December 27, 2019

Seed-planting and Fruit Bearing

December 23, 2019/ Elton Higgs

Adoration of the Shepherds by Dutch painter Matthias Stomer, 1632 — *Adoration of the Shepherds* by Dutch painter Matthias Stomer, 1632

A Twilight Musing

During the Christmas Season we concentrate on the beginning of God’s greatest act of seed-planting, the impregnation of Mary by the Holy Spirit. We do well, however, to remember that the immediate fruit of her womb, the birth of the Incarnate Son of God was not the end of the matter, but the beginning of the ever-expanding purposes of God through His Son. The poem below depicts Mary’s awareness that her understanding of what has happened to her will be an unpredictable unfolding.

The Husbandry of God

(Luke 1:26-35)

How can I contain this word from the Lord?

His light has pierced my being

And sown in single seed

Both glory and shame.

Content was I

To wed in lowliness

And live in obscurity,

With purity my only dower.

Now, ravished with power,

I flout the conventions of man

To incubate God.

In lowliness how shall I bear it?

In modesty how shall I tell it?

What now shall I become?

But the fruit of God's planting

Is His to harvest.

No gleaner I, like Ruth,

But the field itself,

In whom my Lord lies hid.

“What now shall I become?” she asks, and realizes that, like the embryo in her womb, the purposes of God are developing. When the baby is born and the shepherds make their surprise visit, Mary “pondered” the meaning of the message they brought (Luke 2:19). She must also have pondered the cryptic words of Simeon in the Temple when Mary and Joseph brought the baby to be dedicated to the Lord: that in addition to being “appointed for the fall and rising of many in Israel,” that also “a sword will pierce through your [Mary’s] own soul” (Luke 2:33-35). When Mary said, “Let it be done to me according to your word” (Luke 1:38), she was letting herself in for more than she realized. Those of us who have walked with the Lord for a while recognize that He often takes what seems submission to his will for a specific time and expands it into a much longer period of the development of His purposes.

This sense of God’s ends being incipient in His beginnings is brought out beautifully and profoundly in the first 18 verses of John 1. I have endeavored to create below a poetic digest of these verses.

“The Alpha/Omega Word”

(John 1:1-18)

Beginning Word

Spoke Light to Chaos;

Light pushed Life from sod,

And God through Word

Made forms to walk on sod,

And finally man to trod

On finished earth.

But darkness pierced

The perfect pearl of Paradise:

The Word no longer heard,

Nor known the fellowship with Light.

In darkness, tyrannous Time was lord,

But Time was also womb of Light renewed.

Word of Light

Re-entered world He made,

Took on a mortal mould1

That showed the face of God,

Undimmed by shade.

Heralded by John He came,

Following in flesh

But eternally before;

Jordan-witnessed Lamb of God,

Light to be extinguished

So that Light could shine once more.

Time redeemed

Became a womb again:

Spirit spawned

Brothers of the Son,

Children owing naught to fallen flesh,

But reborn through God-in-Flesh,

The Light of Life.

New Covenant of Life,

Bought with blood,

Became God’s family,

Receiving grace and truth

Transcending Law of Death.

New breath breathed in

Through timeless Word,

Beginning and also end.

1 “Mould” is the British spelling of “mold,” with

the old meaning of “earth” (decaying material).

In this poem, we see encapsulated the maturing of God’s eternal purpose in cycles of renewal: Word creating flesh finally becoming flesh to redeem fallen flesh; Light dimmed by darkness, but Light piercing darkness; the tyranny of time and death reversed by Incarnate eternality; fallen flesh becoming like the Son of God, recreated in the image of the Word Himself.

Praise in this season for our wondrous God, not only as the Alpha born of Mary, but as the Omega still working out His purposes in us and in the world.

Dr. Elton Higgs was a faculty member in the English department of the University of Michigan-Dearborn from 1965-2001. Having retired from UM-D as Prof. of English in 2001, he now lives with his wife and adult daughter in Jackson, MI.. He has published scholarly articles on Chaucer, Langland, the Pearl Poet, Shakespeare, and Milton. His self-published Collected Poems is online at Lulu.com. He also published a couple dozen short articles in religious journals. (Ed.: Dr. Higgs was the most important mentor during undergrad for the creator of this website, and his influence was inestimable; it's thrilling to welcome this dear friend onboard.)

December 09, 2019

Good King Wenceslas: An Allegory of Advent

December 09, 2019/ Tom Thomas

Good King Wenceslas, illustrated in Christmas Carols, New and Old — *Good King Wenceslas*, illustrated in *Christmas Carols, New and Old*

One Advent night in 1982 we attended a Christmas choral concert in the Bristol Cathedral in England. Though I knew the “Good King Wenceslas” carol, I had never paid attention to the lyrics. That night the majestic orchestra, joined with the cathedral choristers and choir, dramatized the Wenceslas lyrics in such a way the joy and awe of the Gospel message transfixed me. As we share verse by verse this carol’s allegory, rejoice this Christmas season. God entered His world to rescue helpless souls like you and me!

Stanza One

Good King Wenceslas look’d out, On the feast of Stephen,
When the snow lay round-a-bout, Deep and crisp and even.

Brightly shone the moon that night, Though the frost was cruel,

When a poor man came in sight, Gath’ring winter fuel.

On the Feast of St. Stephen’s, the day after Christmas or “Boxing Day,” the celebrations of giving and receiving continue. King Wenceslas is comfortably settled in his great castle. Fifteen-foot Christmas fir trees grace the palace drawing rooms with their candlelight and royal baubles. Holly and berry swags adorn huge fireplace mantels. Golden candelabras throw flickering warmth across the hall. The king’s fireplaces blaze with forest logs. His vast tracts of woodlands and forest supply against the coldest winter nights. The king’s massive palace radiates with family cheer and contentment. He lacks for nothing.

Good King Wenceslas embodies God. Sovereign of worlds seen and unseen, He commands seventy sextillion known stars. He is Monarch of more shining, heavenly spheres than ten times the grains of sand on earth’s deserts and beaches. The earth is His and “everything in it, the world, and all who live in it.” “For every beast of the forest is mine,” says the Lord. Wenceslas’ kingdom is the cosmos resplendent with light, order, and plenty.

The St. Stephen’s winterscape captivates the eye – at least from the sovereign’s side of the window pane. Contented after a day of festivities, King Wenceslas looks out. The snow is “deep and crisp and even,” glistening in the moonlight. The idyllic picture is betrayed by the fierce cold. No one dare venture out on a night like this; yet, against the snow a dark figure intrudes into the king’s gaze. What’s that man doing out there on a night like this? Rummaging for wood on the holiday? Why does he not have wood? Was he slack in stocking up in the summer? Now he is come to trespass on the king’s property?

This poor man rummaging for wood on a frigid night is every person’s ill state. Prophets painted our picture gloomy: “Cursed is the ground…. Through painful toil you will eat … and the pride of men humbled…. There is an outcry in the streets for lack of wine … all the merry-hearted sigh … people loved darkness … because their deeds were evil.” Ignorance of our blindness and rebellion against God cover like darkness. Human life is lived under sin as “far as the curse is found.” Pitiable and bound to self and fleshly passions the “flood of mortal ills” and evils overtake us. Under the power of sin, ruin and misery overtake our paths. We are the desperate man come into sight scrounging every which way to survive against the cruel winter’s wrath.

Stanza Two

‘Hither, page, and stand by me, If thou know’st it telling,

Yonder peasant, who is he? Where and what his dwelling?’

‘Sire, he lives a good league hence, Underneath the mountain,

Right against the forest fence, By Saint Agnes’ fountain.’

“Come, here, page,” says King Wenceslas to his attendant. “Yonder peasant, who is he, where and what is his home?” Little does the poor peasant know he is being watched, even by the king himself. “The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation,” said Henry David Thoreau. “God will never see,” they say. “The universe is dumb, stone deaf, and blank and wholly blind.” Oh? Are not “the eyes of the Lord … in every place”? Is not “his eye … on the sparrow?” “Where can I flee from your presence?” asks the Psalmist. Under Pharaoh’s whip, Israel was unaware God was witnessing their misery. “I have observed the misery of my people … I have heard their cry … I know their sufferings,” said the Lord.

King Wenceslas is not gawking. The monarch is moved by the poor man’s need. “I have surely seen the mistreatment of my people … I have heard their groaning,” the Lord God said.

Stanza Three

“Bring me flesh, and bring me wine, Bring me pinelogs hither:

Thou and I shall see him dine, When we bear them Thither.”

Page and monarch, forth they went, Forth they went together;

Through the rude wind’s wild lament And the bitter weather.

One would think the king would snap his fingers, issue a command, and servants would rush to the poor man’s aid. What? The monarch himself is going? “You and I will see him dine, when we bear them thither.” “No sire, this is contrary to protocol. The Royal Court does not enter the peasant’s world.” “My subject’s welfare is my own. Forgo the Court’s couch ... leave the velvet slippers and bring me snow boots.”

Incognito the king goes into the furious night. He takes no retinue of riders, carriages, and security guards. This is no “photo op” for the 6 o’clock news. This is not to win the peasant’s vote.

The poor man’s predicament reveals the God who pities our human condition. “He doesn’t forget the cry of the afflicted…. As a Father pities his children, so the Lord has compassion for those who fear him…. But you, O Lord, are a God merciful and gracious.” Rich King Wenceslas becomes the poor peasant. The punishing night is now his. “Though He was rich, yet for your sakes He became poor, so that by His poverty you might become rich.” Christ who was God gave up everything to enter our world. “The Word was God…. And the Word became flesh and lived among us….”

See the Lord of earth and skies

Humbled to the Dust He is.

And in a Manger lies.

The Creator comes into his own universe. The King enters His own woods. Unheralded and unknown He came to his own home, yet the world did not know Him. He leaves heaven and submits Himself to our sinful existence. He even dies unjustly on a cursed cross to save trespassing sinners. He did it incognito … disguised … rejected … as just another commoner abroad on a foul night.

Stanza Four

“Sire, the night is darker now, And the wind grows stronger;

Fails my heart I know not how; I can go no longer.”

“Mark my footsteps, my good page, Tread thou in them boldly;

Thou shalt find the winter’s rage Freeze thy blood less coldly.”

In stanza four, the king’s page comes to the fore in the story. He is accompanying the king on the mission. Jesus called disciples to accompany Him. They go with Him to join in His mission of salvation. As they go, they encounter opposition. The night grows darker. The winds blow stronger. Opposition intensifies. Inspiration grows weak. The servant can go no farther. “Sire, the night is darker now, And the wind blows stronger, Fails my heart I know not how, I can go no longer.” Ever felt you can go no longer? Sighing you say, “Lord, I have had enough.”

Sheet music of "Good King Wenceslas" in a biscuit container from 1913, preserved at the Victoria and Albert Museum.

The fleshly servant is not up to his Master’s task. Nonetheless, in his/her weakness, the disciple discovers God’s strength. The Master’s greatness is manifest. The King will save the poor soul … and bring His weak disciple along with Him. The Sovereign’s grace, solace, help, encouragement, and strength reveal themselves under affliction. “Mark my footsteps, my good page, Tread thou in them boldly, You shall find the winter’s rage, Freeze thy blood less coldly.” Our Master is ahead of us trodding down the snow, cutting a path, and forming our steps for us. The Master’s very footsteps heat up us servants’ cold.

Stanza Five

In his master’s steps he trod, Where the snow lay dinted;

Heat was in the very sod, Which the saint had printed.

Therefore, Christian men, be sure, Wealth or rank possessing,

Ye who now will bless the poor, Shall yourselves find blessing.

Indeed, the “Good King Wenceslas” carol dramatizes poignantly our Christian responsibility to the poor and disenfranchised. Nevertheless, I see a deeper allegory. The King forgoes his palace to enter a fierce world in order to rescue a helpless man. Christ Jesus leaves heaven, empties Himself, becomes flesh, and suffers death on a cross to save helpless humankind. The Master calls His servants to go with him in His mission of bringing abundant life to endangered sinners in this dark, rude world. We offer Jesus Christ and ourselves to helpless sinners in a frightful world. As we go, He goes with and before us treading out our path.

