This sermon was my final project for my preaching class in seminary school. In it, I explain Jeremiah 31 and answer rabbinical objections to it.
Jeremiah 31:31-34
Let’s go back in history to a time when ancient Israel was still around. God had made his covenant with Moses at Sinai. He promised that if Israel obeyed the commands of God, there would be blessings. Israel would be prosperous, and her enemies would be crushed underfoot. However, if Israel was disobedient, she would experience disease, plague, hunger, famine, and strife. Israel’s enemies would come in and harass, and kill God’s people. If they did not repent still, then they would be taken from the land.
There is a scene in Lord of the Rings, the heroes were shown a vision of what would happen if they failed to defeat their enemy Sauron. The innocent Hobbits would be made slaves to Sauron, with their villages burned and the survivors taken away in chains to the evil land of Mordor. That is precisely what happened to the Northern Kingdom of Israel. In 720 B.C. the Assyrians under Tiglath-Pilesar deported all the survivors to Assyrian enslavement. The Northern Kingdom was wiped out forever.
Fast forward about 120 years. The Kingdom of Judah has been threatened, first by the Assyrians, and now by the Babylonian Empire. Israel had already been besieged and attacked once by the Babylonians, who were threatening to do it again. The first stages of the exile to Babylon had begun. Daniel and his friends, for example, had already been taken to Babylon. It would be 70 years before they would be able to return from that exile. The current king of Judah, Zedekiah was about to rebel against Nebudchanezzar, the ruler of Babylon. If that happened, the Babylonians might completely annihilate Judah, the way the Assyrians did with the Northern Kingdom of Israel.
In this situation, Jeremiah rebukes Judah for her sinful and idolatrous ways. But then, he gives them hope. Jeremiah 29:11 “For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for peace and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope” comes in the middle of one of the darkest passages in Jeremiah. It is not a promise to us of prosperity. It is a promise that God’s people will survive, even though they will suffer agony and humiliation. They must remain hopeful even in their punishment.
Then, something even bigger happens in Jeremiah 31:31-34. The translation is my own.
Behold, the coming days, declares Yahweh. I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah. Not like the covenant that I make with their fathers in the day I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, a covenant which they broke. I was a husband to them, declares Yahweh. For this is the covenant which I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares Yahweh. I will put my law inside of them, and write it on their hearts. To them, I will become their God. To me, they will become my people. No man will again teach his neighbor or his brother saying know Yahweh. For all will know, from the least to the greatest declares Yahweh. For I will forgive their iniquities and their sins. I will remember them no more.
God is declaring that in the future, he will make a new covenant with both the living house of Judah and the dead house of Israel. It will be a different covenant than the one he made with Moses on Sinai. No matter how hard that the rabbis try to explain away this verse, they have to face the fact that God will make a new covenant beyond the one made at Sinai. This means that the Sinai covenant is not the last covenant that God made with his people.
God also declares that even though he was a husband to the people of Israel, they still broke his covenant. After God made the covenant with Moses on Sinai, Moses died and Joshua took the task of conquering the Promised Land for the sake of the God of Israel. For hundreds of years afterward, the nation was split into loosely aligned tribes, where judges ruled the families, clans, and tribes. During this period, the tribes would begin to worship idols, and God had to call a great judge to bring Israel back. Then, after a while, Israel would fall into apostasy again. This cycle happened over and over again. And as the cycle continued, it got worse and worse.
Then, one day, the people of Israel wanted unity. They wanted a king, just like all the other nations. God said “okay” to that, but then said that he would appoint the king over all of Israel. He chose Saul, who was at first a righteous king, but then started to disobey God, and tried to murder David. When Saul died, unrepentant, David took the throne. He was a man after God’s own heart, but even he fell into wickedness when he had an affair with Bathsheba, and then murdered her husband Uriah to cover it up. But David repented, and so God forgave him, and let David lead Israel into prosperity.
Then, David’s son Solomon came into power at the height of Israel’s glory. Solomon finished building the temple, and all the rulers from the surrounding lands came to Jerusalem to learn from Solomon’s great wisdom. But even Solomon took many pagan wives, and added idol worship to Israel.
After he died, the kingdom of Israel split into the Northern Kingdom of Israel, and the Southern Kingdom of Judah. The Northern Kingdom had 19 kings. Every single one of them, without exception, was an apostate. None of them were good in the eyes of Yahweh. Within only a few hundred years, the kingdom was invaded by the Assyrians, deported, and assimilated into the Assyrian culture.
In the Southern Kingdom of Judah, the record was a little bit better. Twenty kings ruled. Eight were righteous, and twelve were apostate. As a result, the Southern Kingdom of Judah lasted a while longer. But even the kingdom of Judah could not stave off its own apostasy. Righteous kings like Asa, Hezekiah, and Josiah were outnumbered by wicked kings like Manasseh and Zedekiah. The act of compromise, where the people of Judah were allowed to worship foreign gods in addition to Yahweh was becoming sealed into the culture. There was widespread ignorance of the law, for example, the time when Manasseh decided to bring back worship of Yahweh alone. The book of Chronicles states that people still offered sacrifices from the high places, but only to Yahweh, even though the Pentateuch strictly forbids such a practice.
It was a bit like the novel Dr. Jekyll and Mr, Hyde. In the novel, Dr. Henry Jekyll, tired of experiencing this inner conflict between his good and evil inclinations, develops a potion to separate the two. When he takes it, he turns into the wicked Mr. Edward Hyde, who was free to indulge in his wickedest fantasies without any feeling of guilt.
As time went on, Mr. Hyde began to take over Dr. Jekyll. Jekyll would fall asleep, and wake up as Mr. Hyde. Jekyll had to take more and more of the potion to maintain his identity, until he ran out. In his last few moments before turning into Hyde for the rest of his life, Jekyll writes his last letter. He says “God knows; I am careless; this is my true hour of death, and what is to follow concerns another than myself. Here then, as I lay down the pen and proceed to seal up my confession, I bring the life of that unhappy Henry Jekyll to an end.”
Like Dr. Jekyll, Israel’s whole history was one downward spiral. The prophets could see that like Jekyll, it would only be a matter of time before Judah would fall permanently into apostasy. Judah would never again be the mighty power that she was in the glory days under David, at least not under the old covenant. However, there was hope under the new covenant.
The author of Hebrews quotes this passage from Jeremiah in the 8th chapter. Jesus offers a better covenant than the one God made with Moses at Sinai. If the covenant with Moses had been perfect, there would be no need for another. Does this mean that there was something wrong with the first covenant? I think the answer is in this passage. The problem with this covenant is that the Israelites broke it. Since they did not have the regenerating power of the atonement of Jesus, and did not have the Holy Spirit writing the commands of God on their hearts, they failed to keep the covenant.
Jeremiah’s promise of a new covenant is a hotly disputed passage between Christians and Jews. The Rabbis insist that this passage has nothing to do with God offering a new covenant between himself, since the covenant at Sinai was meant to stand for all of time. The rabbis reject the interpretation of the author of Hebrews, because the passage states that the covenant will be made with the house of Israel and the house of Judah. It doesn’t mention throwing away the original covenant.
The law was written on the hearts of people like Abraham. The difference with this covenant is that it will be written on their hearts. Ezekiel 36:26-27 reads “And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules.” Clearly, this covenant is reaffirming the Old Testament law, and cannot be about abolishing things like the dietary laws, right? Deuteronomy 30 says that the people of Israel, once they return from exile, will return to upholding the same commandments.
The rabbis will also say that there is no way Jesus could have fulfilled this command because we need to teach each other about God, yet this passage states that we will not need to be told about God because they all shall know him!
Instead, they will say that Jeremiah 31 was fulfilled at the return from the Babylonian exile. The rabbis believe that the people of Judah were suffering for their own sins plus for the unatoned sins of their ancestors. The rabbis argue that the exile will bring atonement for the sins of the parents. That way, the returning generation can have a fresh start without any of the baggage of previous generations. They believe that the new covenant is a renewal, just as God renewed the covenant with Josiah and of Hezekiah, and even in Moab in Deuteronomy 29.
Whenever the people of Israel return to God, he makes a reaffirmed covenant with them. The people of Israel will understand why they are chosen, and their willingness to follow God will not be because of punishment or reward, but because of an internal identity. God said that his relationship with Israel is as fixed as the laws of nature.
So how strong are these arguments? Notice how none of these rabbinical objections address the central point of the passage. God said that he will give Israel a new covenant. Just in case you think it is just a reaffirmation of the original covenant, he goes on to say that this covenant is not like the one given at Sinai. I don’t see how God could be any clearer that this is not the Mosaic covenant.
Ezekiel 36 says nothing about a new covenant, nor does it say anything about people following the Mosaic Law. In order to interpret Ezekiel that way, you have to already assume that walking in God’s ways and obeying his laws is equivalent to following the commands of the Mosaic Law. In other words, it already assumes that there will not be a greater covenant. But this is what the rabbis are trying to prove!
There is an old ethical question: would you lie to the Nazis in order to save someone’s life. Most people say they would. But this does not mean that morality is relative. Instead, it means that there is a hierarchy of moral values and duties. When confronted with an ethical dilemma, you choose the greater good, and are released from lesser, conflicting obligations. Let’s apply this to the covenant. Does the fact that the New Covenant allows us to eat non-kosher foods mean that the old covenant has ceased to exist? Not at all. It just means that the new covenant is superior to the old one, and that by following the new covenant, you are released from the punishment of failing to uphold the old covenant.
What about the objection that we still need to teach each other about God? Well, think with me for a second. In the time of Jeremiah, how many people knew about the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob? Only the people of Judah, and perhaps a few merchants who traded with them. It was a very small percentage of the world’s population. Then, when Jesus died, rose again, and gave the Holy Spirit to his followers, something amazing happened. Knowledge of the God of Abraham started spreading, and for the first time in history, started spreading outside of Judaism, so that of the people who know of the God of Israel, Jews would be in the vast minority.
The task of world evangelism is shrinking rapidly. In the year 100, there were about 360 non-Christians to every practicing Christian. In the year 1000, that number dropped to 270. In the year 1500, it was 85. In the year 1900, there were only 21 non-Christians to every Christian. In 1970, it was down to 13. The most recent figures from 2010 set that number at only 7 non-Christians for every Christian. If Jeremiah were here in the modern world, he would be amazed at the number of people who know about the God of Israel. He would say something like: “This is amazing. In my day, no one outside Israel knew who God was. We always had to tell them about the great God who brought Moses out of Egypt. In this time, I do not even need to tell anyone about the God of Abraham, because everyone already knows who he is”
Nothing like this happened during Israel’s return from exile! They returned, as in Ezra and Nehemiah, and they built a new temple. There is nothing in the Bible to indicate any sort of a new covenant taking place during any time in the Old Testament. Furthermore, the exile did not bring about a fresh start for the people of Judah. Malachi is one of the last prophets, who lived after the exile, but his whole letter was a scathing rebuke to the people of Judah, who were still profaning the covenant and robbing God. Judah had not been healed, but was building up divine wrath against herself all over again.
