveness only available to the ignorant? I hope not. What about Zaccheus, the woman caught in adultery, Peter...? I say those who have received forgiveness should extend it. In the model prayer we are only forgiven as we forgive others. That includes all, repentant or not, knowledgable or not. We must always remember that we are no better. And where do y'all keep finding the word "particular?" Do I have an old version of the Bible or something? Sure, it could be, but how can you state it as fact? Maybe Jesus really did love people that much.
Jeff: I'm saying that, like the OT, Christ forgave them for a sin of ignorance. Apart from sins of ignorance, sins seem only to be forgiven if they are repented for. Also, I think a strong case can be made for the fact that the unrepentant murderers of Christ were NOT ultimately forgiven - because they were given witnesses, evidence, signs and miracles, and scripture that all testified to Christ's ressurection and Messiahship, thereafter. So then they were no longer ignorant.
My point is that scripture doesn't show God or Christ as interested in forgiving those who sin willfully and without repentance. Nor am I ruling out that repentance itself can be "given" by God. But repentance certainly seems like a prerequesite to forgiveness in scripture.
And if you're really troubled by the jot and tittle passage, you can always assume it's not authentic. But remember, what's fair for the gander is fair for the goose.
wjs Post Edited (jefscott) : 4/27/2005 6:35:07 AM (GMT-5) | | Back to Top | | |
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Laika
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| Posted 4/27/2005 8:06 AM (GMT -6) | | | | |
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MattBrown
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| Posted 4/27/2005 9:33 AM (GMT -6) | | | Sahid: So holding Ecclesiastes as authoritative would mean: official Christian docrine is that at the time of writing everything was meaningless. Maybe from his perspective it felt that way, but I would expect most Christians to disagree i.e. hold part of the Bible to be unauthoritative.
Matt: I think this is a red herring, no christian I have ever met would read Ecclesiastes this way. It is ALL about the context for starters. Just because I may think a passage is authoritative does not mean there universal unqualified command to everyone.
The scripture records what DID happen and what people DID think, not necessarily what God DESIRED to happen and what people SHOULD HAVE thought.
Sidenote: On "meaningless", I think the NIV has a horrible translation here. The Hebrew means empty, vanity, transitory, unsatisfactory. Is this life many times those things, yes. Is it meaningless, no.
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AtTheWell
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| Posted 4/27/2005 9:42 AM (GMT -6) | |
jefscott said...Sahid: If those who killed the Son of God are forgiven, what place does anyone have to withhold forgiveness? Jeff: Christ forgave them the particular sin of crucifying the Messiah because it was a sin of ignorance - not all of their sins.
Jef,
Could you explain this idea of forgiveness further? Maybe a seperate thread is needed.
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Sahid
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| Posted 4/27/2005 12:39 PM (GMT -6) | | | John, the first point assumes that the Bible is coherent. I can't assume this because it is what I'm trying to prove. The second point neither of us have a problem with. The third point isn't the same as saying the Samuel passage is specific; it's talking about the manner by which God does not change his mind. But it also comes with an assumption: that human mind changing is characterized as deceitful and arbitrary. Let me ask you; when you repented and turned to Christ was it a deceitful and arbitrary choice? I don't think the third point is something one would get from the passage unless they come to it with an agenda. Samuel just states that God doesn't lie or change his mind like a man. It's not human mind changing that is deceitful and arbitrary but humans themselves who are, and this is what God is not. The passage tells us the manner by which God changes his mind just as much as it tells us the manner by which God lies. I guess I disagree with Doc on this issue.
Matt, that it's not what hardly any Christian would accept is my point. I'm not saying we must universalize the passage, but unless it qualifies itself it must remain unqualified, if it is authoritative. If an authority figure (say the president) say something to one of his workers, they don't need to universalize it, but if they were to modify it to make it consistent with his other statements they show that he is only an authority in name. If something is authoritative to me, I can't go over its head like that. I sumbit to it; it doesn't sumbit to me. Maybe it's a problem with authority in general that I have...
The scripture records what DID happen and what people DID think, not necessarily what God DESIRED to happen and what people SHOULD HAVE thought.
If so, then there is no longer any problem with the Conquest. Except for the commander of the Lord's army in Joshua, it's always someone speaking for God. Moses and Joshua thought that God wanted him to kill children, but it may not have been true.
My point is that scripture doesn't show God or Christ as interested in forgiving those who sin willfully and without repentance. Nor am I ruling out that repentance itself can be "given" by God. But repentance certainly seems like a prerequesite to forgiveness in scripture.
Mutthew 6 said...
And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors excluding those who have not repented.
Juhn 8
I do not condemn you either because from now on you have repented and agreed to sin no more. It seems to me that Jesus forgave and taught us to forgive before our "debtor" repents. They can reject our forgiveness, but that doesn't mean we should stop offering it.