Tom was most recently pastor of the Bellevue Charge in Forest, Virginia until retiring in July. Studying John Wesley’s theology, he received his M.A. and Ph.D. degrees from the University of Bristol, Bristol, England. While a student, he and his wife Pam lived in John Wesley’s Chapel “The New Room”, Bristol, England, the first established Methodist preaching house. Tom was a faculty member of Asbury Theological Seminary from 1998-2003. He has contributed articles to Methodist History and the Wesleyan Theological Journal. He and his wife Pam have two children, Karissa, who is an Associate Attorney at McCandlish Holton Morris in Richmond, and, John, who is a junior communications major/business minor at Regent University. Tom enjoys being outdoors in his parkland woods and sitting by a cheery fire with a good book on a cool evening.

December 04, 2019

Editor's Recommendation: The Layman’s Manual on Christian Apologetics by Brian Chilton

December 04, 2019/ David Baggett

“Chilton’s Manual delivers on its promise to make accessible to the local church the powerful resources of apologetics. Providing an aerial view of the apologetic landscape at once refreshing and required, written with winsomeness and good humor, it shows the author’s pastoral heart, practitioner’s spirit, and rigorous mind. This book can and will equip readers to answer honest questions and gain confidence and boldness in sharing, explaining, and defending the good news of the gospel.”

— David Baggett, Executive Editor

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November 27, 2019

Gratitude, Thankfulness, and the Existence of God

November 27, 2019/ Stephen S. Jordan

Every year around Thanksgiving Day, and also throughout the Christmas season, we pause to reflect on all that we have for which to be grateful. There are other times throughout the year when we sense the need to say thanks, and we realize we ought to be more grateful than we presently are—but do we ever stop and think about how the very nature of gratitude and thankfulness actually point to the existence of God?

Gratitude is the awareness of goodness in one’s life and the understanding that the sources of this goodness lie, at least partly, outside oneself. It is not a self-contained or self-sufficient emotion but rather a human person’s inner response to another person or group of persons for benefits, gifts, or favors obtained from them. For example, consider the gratitude one experiences as a result of loving family members, thoughtful friends, and devoted teachers or mentors. The duty of gratitude is to honor these persons by thanking them for the benefits they have provided. Similarly, when gratitude is felt due to a country, school, or some other collective body, it is owed to them not as impersonal establishments, but as communities of human persons. Therefore, gratitude is a deeply personal emotion directed toward persons or groups of persons.[1]

Thankfulness occurs when one outwardly expresses the inner gratitude that is felt. Like gratitude, thankfulness is personal in nature. The difference between the two lies in that being grateful is a state, whereas thanking is an action.[2] With thankfulness, a personal object is in view when someone receives a special gift from a friend or family member and responds by saying “thank you” or writing a “thank you” card or note. In every expression of thanks, the verb “thank” is used in conjunction with an object—typically with the word “you.” Without an object of thanks, there can be no thankfulness. This means that every time one utters the words “thank you,” it is directed toward someone. Thus, thankfulness is an outward personal response directed toward individual persons or communities of persons.[3]

On a deeper level, when one experiences the richness of life which culminates in a deep sense of gratitude and a profound desire to express thankfulness, to whom is this gratitude, this desire to offer thanks, to be directed? G. K. Chesterton once stated, “The worst moment for an atheist is when he feels thankful and has no one to thank.”[4] Of course, it is easy to understand how an atheist or agnostic feels gratitude toward human persons who have made positive differences in their lives, but what about the blessings that cannot be ascribed to human agency? For example, when one considers the overwhelming immensity of a galaxy or the dynamic intricacy of a single living cell and feels as if they are a part of something special, of something bigger than themselves—to what or whom is this sense of gratitude due? While looking at things like a galaxy or cell, the well-known atheist, Richard Dawkins, admits that he is overcome with an immense feeling of gratitude: “It’s a feeling of sort of an abstract gratitude that I am alive to appreciate these wonders. When I look down a microscope it’s the same feeling. I am grateful to be alive to appreciate these wonders.”[5] An atheist or agnostic finding himself or herself in a situation like that of Dawkins, where gratitude arises and there is no personal being to thank, is presented with a difficult conundrum that is difficult to overcome.

There are a number of other examples that illustrate this same point. For instance, when one drinks a cool glass of mountain spring water after a long hike and experiences refreshment not only of the body but seemingly of the soul, or when one is lying on the beach and enjoys the warmth of the sun beaming down on their skin—to what or whom should this person offer their thanks? In moments like these, is one’s gratitude directed toward impersonal things like galaxies, cells, water or the sun—or is this gratitude more appropriately directed toward a personal God who cares deeply for human persons and makes possible their enjoyment and overall well-being? Does it make sense to offer thanks to a galaxy, a cell, water or the sun for the good gifts of life—or does it make more sense to thank God as the personal Creator and transcendent Giver of all good gifts that we enjoy in life?[6]

In his book Thanks!, Robert Emmons shares a story involving Stephen King, the most successful horror novelist of all-time, where King’s survival of a serious automobile accident causes his heart to become flooded with a deep-seated gratitude that King directs toward God. As Emmons explains,

“In 1999, the renowned writer Stephen King was the victim of a serious automobile accident. While King was walking on a country road not far from his summer home in rural Maine, the driver of a van, distracted by his rottweiler, veered off the road and struck King, throwing him over the van’s windshield and into a ditch. He just missed falling against a rocky ledge. King was hospitalized with multiple fractures to his right leg and hip, a collapsed lung, broken ribs, and a scalp laceration. When later asked what he was thinking when told he could have died, his one-word answer: ‘Gratitude.’ An avowedly nonreligious individual in his personal life, he nonetheless on this occasion perceived the goodness of divine influence in the outcome. In discussing the issue of culpability for the accident, King said, ‘It’s God’s grace that he [the driver of the van] isn’t responsible for my death.’”[7]

Interestingly, as a result of his life being spared, King directs the gratitude that arises in his heart to God. Even though there was another human in view, it would have been odd for King to thank the driver of the van who nearly killed him. If it did not make sense for King to thank the driver of the van, then who else could he thank if not God, who was responsible (in King’s own words) for saving his life on a day when he probably should have died?

The examples above illustrate that there are times when it does not make sense to direct gratitude and offer thanks to human persons. Even those who deny God’s existence and believe that the world is the result of blind, purposeless forces still agree that there are instances of gratitude that reach beyond a human benefactor. One’s sense of gratitude and desire to give thanks does not go away on an atheistic worldview—it is only frustrated.

In these instances (when it doesn’t make sense to thank a human person), we ought to direct our gratitude and thankfulness, even our praise, to God. Indeed, in every moment of every day, in all circumstances (1 Thess. 5:18), our hearts and minds ought to be characterized by gratitude and thankfulness; nothing less is appropriate considering God’s wonderful blessings upon our lives (James 1:17). Our prayer to God ought to be that of the Welsh poet and priest of the Church of England, George Herbert, who wrote,

“Thou that hast given so much to me,

Give one thing more, a grateful heart.”[8]

Stephen S. Jordan currently serves as a high school Bible teacher at Liberty Christian Academy in Lynchburg, Virginia. He is also a Bible teacher, curriculum developer, and curriculum editor at Liberty University Online Academy, as well as a PhD student at Liberty University. Prior to his current positions, Stephen served as youth pastor at Pleasant Ridge Baptist Church in State Road, North Carolina. He and his wife, along with their three children and German shepherd, reside in Goode, Virginia.

Notes:

[1] According to Robert Emmons, a leading scholar on the science of gratitude, “[G]ratitude is more than a feeling. It requires a willingness to recognize (a) that one has been the beneficiary of someone’s kindness, (b) that the benefactor has intentionally provided a benefit, often incurring some personal cost, and (c) that the benefit has value in the eyes of the beneficiary.” Robert A Emmons, Thanks!: How the Science of Gratitude Can Make You Happier (New York, NY: Houghton Mifflin, 2007), 5. Many of the ideas from this section on gratitude come from Alma Acevedo, “Gratitude: An Atheist’s Dissonance,” First Things, published April 14, 2011, accessed November 23, 2019, https://www.firstthings.com/web-exclusives/2011/04/gratitude-an-atheists-dissonance.

[2] For example, when I feel grateful for a friend, this inner gratitude motivates me to display thankfulness for my friend by doing something kind for them (e.g., purchasing them a Starbucks gift card). Emmons and McCullough explain the difference between gratitude and thankfulness in this way: “Being grateful is a state; thanking is an action.” Robert A. Emmons and Michael E. McCullough, The Psychology of Gratitude (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), 286.

[3] Can gratefulness be directed toward something material (i.e., something other than a person)? Does it make sense to offer thanks to a material item, such as a coffeemaker? As Emmons notes, “If we subscribe to a standard conception of gratitude, then the answer must be no. My Technivorm Moccamaster coffee brewer does not intentionally provide me with a kindness every morning. But there might be another way to see it. In a blog essay entitled Gratitude as a Measure of Technology, Michael Sacasas suggests that there is nothing bizarre about feeling grateful for technological advances. We could in fact be grateful for material goods…So we can think of gratitude as a measure of what lends genuine value to our lives…So although I am not grateful to my coffeemaker I could legitimately be grateful for it…Thinking about gratitude and technology this way verified what I have believed for some time. We are not grateful for the object itself. Rather, we are grateful for the role the object plays within the complex dynamic of everyday experience. That is what triggers a sense of gratefulness. When it comes to happiness, material goods are not evil in and of themselves. Our ability to feel grateful is not compromised each time we leave home to go shopping or with each click of the ‘add-to-cart’ button. When we are grateful, we can realize that happiness is not contingent on materialistic happenings in our lives but rather comes from our being embedded in caring networks of giving and receiving.” Robert A. Emmons, Gratitude Works!: A 21-Day Program for Creating Emotional Prosperity (San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass, 2013), 92-93.

[4] Actually, this is a quote of Dante Rossetti that Chesterton cites. Many people often attribute it to Chesterton, which is why it appears that way in this article, but it is actually a statement by Rossetti.

[5] This was stated by Dawkins in a November 2009 debate at Wellington College in England. The debate was sponsored by a rationalist group known as Intelligence Squared.

[6] Why is a personal God necessary here? Can a person not direct gratitude or offer thanks to an impersonal god (i.e., a force)? Due to the intrinsically personal nature of gratitude and thankfulness, it seems odd to direct these feelings and actions toward anything less than a God who is personal himself. What about other religions, besides Christianity, that claim that God is personal? Although this discussion needs more time and space in order to hash out all of the details, a few brief things need to be mentioned. Because Christianity is the only religion that offers a Trinitarian conception of God, it is the only religion that can claim that God is intrinsically personal. The circulatory character of the triune God (i.e., the doctrine of perichoresis), the mutual giving and receiving of love among the three Persons of the Trinity—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—serves as a solid ground for maintaining God’s essentially personal nature. Other religions may claim that God is personal, but only in the sense that humans are able to relate to him. Thus, in non-Christian religions, God may be called “personal,” but he is dependent upon humans for his personality and is therefore not intrinsically personal.

[7] Emmons, Thanks!

[8] A special thanks to two of my close friends, Jay Hamilton and Chris Rocco, for proofreading an earlier version of this article and offering helpful feedback. I am so grateful for your friendship!

November 06, 2019

Editor's Recommendation: Doing What's Right by Gooding and Lennox

November 06, 2019/ Managing Editor

By David Gooding, John Lennox

“Navigating the enduring questions about the good and the right, justice and value, scrutinizing their goal, guidance, and ground, David Gooding and John Lennox—with characteristic clarity, courage, and common sense—adroitly unveil both what’s timely and timeless along the moral terrain. The rigorous honesty of their relentless pursuit of a moral account sufficient for both theoretical and practical purposes yields important dividends: insights not just into the human condition and the manifest limitations of materialism, but how morality objectively and robustly construed points beyond itself, intimating of promise and potential we can scarcely imagine.”