Like the ancient nation of Israel, we all face a struggle between the good and evil inclinations. We know we cannot win on our own. Just like Israel, that internal fight between Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde rages on, and over time, we will slowly lose ground. This was the sad reality for Israel under the old covenant. They were losing the fight, and they were dying because of it. God responded by saying that he would make a new and different covenant, but not with the nations of Israel and Judah directly. Instead, he made the covenant with Jesus the Messiah, who acted as a representative of the two nations, like an ambassador or an Olympic athlete. Jesus made the covenant with God and obeyed the old Law perfectly, so that when he died, he received our sin, and we received his righteousness.
With the coming of the Holy Spirit in the book of Acts, the law of God is no longer “out there,” requiring legions of legal scholars to decode it. Instead, it is written in the conscience of each of us. Because we have the Holy Spirit, we have a personal relationship with Yahweh that we live out on a daily basis. And when we really listen to the Holy Spirit, he can instruct us in the ways of right and wrong.
This is different than the old covenant. Modern Rabbinical Judaism believes that true obedience and knowledge of God can only come through following a very detailed set of commandments. For example, according to the rabbis, Jews cannot eat milk and meat together. This means that if you eat milk, you have to cleanse the palate with water before eating meat. However, if you eat meat, you have to wait six hours before having any sort of dairy product, and you have to make sure your teeth to not have any remains of meat in them. If you have only one set of cookware, there is a whole plethora of regulations on what you can and cannot cook in them, as well as how to purify the set between using the cookware for dairy and for meat. Foods like chicken and fish are in a different category altogether, and have different laws that apply to them. This is why Orthodox Jews need to be in contact with a rabbi to deal with issues that take an entire lifetime to study.
Under the new covenant, that burden has been lifted. Even peasants in the third world, who do not have access to scholarship, and might not even be able to read, can still know the God of Israel through personal experience. They are not bound to the details of the law, where not doing the rituals properly makes them worthless. How much better is the good news of Romans 10:9. If you confess with your mouth “Jesus is Lord” and believe in your hearts God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.
That’s great for us, what about everyone else? It is great that we have the power of the Holy Spirit to overcome the Mr. Hyde in all of us. But Jesus did not just call us to focus on living holy and righteous lives. On the Simpsons TV show, the character Ned Flanders represents what happens to Christians who focus on personal piety to the expense of everything else. Flanders is sort of a stereotypical fundamentalist, who seeks very strongly to limit the influence of the non-Christian world on his life and the life of his family. As a result, his children grow up very sheltered and naïve.
As a result, he and his family are completely ineffective at making any real impact on the surrounding world. Yet this is not what we are called to do. We are not called to protect our children from apostasy at any price, and how dare we attempt to do so. We need to reach out and put not only our lives, but also our ideologies at risk in order to spread the Gospel.
Jerry Pipes and Victor Lee wrote the book Family to Family to help inspire Christian families to evangelize, not as individuals, but as a unit. I recommend reading this book. There are not many books on family evangelism out there. There are so many ways your family can help out others and spread the Gospel, even in your local communities.
Do you know your neighbors? Do you know who lives next-door and across the street? If not, how do you expect to have an influence on them? What are their needs? One family managed to spread the love of Christ simply by handing out batteries for their neighbors’ smoke detectors.
Also, evangelism usually requires asking interesting questions. I have found in my experience that non-Christians are actually pretty open to talking about spiritual matters so long as they are not lectured or bullied on the subject. As long as we keep a respectful tone and seek first to understand just what it is they believe before we share our faith. Otherwise, we are like doctors trying to sell someone a cure before we even hear about what disease they have.
In conclusion, then; because of the new covenant and the transforming power of the Holy Spirit, no longer does God have to endure a strained relationship with his nation, who is at times like Dr. Jekyll, and at times like Mr. Hyde. No, the atonement of Jesus broke that cycle and set us free from it, so that we can tell the world about his redemption and life-transforming power of Jesus. What are you doing to spread the Gospel to others?
Shalom Aleichem.
Sunday, August 12, 2012
Wednesday, July 25, 2012
How to Suck at Criticizing Religion
The Oatmeal is a very witty comic site, but the author, Matthew Inman, has been showing his true colors recently. After bashing Jerry Falwell, and defending war in the name of atheism, he now comes out with this whiny tirade comic called How to Suck at Your Religion.
Here is Inman's basic method.
1. Assume that all claims to supernatural revelation are either false or unjustified. This is really the most important of my points, and it is kind of necessary to make your sucky criticism work. It is important that your readers don't try substituting "political view" or "ethical ideology" for "religion." That would sort of ruin it.
2. Treat religious beliefs like personal preferences. This is related to point 1. It will make the task of treating religious leaders as maniacal tyrants much, much easier.
3. Never apply your criteria for religion to your own unbelief. It would make you look like a hypocrite.
4. Perpetuate myths about religion conflicting with science. Don't worry if they have no basis in reality.
5. Use silly terms to describe these religions. By poisoning the well this way, you can use your own sense of smug superiority to gloss over all the holes in your arguments.
Awesome. Now let's take a look at the comic strip.
What's really ironic is that this is from Matthew 7, where Jesus is condemning the Pharisees, not for judging, but for judging people unjustly. Like the Pharisees, Inman is judging Christians for having a splinter in the eye, while Inman has a plank in his.
Ahh. The ever-popular Galileo myth. Here is a short response, and a longer one. In short, Galileo's beliefs were not considered heresy. He developed arguments for Copernicus' heliocentric view while he was bankrolled by the Roman Catholic Church. His arguments were terrible and failed to convince anyone, including Tyco Brahe.
When Galileo's financial benefactors told him to quit wasting their money on developing these arguments, Galileo feigned compliance, and then secretly wrote a dialogue between himself and a foolish tyrant representing the Pope and then published it. After then lying about it to the inquisition, he was forced to recant and placed under house arrest. This seems like a light sentence, considering that Galileo committed massive fraud against the Pope.
Regarding stem cells, Inman's assertion is just as ridiculous. Stem cell research was never condemned by the Roman Catholic Church. Adult stem cell research has resulted in over 70 treatments, including leukemia. Embryonic stem cell research, which has been condemned by the Roman Catholic Church, has resulted in zero treatments, and for good reason. Embryonic stem cells, if used in these treatments, have an unacceptably high chance of causing malignant cancer and killing the patient. Adult stem cells do not carry this risk.
This is because religion is nothing more than imaginative speculation. Never mind that the religion of ancient Israel alone proclaimed that the universe had a beginning, in opposition to everyone else. Remember that if you place a comic about personal preferences like favorite colors next to a comic about life after death, it means that the latter is just as subjective as the former.
Instead, we need to let people believe whatever feels right to them. Obviously, no one would ever do this with physics, chemistry, biology, law, medicine, safety, or ethics.
But we can say this about religion because we have proof that divine revelation (which would provide real knowledge of this topic) is impossible, right?
If by "sexuality" Inman means "whatever turns you on sexually" one only need probe the Internet to realize the depth of our depravity there. Leviticus 18 seeks to place restrictions on this. The Bible places restrictions like not having sex with your mother, or your dog. Don't kill your infant children in a sacrifical ritual to pagan gods, such as Molech. These perverse sexual appetites were (and probably still are) so widespread that they had to be outlawed in order to be stopped. If Matthew Inman has a problem with this, then that really scares me.
Preaching so you could validate your own beliefs? Is this what Isaiah meant when he said Yahweh has bared his holy arm before the nations, that the ends of the earth shall see him? Is this what Jesus says in Luke 9, when he send out his apostles? Is this what Paul and Apollos were doing when they were arguing in the synagogues?
And is this what Matthew Inman is doing when he is trying to spread his beliefs about religion to us?
Oh, and that last panel would be hilarious to anyone who grew up in an ultra-orthodox family, especially in the Yiddish communities of Williamsburg. It is kind of hard to leave the fold when you are completely financially dependent upon them, and don't speak English. Considering his vitriol about forcing your religious views on your children, he does not seem consistent here.
This assumes that all religious views are equally insane. This might be true if we already assume that divine revelation is impossible, but isn't this comic supposed to be directed at religious people?
In other words, it is okay to affirm the silly, childish stuff that your religion practices, but don't you dare actually bring it into the serious, adult world of politics!
Way to caricature religion as mentally deranged. Again Inman assumes that religion is false.
If it turns out that Inman is wrong.
If it turns out that God is out there.
If it turns out that God revealed himself to humanity.
If it turns out that Jesus is who he said he was, and that the only way to God the Father is through him, why shouldn't we want to suffer and die, if it would advance that cause?
In other words, because your religion is obviously false, you shouldn't really believe it. The reality is that we are evolved primates on a dying planet with no God, no life after death, no objective meaning, no objective morality, and no free will. But if that is too depressing for you, it's okay to follow some noble lie, as long as it helps you get through your day. Carry on.
Here is Inman's basic method.
1. Assume that all claims to supernatural revelation are either false or unjustified. This is really the most important of my points, and it is kind of necessary to make your sucky criticism work. It is important that your readers don't try substituting "political view" or "ethical ideology" for "religion." That would sort of ruin it.
2. Treat religious beliefs like personal preferences. This is related to point 1. It will make the task of treating religious leaders as maniacal tyrants much, much easier.
3. Never apply your criteria for religion to your own unbelief. It would make you look like a hypocrite.
4. Perpetuate myths about religion conflicting with science. Don't worry if they have no basis in reality.
5. Use silly terms to describe these religions. By poisoning the well this way, you can use your own sense of smug superiority to gloss over all the holes in your arguments.
Awesome. Now let's take a look at the comic strip.
What's really ironic is that this is from Matthew 7, where Jesus is condemning the Pharisees, not for judging, but for judging people unjustly. Like the Pharisees, Inman is judging Christians for having a splinter in the eye, while Inman has a plank in his.
Ahh. The ever-popular Galileo myth. Here is a short response, and a longer one. In short, Galileo's beliefs were not considered heresy. He developed arguments for Copernicus' heliocentric view while he was bankrolled by the Roman Catholic Church. His arguments were terrible and failed to convince anyone, including Tyco Brahe.
