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Date Joined Jun 2001
Total Posts : 516
| Posted 6/27/2001 6:31 AM (GMT -6) |   | Message
Wislawa
02/10/01 3:33 PM
To Greg &Others: Moral Responsibility?
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Moral responsibility?
Yo Doc. I loved your analogy of giving your daughter gifts of $50 with different conditions on them. It helped me understand how we can’t know what’s going on with the determinism/freedom of other people. The place where it breaks down for me is that I can’t even know about how free or unfree I am in any given situation. In your analogy I assume that you told your daughter what the money was intended for and that this is way she was irresponsible for spending some of her clothing money on candy etc. But if she didn’t know that how could she be responsible. To me responsibility depends on knowledge of the game. If someone who had never played basketball in her life was placed in the middle of a real basketball game we shouldn’t hold her morally responsible for fouling. Especially in a game where sometimes what looks like fouling is ok (as in your original analogy when spending the irrevocable $50 on candy is O.K. but spending the clothing money on candy is not. How would she ever figure this out if you hadn’t told her? Can she really be held morally responsible for this?)
Most of the time it feels like a big guessing game with God. Look at the relationship between God and King Saul. The whole turning point takes place in 1 Samuel 13. Saul is at war, the Philistines are pressing him, his troops are slipping away and Samuel is late. Saul needs Samuel to offer the burnt offering before he can attack but Samuel misses the appointed date. Saul even waited seven days for the delinquent Samuel to show up but no dice. Now the way I see it Saul is in a moral bind. He has tree choices as I read it. A) he could attack now without offering the sacrifice. This is a big no no. God would get steamed for doing this. B) He could wait for Samuel who is dead for all he knows at this point. The troops would run away and Israel would be defeated. This too could not possibly please God. Or C) Offer the sacrifice himself, rally the troops and kick some butt. This is what he does do and God gets peeved and takes away the kingdom, damns Saul for trying his best to pleas His mysterious will and won’t relent even after Saul has humbled himself and prayed for forgiveness. Sorry Saul you guessed wrong.
Anne Lamott writes in Traveling Mercies, “I have read since that this is how you induce psychosis in rats: you behave inconsistently with them; you keep changing the rules. One day when they press down the right lever, expecting a serving of grain like they’ve always gotten before, they instead get a shock. And eventually the switching back and forth drives them mad…” This seems like God’s moral responsibility game with us. Guess right and you win, guess wrong and you lose, but guessing with sincerity and the desire to please Him and your odds don’t improve any more than playing the lottery with sincerity and the desire to win big. Whoever goes to heaven is lucky and whoever goes to hell is just unlucky. It sounds a little cynical I know but it’s how things appear to me. Help change my perception.
Wislawa
Posted Originally From: Open Theism Information Site
GregBoyd
02/10/01 4:16 PM
RE: To Greg &Others: Moral Responsibility?
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Very good question Wislawa.
I DON'T think we can know with any degree of certainty how free we or anyone else is. Look at the trouble we have resolving these sorts of issues in court. Consider all the ethical issues now being raised by genetics. I think there are too many variables, and too many unknowns, to arrive at any certainty on this.
But I'd say three things in response to your question.
1) If a person can deliberate between options, they are already assuming that they HAVE the power to decide between them. Hence they are assuming, and we may assume, that they are MORALLY RESPONSIBLE in the decision they make. Hence we may assume that they are not PREDETERMINED to make the decision they make -- or if they are, that they are so because of a solidified character they themselves are responsible for forming. As a practical tip, I believe we have to accept responsiblity for everything we can deliberate about -- knowing all the while that there have been mutlitudes of influences on our decisions. We are at least as free as we experience ourselves being.
2) WE don't and can't know how all the variables impact us, for the issue is too complex. But this is in principle no different than the vast ignorance we have surrounding everything we know. This is one of the insightful things chaos theory teaches us... that we can never exhaustively know or meticulously predict anything, for there are too many factors involved (ultiamtely, the entire history of the universe influences every particular event that comes to pass. Hence we can never know it meticulously or exhaustively).
Having said all that, we CAN know "the rules," for God reveals them to us. We CAN know how we are to live, respond to God, treat people, etc... God gives us "the rules" and the rewards and consequences for obeying or disobeying them. To appeal to my analogy with my daughter, its like I tell her "Just listen to my leading. I'll tell you when you can by clothes, or school suppplies, or anything you wish." I know her better than she does, so she needs to listen to and trust my leading.
3. Because of our vast ignorance, we have to accept that God's interaction with people will at times LOOK arbitrary... but it is not. While Calvinist locate the apparent arbritrariness in God's will, thus damaging our perception of God's character, I would rather locate the apparent arbritrariness in the complexity of creation, thus protecting God's character. Centered on the cross, we may trust that "God is good all the time." He is not arbitrary, nor does he ever willingly afflict anyone (Lam.3"33). If anyone is punished -- such as Saul -- we may be assured that it was for matters they were responsible for, and hence matters about which they can and should have done otherwise.
Blessings,
got to run for now,
Greg Boyd
Posted Originally From: Christus Victor Ministries
writerdad
02/11/01 7:40 AM
RE: To Greg &Others: Moral Responsibility?
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I would say a lot of the time I feel that way...and I wished God would simply make it much clearer the things we should do in situations where we really needed a boast. But one thing I tend to see lacking in Saul's life that I do see in David's life is confession. In the situation you are talking about I wonder what would have happen if Saul had confessed his sins. But since there is no mention of such a thing, I assume he did not. Many times in our lives we are called, under pressure, to do the right thing, I believe, on our own. That is truly following God. Without comfort, without recourse or a way out. To truly follow, like Job, because it is the right thing to do. Saul, failed to do so under pressure. I am sure he acted wise when there was no pressure to do anything else, but it seems to me that part of the molding God does in us is when we are all alone and have no final recouse but to follow or fall away. Plus, Samuel acts angrily at Saul, assuming that he knew exactly what the right thing to do was. John 17:3 Harold
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