— David Baggett, Executive Editor

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October 30, 2019

Editor's Recommendation: Theodicy of Love by John Peckham

October 30, 2019/ Managing Editor

Theodicy of Love

By John C. Peckham

“A new Peckham book is always an event, and Theodicy of Love does not disappoint. Theologically and philosophically adept, exegetically sound, and analytically rigorous, it offers a rich biblical theodicy in the face of the evidential problem of evil. Peckham’s contribution goes beyond the limitations of a freewill defense and avoids skeptical theism while acknowledging significant epistemic limitations—all while skillfully avoiding an array of potential pitfalls. As fascinating as it is fearless, Peckham’s judicious and perspicacious account assigns primacy to the suffering love of God, who—while operating within certain temporary covenantal strictures—is demonstrating his faithfulness and goodness against cosmic allegations to the contrary. This is an important contribution to theodicy that illuminates a plethora of challenging questions.”

— David Baggett, Executive Editor

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October 23, 2019

Editor's Recommendation: Stan Key's Journey to Spiritual Wholeness

October 23, 2019/ Managing Editor

“With his characteristic and signature charm and clarity, power and eminent practicality, preacher and teacher extraordinaire Stan Key (aptly enough) unlocks a vast swath of scripture by adroitly using the lens of the exodus to shed light on how to enter the fullness of God’s promise of spiritual victory—while avoiding notorious pitfalls along the way. At once as uplifting and enchanting as it’s challenging and convicting, Key’s long-awaited book on the geography of salvation is everything I hoped for and more. Rife with trenchant biblical insights, veritably singing with inimitable turns of phrase and dancing with lucid prose, it captures the imagination and invites readers to become fellow pilgrims with the ancient Israelites on a journey saturated with salvific significance today. The result is a treasure-laden pilgrimage readers should not, and with Key’s help definitely will not, ever forget.”

— David Baggett, Executive Editor

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October 21, 2019

A Few Reflections on Schopenhauer

October 21, 2019/ David Baggett

Arthur_Schopenhauer_by_J_Sch%C3%A4fer%2C_1859b.jpg — A Few Reflections on Schopenhauer

David Baggett

Arthur Schopenhauer’s work had a big influence on Friedrich Nietzsche, especially the latter’s Birth of Tragedy. The similarities between them are numerous, not least the parallel between Schopenhauer’s will and representation, on the one hand, and Nietzsche’s Dionysian and Apollinian, on the other. Both also saw suffering residing at the heart of the human condition, and art as the key to whatever redemption of which we’re capable as human beings. Both came, it would seem, to reject the existence of God; Nietzsche’s bold proclamation of Schopenhauer’s atheism (in The Gay Science) has been critiqued by some for lack of evidence, but it’s generally agreed that many of the implications of Schopenhauer’s depictions of reality are atheistic. At the least God would have been rendered, to paraphrase Laplace, an unnecessary hypothesis.

Much of Schopenhauer’s training in philosophy focused on Plato and Kant in particular, and the latter provided the tools for his metaphysical position, the first of the two big ideas of his magnum opus. Kant’s so-called transcendental idealism wielded a huge influence on Schopenhauer, who was born the same year Kant published his Second Critique. The world and our existence poses a riddle, Schopenhauer thought, in light of the human subjectivity in which we’re trapped. The world as it is in itself is not the world as it appears to us; as a result, everything we experience is mediated by the perceiving subject. We can’t know things as they are in themselves; rather, we can know only our transcendental cognitive framework and the representations it makes possible.

Rather than directing his attention, like Kant did, to what the subject imposes on experience, Schopenhauer instead sought to observe more closely how the subject may be tied intimately with the underlying nature of the world. He looked for an essential homogeneity between the subject and object, and thought the body provided such a link between the inner and outer. The body is not just a spatio-temporal object (something experienced outwardly), but also something we experience inwardly, subjectively, namely, the will. The actions of our bodies are manifestations of our wills.

Schopenhauer even thought that the world as a whole is fundamentally will, offering examples like the following: “The one-year-old bird has no notion of the eggs for which it builds its nest; the young spider has no idea of the prey for which it spins its web; the ant-lion has no notion of the ant for which it digs its cavity for the first time. The larva of the stag-beetle gnaws a hole in the wood, where it will undergo its metamorphosis, twice as large if it is to become a male beetle as if it is to become a female, in order in the former case to have room for the horns, though as yet it has no idea of these. In the actions of such animals the will is obviously at work as in the rest of their activities, but is in blind activity.”

Interestingly, such obviously goal-directed tendencies interwoven throughout nature don’t lead Schopenhauer to affirm teleology in the world, but to deny it. The will in question is characterized as “will without a subject.” Such an interpretation is possible, but it by no means strikes me as obvious or the best explanation. A clear alternative is presupposed in Proverbs 6:6-8: “Go to the ant, you sluggard; consider her ways, and be wise: which having no guide, overseer, or ruler, provides her meat in the summer, and gathers her food in the harvest.” The Bible in fact is replete with lessons about moral or metaphysical truth drawn from garden-variety features and operations of the world. Examples of seemingly teleological instances of the world are an odd choice to drive home a point denying its reality.

Here’s another example Schopenhauer offered: “Let us consider attentively and observe the powerful, irresistible impulse with which masses of water rush downwards, the persistence and determination with which the magnet always turns back to the North Pole, the keen desire with which iron flies to the magnet, the vehemence with which the poles of the electric current strive for reunion, and which, like the vehemence of human desires, is increased by obstacles.” Here he seems to adduce examples of stable natural laws, which, I suppose, can be thought of as evidence of God as a needless hypothesis; but I’m not convinced it’s a good inference. The sort of argument that can be teased out here conspicuously and presciently resembles the suspicion of many today that science and faith are fundamentally at odds, but this seems to be a mistake. Let’s consider just one reason why this is so.

Brian Cutter notes that there are two sides to the human capacity for science: “The first is the fact that the universe is intrinsically intelligible—that nature is structured in a way that admits of rational comprehension…. The second … is that our actual cognitive equipment, such as it is, allows us to discern the broad lineaments of nature, to plumb the deep structure of reality at levels well outside those relevant to life on the savannah. Both of these facts seem much more like what we should expect if Christian theism were true than if naturalism were true. The first fact fits comfortably with the theistic idea that the universe has its source in a Rational Mind, and is really quite surprising on the opposite assumption. And the second fact accords nicely with the Christian doctrine that human beings are made in the image of God, where bearing the image of God has traditionally been supposed to involve, among other things, the possession of an intellectual nature by which we partake in the divine reason.” (See his chapter in Besong and Fuqua’s Faith and Reason.)

On such a view both the existence of stable natural laws and our ability epistemically to access them count evidentially more in favor of theism than atheism, a personal universe rather than an impersonal one. Although an atheist, Schopenhauer may not have altogether been a naturalist, though, because he thought that through art, and music in particular, we can in some sense gain a measure of equanimity in face of the invariable suffering and futility of our lives. Suffering is the norm, he thought, and despite our subjective feelings of willing, we’re not actually free; the sense that we are free is mere appearance.

But rather than leaving us there, Schopenhauer’s second big idea pertained to what we can do in the face of such pessimism. We shouldn’t abandon life itself, but willing in general. Denying the will is the cornerstone of his ethics and aesthetics, and Nietzsche was most struck by Schopenhauer’s aesthetic deliverance from willing. It would seem that Schopenhauer’s notion of will was inextricably tied to notions of futility, of striving, of deficiency, and of suffering. With aesthetic contemplation, he thought, the subject is no longer regarding the object—a beautiful song, for example—in relation to its will. Rather, the object enchants the subject by virtue of its beauty, and as long as it does so the subject’s will is annulled.

In such a situation we find the object beautiful for what it is rather than for its functional capacity, what it does, so willing isn’t needed. The subject thus transcends time and space to realize the eternal realm of a Platonic Idea, and has himself thereby realized his own eternity.

Leaving aside how on earth this shows our “eternity,” two thoughts occur to me here, and with these I’ll end this short analysis. First, his understanding of willing seems flawed, if not idiosyncratic. I don’t feel unfree when I can’t help but recognize objective beauty, or feel the force of a lovely argument whose conclusion is inescapable, or at least eminently reasonable. I rather seem to feel at my most free in such cases. Attentiveness to evidence, apprehension of the lovely, feeling the force of the good—none of these annul my freedom. My freedom most consists in my capacity for just such things!

Just as I don’t see the most salient feature of faith, rightly understood, to be epistemic deficiency, I don’t see the most distinguishing feature of freedom, rightly understood, as existential deficiency. Long before Enlightenment construals of such concepts foisted themselves on us there were traditional understandings of them expressed in quite different terms. The truest freedom, on those more ancient foundations, is to live as we were meant to live; to love the true, the good, and the beautiful because they’re worth loving; freedom from the shackles that would preclude us from becoming fully humanized. So it seems the right goal is not the annulment of our freedom, but its fulfillment, its maximization, which is consistent with constraints to prevent expressions of agency that vitiate rather than conduce to abundant living.

And second, Schopenhauer’s openness to a Platonic paradigm is tantamount to a tacit admission of the inadequacy of naturalism to account for his intuitions here. A personal God strikes me as a better explanation than impersonal Platonic Forms floating in metaphysical limbo; but, while not Christian, Platonism remains eminently congenial to a traditionally theistic understanding of the world. “A Platonic man,” George Mavrodes once wrote, “who sets himself to live in accordance with the Good aligns himself with what is deepest and most basic in existence.”

With his co-author, Jerry Walls, Dr. Baggett authored Good God: The Theistic Foundations of Morality. The book won Christianity Today’s 2012 apologetics book of the year of the award. He developed two subsequent books with Walls. The second book, God and Cosmos: Moral Truth and Human Meaning, critiques naturalistic ethics. The third book, The Moral Argument: A History, chronicles the history of moral arguments for God’s existence. It releases October 1, 2019. Dr. Baggett has also co-edited a collection of essays exploring the philosophy of C.S. Lewis, and edited the third debate between Gary Habermas and Antony Flew on the resurrection of Jesus. Dr. Baggett currently is a professor at the Rawlings School of Divinity in Lynchburg, VA.

October 18, 2019

Personal Ecclesiastical History (childhood into adolescence): Twilight Musings Autobiography (Part 7)

October 18, 2019/ Elton Higgs

**Personal Ecclesiastical History (childhood into adolescence)**: Twilight Musings Autobiography

Elton Higgs

I need to drop back and describe my early religious and social life, from childhood to graduation from high school. The center of my social life has always been connected with my family’s church attendance. We went to church at least three times a week, as did many people of my generation. We had two hours of Sunday School and worship services on the First Day of the week, and then there were regular evening services on Sunday and Wednesday night Prayer Meeting. In addition, my father, as an elder of the South Side Church of Christ in Abilene, TX, often went to “business meetings” on some other night of the week. Once or twice a year, especially in the summer, we would have a week-long “meeting,” an evangelistic effort for which we gathered every night to hear an out-of-town guest speaker. We were supposed to invite our neighbors to attend in the hope that they would “obey the Gospel” by going up to the front of the tent, confessing their faith in Christ, and being baptized. Ideally, they would then become a part of our congregation. Often those who were already Christian would go forward to confess their straying from the Lord. This was called a “restoration” and would be counted along with the baptisms to evaluate the success of our Meeting. During the mornings that week, the guest speaker would conduct classes, mainly for the ladies, since the men were at work.

The South Side congregation was at odds with the other congregations of the Church of Christ in Abilene, and indeed with all of the “mainline” Churches of Christ in the country. We all in common practiced taking Communion every Sunday, did not use instrumental music in worship services, and insisted on immediate baptism as a part of the conversion experience; but we differed in our views of what the Bible taught about the End Times. We, the minority group of the Churches of Christ, were premillennialists, that is, believers that the Second Coming of Christ would usher in a literal thousand-year reign of Christ on earth, along with His faithful followers. Mainline Churches of Christ were vehement rejecters of this doctrine, asserting that the thousand-year reign mentioned in Rev. 20 was figurative, not literal. The family of my best friend in boyhood were members at a mainline Church of Christ only two blocks away from my church. That congregation had been established primarily to combat the heresy of their wayward brothers and sisters down the street. Both their regular preacher and most guest preachers for their week-long evangelistic meetings would target the South Side church in their sermons. My friend often tried to win me away from my error, but I stood firm in my belief.