When Galileo's financial benefactors told him to quit wasting their money on developing these arguments, Galileo feigned compliance, and then secretly wrote a dialogue between himself and a foolish tyrant representing the Pope and then published it. After then lying about it to the inquisition, he was forced to recant and placed under house arrest. This seems like a light sentence, considering that Galileo committed massive fraud against the Pope.
Regarding stem cells, Inman's assertion is just as ridiculous. Stem cell research was never condemned by the Roman Catholic Church. Adult stem cell research has resulted in over 70 treatments, including leukemia. Embryonic stem cell research, which has been condemned by the Roman Catholic Church, has resulted in zero treatments, and for good reason. Embryonic stem cells, if used in these treatments, have an unacceptably high chance of causing malignant cancer and killing the patient. Adult stem cells do not carry this risk.
This is because religion is nothing more than imaginative speculation. Never mind that the religion of ancient Israel alone proclaimed that the universe had a beginning, in opposition to everyone else. Remember that if you place a comic about personal preferences like favorite colors next to a comic about life after death, it means that the latter is just as subjective as the former.
Instead, we need to let people believe whatever feels right to them. Obviously, no one would ever do this with physics, chemistry, biology, law, medicine, safety, or ethics.
But we can say this about religion because we have proof that divine revelation (which would provide real knowledge of this topic) is impossible, right?
If by "sexuality" Inman means "whatever turns you on sexually" one only need probe the Internet to realize the depth of our depravity there. Leviticus 18 seeks to place restrictions on this. The Bible places restrictions like not having sex with your mother, or your dog. Don't kill your infant children in a sacrifical ritual to pagan gods, such as Molech. These perverse sexual appetites were (and probably still are) so widespread that they had to be outlawed in order to be stopped. If Matthew Inman has a problem with this, then that really scares me.
Preaching so you could validate your own beliefs? Is this what Isaiah meant when he said Yahweh has bared his holy arm before the nations, that the ends of the earth shall see him? Is this what Jesus says in Luke 9, when he send out his apostles? Is this what Paul and Apollos were doing when they were arguing in the synagogues?
And is this what Matthew Inman is doing when he is trying to spread his beliefs about religion to us?
Oh, and that last panel would be hilarious to anyone who grew up in an ultra-orthodox family, especially in the Yiddish communities of Williamsburg. It is kind of hard to leave the fold when you are completely financially dependent upon them, and don't speak English. Considering his vitriol about forcing your religious views on your children, he does not seem consistent here.
This assumes that all religious views are equally insane. This might be true if we already assume that divine revelation is impossible, but isn't this comic supposed to be directed at religious people?
In other words, it is okay to affirm the silly, childish stuff that your religion practices, but don't you dare actually bring it into the serious, adult world of politics!
Way to caricature religion as mentally deranged. Again Inman assumes that religion is false.
If it turns out that Inman is wrong.
If it turns out that God is out there.
If it turns out that God revealed himself to humanity.
If it turns out that Jesus is who he said he was, and that the only way to God the Father is through him, why shouldn't we want to suffer and die, if it would advance that cause?
In other words, because your religion is obviously false, you shouldn't really believe it. The reality is that we are evolved primates on a dying planet with no God, no life after death, no objective meaning, no objective morality, and no free will. But if that is too depressing for you, it's okay to follow some noble lie, as long as it helps you get through your day. Carry on.
Wednesday, June 20, 2012
Errors & Anachronisms in the Talmud: Dating of the Temples
http://ancienthistory.about.com/od/persiatimelines/qt/080909TimelineAncientPeria.htm
When studying Bava Batra again, I noticed something else. According to Rashi on page 3b, the second temple stood 420 years while the first temple stood 410 years. This dating system is derived from Seder Olam Rabbah, which was written in the second century. There is a problem: this dating system completely does not line up with outside sources. According to Olam Rabbah, 490 years passed between the destruction of the first and second temples. The Rabbbinical dating system is based on it.
Key anchor points for secular history are large battles, and changes of administration. A large battle that changes the course of an empire is a difficult event to get wrong, since it is so often confirmed by archaeology. Several key dates include:
The ancient Greek, Persian, and Babylonian records give multiple, independent attestation to these dates. They were written by independent sources, yet they confirm one another, which makes these dates part of the historical bedrock.
According to the New American Heritage Dictionary, the first Jerusalem Temple was finished in 957 BCE under King Solomon. According to Jeremiah 52 and 2 Kings 25, the temple was destroyed on the fifth month of the nineteenth year of King Nebuchadnezzar. This puts the destruction of the first temple to 586 BCE. The first temple stood for 371 years, not 410 years, as Rashi said. It also shows that 656 years passed between the destruction of the two temples, not 490 years as Olam Rabbah said.
The second temple was built under Zerubbabel. The event is recorded in the book of Ezra. Thanks to the fact that the book references outside rulers, it can be mapped on a timeline established by outside sources. In Ezra 6, Darius, ruler of Persia, made a decree to Tattenai, that he help the people of Judah rebuild the second temple. "They finished their building by decree of the God of Israel and by decree of Cyrus and Darius and Artaxerxes king of Persia; and this house was finished on the third day of the month of Adar, in the sixth year of the reign of Darius the king." (Ezra 6:14-15).
Since Darius came to power in 522 BCE, it means that the second temple was completely finished and dedicated by Ezra on 516 BCE, not 350 BCE, as the Rabbinical dating system states. Even if it was Darius the II, the sixth year of his reign was 418, not 350.
But still, the king Darius mentioned in this passage was Darius I, not Darius II. The key to proving it is Zerubbabel. He came back under the reign of king Cyrus. According to Ezra 3, in the second year after their return, Zerubbabel re-institutes the priesthood. In Ezra 4, Cyrus is still in power, and Zerubbabel is mentioned. Then, Darius becomes king, with Ahasuerus or Artaxerxes as a sub-regent. Zerubbabel is already an adult when Cyrus died in 530 BCE. Darius II did not come to power until 423 BCE, over 100 years later.
Another key piece of evidence for the sixth-century date is that archaeology gives support to it. Darius ordered the governor Tattenai to lay off his opposition to Ezra and his efforts to build the temple. According to Encyclopedia Britannica: "Tattenai is one of the few Persian officials mentioned in the Hebrew Bible for whom there is independent attestation; he is mentioned in a cuneiform tablet dated 502 BCE."
When studying Bava Batra again, I noticed something else. According to Rashi on page 3b, the second temple stood 420 years while the first temple stood 410 years. This dating system is derived from Seder Olam Rabbah, which was written in the second century. There is a problem: this dating system completely does not line up with outside sources. According to Olam Rabbah, 490 years passed between the destruction of the first and second temples. The Rabbbinical dating system is based on it.
Key anchor points for secular history are large battles, and changes of administration. A large battle that changes the course of an empire is a difficult event to get wrong, since it is so often confirmed by archaeology. Several key dates include:
- The ascension of King Nebuchadnezzar after the battle of Carchemish in 605 BCE.
- The downfall of Babylon after the Persian empire under Cyrus defeated the Babylonians at the battle of Opis at 540 BCE.
- The downfall of the Persian empire to Alexander the Great's forces at the battle of Gaugamela in 331 BCE.
The ancient Greek, Persian, and Babylonian records give multiple, independent attestation to these dates. They were written by independent sources, yet they confirm one another, which makes these dates part of the historical bedrock.
According to the New American Heritage Dictionary, the first Jerusalem Temple was finished in 957 BCE under King Solomon. According to Jeremiah 52 and 2 Kings 25, the temple was destroyed on the fifth month of the nineteenth year of King Nebuchadnezzar. This puts the destruction of the first temple to 586 BCE. The first temple stood for 371 years, not 410 years, as Rashi said. It also shows that 656 years passed between the destruction of the two temples, not 490 years as Olam Rabbah said.
The second temple was built under Zerubbabel. The event is recorded in the book of Ezra. Thanks to the fact that the book references outside rulers, it can be mapped on a timeline established by outside sources. In Ezra 6, Darius, ruler of Persia, made a decree to Tattenai, that he help the people of Judah rebuild the second temple. "They finished their building by decree of the God of Israel and by decree of Cyrus and Darius and Artaxerxes king of Persia; and this house was finished on the third day of the month of Adar, in the sixth year of the reign of Darius the king." (Ezra 6:14-15).
Since Darius came to power in 522 BCE, it means that the second temple was completely finished and dedicated by Ezra on 516 BCE, not 350 BCE, as the Rabbinical dating system states. Even if it was Darius the II, the sixth year of his reign was 418, not 350.
But still, the king Darius mentioned in this passage was Darius I, not Darius II. The key to proving it is Zerubbabel. He came back under the reign of king Cyrus. According to Ezra 3, in the second year after their return, Zerubbabel re-institutes the priesthood. In Ezra 4, Cyrus is still in power, and Zerubbabel is mentioned. Then, Darius becomes king, with Ahasuerus or Artaxerxes as a sub-regent. Zerubbabel is already an adult when Cyrus died in 530 BCE. Darius II did not come to power until 423 BCE, over 100 years later.
Another key piece of evidence for the sixth-century date is that archaeology gives support to it. Darius ordered the governor Tattenai to lay off his opposition to Ezra and his efforts to build the temple. According to Encyclopedia Britannica: "Tattenai is one of the few Persian officials mentioned in the Hebrew Bible for whom there is independent attestation; he is mentioned in a cuneiform tablet dated 502 BCE."
Wednesday, May 30, 2012
The Incoherence of Compatibilism
One disturbing trend I have found within Christendom is what I call the "New Calvinism." Advocates of this view, such as James White, believe that all human behavior is determined, meaning that no one has a will autonomous of God's will. They also believe that we have free choice, and that determinism is compatible with free will. I find this trend very disturbing, and I want to see it stopped. Here is an argument against compatibilism, based on an argument by Peter Van Inwagen. However, this version of the argument avoids the flaws found in earlier editions of Inwagen's argument, and thus improves upon it. First, let's begin by defining two things.
Free choice: Something is a free choice if it is up to us. If some fact is up to us, we have the ability to render it false. For example, the fact "Drew is wearing a white shirt" is up to me because I can render it false (such as, by taking it off).
Entailment: The relationship between two sentences where the truth of one (X) requires the truth of the other (Y). If X entails Y, then if X is true, Y must be true. If Y is false, X must be false.
Theistic Determinism: The idea that all things are determined by the decree of God. The divine decree entails all facts.
Now on to the argument:
If theistic determinism is true, then here are the following implications:
1. The eternal decree of God is not up to us.
2. The fact that the eternal decree of God entails all future facts is not up to us.
The theistic determinist would gladly assent to these two premises. To them, God's will is autonomous, and ours is not. This leads us to premise 3 of my argument.