I really want to affirm the Matt 5 passage. Let me be clear, I want to affirm the whole Bible. I'm looking for a way to do this that makes sense. I'm not trying to tear down anyone's faith. In fact I am trying to do the opposite. But if accepting Matt 5 requires intellectual dishonesty, count me out. Taken together, Matt 5, Mark 7, and Lev 11 are inconsistent. If the script ure is progressive, it progresses to tell us not to abandon the old, and then it tells us to abandon the old. Matthew and Mark would have us do radically different things with the Old Testament. (Or even Matthew 5 and 15)
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MattBrown
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| Posted 4/27/2005 1:10 PM (GMT -6) | | Sahid: Matt, that it's not what hardly any Christian would accept is my point. I'm not saying we must universalize the passage, but unless it qualifies itself it must remain unqualified, if it is authoritative. If an authority figure (say the president) say something to one of his workers, they don't need to universalize it, but if they were to modify it to make it consistent with his other statements they show that he is only an authority in name. If something is authoritative to me, I can't go over its head like that. I sumbit to it; it doesn't sumbit to me. Maybe it's a problem with authority in general that I have...
Matt: The more I think about it the word authority, like the vast majority of christian jargon and catch phrases are insufficient or deficient, mainly because everyone defines them different and everyone understands the word with their own unique background.
I am with you on the Conquest, if I said it was difficult it would be an understatement.
My only thought is that the death of innocent babies and "semi-innocent" women in Canaan (and all death for that matter) is unfortunate and perhaps somewhat unfair (at least relative to others) - given. However, it is a horrible terrible tragedy only when one look at it through purely naturalistic eyes. To those who see this life as all there is, death is the end and therefore a nightmare of a tragedy. But to those who believe in the supernatural, specifically some kind of good God and an afterlife, death, no matter how unfortunate and relatively unfair is NOT the end of the story and certainly not the whole story.
I'm with you on the puppy dogs, what a tragedy....
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scott_jorgenson
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| Posted 4/27/2005 5:18 PM (GMT -6) | |
Sahid said...
Scott, I'm with you for the most part. But what about what Jesus said in Matt 5? I've been mostly arguing on the "conservative" side so far, but the "liberal" side has that big roadblock too. Did Matthew just get it wrong, or is there something specific (not the right word) for us to take from the passage? If Jesus kept the whole Law and Prophets and those documents are partially inaccurate, what's he trying to pull? Sahid, what Jesus says regarding his fulfillment of the Old Testament, understood literally, is so flagrantly at odds with what he immediately turns around and preaches and does, that this alone should be a clue to us, I think, that Jesus is not speaking literally here. Indeed Jesus very often spoke non-literally, whether in parables or in hyperbole (being perfect like God, giving everything we have to the poor, hating our families to follow him, etc), so this in itself should not be so great a stretch to accept.
What is Jesus non-literally referring to, then, when claiming that he fulfills the law and the prophets, and that not one letter of the law passes away with his coming? In my opinion, he seems to be claiming that the law is meant as a legal codification of spiritual principles of faith and practice, for which he and his teachings are now the fuller (indeed fullest) representation. The principles of faith and practice which Jesus embodies and teaches are the same as stand behind the law; but whereas the law embodies those principles in a form that was accommodated and appropriate to ancient Near Eastern culture - ie ANE legal code - Jesus now brings them forth in a person. And this for a reason: legal code has shortcomings in that the letter tends to overcome the spirit - for human language is simply too reductionist to adequately represent the spirit of the law in each and every situation.
In humanity's past, as God was dawning light upon mankind in the ANE, the cultural artifact of ANE legal code made sense as a vehicle to transport glimmerings of truth. And now, Jesus seems to be saying, we have grown beyond that. In what way? Perhaps it was the advent of rationalism from Greco-Roman culture, and its interception with late Second Temple Judaism, which constituted that growth step - I'm not sure. Certainly critical method brought to bear on legal code shows the need for interpretation in everything - ie the impossibility of codifying everything in every situation. Or perhaps it was the trend begun with the prophets and now coming to fruition, of recognizing that God's heart for us goes beyond mere adherence to ritual and law, and desires adherence to higher principles of love and mercy within the heart. Again, I'm not sure.
Whatever the case, Jesus seems to be saying that it is now time to receive truth in its fullest form, which is as a relational, situational, person. For if truth as we humans need to know it cannot fully be codified - expressed in written language - then it can fully be embodied and demonstrated in a life. Jesus thus makes the law complete - "fills it full" rather than literally "fulfills it" - and supplants law in the believer's life. But this is not to say that the law was ever, or even is now, simply invalid - for it was fully appropriate for its time, and remains appropriate as a faithful and true representation of the principles behind it, but given the necessarily self-limiting and accommodated form of ANE legal code (a form that is now supplanted). Nor is it to say that now the law is really abrogated, for the law was ever just an attempt to express the principles of faith and practice standing behind it, and - Jesus is saying - those are timeless. The law is not so much abrogated as outgrown, while the principles behind it are neither.