This rivalry would have been comic if it had not driven such a wedge between congregations which were much more alike than different. However, being a persecuted minority did open us up, years before the mainline began to have this insight, to an understanding of the power and importance of prayer, and of the truth that we are saved by grace and not by works. These two elements in Christian belief and practice would seem to be self-evident from Scripture, but mainline Churches of Christ for many years were quite comfortable combining their emphasis on being the true “New Testament Church” with what amounted to embracing a kind of salvation by works, since their main emphasis was proving that they fulfilled all the requirements set forth in the New Testament to be identified as the True Church. It was a highly rationalistic approach to religion, one that was not sensitive to the “feeling” side of religious experience.

My earliest memory of attending the South Side Church of Christ is of my pre-school Sunday School teacher, Miss Addie Prater—just “Miss Addie” to all the kids. She handed out little picture cards to illustrate the stories she told us. She was a kind woman and was beloved by all. I don’t remember having a personal attachment to any of my other Sunday School teachers, but I felt quite comfortable in my general interactions with adults. I became friends with the other children whose families were regular attenders, and several of these endured through my high school years.

I have memories of the physical layout of the church building. Inside, it was arranged like most Churches of Christ, with a Communion Table in the front center of the auditorium, and a raised podium with a pulpit, and behind that a built-in baptistry, a layout reflecting the church’s emphasis on weekly participation in the Lord’s Supper and baptizing new believers immediately after their confession of faith in Christ The church was heated by floor heaters fueled by natural gas. They had to be lit with a match attached to a long stick. These heaters with their grates received frequent unintended contributions of coins held too loosely in children’s hands. In the summer, cooling had to be supplied by pulling down the tall top windows with a long pole with a hook at the end. Very few churches were air conditioned in those days.

The outside of the building had wide steps leading up to a covered porch supported by three or four tall pillars. On either side of these broad steps, extending out from the porch, were broad concrete “arms” extending horizontally from the top of the steps to the bottom, creating a drop-off at the end of about 4 or 5 feet. It was a wonderful place for show-off boys to jump down from, sometimes pretending to be Hitler jumping off a cliff.

Behind this “new” brick building was a white frame building that was the former church building, which in my young days was used for Sunday School rooms at one end and to house the preacher’s family at the other end. There was no connection between the two buildings, and in rainy weather, one had to make a dash in the open air to get to a Sunday School class.

The big lawn beside the church building, in addition to being used for tent meetings, was also often the site of “dinner on the ground,” that is, a potluck meal. I doubt that even in the early days the food was actually spread out on the ground, like a big picnic, but certainly in the 40s and 50s long tables were set up to hold the food and to seat at least some of the eaters. The home-cooked dishes that were shared on these occasions attracted probably more than did the tent meetings. It was certainly a time of good cheer and fellowship.

This lawn was also a wonderful place to play croquet, a favorite game of the young people’s group during my teen years. The youth group met weekly usually on a Thursday night and was overseen by the preacher and his wife. There were indoor table games as well. Some of them included throwing dice to determine the number of spaces to move on a game board. My father, who was an elder in the church, did not allow dice or playing cards in our home, and he objected to the use of dice in the young people’s games. So our preacher, Karl Kitzmiller (the earliest in my memory), made a spinner that took the place of the dice. Those nights of youth activities were satisfying and full of fun. I was closely bonded with about a half dozen other young people. I still remember the names of some of the people I knew best: Ray Conant, Frances and Wanda Prater, Janice Evans, Barbara Burroughs, Rita Hagar. On Wednesday and Sunday nights after church, we would often go over to a drugstore on Butternut St., about a 15 minute walk, for fountain refreshments. Since I lived within walking distance of the church and the drugstore, I would drop off at home as we walked back. Other preachers I remember from those days were a newly-married couple from Kentucky named Frank and Pat Gill, and a mature man, Jimmy Hardison, who had a daughter named Sylvia, for whom I later, after her family had moved to Louisville, KY, had a brief infatuation. She was the first girl with whom I held hands! But the romance was squashed by her father, who informed me through a letter that she was too young to be courted.

I was an earnest believer in my youth, and I even made occasional forays into personal evangelism. There was a boy 2 or 3 years older than I in the congregation named Jimmie Evans, son of one of the elders. Jimmie was a football player and not by temperament a pious young man like me, so I undertook to bring him to Christ—specifically, to persuade him to be baptized. I would sit with him in a car outside the church between services or after church and preach to him. Amazingly, he finally went forward and was baptized, but it didn’t seem to have much affect on his life, for he became increasingly wilder as time went on. He married right out of high school, and as I remember, the relationship didn’t last. I don’t believe his “conversion” was a very strong validation of my evangelistic methods.

Growing up in the South Side Church of Christ was certainly a spiritually nurturing experience and laid the foundation for my continued church involvement through my life. I learned the value of fellowship with a spiritual family, and much of my identity as a Christian was established in this setting. Sadly, the personal ties made there did not long survive my family’s move away from Abilene, but while they lasted, they helped form my character. I will speak more of my church experience during the next two years in Rule, my high school town, and Stamford, where I lived on my own and had a full-time job during the year between high school and college.

Ecological Apologetics

October 14, 2019/ Caleb Brown

Air travel cultivates appreciation for nature. That I am sitting in a metal tube, bumping elbows with strangers and developing neck strain all fade as I open my window to the blinding beauty outside. Trans-Pacific flights reveal lonely cargo ships, barely visible in the vast blueness that swallows the world. Trans-continental flights survey the barren crags and mesas of the southwestern deserts. From this high up, patterns sifted from the soil by flowing water draw the eye with artistic precision.

Shorter, lower flights allow intimate interaction with aerial terrain. On a hopper from Dallas to Colorado Springs, my propeller plane banked and wove its way through glowering thunder banks. On the way from Charlotte to Gainesville miles of farmland sprouted plumes of smoke that rose and then flattened upon encountering wind. They seemed to be gargantuan, flagged pins on the only real map.

But what did these pins mark? Was the farmers’ attempt to clear their land and produce food harmful as well as efficient and artful? What are the consequences of vaporizing tons of carbon-based plant life through combustion? What, for that matter, is the ecological impact of the flight that enabled me to see what these farmers were doing?

We revel in the beauty of nature, and we must use nature to survive. Both of these truths will not let us leave it alone; they will not let us leave nature natural. Even to experience nature, a pleasure that makes us feel more alive and more human, we must enter it and thereby change it.

There is whimsy and power in human smallness before nature—the gentle curve of a foot-path enhances the grandeur of a mountain. The orange streak of a fragile jetstream lit by a dying sun deepens the purple cast over the Blueridge Mountains. But frail footpaths and ephemeral jetstreams breed the sterile flatness of parking lots and runways.

Perhaps parking lots have their place. But the intuition that the natural world is something good, and therefore is something that must be treated carefully, is undeniable. It strikes us at 32,000 feet and when looking into the eyes of a puppy, when contemplating the cruelty of some humans to that sweet nose and those clumsy paws.

While people differ over where, precisely, this intuition points, and what, exactly, it should lead us to do, members of nearly every demographic and tradition acknowledge that the natural world is good and that our treatment of it is not a neutral matter. Regardless of what is felt to be the right way to treat nature, the conviction that wrong ways exist and have been practiced is nearly universal.

This moral intuition is deep and widespread, but how it meshes with other widespread beliefs is not clear.

If we all got here through the survival of the fittest, why should we be concerned about the wellbeing of non-human species? Certainly, the general wellbeing of the biosphere is important for the wellbeing of humans, but cruelty towards domesticated pets does not impact the survival of humanity. If anything, nurturing these pets diverts resources that could be used by humans. To say that caring for these pets increases our psychological wellbeing is simply to restate in psychological terms our moral intuition that the wellbeing of animals is important.

If mass-extinction events are part and parcel of evolution, then why do we have a moral duty to avoid them? Perhaps, by avoiding mass-extinction events, we are preventing evolutionary progress. How would we feel if primates had thwarted our emergence?

Naturalistic evolutionary attempts to explain our moral intuitions generally attribute them, like everything else about us, to a highly sophisticated sense of self-interest. Our moral intuitions towards nature developed because they are, in the end, best for our own survival, or at least for the propagation of our genes. But even if a sufficiently nuanced evolutionary mechanism could produce these instincts, it cannot explain why it would be wrong for us to act contrary to them. We regularly engage in activities, from eating Oreos to choosing Netflix over exercise, that reduce our health and, through epigenetics, reduce the fitness of our descendants. But if reducing our evolutionary fitness in these ways is not wrong, why would disregarding our survival-driven instincts towards nature be wrong?

It seems that naturalism can only explain the psychological phenomena of our moral intuitions towards the natural world by reducing them to mere instincts. It cannot give these instincts the moral weight we know they possess. Pure naturalism cannot explain our knowledge that the natural world is valuable and that abuse of this world is wrong. It takes something more than naturalism to explain what we know about nature.

But not any type of supernaturalism will do. The trick is to find a way of explaining the value of nature without reducing it, as naturalism does, to something that is unable to ground our moral intuitions. Supernaturalisms that link the spiritual world too closely to the natural world risk reducing the value of the natural world to the worth and power of the spirits that inhabit nature: “The tree is the home of the god, so it is sacred,” or, “I will treat this tree carefully because the spirit that lives in it will make my children sick if I don’t.” Viewpoints like these do not reflect a feeling that the natural world has value in and of itself. Rather, they render it valuable merely by association.

But I think Classical Theism might be a type of supernaturalism that can ground our moral intuitions. Because Classical Theism posits a God who is distinct from nature, it does not reduce the value of nature to that of spirits who inhabit it. Under Classical Theism, to say that the value of the natural world comes from God does not reduce nature’s value to something else, because everything comes from God. God-given value is as inherent, as intrinsic, as real in and of itself as anything in the world. God-given value is not a reality that we can, like our genetic instincts, transcend and ignore.

Many portray our treatment of the natural world as the moral issue of our day. It is certainly one of them. But why is it a moral issue? It seems that naturalism cannot explain the moral significance of nature. Something more is needed. Classical Theism might be this something.

October 09, 2019

The Psychopath Objection to Divine Command Theory: Another Response to Erik Wielenberg (Part One)

October 09, 2019/ Matthew Flannagan

The Psychopath Objection to Divine Command Theory: Another Response to Erik Wielenberg

Matthew Flannagan

Editor’s note: This article was originally published at MandM.org.nz.

Recently, Erik Wielenberg has developed a novel objection to divine command meta-ethics (DCM). DCM “has the implausible implication that psychopaths have no moral obligations and hence their evil acts, no matter how evil, are morally permissible” (Wielenberg (2008), 1). Wielenberg develops this argument in response to some criticisms of his earlier work. One of the critics he addresses is me. In some forthcoming posts, I will respond to Wielenberg’s arguments. In this post, I will set the scene by explaining the argument and the context in which it occurs. Subsequent posts will offer criticism of the argument

Wielenberg’s New Argument from Psychopathy.

Wielenberg calls his new argument the Psychopathy objection. The Psychopathy objection is the latest move in the contemporary debate between Wielenberg and his critics over the defensibility of divine command meta-ethics. By divine command theory, Wielenberg has in mind the divine command meta-ethics (DCM) defended by Robert Adams (1999) (1979), William Lane Craig (2009), William Alston (1990), Peter Forrest (1989) and C. Stephen Evans (2013). This version of DCM holds that the property of being morally required is identical with the property of being commanded by God.

In previous writings, Wielenberg has pioneered the promulgation objection to divine command meta-ethics. (see Wielenberg (2005), 60–65; Morriston (2009); Wielenberg (2014), 75–80). According to this objection, a divine command theory is problematic because it cannot account for the moral obligations of reasonable unbelievers.