3. If some fact X is not up to us, and X entails some fact Y, then Y is not up to us.
or stated more simply:
3'. If something is not up to us, anything it entails is not up to us.
which means:
3''. If we cannot render a certain fact false, then we cannot render something that the fact entails false.
From premises 1, 2, and 3 we get:
4. No future facts are up to us.
But Compatibilism states:
5. There are future facts entailed by the eternal decree of God that are up to us.
Therefore
6. Compatibilism is false.
Premise 3 is to say that if we cannot render some fact X false, and X entails Y, then we cannot render Y false (modus ponens). This is logically equivalent to saying that if we can render Y false, then we can render X false (modus tollens).
Let's plug in some examples to illustrate this point.
If the fact that the sun is yellow is not up to us, and the fact that the sun is yellow entails the fact that the sun has a color, then the fact that the sun has a color is not up to us. Or stated more simply,
If the fact that the sun is yellow is not up to us, then the fact that the sun has a color is not up to us.
or
If the fact that President Lincoln was assassinated was not up to us, then the fact that President Lincoln was killed was not up to us.
or
If the fact that the moon orbits the Earth is not up to us, then the fact that something orbits the Earth is not up to us.
Premise 3 should seem obviously true, yet I have discussed this with compatibilists who think it is false. So are there any additional arguments we can make for this premise? Well, let's assume that the premise is false.
Let's assume there is some fact X that is not up to us, and X entails some fact Y, but Y is up to us.
we could restate this as:
Some fact Y is up to us, X entails Y, but X is not up to us.
which means:
We can render some fact Y false, X entails Y, but we cannot render X false.
This is to say that X entails Y, and Y is false while X is true, which is a contradiction.
Here is an example to illustrate, the fact that you are wearing a shirt entails the fact that you are not naked. If premise 3 is false, it would lead to situations where you could be naked but not shirtless (for example). This is incoherent. If the fact that you are wearing a shirt entails that you are not naked, then you cannot be both naked and wearing a shirt.
If premise 3 is false, it leads to a contradiction. Therefore, Premise 3 cannot be false.
And hence, compatibilism is false.
Monday, May 14, 2012
Answering Shmuley Boteach: Did Paul Dupe the Apostles?
In his new book Kosher Jesus, Shmuley Boteach argues that Jesus died and was buried. The Jesus movement was on its last legs, until Paul came on the scene, preaching some new crackpot revelation about Jesus.
In defiance of their teacher's own words, Paul preaches a total break from all the Torah's principles. More and more gentiles embrace the new belief-based religion. As much as the old disciples would like to distance themselves from the stranger's new ways, they find they cannot. He has brought new life to their dying movement, injecting new blood and new funds. The rabbi's disciples have long suffered in extreme poverty, and the Roman converts come with gold.
When I was reading through a book on evangelism by Earley & Wheeler, I noticed a passage about the martyrdom of Jesus' apostles.
Stephen was stoned to death about AD 34. James, the brother of John, was beheaded about AD 44. Philip was scourged, thrown into prison, and afterwards crucified about AD 54. Matthew suffered martyrdom by the sword about AD 60. James, the brother of Jesus, was beaten, stoned, and had his brains bashed out with a club. Matthias was stoned at Jerusalem and then beheaded. Andrew was arrested and crucified on a cross, two ends of which were fixed transversely in the ground. Mark was dragged to pieces by people of Alexandria in front of Serapis, their pagan idol. Peter was crucified upside down. Paul gave his neck to the sword (about 64). Barthomew was beaten and crucified in India. Thomas was thrust through with a spear by pagan priests. Luke was hanged on an olive tree in Greece. Jude, the half brother of Jesus, was crucified in Edessa in about AD 72.
If the original disciples were willing to lie about their master's fate and embrace some new teaching by Paul because of material gain, at what point would they have realized this wasn't working? Early Christianity was a very dangerous religion to embrace. Once it ceased to be recognized by the Roman government as a branch of the protected religion of Judaism, the persecutions and mass executions began, and did not stop until shortly after the year 300.
The time from the earliest apostle's martyrdom to the last is about 40 years. Generally, conspiracies only last until a key member is caught and interrogated. Martyrdom, on the other hand, is a sign that the martyrs believe what they are dying for. Liars make terrible martyrs. However, the disciples of Jesus, on Shmuley's account, knew Paul's gospel was a lie and preached it anyway.
How then do you explain this willingness of the apostles to die for this faith? I would expect that at least one of these apostles would have admitted the scandal to save his life. It would be quite profitable for an apostle to save his life by turning on the early church and exposing the fraud to the Romans who wanted to wipe out Christianity.
But of course, this is Shmuley's work. You didn't think he would let something like plausibility get in the way of a good story, did you?
Thursday, March 29, 2012
Why I Do Not Believe In Original Sin
Introduction
One of the key doctrines of Western Christianity is called "original sin," or sometimes "inherited sin." Basically this is the idea that when Adam and Eve rebelled against God, it made human nature sinful. But that's not all. According to the doctrine, everyone who descends from Adam and Eve, (that would be you and me) are born guilty of Adam's sin.
Disclaimer
I would like to begin with a disclaimer. Most arguments, particularly the Rabbinical arguments against original sin seek to undermine the need for Jesus to die in your place. The doctrine is called substitutionary atonement. I believe strongly in substitutionary atonement for the following reason: Justice is giving others what they deserve. Mercy is giving others better than they deserve. How can God have ultimate mercy and ultimate justice simultaneously? The cross. When we sin against God, he must exact punishment for those sins in order to avoid being unjust. A just God cannot let sin go unpunished, for that would be unjust. How then can we avoid the punishment due to us? By trusting in the sinless lamb, Jesus, to accept that punishment for our sins. We need not be born win a sin nature in order to require substitutionary atonement.
Calvinist theologians in particular, such as Wayne Grudem, argue that a plain reading of Scripture, and especially Paul's letter to the Romans, pretty much entails the doctrine of inherited sin. That is why both Roman Catholic and Reformed Protestant theologians agree that we inherit Adam's sin. Both groups are full of hot air.
Arguments for Inherited Sin
The main argument for inherited sin comes from Romans 5:12-21.
Sounds pretty convincing, doesn't it? Advocates for inherited sin argue that "all sinned" uses an aorist form of the verb, which usually indicates a completed action in the past. Clearly, at the time Paul was writing, not everyone had committed sinful actions. Many had not been born, and others had died in infancy.
The passage also says that many were made sinners. This is also an aorist form. Wayne Grudem argues that we were regarded as sinners even before we were born. Grudem reinforces this with Romans 5:8.
Many prooftexts for inherited sin come from the Tanakh. Examples include passages from the Psalms.
But do any of these passages really imply inherited sin?
Answering These Arguments
Take the Tanakh passages. If the Tanakh was as filled with support for inherited sin as Grudem would believe, one would expect the Rabbis or at least the Karaite groups to have inherited guilt in their doctrines. But the truth is, inherited sin is just about completely absent from any form of Jewish theology, as well as Eastern Orthodox theology.
So the question is: do these groups have alternate interpretations of these questionable verses? The answer is: you bet.
Psalm 51 is a lament by David after his crime against Bathsheba. The psalm is filled with metaphorical language, such as "cleanse me with hyssop" and "let the bones that you have broken rejoice" and "the secret heart" and "open my lips" and "the sacrifices of God and "build up the walls of Jerusalem." This is a very bad passage to try to draw literal theological truths. David is basically saying "I am so horrible, that I was a murderer before I was born." This is called hyperbole, and the Psalms are filled with them.
According to Ibn Ezra, this verse is simply telling us that Eve did not have children until after she sinned. Jewish polemicists have also used this verse as a polemic against the incarnation of Jesus. They argued that if all creatures born of a woman are inflicted with the guilt of Adam, then Jesus, who was born of a woman as well, was also inflicted with inherited sin. More about this later.
Psalm 14 is easier to understand once you realize that "they" is not some unqualified universal, addressing all of humanity. Instead, this verse is only addressing the king and armies of Babylon. The last verse in the passage is calling God to restore שְׁב֣וּת עַמֹּ֑ו his captive people. The verse is about the Babylonian captivity. The verse: "There is no one who does good, not even one" refers to the fact that none of the soldiers did the right thing, which is to protest the wickedness of the Babylonian king.
Pelagius had a similar view on this verse. He said that this is referring to the fool. If no one does good, in what sense does David later on accuse those who devour his people and ruin the plan of the needy. For they were not God's people if they did not do good. And besides, they are called a righteous generation.
What about Romans 5? Both the word for "sinned" and "made sinners" are in the same aorist tense. The aorist tenses is this broad, general aspect, such as we see in Romans 3:23.
In all of these cases, Paul is making this general statement. The event is not punctiliar, that is, an event that occurs in a specific point in time. Romans 3:23 is clearly referring to people who commit past, present, and future sins. It is aorist, and yet is not referring to a completed action in the past.
What about those who die in infancy? Consider the following passages about salvation.
Was everyone in the Roman church buried with Jesus? Will those who die infancy, and who cannot repent perish as well? Those who die in infancy cannot form these kinds of theological beliefs. Will they die in their sins? If these “we” and “all” verses do not apply to those who die in infancy or to future people, then it seems rather inconsistent to demand this of Romans 5:8. Also regarding that verse, the context of Romans 5:8 is about the love of Jesus. He loved his people so much that he was willing to die for the wicked. The verse has nothing to do with whether or not the younger members of his congregation pre-existed their own conception so that they could have properties such as sinfulness during the crucifixion. That is simply to take the verse out of context.
Problems with Inherited Sin
Inherited sin is so problematic that it has become the subject of Jewish polemics during the middle ages. Deuteronomy 24:16 states:
Inherited sin has philosophical problems, which he addressed in his book Responsibility and Atonement. Swinburne argues as a philosopher regarding what it means to have guilt. Agents (that would be us) acquire guilt when they do wrong. Objective guilt is a failure to fulfill moral obligations. Subjective guilt is when someone intentionally does wrong. Shame is regret for having done an action, regardless of the consequences of the action.
For example, breaking someone else's vase bring objective guilt, regardless of whether you intended to or not. Trying to break someone's vase brings on subjective guilt, regardless of whether you succeed or not. Regret for breaking someone's vase is shame, regardless of whether the act was right or wrong. Swinburne then gives examples.
Swinburne then argues that we can acquire merit and guilt for the actions of others, but only when we have an obligation regarding their behavior. We only have an obligation regarding their behavior when we can influence it in some way. This is why parents can acquire guilt for the bad behavior of their children. But regarding Adam's sin, Swinburne concludes that we cannot possibly be guilty of the sinful act of Adam, who we could not have possibly influenced. The idea that later generations bear the guilt of earlier generations runs completely opposite of our notions of guilt and blame.
