Post Edited (Sahid) : 5/18/2007 1:24:57 AM (GMT-5)

Z: If I genuinely believed that my view would result in less overall happiness than possible, I doubt I would hold to it. But since (A) God lets people sin in horrible ways, (B) God has the best interest of everyone in mind, and (C) I am to be holy as he is holy/walk as he walked/follow him, I am led to believe that my view has the best consequences.

J: OK. Then it seems that we are both saying that sentient satisfaction is the bottom-line, after all. And the syllogism works unless...

Z: ...Jesus predicts violence in the future. If we are to interpret that violence as God's direct action, then so be it. But Jesus has shown us how to walk now.

J: Yes, Jesus does show us how to walk now. But for the above syllogism to work, it seems that it must not be true that Jesus predicted violence which is "God's direct action." Yet his words seem to suggest just that. There is also the seeming compulsion of seemingly volitional spirits by Jesus. I don't know why God wouldn't love them, too. There is also the fact that Jesus speaks respectfully of the OT scriptures. There is also the fact that Jesus compares the future violence cause by God to a presumed flood that He presumably caused that presumably resulted in the deaths of babies. Also, Jesus didn't have any problem participating in the passover supper (one that commemorated the supposed providentially-orchestraed destruction of Egypt's firstborn--including babies). Jesus doesn't seem to have any problem with any of this.

For these reasons, and the fact that I try to approach the historical Jesus in the same way as an unbelieving historian would, I can't see how your above syllogism can get us to absolute pacifism. Near it? Sure. Just not absolute. In other threads on this forum, I have tried to explain how I attempt to reconcile God as being love (in the sense that He "seeks not" His "own") in a way that is consistent with the idea that love consists of the intentional, positive affecting of the sentient satisfaction of persons. If you would like I will try to explain how I fit that view with a relatively perspicuous reading of the OT. Let me just say, now, that it is the fact that God created for the Son that grounds that explanation. I don't think it's a coincidence that it is John that says God is love. It is his gospel that first explicitly introduces to us that all things exist for the Son.

In short, IMO, it is only the NT that explicitly accounts for a way to explain how God IS LOVE. In the OT, we can see that God LOVES. But I don't see how we can see that He IS LOVE in the way argued incessantly on this forum apart from NT revelation. Although, I don't think the OT rules it out, either. If it's there, I think it's there by virtue of the fact that God says "Let US..." It is conceivable that these statements implied a plurality to the godhead all along. And consequently, it may have implicitly provided what the NT provides explicitly.

Z: I don't think 'take up your cross' is as figurative as you do. Surely, those who first heard those words thought it was figurative. But then Jesus was crucified. Now I don't take it so literally that I think we should all get ourselves killed. I do think we have our own crosses, like you said. But how does this "not entail absolute pacifism?" You say, "Because the grounds of it are specific, having nothing to do with yielding for yielding sake." But what is specific about taking up a cross if it can be applied to every Christian.

J: I only meant that "take up your cross" is figurative in the sense that we don't have a literal, physical cross to bear. But I looked at those passages. They don't seem to be talking about pacifism at all in their contexts. The one in Luke, even, immediately adds, "for who builds a tower without first counting the cost..." The idea seems to be that following Jesus entails a loss of one's life. The suffering and shame normally associated with the horrible death by the cross is analogous to the very kinds of suffering that will be part and parcel of "following" Jesus.

Jesus seems to intentionally use this shocking illustration to awake them from their misconception that the Messiah will only be a deliverer for Israel. On the contrary, those who enter into his kingdom must suffer, and suffer with him (this contradicted all of their preconceived ideas about the Messiah). In this sense, it does apply to all Christians. But it doesn't seem, contextually, to necessarily have anything to do with pacifism, per se. It seems to be a hyperbolic call to accept suffering and shame as part of our discipleship.

Z: And I'm not saying yield for yielding's sake. I say yield out of love for the neighbor. As much as we impose on the neighbor we keep him from being a person with moral decision-making capacity. Every time we impose ourself on him, we make him less of a person and more of an object or slave.

J: I agree. But I don't think it is coincidental that God sanctions capital punishment right after the flood. Until that time, vengeance was not allowed for anyone--not even a specially delegated state instituted to avenge for the sake of deterrence. I think God is saying, in that context, that capital punishment will be allowed precisely so that the pre-flood state, that resulted in God destroying all but Noah because He could no longer strive with flesh under those conditions, will not reoccur so easily or quickly. If this is the case (and I don't know what else the introduction of capital punishment could have been for), then government, for all it's pathetic failures, has resulted in there being more freedom precisely because there have been more people than there would have been without government. For without it, that pre-flood condition that moved God to terminate the human population would occur more quickly.