In making this argument, Wielenberg takes for granted the existence of “reasonable non-believers” people whom “—have been brought up in nontheistic religious communities, and quite naturally operate in terms of the assumptions of their own traditions.” Similarly, “many western philosophers, have explicitly considered what is to be said in favor of God’s existence, but have not found it sufficiently persuasive.” Wielenberg assumes many people in these groups are “reasonable non-believers, at least in the sense that their lack of belief cannot be attributed to the violation of any epistemic duty on their part.” (Wielenberg (2018), 77)

Wielenberg argues that if the property of being morally required is identical with the property of being commanded by God, then these people would have no moral obligations. Seeing reasonable non-believers clearly, do have moral obligations it follows that, DCM is false.

Why do reasonable non-believers lack moral obligations, given DCM? Wielenberg cites the following exposition of the problem from Wes Morriston:

Even if he is aware of a “sign” that he somehow manages to interpret as a “command” not to steal, how can he [a reasonable non-believer] be subject to that command if he does not know who issued it, or that it was issued by a competent authority? To appreciate the force of this question, imagine that you have received a note saying, “Let me borrow your car. Leave it unlocked with the key in the ignition, and I will pick it up soon.” If you know that the note is from your spouse, or that it is from a friend to whom you owe a favor, you may perhaps have an obligation to obey this instruction. But if the note is unsigned, the handwriting is unfamiliar, and you have no idea who the author might be, then it is as clear as day that you have no such obligation.
In the same way, it seems that even if our reasonable non-believer gets as far as to interpret one of Adams’ “signs” as conveying the message, “Do not steal”, he will be under no obligation to comply with this instruction unless and until he discovers the divine source of the message. (Morriston (2009), 5-6)

I have responded to Wielenberg both in my book and in a recent article. I argued that Morriston’s argument contains a subtle equivocation. In the first line above, he expresses a disjunction. A person is not subject to a command if he does not know (a) who issued it, or (b) that it has an authoritative source. The example he cites, the case of an anonymous note to borrow one’s car, is a case where neither of these disjuncts holds. The owner of the car knows neither who the author is, nor whether its author has authority. We can illustrate this mistake, by reflecting on examples where, a person does not know who the author of the command is, but does recognize that it has an authoritative source.

Consider two counter-examples I offered, first:

Suppose I am walking down what I take to be a public right of way to Orewa Beach, New Zealand. I come across a locked gate with a sign that says: “private property, do not enter, trespassers will be prosecuted.” In such a situation, I recognize that the owner of the property has written the sign, though I have no idea who the owner is. Does it follow I am not subject to the command? That seems false. To be subject to the command, a person does not need to know who the author of the command is. All they need to know is that the command is authoritative over their conduct. (Flannagan (2017), 348)

A second counter-example I provided was;

Suppose, for example, that an owner of one of the beachfront properties in Orewa puts up a sign that states “private property do not enter, trespassers will be prosecuted” and that John sees the sign and clearly understands what it says. He understands the sign as issuing an imperative to “not enter the property.” John recognizes this imperative is categorical and is telling him to not trespass; he also recognizes this imperative as having authority over his conduct, he also recognizes that he will be blameworthy if he does not comply with this imperative. However, because of a strange metaphysical theory, he does not believe any person issued this imperative and so it is not strictly speaking a command. He thinks it is just a brute fact that this imperative exists. Does this metaphysical idiosyncrasy mean that the command does not apply to him and that he has not heard or received the command the owner issued? That seems to be false. While John does not realize who the source of the command is, he knows enough to know that the imperative the command expresses applies authoritatively to him and that he is accountable to it. (Flannagan (2017), 351)

In the first example, I am aware of the command but do not know who issued it. Despite my ignorance of the source of the command, I know it is authoritative over my conduct, and hence can be said to be subject to it. In the second example, John does not believe he is being commanded. However, he discerns the imperative expressed by the command and is aware both that it authoritatively applies to him and that he is accountable for performing it. A person who doesn’t believe in God can be subject to his commands if he discerns the imperative the command expresses and percieves its authority.

Craig, (2018) Evan’s (2013) and Adams (1999) have raised similar counter-examples. In a dialogue at the University of Purdue between with Wielenberg Craig responded by citing my second example and discussed is subsequently on his podcast. Evan’s gives a similar counter-example. He imagines a person walking on the border between Iraq and Iran, who perceives a sign warning him to stay on the path. Because he is on the border, he does not know whether the Iranian or the Iraqi governments posted the command, yet he knows some government has issued it. (Evans (2013), 113-114) Adam’s argues: “We can suppose it is enough for God’s commanding if God intends the addressee to recognize a requirement as extremely authoritative and as having imperative force. And that recognition can be present in non-theists as well as theists.” (Adams (1999), 268) These examples all suggest that reasonable believers can be “subject to God’s commands” without believing or knowing that God exists.

In his most recent work, Wielenberg (2018) appears to concede the problem. He concludes that a reasonable unbeliever does not need to recognize moral obligations as God’s commands to be subject to them. However, he suggests this response to the promulgation objection raises a deeper worry. Wielenberg suggests that, behind the responses of Evan’s, Adam’s, Craig and myself is a “plausible principle” which he labels R.

(R) God commands person S to do act A only if S is capable of recognizing the requirement to do A as being extremely authoritative and as having imperative force.

R enables the divine command theorist to claim consistently that a reasonable non-believer has moral obligations. However, Wielenberg contends this comes at a cost; this is because when conjoined with DCM, R implies that Psychopath’s lack of moral obligations.

According to Wielenberg “the mainstream view of psychopaths in contemporary psychology and philosophy” which is that lack “conscience and are incapable of grasping the authority and force of moral demands”. Wielenberg states, “According to principle (R) above, since psychopaths cannot grasp morality’s authority and force, God has not issued any commands to them, and so DCT implies that they have no moral obligations” (Wielenberg (2018), 8)

Wielenberg summarises his argument as follows:

The Psychopath Objection to Divine Command Theory
[1] There are some psychopaths who are incapable of grasping the authority and force of moral demands. (empirical premise)
[2] So, there are some psychopaths to whom God has issued no divine commands. (from 1 and R) .
[3] So, if DCT is true, then there are some psychopaths who have no moral obligations. (from 2 and DCT).
[4] But there are no psychopaths who have no moral obligations.
[5.] Therefore, DCT is false. (from 3 and 4)

In the next few posts, I will criticise this argument. In my next post, I will argue that the argument is crucially ambiguous in some of its key terms. In a subsequent post, I will argue that these ambiguities undermine the argument.

Part Two

Part Three

Notes:

Adams Robert Divine Command Metaethics Modified Again [Journal] // The Journal of Religious Ethics. – Spring 1979. – 1 : Vol. 7. – pp. 6-79,.

Adams Robert Finite and Infinite Goods: A Framework for Ethics [Book]. – Oxford : Oxford University Press, 1999.

Alston William Some Suggestions for Divine Command Theorists [Book Section] // Christian Theism and the Problems of Philosophy / ed. Beaty Michael. – Notre Dame : Notre Dame University Press, 1990.

Craig William Lane Debate: God & Morality: William Lane Craig vs Erik Wielenberg [Online] // Reasonablefaith.org. – February 23, 2018. – 8 10, 2019. – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6iVyVJAMiOY.

Craig William Lane This most Gruesome of Guests [Book Section] // Is Goodness Without God Good Enough? A Debate on Faith, Secularism and Ethics / ed. King Robert K Garcia and Nathan L. – Lanthan: : Rowan and Littlefield Publishers Inc, 2009.

Evans C Stephen God and Moral Obligation [Book]. – Oxford : Oxford University Press, 2013.

Flannagan Matthew Robust Ethics and the Autonomy Thesis [Journal] // Philosophia Christi. – 2017. – 2 : Vol. 17. – pp. 345-362.

Forrest Peter An argument for the Divine Command Theory of Right Action [Journal] // Sophia. – 1989. – 1 : Vol. 28. – pp. 2–19.

Morriston Wes The Moral Obligations of Reasonable Non-Believers: A special problem for divine command meta-ethics [Journal] // International Journal of Philosophy of Religion. – 2009 . – Vol. 65.

Wielenberg Erik Divine command theory and psychopathy [Journal] // Religious Studies. – 2018. – pp. 1-16.

Wielenberg Erik Robust Ethics: The Metaphysics and Epistemology of Godless [Book]. – New York : Oxford University Press, 2014.

Wielenberg Erik Virtue and Value in a Godless Universe [Book]. – Cambridge : Cambridge University Press, 2005

October 07, 2019

Why We Boldly Go: Moral Truth in Science Fiction

October 07, 2019/ Jonathan Pruitt

The unstated assumption of a great deal of science fiction is this: there is a moral world, full of values and duties.

September 30, 2019

Editor's Recomendation: How Reason Can Lead to God

September 30, 2019/ Managing Editor

How Reason Can Lead to God: A Philosopher's Bridge to Faith

By Joshua Rasmussen

“A magnificent and prodigious talent as deft in analytic skill as he is adept at uncommon common sense, Joshua Rasmussen has produced a disarming, brilliant, bridge-building book that renders the recondite accessible. It takes readers on a fascinating journey, inviting them to think for themselves, try out his arguments, and come to their own conclusions. He is a remarkable philosopher in the best and old-fashioned sense: respecting his readers; asking vitally important, existentially central questions; rigorously following the evidence where it leads; animated by deep confidence in the revelatory power of reason to show the way. Any genuine seeker of wisdom and truth will find in these pages an eminent kindred spirit and faithful fellow traveler.”

— David Baggett, Executive Editor

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September 27, 2019

My year in Small-town Rule High School: Twilight Musings Autobiography (Part 6)

September 27, 2019/ Elton Higgs

**My year in Small-town Rule High School:** Twilight Musings Autobiography

Elton D. Higgs

I don’t remember all the details of my family’s move from Abilene to Rule, TX, in the summer of 1955, but I’m sure it must have been once again because of my father’s ill health (cancer) and the need to be near my brother Otho and his family. They had moved to Rule a couple of years earlier to establish an appliance sales and service store, with a jewelry repair service at the back of the store. For me, it was a radical change in culture, and the year I spent there introduced me to experiences that I would never have encountered in Abilene.

Rule was a small town of around 1,500 people, surrounded by small farms. It had a couple of blocks of stores on the main road through town, a cotton gin at the edge of town, and a farming economy that depended on rain and good crops. The high school had about 100 students in it, and the focus was much more on athletics than on academics, as is common in small towns in the South. My graduating senior class had only 21 students, so my previous experience in a “big high school” of several hundred students identified me as a sort of egghead nerd who had never been exposed to the close-to-the-ground life of a farming community.

Athletic games were great social events for the whole town, and boys who played football were minor celebrities. I remember the star of the team was one Sonny Wharton, a good-looking lad who led the pack of boys in my class. Since I had never played football and was not very big, nobody thought it strange that I didn’t volunteer to join the team; but those qualities were no hindrance to my going out briefly for basketball, and then a few weeks of running track. I was pretty much a flop as a basketball player, but I might have had some success at track if I had known how to train. As it was, when I was running my first (and only) 220 yard dash competition, I didn’t pace myself and found my legs giving way, and I skidded several yards on my belly on a cinder track. I had scars for years afterward from that incident. That brought an inglorious end to my athletic endeavors. The burly coach at the school gave my brother Otho a concise assessment of my athletic abilities: “He’s the most uncoordinated 18-year-old I’ve ever seen.” Just as well I had other places to shine.

More to my taste and abilities was participating in the drama team. Since the pool of actors was small, we prepared only a one-act play for the regional drama competition. I learned my lines and was ready to go, but the afternoon of the affair, I was running a fever, and it was all I could do to get through the play, let alone do a quality job. It turned out that I had chicken pox, and I was out of school for a week. Happily, my other drama roles had better results. One of my electives was a Future Farmers of America class (there was a scarcity of alternatives), and one of the activities was a little radio drama on farm safety. Our team went to the state competition and won first place! Who would have thought it? My final thespian venture was the senior play, a farce in which my role as a father involved lathering up my face and pretending to have hydrophobia in order to scare away an unwanted suitor for my “daughter.” The audience loved it!