Ancestral Sin
John Romanides, a theologian of the Eastern Orthodox church, offers a different approach. He said that Paul affirmed that all of God's creation is good, but fallen. Not just man, but all of creation has been corrupted as a result of Adam's sin. All of creation longs for redemption.
The Bible affirms as well that Satan is the ruler of this world. When Satan offered Jesus the kingdoms of the world in exchange for worship, Jesus did not challenge that Satan lacked the authority to do this. Jesus knew this was a legitimate offer because the kingdoms of the world belong to him. Satan uses death and our fear of death in order to create an environment in which he can control us.
The Stanford Prison Experiement
This can be illustrated by the Stanford Prison Experiment. In this experiment, psychologists wanted to answer the quesiton: "just how much do our living conditions affect our behavior?" The experimenters selected randomly from a pool of candidates which individuals would play the role of “guard” and which would play the role of “prisoner.” The “guards” were free, but had to maintain the facility. The “inmates” were simply to cope with their environment.
The experiment had to be called off in six days due to the emotional condition of the “prisoners.” The researchers concluded that the prisoners and guards took on their roles with such force that they identified with them. The prisoners became very passive and depressed, while the guards became very controlling.
This is like the world in which we live. It is like a Stanford Prison but with Satan controlling the environment. Considering that these adults in the Stanford Prison experiment underwent such drastic change in only six days, imagine what a mastermind like Satan could do if he had that kind of power over an entire global civilization for thousands of years. That, I believe, is why we do not need an inherited corrupt nature in order to explain why we sin early and often.
Romans 5 Redux
Back to Romans 5. How do we answer the idea in Romans 5:12 that "just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned"? We look to the Greek. The term "because all sinned" is a bit of a mistranslation. Most Greek scholars have now accepted the traditional Eastern Orthodox translation of ἐφ' ᾧ πάντες ἥμαρτον: "on the basis of which all sinned." Death spread to all men on the basis of which all sinned. We do not die because we sin. We sin because we die. Satan uses human mortality and our survival instinct as a weapon against us. He knows our mortality gives us a tendency toward paranoia and to hoard rather than to share. And it is because of the resurrection of Jesus that we all have hope of being raised from the dead. This understanding that death is not the end, but only a temporary state until we are raised bodily, helps us to face our mortality with far greater courage. The sting of death is gone, thanks to resurrection.
1 Corinthians 15 Echoes Romans 5
Paul echoes this view in 1 Corinthians 15:21-22. “For as by a man came death, by a man has come also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive.” The context of the passage speaks only of physical death and physical resurrection. Spiritual death has no part in this chapter, and is not part of the context of this verse. Also, “The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law.” It is death that causes such overwhelming sin, and the law that reveals it.
Additional Benefits of the Doctrine of Ancestral Sin
Gregory of Nyssa said "That which God had not assumed, he had not redeemed." This was in regard to why God had to take on a human nature in the first place instead of just declaring humanity redeemed. This leads to the following argument:
1. If Jesus did not have the same human nature that we have, then he did not redeem the same human nature that we have.
2. If Jesus lacked the original sin that we (supposedly) possess, then he did not have the same human nature that we have.
3. Jesus did not have original sin.
Conclusion: If we possess original sin, Jesus did not redeem us.
Jesus seemed to have the same human nature we had. He felt pain and hunger, as well as sickness and even death. Since according to 1 Corinthians 15, the first human Adam was created immortal, but Jesus was born mortal, it appears that Jesus suffered the effects of Adam's fall. On what consistent basis can you believe that Jesus suffered the mortality of Adam's fall, but not the original sin of that fall? that seems arbitrary.
If humanity inherited original sin, then how did Jesus manage to descend from the line of King David without inheriting that original sin? You might think that the virgin birth solves it. But even the Calvinist theologian Millard Erickson acknowledges that it does not.
In other words, the virgin birth defense seems to imply that original sin is inherited either from the father or from the act of sex. There is no biblical support for either one of these views.
Finally, ancestral Sin deals with the problem of those who die in infancy. Can they go to heaven? The classic Roman Catholic doctrine states that unbaptized infants cannot go to heaven, because baptism is needed to remove original sin. Pelagius found a major flaw with this view. He said that if baptism removes original sin, those who have been born to two baptized parents should not have this sin, as they could not have passed to their children what they themselves did not possess.
The doctrine of ancestral sin solves all of these problems.
Conclusion
Ancestral sin is a viable alternative to inherited sin. While advocates such as Wayne Grudem argue that an honest reading of Scripture in general and Romans 5 in particular entails belief in inherited sin, there are numerous viable alternatives. In fact, a literal reading of Romans 5:12 does not support Augustine’s view of inherited sin, but the Eastern Orthodox view of ancestral sin. All sinned on the basis of death. While the sin of Adam brought death into the world, it is the spreading of death to all which ensured that all sinned. One might object that infants had not actually sinned, but such an interpretation of “all” is simply too rigid. Forcing “all” to function as an unqualified universal unless specifically indicated otherwise would lead to contradictions in Scripture.
The Tanakh passages as well, despite being advanced as proof of inherited sin, have hardly convinced the Jewish groups of such a doctrine. Indeed, there are alternative interpretations of such verses. Psalm 51 may very well be hyperbolic, and not meant to be taken literally. Psalm 14 does not establish inherited guilt even if the “no one” is taken as an unqualified absolute. Even so, there are good reasons to believe that the wicked ones to which the psalm refers are the Babylonian conquerors and not the universal scope of humanity.
Philosophically, ancestral sin better fits the common sense interpretations of guilt in a way that inherited sin does not. Ancestral sin also makes sense of the amount of evil in this world. One need not posit a change in the moral status of human nature in order to explain why people sin early and often. Since psychological experiments have shown that human habits are highly subject to environmental conditioning, an environment controlled by Satan would lead to tremendous wickedness. Since Satan is the ruler of this world, it seems no surprise that the world is evil.
Ancestral sin also avoids the philosophical problems with inherited sin. Guilt is generally understood as a failure to follow a moral obligation. While people can be guilty for the actions of others, this is only when the guilty person could have otherwise influenced those actions. It is inconsistent with this notion to think that Adam’s descendants could bear any guilt, legal or otherwise, for the actions of Adam.
Objections to ancestral sin appear sparsely in the theological literature. Authors such as Henri Blocher seem to take as axiomatic the idea that because Adam’s sin led to death, the sins of all people led to the physical death of all people. This is far from obvious. Ancestral sin needs to be taken as a viable option in Protestant theological literature, since it appears consistent with Scripture and avoids the philosophical problems present in the doctrine of inherited guilt.
Also, Pelagius's commentary on Romans is now available online:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1z0z1WvscKkkGr7nX-p5vj7DRYUSmhs4Csfm0aF_RsyY/edit?pli=1
The video discusses this article on Ancestral sin by John Romanides: http://www.romanity.org/htm/rom.10.en.original_sin_according_to_st._paul.01.htm
J.P. Holding has a great video on the subject as well, and has a different take on the issue:
One of the key doctrines of Western Christianity is called "original sin," or sometimes "inherited sin." Basically this is the idea that when Adam and Eve rebelled against God, it made human nature sinful. But that's not all. According to the doctrine, everyone who descends from Adam and Eve, (that would be you and me) are born guilty of Adam's sin.
Disclaimer
I would like to begin with a disclaimer. Most arguments, particularly the Rabbinical arguments against original sin seek to undermine the need for Jesus to die in your place. The doctrine is called substitutionary atonement. I believe strongly in substitutionary atonement for the following reason: Justice is giving others what they deserve. Mercy is giving others better than they deserve. How can God have ultimate mercy and ultimate justice simultaneously? The cross. When we sin against God, he must exact punishment for those sins in order to avoid being unjust. A just God cannot let sin go unpunished, for that would be unjust. How then can we avoid the punishment due to us? By trusting in the sinless lamb, Jesus, to accept that punishment for our sins. We need not be born win a sin nature in order to require substitutionary atonement.
Calvinist theologians in particular, such as Wayne Grudem, argue that a plain reading of Scripture, and especially Paul's letter to the Romans, pretty much entails the doctrine of inherited sin. That is why both Roman Catholic and Reformed Protestant theologians agree that we inherit Adam's sin. Both groups are full of hot air.
Arguments for Inherited Sin
The main argument for inherited sin comes from Romans 5:12-21.
Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned—for sin indeed was in the world before the law was given, but sin is not counted where there is no law. Yet death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over those whose sinning was not like the transgression of Adam, who was a type of the one who was to come.
But the free gift is not like the trespass. For if many died through one man's trespass, much more have the grace of God and the free gift by the grace of that one man Jesus the Messiah abounded for many. And the free gift is not like the result of that one man's sin. For the judgment following one trespass brought condemnation, but the free gift following many trespasses brought justification. For if, because of one man's trespass, death reigned through that one man, much more will those who receive the abundance of grace and the free gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man Jesus the Messiah.
Therefore, as one trespass led to condemnation for all men, so one act of righteousness leads to justification and life for all men. For as by the one man's disobedience the many were made sinners, so by the one man's obedience the many will be made righteous. Now the law came in to increase the trespass, but where sin increased, grace abounded all the more, so that, as sin reigned in death, grace also might reign through righteousness leading to eternal life through Jesus the Messiah our Lord.
(Romans 5:12-21 ESV)
Sounds pretty convincing, doesn't it? Advocates for inherited sin argue that "all sinned" uses an aorist form of the verb, which usually indicates a completed action in the past. Clearly, at the time Paul was writing, not everyone had committed sinful actions. Many had not been born, and others had died in infancy.
The passage also says that many were made sinners. This is also an aorist form. Wayne Grudem argues that we were regarded as sinners even before we were born. Grudem reinforces this with Romans 5:8.
but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Messiah died for us.
(Romans 5:8 ESV)
Many prooftexts for inherited sin come from the Tanakh. Examples include passages from the Psalms.
Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity,
and in sin did my mother conceive me.
(Psalm 51:5 ESV)
They have all turned aside; together they have become corrupt;If David was sinful from his conception, it would seem to be a strong case for inherited guilt. If all are fallen and there is no one who does good, it would also seem to support original corruption.
there is none who does good,
not even one.
(Psalm 14:3 ESV)
But do any of these passages really imply inherited sin?
Answering These Arguments
Take the Tanakh passages. If the Tanakh was as filled with support for inherited sin as Grudem would believe, one would expect the Rabbis or at least the Karaite groups to have inherited guilt in their doctrines. But the truth is, inherited sin is just about completely absent from any form of Jewish theology, as well as Eastern Orthodox theology.