So yeah, when the state legitimately imposes on people's decision-making capacity, it does indeed make them less of a person in one sense. But in those cases, they have already demonstrated that they are less of a person than they should be. Moreover, there may be more actual instances of freedom because states deter certain degrees of evil. And a state that functions according to its God-given mandate will typically only restrain those who have been solidified. This gets back to the beginning of the thread. Much evil and vice is simply the result of people giving in to the passions of their particular weaknesses. Therefore, the state, when it acts justly, is typically deterring people who do not use their self-control (assuming they are not already completely solidified) to act volitionally. This is another sense in which the state actually occassions more freedom. Because it protects and preserves those who are more apt to use voluntary self-discipline.

I hope it is clear that I am saying that even the state can not avenge for the mere sake of vengeance. They are to justly retaliate for the sake of deterrence. Perhaps this can not even justly be called vengeance--maybe it's just a right and duty given from God to postpone an intolerable state of affairs analogous to that prior to the flood. This is the only meaning I can see from the context in Genesis. All other interpretations I have heard seem less plausible to me. But it entails the idea that more truly voluntary freedom is actually the result of state action. It is one thing to be free in the sense of being unrestrained. It is another thing, altogether, to be free in the sense that we voluntarily act.

Z: The general content of taking up the cross is the attitude of putting others (even bad people) above ourselves. The specific application can be yielding to being defrauded or actually enduring physical suffering. But the overall attitude is what is being taught.

J: When I look at the context, I don't see that it's about that at all. In that context, Jesus says we are to love him above our father and mother. Does this mean that loving Jesus is the equivalent of loving our parents less? I don't think so. I think the language is used hyperbolically to stress the fact that loving Jesus may result in losing the love of our parents. But in doing so, we are actually loving our parents more than we did before we loved Jesus. IOW, just as loving Christ can ironically lead to the loss of love from others we hold dear, the cross metaphor is used to emphasize the ironic fact that doing what is right, and therefore what is best for our neighbor, causes sufferings analogous to the shame and pain endured on a cross. But this is just a general truth. I don't see how it entails the idea of pacifism, per se.

Finally, let me say this. God is depicted as manifestly intervening only rarely in the bible. And there are unique conditions for these occurrences. Similarly, I think deviations from pacifism should be equally rare. In the vast majority of cases, meekness and humility require that we yeild for the greater good. I get the idea from the gospels that the Jews had a hard time dealing with the fact that Daniel had prophecied that Israel would be subject to Gentiles until the Messiah delivered them. They wanted to frustrate Gentile rule in every way they could because of their religious pride.

Jesus was saying, I think, that we shouldn't undermine the good order of society by arrogant, petty retaliation. This is pretty similar to libertarian political philosophy (the christian version, anyway). The goal of that philosophy is to tolerate as much freedom as possible, suspecting that power tends to corrupt and that such power unltimately results in more harm than the collective trivial harms which result from people's tolerable vices. And I agree that there have probably been very few times in human history when voting could have been morally obligatory. I know of none, personally. I just don't rule out the possibility since I know of no principle by which to rule it out.

Post Edited (jefscott) : 5/17/2007 8:29:27 PM (GMT-5)

Hey, Zach. I just thought of an analogy. God's allowance of the state is analogous to God's allowance of divorce for adultery. Both are allowed, in a sense, because of the moral weakness of humans. In this sense, they are not actually "goods" so much as they are lesser evils. Neither was the case "from the beginning." Both were allowed after certain conditions had obtained.

For this reason, I see the Christian's role in influencing the government as analogous to Christian divorce. I still think there are certain levels of alienation that render divorce justifiable for Christians (Paul refers to some in 1 Cor. 7). It's just that we ought to forgive our spouses of even adultery until it becomes so persistent as to evidence an actual indifference to divorce. Analogously, there may be extreme cases wherein we can positively affect the efficacy of government. I just think they are as rare as are legitimate cases of Christian divorce.

Post Edited (jefscott) : 5/17/2007 8:52:06 PM (GMT-5)

Post Edited (jefscott) : 5/18/2007 6:13:53 AM (GMT-5)

Post Edited (jefscott) : 5/18/2007 9:38:24 PM (GMT-5)

Post Edited (Sahid) : 5/21/2007 9:23:16 PM (GMT-5)