There was, however, a cruder side to my taking the Future Farmers course. Every class member had to join the school’s FFA chapter, and traditionally that meant going through an initiation of the sort that only high school boys can devise. Like all such unpleasant initiations, it hinged on humiliating and intimidating the new guys, and their showpiece exercise was to have them strip to their birthday suits, get down on all fours, and pretend to be hogs being judged. Each of us had a handler shouting instructions on how best to display our porky selves. The faculty leader was present, but he merely laughed nervously and looked on. I survived the ordeal, but the image of it is indelibly etched on my pictorial memory. At least my enduring without complaint made me accepted by the guys, even if I was basically a city boy.

I held several jobs during that year, the first of which was helping my brother Otho in the installation of appliances and TV antennas. Poor TV reception in Rule meant that many people chose to install an outdoor antenna on their housetop or atop a 60-foot tower with a rotator so that it could be turned 360 degrees to catch the signal from a particular station. Those who couldn’t afford such luxury had to make do with a “rabbit ears” indoor antenna, which usually brought in only a “snowy” picture. I learned some basic electronics in helping install those devices, and that has been a valuable asset ever since. I also clambered on rooftops and climbed up some of those 60-foot towers, which gave me the confidence when I needed to do that for myself later on. (I even installed my own rooftop antenna with a rotator on it at the first house my wife and I bought.)

My work experience with Otho was not without problems. On the lighter side, one time when we were installing a rooftop antenna during the winter, with some snow still on the ground, I was up on the roof following instructions from Otho on the ground. At some point, I started sliding on the wet roof and didn’t stop until I hit a snowdrift down below. When he was assured I wasn’t hurt, Otho burst out laughing, and he enjoyed telling that story for months afterward. He said I just slid down smoothly as if it was a joy ride of some sort. I suspect he wished he had been able to film it.

But another action on my part almost cost him a finger. He had installed a telescoping tower on the back of his pickup to use in raising home towers and accessing them for servicing. While we were in transit, the telescoping tower segments were held in place by a wire wound around the overlapping legs of the segments. The wire had to be taken off, of course, when the tower was ready to be cranked up. One day, the tower seemed to be stuck when I tried to crank it up, and Otho climbed up to see what was wrong. Unfortunately, I had failed to remove the restraining wire, but I kept applying pressure to the crank while Otho was trying to find where the bind was, and the restraining wire snapped and the tower shot up a few feet with great force, catching Otho’s thumb and almost completely severing it. I remember Otho hollering something like, “Elton, you’ve ruined me!” Somehow he managed to keep the thumb from coming completely off, wrapped his bleeding hand with some rags, and drove to the hospital, where they managed to get his thumb sewed back in place. He recovered, but my terrible error rather soured our work relationship for a while.

Another job came from Novis Owsley, the dry goods store owner down the street from Otho’s shop,. They were good friends, so Novis (Mr. Owsley to me, of course) dropped in frequently to the store. One day, he asked me if I would be willing to come in early each morning, before school, and sweep out the store and take out the trash before the store opened for business. I consented, and I spent some good hours listening to popular music on the radio and enjoying being there by myself. I still remember some of the hit tunes of the time that I became familiar with, like “Que Sera, Sera” and “Love and Marriage Go Together Like a Horse and Carriage.” Then, when the fall cotton harvest time came around and the “braceros” (migrant workers from Mexico who picked cotton) would come into the store to buy basic clothes, Mr. Owsley needed someone who could speak enough Spanish to service these workers, and my basic Spanish was sufficient for the job.

So I became a dry goods salesman, along with two classmates who also worked part time. Sammy and Sharon were “an item” at school, so they obviously worked well together, and the three of us became fast friends. Sharon was a sweet Southern girl who showed affection to everybody. Her pet name for me was “El-twan,” and she used it regularly. Sammie was a pleasant but serious young man, and easy to work with. Between us, we sold quite a few clothes for Mr. Owsley. (Some years later, I was surprised to find out that when Sammie and Sharon went away to college, they split up and did not get married as everybody expected.)

My final job in Rule was as a school bus driver. That required me to get a chauffeur’s driving license, which stood me in good stead when two years later I applied for a college outdoor maintenance job which required a special driving license. I drove the afternoon bus to take the kids home. My route included both town and country stops and took me about an hour to complete. A couple of times, I got supplementary work driving the bus for out-of-town sports events. One of those times was to transport the girls’ basketball team, and I asked for one of my friends to go along with me. The principal was understandably reluctant to permit such a thing, for reasons I think I was too naïve to understand at the time. Finally, however, he gave in, based on my solemn promise that my friend Herbert would never be out of his seat next to me in the front of the bus. Bus driving certainly added to my experience and skills in a significant way.

At the end of the year, I was declared to be the valedictorian, based on both my Abilene High School and Rule High School grades. My family had a little celebration after the ceremony at our house, and I remember my brother Otho coming up to me with some advice: “Elton, stick to your books.” By which he meant, don’t try to make you way in life doing anything that requires great coordination or practical skills. I took his advice and pursued an academic career, but I’m also glad that I gained more from my practical experiences in Rule than perhaps he thought I had.

More from the Twilight Musings Autobiography

Oct 30, 2020

The Second Phase of My Involvement in CASL Administration: Twilight Musing Autobiography (Part 23)

Oct 30, 2020

Sep 25, 2020

Dean for a Year: Twilight Musing Autobiography (Part 22)

Sep 25, 2020

Sep 11, 2020

My Thrilling First Sabbatical Leave Abroad (2) (Part 21)

Sep 11, 2020

Aug 28, 2020

My Thrilling First Sabbatical Leave Abroad (1) (Part 20)

Aug 28, 2020

Aug 14, 2020

Campus Expansion and Sabbatical Plans (Part 19)

Aug 14, 2020

Jul 31, 2020

Growing Our Family and Our Cultural Outlook In Dearborn and Detroit (Part 18)

Jul 31, 2020

Jul 24, 2020

The Pre-Expansion Years at UM-Dearborn, 1965-1971 (Part 17)

Jul 24, 2020

Jul 17, 2020

Arrival at UM-Dearborn, Summer 1965 (Part 16)

Jul 17, 2020

Jul 3, 2020

On to Finish the Ph.D at Pitt (Part 15)

Jul 3, 2020

Jun 26, 2020

The Cathedral of Learning and Lasting Friends: Pittsburgh, PA (Part 14)

Jun 26, 2020

September 25, 2019

Fred Will Watch the Time

September 25, 2019/ David Baggett

Fred knew that replacing a vague generic gratitude with sincere thoughts of thanks for a particular loved one whose visage fills our mental vision can almost instantaneously bring a lump to our throat and tears to the eyes. Putting a familiar face on and real voice to the notional makes all the difference.

September 23, 2019

Urban Legends of the Old Testament: Radical Islam Has Inherited Ishmael’s Violent Spirit (Genesis 16:12)

September 23, 2019/ David Croteau and Gary Yates

Editor’s note: This piece comes from an upcoming book by Gary Yates and David Croteau, Urban Legends of the Old Testament, a sequel to Urban Legends of the New Testament.

The dismissal of Hagar by Pieter Pietersz Lastman. — *The dismissal of Hagar* by Pieter Pietersz Lastman.

“ He shall be a wild donkey of a man,
his hand against everyone
and everyone’s hand against him,
and he shall dwell over against all his kinsmen.”

— Genesis 16:12

The Legendary Teaching on Ishmael and His Descendants

Abraham’s lack of faith and patience that led to the birth of Ishmael through Hagar is the cause of the perpetual conflict between Arabs (the descendants of Ishmael) and Jews (the descendants of Isaac) in the Middle East today. The Bible informs us that the conflict between Ishmael and Isaac would be never ending. Arabs, as the descendants of Ishmael, have inherited his rebellious (“like a wild donkey”) and violent qualities (Gen 16:12), and the existence of radical Islam and violent jihadism is proof that “the spirit of Ishmael” still exists among Arab peoples today.

Countering the Legendary Teaching

The portrayal of Ishmael as a “wild donkey” conveys a positive message that even resembles the portrayal of the twelve tribes of Israel in Genesis 49. The Bible never prophesies a perpetual conflict between the sons of Isaac and Ishmael, and Ishmael’s descendants even have a vital role in the working out of salvation history and a share in the covenantal blessings given to Abraham and extended through Isaac.

Birth Announcement and Hope for an Oppressed Woman

The declaration that Ishmael would be “like a wild donkey” in Gen 16:12 appears in the context of a birth announcement designed to offer hope and encouragement to a beleaguered slave. Tony Maalouf explains, “Having been the recipient of a special revelation from the ‘God who sees’ everything and cares for everyone, it would become much easier for Hagar to accept her circumstances.”[1] The angelic announcement concerning Ishmael in Gen 16:10–12 was a positive message concerning the future of Hagar’s son.

Readers today understandably read “like a wild donkey” as an insult. Referring to someone in this way in our culture would likely lead to an angry confrontation. Comparing someone to a donkey might seem to convey the qualities of stupidity, stubbornness, or contentiousness. As part of this comforting announcement to Hagar, however, the image likely is a promise that Ishmael and his descendants would enjoy the freedom and independence of living as roving nomads, in spite of the difficulties that such a lifestyle would also entail.

Urban Legends of the Old Testament: 40 Common Misconceptions

By David A. Croteau, Gary Yates

The term wild donkey (pere’) appears only ten times in the Hebrew Bible. It is not always clear whether the connotations associated with the wild donkey are positive or negative. The prevailing ideas associated with this animal appear to be “freedom, isolation, and wilderness habitat.”[2] Gordon Wenham states that the wild donkey is a figure for “an individualistic lifestyle untrammeled by social convention.”[3] The wild donkey lives in barren areas (Job 24:5; Isa 32:14; Jer 14:6; Hos 8:9). In Job 39:5–8, the wild donkey lives in the wilderness and laughs at the noise of the city and, unlike his domesticated counterpart, never has to endure the abusive commands of a taskmaster.

The second statement about Ishmael in Gen 16:12 does refer to hostilities that would exist between Ishmael (and his descendants) and surrounding peoples. The Hebrew reads: “hand-to-hand with everyone and everyone hand-to-hand with him” and is somewhat ambiguous in meaning because of the lack of a verb. Nevertheless, in twenty-seven of the thirty-three instances in which the noun hand (yad) is followed by the preposition be (“in, on, upon, against”) that has a person, people, or inhabited area for its object, the sense is adversarial and denotes conflict (e.g., Exod 7:4; Josh 2:19; 1 Kgs 11:26–27).[4] The NET Bible even reads, “He will be hostile to everyone, and everyone will be hostile to him.” A people at perpetual odds would seem to be disagreeable and violent, but this statement needs to be read in light of the surrounding context. We have two other important uses of “hand” in this context that inform our understanding here. In Gen 16:6, Abram says to his disgruntled wife Sarai concerning Hagar: “your slave is in your hands” (be + yad) and that she could do with Hagar as she wished. Sarai then mistreats Hagar so that she flees from Abram’s household. In verse 9, the angel of the Lord instructs Hagar to return to Sarai and to submit “to her authority” (tahat + yad; lit. “under her hand”).

The statement in verse 12 about Ishmael’s “hand” being against everyone should then be understood at least in part as a promise of the reversal of Hagar’s powerlessness in verse 9. Ishmael would not be subjugated to others in the way that Hagar was to Sarai, and he would have the strength to stand up to others when wronged. Maalouf explains, “Constant roaming of the bedouin tribes in the desert, with no established legal system and clear civil law code, put them in a state of conflict with each other, and set others against them for fear of their raids, since nomads dislike the settled life.”[5] The point is that Ishmael would be able to contend for himself in these disagreements and confrontations.

The final statement concerning Ishmael in verse 12 that he would “settle near (‘al pene) all his relatives” is also open to interpretation. Because ‘al pene does have an adversarial sense in other passages (e.g., Job 1:11; 6:28), some English translations (NIV, NRSV, NLT) view this statement as also referring to perpetual conflict between Ishmael and his neighbors The NIV reads that Ishmael “will live in hostility toward all his brothers.” The preposition ‘al pene more often has a spatial nuance and likely refers in Genesis 16 to how Ishmael would live away from other peoples because of his Bedouin lifestyle. The fact that ‘al pene has this spatial meaning in Gen 25:18 with reference to Ishmael’s descendants suggests the same meaning is intended here.[6] This last description of Ishmael says nothing about violence or hostility.