So the question is: do these groups have alternate interpretations of these questionable verses? The answer is: you bet.
Psalm 51 is a lament by David after his crime against Bathsheba. The psalm is filled with metaphorical language, such as "cleanse me with hyssop" and "let the bones that you have broken rejoice" and "the secret heart" and "open my lips" and "the sacrifices of God and "build up the walls of Jerusalem." This is a very bad passage to try to draw literal theological truths. David is basically saying "I am so horrible, that I was a murderer before I was born." This is called hyperbole, and the Psalms are filled with them.
According to Ibn Ezra, this verse is simply telling us that Eve did not have children until after she sinned. Jewish polemicists have also used this verse as a polemic against the incarnation of Jesus. They argued that if all creatures born of a woman are inflicted with the guilt of Adam, then Jesus, who was born of a woman as well, was also inflicted with inherited sin. More about this later.
Psalm 14 is easier to understand once you realize that "they" is not some unqualified universal, addressing all of humanity. Instead, this verse is only addressing the king and armies of Babylon. The last verse in the passage is calling God to restore שְׁב֣וּת עַמֹּ֑ו his captive people. The verse is about the Babylonian captivity. The verse: "There is no one who does good, not even one" refers to the fact that none of the soldiers did the right thing, which is to protest the wickedness of the Babylonian king.
Pelagius had a similar view on this verse. He said that this is referring to the fool. If no one does good, in what sense does David later on accuse those who devour his people and ruin the plan of the needy. For they were not God's people if they did not do good. And besides, they are called a righteous generation.
What about Romans 5? Both the word for "sinned" and "made sinners" are in the same aorist tense. The aorist tenses is this broad, general aspect, such as we see in Romans 3:23.
for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,
(Romans 3:23 ESV)
In all of these cases, Paul is making this general statement. The event is not punctiliar, that is, an event that occurs in a specific point in time. Romans 3:23 is clearly referring to people who commit past, present, and future sins. It is aorist, and yet is not referring to a completed action in the past.
What about those who die in infancy? Consider the following passages about salvation.
Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. (John 3:5)
"but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish." (Luke 13:3)
"I told you that you would die in your sins, for unless you believe that I am he you will die in your sins" (John 8:24)
"We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Messiah was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life." (Romans 6:4)
Was everyone in the Roman church buried with Jesus? Will those who die infancy, and who cannot repent perish as well? Those who die in infancy cannot form these kinds of theological beliefs. Will they die in their sins? If these “we” and “all” verses do not apply to those who die in infancy or to future people, then it seems rather inconsistent to demand this of Romans 5:8. Also regarding that verse, the context of Romans 5:8 is about the love of Jesus. He loved his people so much that he was willing to die for the wicked. The verse has nothing to do with whether or not the younger members of his congregation pre-existed their own conception so that they could have properties such as sinfulness during the crucifixion. That is simply to take the verse out of context.
Problems with Inherited Sin
Inherited sin is so problematic that it has become the subject of Jewish polemics during the middle ages. Deuteronomy 24:16 states:
Fathers shall not be put to death because of their children, nor shall children be put to death because of their fathers. Each one shall be put to death for his own sin. (Deuteronomy 24:16)They also draw support from Ezekiel 18.
The word of the LORD came to me: “What do you mean by repeating this proverb concerning the land of Israel, ‘The fathers have eaten sour grapes, and the children's teeth are set on edge’? As I live, declares the Lord GOD, this proverb shall no more be used by you in Israel. Behold, all souls are mine; the soul of the father as well as the soul of the son is mine: the soul who sins shall die.(Ezekiel 18:1-4 ESV)The Bible condemns punishing children for the sins of their ancestors. We do not receive guilt or punishment for the sins of Adam. As a side note, this verse has nothing to do with substitutionary atonement, because Jesus volunteered to take our punishment. Ezekiel instead is refuting the idea that Israel is righteous, but that God is punishing the Israelites against their will because of the sins of their ancestors.
Inherited sin has philosophical problems, which he addressed in his book Responsibility and Atonement. Swinburne argues as a philosopher regarding what it means to have guilt. Agents (that would be us) acquire guilt when they do wrong. Objective guilt is a failure to fulfill moral obligations. Subjective guilt is when someone intentionally does wrong. Shame is regret for having done an action, regardless of the consequences of the action.
For example, breaking someone else's vase bring objective guilt, regardless of whether you intended to or not. Trying to break someone's vase brings on subjective guilt, regardless of whether you succeed or not. Regret for breaking someone's vase is shame, regardless of whether the act was right or wrong. Swinburne then gives examples.
To say that someone is morally guilty is not just to say that he has failed in the past. For if I fail in an obligation, I don’t just do a wrong, I do a wrong to someone. If I promise you that I will give a lecture and then don’t turn up, or if I kick you in a fit of anger, I have done a wrong to you. By hurting you, I put myself in a moral situation somewhat like the legal situation of a debtor who owes money. The wrong needs righting. There is an obligation to do something like repaying. But the morally guilty man is not merely one who has acquired certain obligations. He has also acquired a present status something like being unclean.
Swinburne then argues that we can acquire merit and guilt for the actions of others, but only when we have an obligation regarding their behavior. We only have an obligation regarding their behavior when we can influence it in some way. This is why parents can acquire guilt for the bad behavior of their children. But regarding Adam's sin, Swinburne concludes that we cannot possibly be guilty of the sinful act of Adam, who we could not have possibly influenced. The idea that later generations bear the guilt of earlier generations runs completely opposite of our notions of guilt and blame.
Ancestral Sin
John Romanides, a theologian of the Eastern Orthodox church, offers a different approach. He said that Paul affirmed that all of God's creation is good, but fallen. Not just man, but all of creation has been corrupted as a result of Adam's sin. All of creation longs for redemption.
For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God. For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now. And not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. (Romans 8:19-23 ESV)
The Bible affirms as well that Satan is the ruler of this world. When Satan offered Jesus the kingdoms of the world in exchange for worship, Jesus did not challenge that Satan lacked the authority to do this. Jesus knew this was a legitimate offer because the kingdoms of the world belong to him. Satan uses death and our fear of death in order to create an environment in which he can control us.
The Stanford Prison Experiement
This can be illustrated by the Stanford Prison Experiment. In this experiment, psychologists wanted to answer the quesiton: "just how much do our living conditions affect our behavior?" The experimenters selected randomly from a pool of candidates which individuals would play the role of “guard” and which would play the role of “prisoner.” The “guards” were free, but had to maintain the facility. The “inmates” were simply to cope with their environment.
The experiment had to be called off in six days due to the emotional condition of the “prisoners.” The researchers concluded that the prisoners and guards took on their roles with such force that they identified with them. The prisoners became very passive and depressed, while the guards became very controlling.
This is like the world in which we live. It is like a Stanford Prison but with Satan controlling the environment. Considering that these adults in the Stanford Prison experiment underwent such drastic change in only six days, imagine what a mastermind like Satan could do if he had that kind of power over an entire global civilization for thousands of years. That, I believe, is why we do not need an inherited corrupt nature in order to explain why we sin early and often.
Romans 5 Redux
Back to Romans 5. How do we answer the idea in Romans 5:12 that "just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned"? We look to the Greek. The term "because all sinned" is a bit of a mistranslation. Most Greek scholars have now accepted the traditional Eastern Orthodox translation of ἐφ' ᾧ πάντες ἥμαρτον: "on the basis of which all sinned." Death spread to all men on the basis of which all sinned. We do not die because we sin. We sin because we die. Satan uses human mortality and our survival instinct as a weapon against us. He knows our mortality gives us a tendency toward paranoia and to hoard rather than to share. And it is because of the resurrection of Jesus that we all have hope of being raised from the dead. This understanding that death is not the end, but only a temporary state until we are raised bodily, helps us to face our mortality with far greater courage. The sting of death is gone, thanks to resurrection.
1 Corinthians 15 Echoes Romans 5
Paul echoes this view in 1 Corinthians 15:21-22. “For as by a man came death, by a man has come also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive.” The context of the passage speaks only of physical death and physical resurrection. Spiritual death has no part in this chapter, and is not part of the context of this verse. Also, “The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law.” It is death that causes such overwhelming sin, and the law that reveals it.
Additional Benefits of the Doctrine of Ancestral Sin
Gregory of Nyssa said "That which God had not assumed, he had not redeemed." This was in regard to why God had to take on a human nature in the first place instead of just declaring humanity redeemed. This leads to the following argument:
1. If Jesus did not have the same human nature that we have, then he did not redeem the same human nature that we have.
2. If Jesus lacked the original sin that we (supposedly) possess, then he did not have the same human nature that we have.
3. Jesus did not have original sin.
Conclusion: If we possess original sin, Jesus did not redeem us.
Jesus seemed to have the same human nature we had. He felt pain and hunger, as well as sickness and even death. Since according to 1 Corinthians 15, the first human Adam was created immortal, but Jesus was born mortal, it appears that Jesus suffered the effects of Adam's fall. On what consistent basis can you believe that Jesus suffered the mortality of Adam's fall, but not the original sin of that fall? that seems arbitrary.
If humanity inherited original sin, then how did Jesus manage to descend from the line of King David without inheriting that original sin? You might think that the virgin birth solves it. But even the Calvinist theologian Millard Erickson acknowledges that it does not.
If [Jesus] had possessed both that which the mother contributes and what the father ordinarily contributes, he would have had a depraved and hence sinful nature, like the rest of us. But this argument seems to suggest that we too would be sinless if we did not have the male parent. And this in turn would mean one of two things: either (1) the father, not the mother, is the source of depravity, a notion that in effect implies that women do not have a depraved nature (or if they do, they do not transmit it), or (2) depravity comes not from the nature of our parents, but from the sexual act by which reproduction takes place. But there is nothing in Scripture to support the latter alternative
In other words, the virgin birth defense seems to imply that original sin is inherited either from the father or from the act of sex. There is no biblical support for either one of these views.
Finally, ancestral Sin deals with the problem of those who die in infancy. Can they go to heaven? The classic Roman Catholic doctrine states that unbaptized infants cannot go to heaven, because baptism is needed to remove original sin. Pelagius found a major flaw with this view. He said that if baptism removes original sin, those who have been born to two baptized parents should not have this sin, as they could not have passed to their children what they themselves did not possess.
The doctrine of ancestral sin solves all of these problems.