This, I think, is what Jesus is teaching when defending himself against the defenders of the law. And because it is generally consonant with Paul and the letter to the Hebrews as well, I think this view has some credence to it.
Scott
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timlings
Registered Member
Date Joined Apr 2002
Total Posts : 130
| Posted 4/27/2005 5:40 PM (GMT -6) | | sahid said...
Which is it? In the Conquest story was it karma on steroids that killed the babies or men acting under the command of a personal God. If there was a personal God responsible for the execution, what is going on?
It was God who told them to do it.
My argument is that this was the best that could be done in the situation. WWII was a horrible bit of history. But Hitler unchallenged in Europe was an even worse situation. So with the Cananites, God had to do something.
(Before we go any further, where is this Cananite slaughter mentioned? It would be helpful for me to look at it in detail in the Bible rather than just use what I remember or think I know.)
And in the same way that healthy cells end up getting destroyed when a cancer is being cut out, so you can't avoid hurting others when dealing with and getting rid of evil. Look at Iraq. Saddam was a nasty guy and needed to be gotten rid of. But in doing so, the whole nation has been seriously damaged with him. This is because of the nature of human beings. In order to have deep and meaningful relationships with one another, we have an impact on one another, good or evil, whether we like it or not.
In this manner, a child of evil parents will end up suffering because of their parent's sins. For there to be the possibility of a parent blessing and doing good to their children, the opposite has also to be possible. A potential for good has equal potential for evil. That's the way the universe has been set up to run.
sahid said...
Is he unable to distinguish the innocent from the guilty?
Yes and no. But look at the Gulf War... 'precision bombing' looked very wonderful (you don't hurt civilians just factories etc), but it wasn't a reality.
And how was God meant to do it? "Only kill all the bad people not the good people." What sort of test were the Israelites meant to use?
Something else Greg Boyd said that I find helpful here is the idea that death actually isn't inherently bad. If you've got a good heart or you're an innocent baby, then God's gonna treat you justly in the next life. You'll not lose out in the end, even though you may have died prematurely on earth. But if you've got a bad heart, then death isn't good (nothing to look forward to there), but then death is what you've chosen anyway.
sahid said...
The idea of our actions inspiring divine retribution against our children doesn't make sense if God is smart and just. In your first paragraph it sounds like you're describing an impersonal consequence of the Canaanites' sin. In the second you have a personal God acting. I can see how an impersonal force could get "confused" and kill the innocent along with the guilty, but God? The narrative has God consciously choosing to kill the innocent not God being forced by the evil parents to kill their children.
The universe is set up so that sin has within itself the seeds of its own destruction. When someone sins, they are choosing to have death come into their life. Now in the OT, this consequence is sometimes explicitly directed by God (i.e. telling the Israelites to kill Cananites) and sometimes it's a bit more passive (other nations punishing them or 'natural' causes). But in both situations, God's ultimately behind it. He's the primary cause, if not the immediate cause. He's set up a universe where evil equals death (eventually). And because humans have an effect on other humans, when we choose death, we also choose it for those around us.
For example smoking. If I take up smoking and then die from lung cancer, I could say that God killed me. After all, he invented a universe where breaking the laws has bad consequences. But i could also say that I killed myself. And if my child gets asthma or dies of a passive-smoking-related illness, then we can apply the same thing. I would have, in a sense, chosen death for my child (even though they're innocent) and the way the universe works has honoured that decision. So I killed them. But because God set up the universe that way, he's ultimately responsible for that death.
SOOO.... The Cananites had been happily choosing death for 400 years, and then God decided that enough was enough and gave them what they wanted (i.e. death). And because we are all intricately interrelated to each other, innocent children will have got hurt by that.
Now what happened in that genocide wasn't good. And God doesn't command his people to do that anymore, because of Jesus. Jesus coming has turned the whole universe upside down. God can now redeem the universe back from the hands of Satan and all his followers, without destroying the righteous in the process. This universe will face a reckoning, but if you trust in Jesus you can be delivered from that, just like how Noah and his family were during the flood. If you're part of the New Noah's family (i.e. the church, the body of Christ etc.) you will be saved.
Sorry, I think I've gone on there a bit.
Love
TimPost Edited (timlings) : 4/27/2005 5:45:03 PM (GMT-5) | | Back to Top | | |
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scott_jorgenson
Registered Member
Date Joined Dec 2002
Total Posts : 271
| Posted 4/27/2005 5:44 PM (GMT -6) | |
jefscott said...
Scott: It should be accepted as authoritative for us today in a way analagous to how the writings of the American "founding fathers" are "authoritative" for Americans today. In my humble opinion, of course.