The announcement that Ishmael would be like a wild donkey parallels the depiction of a number of the tribes of Israel in Jacob’s blessing of his sons in Genesis 49. Judah is like “a young lion” (v. 9), Issachar “a strong donkey” (v. 14), Dan “a viper” (v. 17), Naphtali “a doe set free” (v. 21), and Benjamin “a wolf” (v. 27). The portrayals of Judah and Benjamin as a lion and wolf are violent in nature and would seem to depict these tribes as violent—predators tearing apart their prey (vv. 9, 27). Judah would subjugate his enemies so that the nations would give obedience to him (vv. 8, 10), and this promise ultimately points to the dominion of the house of David and the future Messiah. Under attack from archers, Joseph’s bow would be strong and agile (v. 23).[7] Military strength would be essential for Israel’s survival and security as a nation in the violent world of the ancient Near East. These portrayals, however, do not infer that Israel was a vicious, warmongering people, and we should avoid drawing similar conclusions about Ishmael and his descendants on the basis of Gen 16:12. We would not suggest from Genesis 49 that the “spirit of Judah” or “spirit of Benjamin” is responsible for the present-day conflicts in the Middle East.

Isaac and Ishmael in Perpetual Conflict?

Christopher Heard notes that, contrary to popular opinion, the Old Testament never prophesies perpetual animosity between the descendants of Ishmael and Isaac.[8] The two brothers are never in conflict as adults and join to bury their father in Gen 25:9. Isaac subsequently lives near Ishmael, suggesting cordial relations between the two. Joseph’s brothers sell Joseph into slavery to a caravan of Ishmaelite traders who take him to Egypt (Gen 37:25–29), but Joseph’s own brothers are the ones who act in hatred. Only two passages in the Old Testament refer to Ishmaelites committing acts of violence against Israel. Ishmaelites carry out raids against Israel during the time of Gideon (Judg 8:24), and Ishmaelites and Hagrites are mentioned as enemies that conspire against Israel in Ps 83:6. Heard writes, “Although Christians commonly claim that Isaac’s and Ishmael’s descendants have fought constantly since Isaac’s birth, it is hard to sustain that claim with biblical evidence.”[9]

God’s Blessing of Ishmael and His Descendants

Ishmael is not the promised child through whom God’s covenant promises to Abraham would be fulfilled, but this fact does not minimize God’s blessing of Ishmael or negate his redemptive concern for Ishmael’s descendants. The circumcision of Ishmael in Gen 17:23 demonstrates that he was included in the blessings of the Abrahamic covenant. The name Ishmael (“God hears”) is testimony to how God had been attentive to the cries of Hagar when she was alone in the wilderness after Sarai sent her away when Hagar was with child (Gen 16:11). The promise that Ishmael would have many descendants (Gen 16:10) parallels the promises to Abraham that he would have numerous offspring (Gen 15:5; 17:20; 22:17).

The blessing of Ishmael would in fact help to bring fulfillment of specific covenant promises to Abraham—that he would be the father of many nations (Gen 17:4–5) and that all nations would be blessed through Abraham (Gen 12:3; 18:18; 22:18). Isaiah 60:6–8 specifically mentions the inclusion and participation of Ishmael’s descendants (Midian, Kedar, Nebaioth; compare Gen 25:13; 28:9; 37:28) in the future kingdom when the nations stream to Zion to worship the Lord. Ishmael’s descendants will bring their wealth as tribute to the Lord and their flocks and herds for sacrifices to the Lord.

Other specific literary features in Genesis point to favorable and sympathetic readings of the characters Hagar and Ishmael. The birth announcement from the angel concerning Ishmael is the first of such annunciations in Scripture, and similar annunciations in the Old Testament anticipate the birth of a special or promised child (including Isaac, Samson, and Samuel). Hagar’s experience when God intervenes to deliver Ishmael from death in Genesis 21 parallels Abraham’s as he prepares to offer Isaac in Genesis 22.[10] Both Hagar and Abraham take a journey to a desolate place, and both hear an angel from heaven announcing God’s intervention on behalf of their sons (Gen 21:17; 22:11–12).

The depiction of Ishmael in Genesis also invites comparison with Joseph in that both are expelled from their home because of their master’s wife.[11] Sarah expels Ishmael because she observes him “laughing” (mocking?) (tsahaq) at the feast for Isaac’s weaning (Gen 21:8–10), and Potiphar’s wife falsely accuses Joseph of attempting to rape her and thus “mocking” (tsahaq) his master’s house (Gen 39:14–17). In spite of their unfair treatment, both young men prosper because God is “with” them (Gen 21:20; 39:2, 21). These favorable comparisons with other individuals who are part of the covenant people of God suggest that we should also view Hagar and Ishmael as positive characters, not as the ancestors of Israel’s perpetual enemies.

Application

Christians have often used wrong interpretations or simplistic readings of Scripture to justify prejudice or hatred toward specific groups of people. Identifying the mark of Cain in Genesis 4:15 as the curse of black skin or equating Native Americans with the Canaanites to justify their extermination are two prominent examples of such readings. Attributing the conflict in the Middle East to “the spirit of Ishmael” or the lack of evangelical compassion toward Arab refugees in our current environment reflects a similar misreading of the Bible. The genealogical relationship between Ishmael and present-day Arabs is complex to begin with, and the statement that Ishmael would be “like a wild donkey” in Gen 16:12 does not characterize Arab peoples as violent. Ishmael plays a strategic role in the working out of God’s plan to bless all nations through Abraham (Gen 12:3), and the descendants of Ishmael will be among the people of God “from every tribe and language and people and nation” (Rev 5:9). Loving the descendants of Ishmael is a reflection of the heart and character of God himself.

More Urban Legends from the Old Testament

Urban Legends of the Old Testament: Radical Islam Has Inherited Ishmael’s Violent Spirit (Genesis 16:12)

Urban Legends of the Old Testament: God Created Evil

Urban Legends of the Old Testament: Imprecatory Psalms Are Horrible Models for Christian Prayer (Psalm 109)

Annotated Bibliography

Books

Maalouf, Tony. Arabs in the Shadow of Israel: The Unfolding of God’s Prophetic Plan for Ishmael’s Line. Grand Rapids: Kregel Academic, 2003. Helpful treatment from an Arab Christian of the role of Ishmael and Arab peoples in the working out of God’s kingdom purposes.

Commentaries

Wenham, Gordon J. Genesis 1–15 and 16–50. Word Biblical Commentary (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2017). Scholarly evangelical commentary with two volumes on Genesis, here presented as one volume.

Articles

Heard, Christopher. “On the Road to Paran: Toward a Christian Perspective on Hagar and Ishmael.” Interpretation 68 (2014): 270–85. Argues for a more charitable Christian reading of the figure of Ishmael.

Websites

Rishmawy, Derek. “I Am Not Abraham’s Mistake.” Patheos, Christ and Pop Culture (blog). February 27, 2013. http://www.patheos.com/blogs/christandpopculture/2013/02/i–am–not–abrahams–mistake/. Argues that popular evangelical theology about Arabs often contradicts biblical teaching.

[1] Tony Maalouf, Arabs in the Shadow of Israel: The Unfolding of God’s Prophetic Plan for Ishmael’s Line (Grand Rapids: Kregel Academic, 2003), 65.

[2] R. Christopher Heard, Dynamics of Dislection: Ambiguities in Genesis 12–36 and Ethnic Boundaries in Post-exilic Judah, Semeia Studies 39 (Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2001), 69.

[3] Gordon J. Wenham, Genesis 16–50, Word Biblical Commentary (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2015), 11.

[4] Heard, Dynamics of Dislection, 69–70.

[5] Maalouf, Arabs in the Shadow of Israel, 72.

[6] Heard, Dynamics of Dislection, 72.

[7] A strong case can be made for an alternate reading of Gen 49:22 that translates the verse as depicting Joseph as the “son of a donkey” (ben porat) in a manner that recalls the depiction of Ishmael “like a wild donkey” (pere’ ’adam) (rather than “a fruitful vine”). The noun son (ben) is never used with a plant elsewhere in the Hebrew Bible but does appear with animals (Gen 18:7; Ps 29:6). See S. Gevirts, “Of Patriarchs and Puns: Joseph at the Fountain, Jacob at the Ford,” Hebrew Union College Annual 46 (1975): 35–49.

[8] Christopher Heard, “On the Road to Paran: Toward a Christian Perspective on Hagar and Ishmael,” Interpretation 68 (2014): 276–77.

[9] Heard, “On the Road to Paran,” 279.

[10] For fuller development of the Hagar-Abraham parallels, see S. Nikaido, “Hagar and Ishmael as Literary Figures: An Intertextual Study,” Vetus Testamentum 51 (2001): 221–29.

[11] Nikaido, “Hagar and Ishmael,” 232–41.

September 18, 2019

John Wesley: Brand Plucked from the Burning

September 18, 2019/ Tom Thomas

The rescue of the young John Wesley from the burning rectory. Mezzotint by Samuel William Reynolds.

Thinking he was dying, Evangelical Awakening leader John Wesley penned his epitaph, “John Wesley, a brand plucked out of the burning.” Brother Charles Wesley quipped, “Not once only.” The ‘brand plucked’ phrase encapsulated the reality upon which not only his but many of his spiritual descendants’ spiritual and moral transformation hinged. Recount with me the life events that prepared John Wesley for the signal manifestation on 24 May 1738 of his coming to saving faith two hundred and eighty one years ago this year.

At age 23, John Benjamin Wesley read Bishop Jeremy Taylor’s book, Rules and Exercises of Holy Living and Dying. It deeply affected him. He said, ‘Instantly I resolved to dedicate all my life to God, all my thoughts and words and actions.’ The next year he read the Catholic monk Thomas à Kempis’s book The Imitation of Christ. There John Wesley saw that to give his life to God meant giving ‘my heart, yea, all my heart to him.’ John Wesley became what is called a ‘f-a-n-a-t-i-c’ or, same thing, a ‘Methodist’! Theologian Albert Outler with others following suit argues the 1725 event was John Wesley’s conversion. Granted, it was a change. Nevertheless, it was neither the relational change of justification with God nor the new birth from above. Dedicating his life meant to John Wesley becoming an Olympic religious athlete/monk (like Simon Stylites the ancient ascetic monk who lived on a small platform on top of a pillar for 37 years). Still, he was in dead earnest about bringing all of himself – all thoughts, all words, and all actions – and then some – into perfect conformity with religious righteousness – a.k.a. the rich, young ruler.

His brother Charles and another friend Robert Kirkham responded to Oxford University’s Vice-Chancellor’s call for students to keep university rules. What a novel idea! They started a club in answer to the Vice-Chancellor’s call and made John its leader. The club aimed at nothing short of “perfection.” They kept track of every hour’s activity – was it done to God’s glory? They read the Greek New Testament; fasted; prayed continually; took communion once a week; visited prisoners in the Oxford jail (I visited the cell in the 1980’s); and went to daily worship. Fellow students called out ‘nerd alert’: here comes the “the Holy Club,” the “Bible Moths,” and the “Methodists” – likely a pun. Methodius was a primitive church father and the Methodists followed a stringent, methodical, Christian discipline.

Meanwhile, things were not going particularly well vocationally with John. Though he was a tutor of Lincoln College, Oxford, some parents were reluctant to send their sons to be taught by the oddball, “Mr. Primitive Christianity.” Moreover, his brief experience of pastoring a church was lackluster.

When the invitation came to go to Georgia as a missionary, he was ready for a “New World.” He would oversee the English colonists and evangelize the Indians. In crossing the Atlantic, Wesley’s tiny ship, the Simmonds, encountered a raging hurricane. Waves vaulted the ship and smacked its wooden hull. Each time they hit, John thought the ship would be dashed into a thousand pieces. The turmoil was not just outside. Inside he asked himself, “Why are you so afraid to die? ... How is it that thou hast no faith?”