Conclusion
Ancestral sin is a viable alternative to inherited sin. While advocates such as Wayne Grudem argue that an honest reading of Scripture in general and Romans 5 in particular entails belief in inherited sin, there are numerous viable alternatives. In fact, a literal reading of Romans 5:12 does not support Augustine’s view of inherited sin, but the Eastern Orthodox view of ancestral sin. All sinned on the basis of death. While the sin of Adam brought death into the world, it is the spreading of death to all which ensured that all sinned. One might object that infants had not actually sinned, but such an interpretation of “all” is simply too rigid. Forcing “all” to function as an unqualified universal unless specifically indicated otherwise would lead to contradictions in Scripture.
The Tanakh passages as well, despite being advanced as proof of inherited sin, have hardly convinced the Jewish groups of such a doctrine. Indeed, there are alternative interpretations of such verses. Psalm 51 may very well be hyperbolic, and not meant to be taken literally. Psalm 14 does not establish inherited guilt even if the “no one” is taken as an unqualified absolute. Even so, there are good reasons to believe that the wicked ones to which the psalm refers are the Babylonian conquerors and not the universal scope of humanity.
Philosophically, ancestral sin better fits the common sense interpretations of guilt in a way that inherited sin does not. Ancestral sin also makes sense of the amount of evil in this world. One need not posit a change in the moral status of human nature in order to explain why people sin early and often. Since psychological experiments have shown that human habits are highly subject to environmental conditioning, an environment controlled by Satan would lead to tremendous wickedness. Since Satan is the ruler of this world, it seems no surprise that the world is evil.
Ancestral sin also avoids the philosophical problems with inherited sin. Guilt is generally understood as a failure to follow a moral obligation. While people can be guilty for the actions of others, this is only when the guilty person could have otherwise influenced those actions. It is inconsistent with this notion to think that Adam’s descendants could bear any guilt, legal or otherwise, for the actions of Adam.
Objections to ancestral sin appear sparsely in the theological literature. Authors such as Henri Blocher seem to take as axiomatic the idea that because Adam’s sin led to death, the sins of all people led to the physical death of all people. This is far from obvious. Ancestral sin needs to be taken as a viable option in Protestant theological literature, since it appears consistent with Scripture and avoids the philosophical problems present in the doctrine of inherited guilt.
Also, Pelagius's commentary on Romans is now available online:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1z0z1WvscKkkGr7nX-p5vj7DRYUSmhs4Csfm0aF_RsyY/edit?pli=1
The video discusses this article on Ancestral sin by John Romanides: http://www.romanity.org/htm/rom.10.en.original_sin_according_to_st._paul.01.htm
J.P. Holding has a great video on the subject as well, and has a different take on the issue:
Sunday, March 18, 2012
Errors & Anachronisms in the Talmud: Daniel and Esther
The main holy text of Rabbinical Judaism, outside the Tanakh, is the Talmud. This book is believed to be on some level divinely inspired, supposedly encompassing the great and reliable memories of the ancient Jewish sages. However, the book is filled with errors and anachronisms, which calls into question the reliability of the Rabbinical tradition. One problem is that the sages in the Talmud believed that Esther and Daniel met one another.
The book of Daniel is set between the third year of Jehoiakim to the third year of Cyrus, which is 605-536 BCE. The history of Nebuchadnezzar has been strongly confirmed by secular history. He constructed the hanging gardens. He also fought in the battle of Carchemish against Egypt in 605.
The book of Esther is set during the reign of Ahasuerus, also known as Xerxes I (not Artaxerxes II). This is the same Xerxes that invaded Thermopylae and killed Leonidas I of Sparta. Xerxes reigned 485-464 BCE, and the book of Esther is set during the tenth year of Xerxes' reign, which is in 476, or about four years after he fought Leonidas and the Spartans. This means that given the latest possible date for Daniel and the absolute earliest possible date for Esther, Daniel could not have possibly been any younger than 130 years old at the time of Esther. The problem is, nobody is supposed to live more than about 120 years, since God decreed in Genesis 6:3 “My Spirit shall not abide in man forever, for he is flesh: his days shall be 120 years.” In other words, there is no possible way that Daniel was alive during the time of Esther.
How is this significant? If we go to the Talmud, Bava Batra, page 4A, we read about the Rabbinical discussions of Daniel. In this passage, the Rabbis argue that a Jew is not allowed to give advice to a non-Jew regarding how the latter can receive atonement.
Rav Yehuda said in the name of Rav Yehoshua ben Levi "For what reason was Daniel punished? Because he gave advice to Nebuchadnezzar on how to escape the wrath of God"
The Talmud will now try to explain the well-accepted belief that Daniel was punished for advising king Nebuchadnezzar.
"And how do we know that Daniel was punished? In Esther we read 'And Esther called to Hasach' -- this is Daniel. Daniel was named Hasach because he was cut down from his greatness. But what about those who say that all affairs of the state were decided by him? He was punished by being thrown into the den of lions!"
The Rabbis agree that Daniel was punished, but disagree how God punished him. The first school says that he was punished by being stripped of power, and the latter school argues that he was punished by being thrown into the den of lions, even though the book of Daniel seems to indicate otherwise.
In a footnote of the Artscroll edition, it says that in the latter opinion, where Daniel was punished by being thrown to lions, Daniel retained his high office during the reign of Ahasuerus, and the name "Hasach" does not imply that Daniel was stripped of power for giving advice to Nebuchadnezzar.
Both schools of Rabbinical thought differ on why Daniel was called Hasach. This means that the Rabbis of the Talmud agreed that Daniel of the book of Daniel was the same person as Hasach in the book of Esther. But of course, there is no way Daniel could be the same person as Hasach, because he could have lived that long.
Sunday, January 1, 2012
The Isaiah 53 Controversy
I tend to avoid Biblical arguments when I present a positive case for my position, because I believe that arguments from Biblical interpretation have this nasty tendency toward anachronism. It is too easy to inject our understanding of history into our interpretation of prophecy, while the original audience did not possess the historical hindsight that we possess today.
However, I have been watching anti-missionary videos on YouTube. Isaiah 53 is the most common subject that they discuss. I have noticed two trends among them:
1. They almost always attribute the role of the suffering servant to national Israel.
2. They all seem to use the same arguments.
This makes me wonder how well they know Isaiah. Have they done any actual research into the subject, or are they just repeating the same arguments from the anti-missionary playbook? I fear it is the latter.
Of all the books in the Tanakh, I think Isaiah deserves the award for "most negative portrayal of national Israel." More about this when I start reading passages from the relevant sections. The section of Isaiah that supplies the context to Isaiah 53 is what scholars call "Deutero-Isaiah" which comprises Isaiah 40-55. The style and topics change so dramatically when we hit Isaiah 40, that skeptical scholars believe (wrongly) that this section was written by a different author.
Isaiah 40-55 deals with God's relationship to Israel. Themes include:
1. There is no God but Yahweh
2. God is sovereign over all creation
3. [Ancient] Israel was chosen as God's servant, but has become evil
4. God will chastise [Ancient] Israel, but then restore the nation
5. The righteous remnant should not lose hope
6. God's righteous servant will restore Israel
And it's this last point that the anti-missionaries cannot get right. National Israel, as portrayed in the book of Isaiah, is in no position to suffer innocently for the sins of anyone else.
Ancient Israel had a difficult history. The book of Judges portrays Israel as a nation in a downward spiral where Israel falls into idolatry and apostasy. A judge comes and restores Israel, which is restored somewhat, and the cycle begins anew. Another apostasy, another judge. Eventually, the people of Israel anoint Saul as king. He does fine for a while, then turns evil. David then becomes king, but still arranges for the murder of Uriah the Hittite. Solomon starts out well, but later also falls into apostasy and idolatry.
The kingdom is then divided into the northern kingdom of Israel and the southern kingdom of Judah. Northern Israel falls into immediate apostasy with Jeroboam and never recovers. All of Israel's kings are apostate, and Israel is wiped out by Assyria in 722 BCE. The Southern kingdom of Judah has 20 kings: 8 are righteous and 12 are apostate. Judah's widespread idolatry was catching up with Judah, and this is where Isaiah comes in. Northern Israel is already dead. Judah faces the very real possibility of exile. Isaiah's job is to warn the people of Judah to return to God and to abandon idolatry. God loves his people and has great plans for them, even though they are a wicked bunch.
Here are some highlights from Deutero-Isaiah. I do recommend reading the whole section in its entirety, though.
Comfort, comfort my people, says your God.
Speak tenderly to Jerusalem,
and cry to her
that her warfare is ended,
that her iniquity is pardoned,
that she has received from the LORD's hand
double for all her sins.
(Isaiah 40:1-2)
This is an important theme throughout this section. Israel has sinned severely, and needs to be reminded that even though that God loves Israel, even though he punishes the nation.
But you, Israel, my servant,
Jacob, whom I have chosen,
the offspring of Abraham, my friend;
you whom I took from the ends of the earth,
and called from its farthest corners,
saying to you, “You are my servant,
I have chosen you and not cast you off”;
(Isaiah 41:8-9 ESV)
This is the first mention of national Israel as God's servant. Notice that Jacob, Israel, and the offspring of Abraham are three ways of describing national Israel. The "you" here in Hebrew is singular in both verses.
Behold my servant, whom I uphold,
my chosen, in whom my soul delights;
I have put my Spirit upon him;
he will bring forth justice to the nations.
He will not cry aloud or lift up his voice,
or make it heard in the street;
a bruised reed he will not break,
and a faintly burning wick he will not quench;
he will faithfully bring forth justice.
He will not grow faint or be discouraged
until he has established justice in the earth;
and the coastlands wait for his law.
Thus says God, the LORD,
who created the heavens and stretched them out,
who spread out the earth and what comes from it,
who gives breath to the people on it
and spirit to those who walk in it:
“I am the LORD; I have called you in righteousness;
I will take you by the hand and keep you;
I will give you as a covenant for the people,
a light for the nations,
to open the eyes that are blind,
to bring out the prisoners from the dungeon,
from the prison those who sit in darkness.
(Isaiah 42:1-7 ESV)
The servant here is not described as Israel. Instead, the servant is called righteous, as one who will bring justice to all the nations. This servant will also bring sight to the blind. This is important because God then describes Israel as blind and deaf.
Hear, you deaf,
and look, you blind, that you may see!
Who is blind but my servant,
or deaf as my messenger whom I send?
Who is blind as my dedicated one,
or blind as the servant of the LORD?
He sees many things, but does not observe them;
his ears are open, but he does not hear.
The LORD was pleased, for his righteousness' sake,
to magnify his law and make it glorious.
But this is a people plundered and looted;
they are all of them trapped in holes
and hidden in prisons;
they have become plunder with none to rescue,
spoil with none to say, “Restore!”
Who among you will give ear to this,
will attend and listen for the time to come?
Who gave up Jacob to the looter,
and Israel to the plunderers?