Jeff: Could you flesh that analogy out a bit, Scott? Thanks!
Well, when we as Americans determine how to look upon the world and act in it, we (consciously or otherwise) refer to our tradition and teaching (as it were), which traces itself back to the emergence of liberal democracy in the 18th century. When we ask ourselves "why representative government", or "why one person one vote", or "why civil liberties", we answer those questions by referring back to the work of those who went before us and broke that ground and thought the deep thoughts about those questions. We don't answer those questions entirely freshly ourselves, in a vacuum, but rely on the writings reflecting the experiences of those democrats who came before us - all the way back to Plato, actually, though my emphasis here is on the "New Testament", so to speak, of the American "founding fathers".
Now, note that there is no simply evidentially-based reason we should do this - the democrats' writings cannot be demonstrated evidentially to be inerrant, for example, and in fact are not entirely consistent with one another, and actually build upon and evolve one another (more on that below). But rather we consider the democrats' writings to be "authoritative" because the community in which we live has found their ideas to be fruitful, well thought out (if not provable or inerrant), and valuable; and that community in turn has received those ideas from the original great democrats and their writings.
Note also, in American civic life, that a respect for the received writings has not necessarily meant a frozen adherence to those writings - if so, citizenship and the vote would remain only with elite males as in Plato's day. But rather as democratic values blossomed over time - spurred on by previous generations' ideas - successive generations gave fresh life and scope to those values by reinterpreting them so as to broaden them, so that today we consider it natural that every citizen of responsible age be given an equal vote (and everyone be capable of attaining citizenship). Indeed this happened both within the "canon" of democratic writing, as the founding fathers (our "New Testament" in this analogy) extended citizenship beyond the narrow bounds Plato envisioned (in our "Old Testament"), and after it, as subsequent generations extended citizenship to slaves and native Americans, and extended the vote to them, women, and (most recently) college-age students. Yet this does not mean that any generation along this path discarded or abrogated or treated as "unauthoritative" the ideas that came before - indeed they honored them precisely by following the spirit of those ideas and broadening them.
Well, in similar manner, I think we can see the record of scripture as the Christian's source of authoritative tradition. And I think we can see scripture being handled this way within scripture itself - not just in Jesus' and the apostles' handling of the law, but in the prophets handling of it too (for example, Isaiah's broadening of those welcome to temple worship - Isaiah 56:1-8 vis-a-vis Deuteronomy 23:1-8).
Hope this helps,
Scott
Post Edited (scott_jorgenson) : 4/27/2005 5:55:48 PM (GMT-5) | | Back to Top | | |
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Sahid
Megistered Rember
Date Joined Jun 2004
Total Posts : 2013
| Posted 4/27/2005 6:26 PM (GMT -6) | | I truly appreciate the discussion, and I'm sorry if I come across mean.
Scott, that was great! It makes a lot of sense. I think I can go with that. So, would you say that the Bible is accurate in describing how Moses spoke for God, but Moses got God's message wrong? I have a rabbi friend who takes much of the OT that way. I understand that it's a slightly different question, but do you think Moses misrepresented God or was God condescending to be part of a system that was evil? I think I'd lean on the side of saying that there was something going on between God and Moses that was not verbal inspiration and so Moses threw some of his own preconceptions into his "word" from God. I'm just more comfortable with God always being consistent and the inconsistencies coming from people. Thanks for puting it all together. I think I've heard all the pieces; I just needed to see them all in one place.
Gotta go, more to come.
Watch me fly. Freedom like wings and I will use them. Freedom like wings and I will spread them wide. - Stavesacre | | Back to Top | | |
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Sahid
Megistered Rember
Date Joined Jun 2004
Total Posts : 2013
| Posted 4/27/2005 8:53 PM (GMT -6) | | | Matt, I agree. Some jargon gets so overused that it becomes almost meaningless. Still I don't think genocide ceases to be horrible if there is an afterlife. Maybe not tragic, but then we get into technical jargon again. We can see that rectifiable evil still is serious when we note the seriousness that God places on sin. I don't think I'm disagreeing with you. I just don't want to justify immorality by saying that God will fix it all in the end anyway.
Tim, I disagree. Comparisons of God to Eisenhower, Churchill, Stalin, Bush, or a smart bomb only go so far. God is more loving, wise, and powerful than these. Just because our smart weapons are inaccurate doesn't make God inaccurate. If God is speaking to Moses, testing to see who should be killed would have been a fairly simple process: Just ask Moses. Or maybe he could have sent an angel of death like in Egypt. That would be more accurate than a smart bomb. Your argument seems to amount to saying God lacks the competence to be just. Death may not be inherently bad, but still thou shalt not kill.
Watch me fly. Freedom like wings and I will use them. Freedom like wings and I will spread them wide. - Stavesacre | | Back to Top | | |
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