Meanwhile, German Moravian Lutherans on board quietly served the passengers and calmly sang through the valley of the shadow of death. They were on their way to Georgia to escape religious persecution. Intrigued, Wesley after the storm asked a Moravian, “Were you not afraid?” “Thank God, no,” was the answer. “How about your women and children?” “No, they are not afraid to die.”

When John arrived near Tybee Island, Georgia, Moravian leader August Spangenberg asked him point blank a question he had never considered. “Do you know Jesus Christ?” Wesley paused. Then he said, “I know he is the Saviour of the world.” Spangenberg shot back, “But do you know He has saved YOU?” “I hope He died to save me,” said Wesley. “But do you know yourself?” Spangenberg insisted. “I do,” said Wesley. He later confessed, “But, I fear those were vain words.” Indeed.

Undaunted, still hot from the Holy Club culture, John Wesley was determined to make the American colonists into an Oxford Holy club – an admixture of Catholicism and Protestantism. The colony would not. A friend told John, “They (the parishioners) say they are Protestants, but as for you they cannot tell what religion you are of; they never heard of such before.”

In the meantime Wesley was forming a close attachment to the magistrate’s niece, Sophie Hopkey. Long story short, she married another man. Wesley refused to serve her communion because he said she deceived him and had not repented of it. Her uncle the magistrate served a warrant for Wesley’s arrest. One night Wesley quietly slinked away through the Georgia swamps. England bound sounded pretty good. So much for being a missionary.

Sailing home, he was dejected. He had lost a potential wife. His congregation was not “holy” – just irate. His rigorous religion was giving him cold comfort. “I have a fair summer religion,” he confessed to himself. “Let death look me in the face, and my spirit is troubled”… “I have a sin of fear, that when I’ve spun my last thread, I shall perish on the shore!” He mused, “I went to America to convert the Indians, but, oh, who shall convert me!”

He could not by all the rigors of self-denial, prayers, fasting, and good works make himself acceptable to God. After all his strenuous, spiritual athletics, he could not rid himself of sin and guilt. Should he die, he feared meeting God.

A couple of months after returning to England, in March 1738, he wrote in his Journal, “I was, on Sunday the 5th, clearly convinced of unbelief, of the want of that faith whereby alone we are saved.” Moravian Peter Bohler counseled him to preach faith until he received it. The Moravian Lutheran understanding of justifying faith is that it is a gift which God gives and one receives. One decides for it but God sends faith in his own time. In April John Wesley realized he was a sinner without recourse. Several times he wept privately over his state. By now he had no intellectual objections to the nature of evangelical faith. He accepted it as a sure trust in God that through the merits of Christ one’s sins are forgiven and one is reconciled to God’s favor. However, was saving faith instantaneous like the Moravians claimed? He studied Scripture and concluded it was instantaneous. But was it for today? Moravian leader Peter Bohler gave him many current witnesses who testified to it. He was beat out of that retreat. Intellectually and willfully he had accepted justification by faith.

Several weeks later on 24 May, 1738, after soul searching, Bible study, discussion with the Moravians, and a great sense of his spiritual lack before God, John Wesley went very unwillingly to a religious house group meeting in Aldersgate Street, London. (Nazi bombing in WW II destroyed the house.) At about a quarter before nine, someone was reading Martin Luther’s Preface to his commentary on the Book of Romans. As Luther was describing the change which God works in the heart through faith in Christ, John Wesley felt “my heart strangely warmed.” He said, “I felt I did trust in Christ, Christ alone for salvation; and an assurance was given me that He had taken away my sins, even MINE, and saved ME from the law of sin and death.”

Once he had been providentially plucked from his bedroom in flames. Now he was rescued from the fires of God’s wrath. As a child, he was helpless to get out of his flaming room. Now he conceded he was helpless to make himself righteous. Two men had to snatch him out of his childhood inferno. Only Jesus Christ and his mercy offered in the atoning cross could save him from his sin. Only Jesus could declare him acceptable to God.

Wesley scholars will forever debate the nature of the Aldersgate event. Was Aldersgate just another step in his Christian pilgrimage? Was it more assurance of faith than justifying faith? The bottom line is that that night in a room on Aldersgate Street John Wesley’s inner, spiritual ear heard Christ forgive him and accept him. He went from knowing Jesus as Exemplar to knowing Jesus as Savior. He no longer trusted in his own but Jesus’ merits. Aldersgate is the landmark event that notes a change in status having occurred in John Wesley’s life: once a child of this world he was now a child of God; once guilty he was now forgiven; once unrighteous he was now declared righteous. Now holy living really began.

Aldersgate was the hinge of John Wesley’s spiritual and moral transformation. May many, many others today have their own similar Aldersgates. Our hope is that our children and children’s children will not only be retelling his and ours, but theirs as well.

September 16, 2019

Editor's Recommendation: Now You See Her by Mark Harris

September 16, 2019/ David Baggett

“Sequel to Fire in the Bones, Mark Harris’s Now You See Her—about nothing less than living with our dreams and the iconoclasm of reality—is an unmitigated joy to read. Once again he enchants readers with a poignant and charming coming-of-age yarn about the power of the stories we tell ourselves. Hungry for permanent love and a hope that doesn’t disappoint, the precocious protagonist searches for signs while navigating early 1970s America, culling insights from sermons and songs, from comic books to classical movies. With a fertile mind and incredible imagination, he scans the cultural landscape for role models of masculinity and virtue: from Columbo to John Dean, from Wolfman Jack to Bob Newhart, reminding readers in the process of an earlier time Harris is so adept at resurrecting. Negotiating the deep mysteries of young love and the opposite sex, Luke’s riveting pilgrimage and fascinating psychological journey ultimately tells the tale of the beauty of reciprocity and the power of unconditional love. Growing up, like waking up, reminds us of the infinite value of what’s real and the courage it takes to risk vulnerability to experience it to the full.”

— David Baggett, Executive Editor

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September 11, 2019

Evil in the Book of Job

September 11, 2019/ Dave Sidnam

Job and His Friends by Ilya Repin (1869) — *Job and His Friends* by Ilya Repin (1869)

Job is an excellent, and terrifying, book, and through it we can learn much—if we have the fortitude to patiently endure its deeper lessons.

While there are many small lessons throughout the book, there are three main things I believe we should learn from Job:

1﷒ The righteous will suffer, and sometimes they will suffer because of their righteousness—just like our Savior.

2﷒ Even though Job was “blameless, upright, fearing God, and turning away from evil,” he still had faults that needed to be corrected.

3﷒ God cares enough about his children to perfect and prepare them for perfect fellowship in the ages to come.

Lesson 1: The Righteous Will Suffer

God brags about Job—wouldn’t it be awesome if the same could be said about us. And, as the first two chapters of Job make clear—he was in a right relationship with God. The author introduces him as one who was “blameless, upright, fearing God, and turning away from evil.” The Lord amplifies this when He speaks of Job saying, “there is no one like him on the earth, a blameless and upright man, fearing God and turning away from evil.” And to seal the deal, even The Satan (The Accuser) does not have anything to accuse Job of, he only has an assumption of what Job might be like given the right circumstances.

There should be no debate at this point in the story, Job was in a right relationship with God. And because of Job’s right relationship with Him, God supernaturally protected and blessed him. The Accuser complains that The Lord had built a hedge of protection around Job where he could not break through and wreak havoc; however, The Accuser was certain that if The Lord removed this protection, and if Job’s material blessings could be taken from him, that Job would “curse You to Your face.” In other words, The Satan accused Job of being righteous not because of his character—who he was, but only because of the good stuff God had given him—what he got. The accusation is: Job gave obedience only because he got good stuff from God.

Now comes the first terrifying part of the book—especially for those readers that are in a right relationship with God and that are living a somewhat comfortable life—God removes His protection from Job. With this, The Accuser is now free to bring about destruction in Job’s life and to test/prove the quality of his character. One important thing to remember at this point is that while Job was righteous he was not sinless. Later in the book Job will confess that neither he nor any other human who had lived to that point was sinless before God. Just as believers in Christ are in a right relationship with God while none of us are sinless, so it was with Job. Also, as we learn in Colossians, Job (like the rest of us) was born into the “domain of darkness” where the “god of this age” has significant freedom to inflict its inhabitants. The Lord’s hedge of protection about him was not something that Job earned but a grace gift that God freely bestowed upon him. God in His righteousness could have withheld all of these material blessings and Job’s life could have been filled with pain all along, but because of the free gift of God it was not.

In his first severe test Job understands this. After his properties and possessions and children are all taken from him Job responds,

         “Naked I came from my mother’s womb,
         And naked I shall return there.
         The LORD gave and the LORD has taken away.
         Blessed be the name of the LORD.”

Once The Accuser had his first restrained access to Job (The Lord still protected Job’s person), he violently removed all of the things that he believed accounted for Job’s righteous behavior. But as we just saw from Job’s amazing response, the first test only proved God’s point and Job’s character—Job was righteous and that there were none like him.

The next time The Accuser stands before The Lord, God again brags about his servant Job and highlights the fact that Job’s love for God was not based upon the material blessings He had given him. Not one to be dissuaded by the facts, however, The Accuser makes his next accusation: Job really only loves you because you have given him health, if that is removed he will “curse you to your face.” And with this, the second phase of Job’s testing begins.

The Accuser now is granted more access to Job (although still not unrestrained) and uses the opportunity to inflict Job with “sore boils from the sole of his foot to the crown of his head.” After inflicting this state of constant pain, The Accuser caps his attack against Job by using what should have been Job’s last source of comfort—his wife—against him. The Accuser incites Job’s wife to try to help bring about his prediction. In her pain, she tells Job to “Curse God and die!” But even through this extreme testing, “Job did not sin with his lips.” Job has withstood the examination and his righteous character has been fully tested and proven.

Now, if the main point of the story was to show Job’s faithfulness in passing the test, I would have expected the story to have immediately jumped to Job 42:10: “The LORD restored the fortunes of Job…,” but given the extra forty chapters between where we are and that point in the book, it looks as if the main point of the story is still to come. So while we will have to dive in deeply to get to the main point, we have already learned some important lessons.

First, we learned that this is the type of universe where, even though a perfect Judge sits as sovereign, the righteous can still suffer. If the story of Job is looked at in isolation, this is true but not very comforting. However, if we look at this story (as we should all of the Old Testament) as a pointer to Jesus in some way, then we can learn an important theological truth: If the sovereign, righteous God never allowed the righteous to suffer on the earth, then Jesus—the Righteous One—would not have been allowed to suffer and die in our place. Jesus was the only sinless person, the One who justly should never have experienced the suffering brought about by sin; however, He suffered extensively (in our place). The atonement requires innocent suffering and Job shows that this is possible. This is a profound lesson we need to learn from Job (and it is one Job’s friends needed to learn also).

Second, the book of Job doesn’t directly answer the question: Why do the innocent suffer?—and, there is no single answer. If it did, the best potential answer offered would be because God was bragging about them. If this was the main point, the story could have happily ended by pasting the end of chapter 42 onto the end of chapter 2. Also, I don’t believe that The Accuser tricked God into allowing Job to be tormented. While a simple reading may seem like The Satan got the best laugh when God said, “although you incited Me against him to ruin him without cause,” God’s omniscience—and the other forty chapters in the book—lead me to believe there is a deeper story. God allowed this initial test not only to prove Job’s character via a trial (which it did), but as we shall also see, this was just the first phase of the greater test that Job was about to face.

And this point leads us to the third lesson: Even though Job was in a right relationship with God, and he was proven through trial to be “a blameless and upright man, fearing God and turning away from evil,” Job still had a character flaw that needed to be purged. In the next article we will see that while he was righteous, Job had a defective theology and that this in combination with a character flaw would lead him to act foolishly, but only under certain circumstances.

Dave works in the software industry and has a background in both biology and computer science. He has interested in both of these areas, especially where they intersect. He holds a B.S. in Biological Sciences from UC Irvine, an M.S. in Computer Science from West Coast University, and an M.A. in Apologetics from Biola University.

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