Was it not the LORD, against whom we have sinned,
in whose ways they would not walk,
and whose law they would not obey?
(Isaiah 42:18-24 ESV)
Here, Israel is portrayed as both God's servant and as blind and deaf. Israel is plundered and looted because Israel had sinned against God. Israel would not walk in God's ways and would not obey God's law. This continues one of the main themes of this section of Isaiah. God is good. Ancient Israel is evil.
“Yet you did not call upon me, O Jacob;
but you have been weary of me, O Israel!
You have not brought me your sheep for burnt offerings,
or honored me with your sacrifices.
I have not burdened you with offerings,
or wearied you with frankincense.
You have not bought me sweet cane with money,
or satisfied me with the fat of your sacrifices.
But you have burdened me with your sins;
you have wearied me with your iniquities.
“I, I am he
who blots out your transgressions for my own sake,
and I will not remember your sins.
Put me in remembrance; let us argue together;
set forth your case, that you may be proved right.
Your first father sinned,
and your mediators transgressed against me.
Therefore I will profane the princes of the sanctuary,
and deliver Jacob to utter destruction
and Israel to reviling.
(Isaiah 43:22-28 ESV)
Here, God chastises Israel again for disobedience and sins. Does it look like Israel is suffering innocently for the sins of anyone else?
Remember these things, O Jacob,
and Israel, for you are my servant;
I formed you; you are my servant;
O Israel, you will not be forgotten by me.
I have blotted out your transgressions like a cloud
and your sins like mist;
return to me, for I have redeemed you.
(Isaiah 44:21-22 ESV)
God is calling sinful Israel to return to him. God will be glorified in Israel, and Israel is still God's glory, but not because of any righteousness or merit on Israel's part. This also may have an application to modern Zionism. If Israel today is the same nation as ancient Israel, then God has given the nation the right to the land, independently of what Israel does with it. Isaiah chastises Israel as an evil nation, but still says that Israel is the apple of God's eye and the nation in which God is glorified. Nothing that Israel can do will ever cause God to abandon Israel. Even if Israel were to become the most evil nation in the history of the world, God will still bless those who bless Israel and curse those who curse Israel.
Hear this, O house of Jacob,
who are called by the name of Israel,
and who came from the waters of Judah,
who swear by the name of the LORD
and confess the God of Israel,
but not in truth or right.
(Isaiah 48:1 ESV)
Israel confesses to know God, even though the nation is unrighteous.
Because I know that you are obstinate,
and your neck is an iron sinew
and your forehead brass,
I declared them to you from of old,
before they came to pass I announced them to you,
lest you should say, ‘My idol did them,
my carved image and my metal image commanded them.’
“You have heard; now see all this;
and will you not declare it?
From this time forth I announce to you new things,
hidden things that you have not known.
They are created now, not long ago;
before today you have never heard of them,
lest you should say, ‘Behold, I knew them.’
You have never heard, you have never known,
from of old your ear has not been opened.
For I knew that you would surely deal treacherously,
and that from before birth you were called a rebel.
(Isaiah 48:4-8 ESV)
God, still speaking to Israel, calls the nation obstinate and stubborn, as well as idolatrous. More importantly, God says that he does declare new things that the people have not heard. Therefore, let this put to rest any idea that God stopped delivering new revelation at Sinai. And no, Deuteronomy 12:32 is not a counter-example. In Deuteronomy, Moses is only claiming that the Pentateuch, the constitution of Israel, cannot be altered. Nor is Deuteronomy 29:29 a counterexample. Here, Moses is warning against the pagan mysticism that flourished in the ancient world. However, since the secret things belong to God, he still has the prerogative if he wanted to reveal additional information at a future date.
There is no indication that God will stop revealing new information, such as theological information, to Israel. Indeed, Isaiah shows that God does continue to reveal new information even after the death of Moses.
And he said to me, “You are my servant,
Israel, in whom I will be glorified.”
But I said, “I have labored in vain;
I have spent my strength for nothing and vanity;
yet surely my right is with the LORD,
and my recompense with my God.”
And now the LORD says,
he who formed me from the womb to be his servant,
to bring Jacob back to him;
and that Israel might be gathered to him—
for I am honored in the eyes of the LORD,
and my God has become my strength—
he says:
“It is too light a thing that you should be my servant
to raise up the tribes of Jacob
and to bring back the preserved of Israel;
I will make you as a light for the nations,
that my salvation may reach to the end of the earth.”
(Isaiah 49:3-6 ESV)
The role of this servant is to bring back Jacob and Israel. The servant is called Israel yet is distinct from national Israel. In fact, even the Rabbinic commentaries such as that of Rav Schwab, recognize that the servant in this section is not national Israel. Even the Rabbis agree that there is more than one servant in Deutero-Isaiah. Schwab himself believes that the servant of this section is Isaiah. Question is: did Isaiah bring knowledge of Yahweh to all the nations? Did Isaiah bring salvation to the ends of the earth? Not a chance. It was the followers of Jesus who were commanded to go to the ends of the earth and make disciples of every nation. This is why an era is fast approaching where people will not need to tell their neighbors about Yahweh, the God of Israel. Everyone will know him, and have the law of Yahweh written on their hearts.
Thus says the LORD:
“Where is your mother's certificate of divorce,
with which I sent her away?
Or which of my creditors is it
to whom I have sold you?
Behold, for your iniquities you were sold,
and for your transgressions your mother was sent away.
(Isaiah 50:1 ESV)
And again, Israel suffers not for the sins of the gentile nations, but for Israel's own sins, just as God had promised in Deuteronomy.
Behold, my servant shall act wisely;
he shall be high and lifted up,
and shall be exalted.
As many were astonished at you—
his appearance was so marred, beyond human semblance,
and his form beyond that of the children of mankind—
so shall he sprinkle many nations;
kings shall shut their mouths because of him;
for that which has not been told them they see,
and that which they have not heard they understand.
Who has believed what he has heard from us?
And to whom has the arm of the LORD been revealed?
For he grew up before him like a young plant,
and like a root out of dry ground;
he had no form or majesty that we should look at him,
and no beauty that we should desire him.
He was despised and rejected by men;
a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief;
and as one from whom men hide their faces
he was despised, and we esteemed him not.
Surely he has borne our griefs
and carried our sorrows;
yet we esteemed him stricken,
smitten by God, and afflicted.
But he was pierced for our transgressions;
he was crushed for our iniquities;
upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace,
and with his wounds we are healed.
All we like sheep have gone astray;
we have turned—every one—to his own way;
and the LORD has laid on him
the iniquity of us all.
He was oppressed, and he was afflicted,
yet he opened not his mouth;
like a lamb that is led to the slaughter,
and like a sheep that before its shearers is silent,
so he opened not his mouth.
By oppression and judgment he was taken away;
and as for his generation, who considered
that he was cut off out of the land of the living,
stricken for the transgression of my people?
And they made his grave with the wicked
and with a rich man in his death,
although he had done no violence,
and there was no deceit in his mouth.
Yet it was the will of the LORD to crush him;
he has put him to grief;
when his soul makes an offering for guilt,
he shall see his offspring; he shall prolong his days;
the will of the LORD shall prosper in his hand.
Out of the anguish of his soul he shall see and be satisfied;
by his knowledge shall the righteous one, my servant,
make many to be accounted righteous,
and he shall bear their iniquities.
Therefore I will divide him a portion with the many,
and he shall divide the spoil with the strong,
because he poured out his soul to death
and was numbered with the transgressors;
yet he bore the sin of many,
and makes intercession for the transgressors.
(Isaiah 52:13-53:12 ESV)
As an aside, Tovia Singer claims in his lecture Sin and Atonement that Judaism has no concept of substitutionary atonement i.e. for one person's suffering to pay for someone else's sins. This passage definitively refutes that notion Even the rabbis admit that in Isaiah 53, someone is suffering to pay for the sins of someone else. The question is: who is paying for whose sins? Who is the "we" in this passage, and who is the servant?
The first thing to notice in this passage is that the gentile kings shut their mouths because of the servant. They are not the ones speaking in this passage. Also remember Isaiah's description of Israel. The nation repeatedly receives punishment for its own sins. They did not walk in God's ways. They did not obey God's commands. Israel had been disobedient, failing to offer sacrifices at the proper time, and failing to obey God. It is because of Israel's sins that God will deliver Israel to utter destruction. The nation does not confess God in truth. Indeed, Israel is described as treacherous and deceitful. Israel is stubborn and idolatrous.
Isaiah also speaks of this other servant who will restore Jacob, bring Israel back into God's favor. This servant will restore sight to the blind nation of Israel. He will suffer repeatedly, but not for his own sins. He will be innocent, but suffer to make atonement for the sins of Israel.
Of all the possible candidates, Isaiah 53 better fits the life of Jesus than that of anyone (or anything) else. And attempts to disqualify Jesus for acts such as his clearing of the temple are nothing more than exercises in nit-picking. They give prophecy such artificially strict and narrow criteria for fulfillment, that they presume to dictate to God how he must fulfill his prophecies.
Jesus fulfilled the criteria for the suffering servant of Isaiah 53 better than any of his rivals. He was born into a lower-class family, and not initially seen as important. He acted as a prophet, calling the people of Israel to abandon their factionalism, self-righteousness, and man-centered civil religion, and instead to set their hearts on the God of Israel. He opened the eyes of the blind and healed many ailments, performing a ministry of miracles. Yet he was despised and rejected by the authorities of Israel, who became jealous of his radical views and rising popularity.
When the authorities caught him, they led him like a lamb to the slaughter. If Jesus had defended himself at the trial, he likely would have been acquitted. Yet he kept his dialogue to a minimum, and was sent to die because he refused to speak up for himself. Jesus was crushed and beaten so badly that he barely resembled the semblance of a man. He poured himself out unto death alongside other criminals in order to make atonement for the sins of humanity. He died with the wicked, but was buried by Joseph of Arimathea in an unused and extremely expensive bench tomb. Only the very rich could afford to use such tombs.
He did not stay dead, though. Jesus rose and appeared over a period of forty days to many people, including his followers, friends, and groups. He even appeared to his brother James, who was not a believer in Jesus before this point. He also appeared to Paul of Tarsus, who was sort of the first century director of Yad L'Achim, or perhaps the Tovia Singer of his era. What kind of evidence would it take to convince someone like Singer to believe that Jesus is the risen Messiah and God incarnate? That is the kind of evidence Paul had.
Thanks to the work of Jesus, the word of the God of Israel is spreading rapidly to people of every tribe and every tongue. The Bible has been translated into over 2,000 different languages. We are fast approaching a unique time in history, when you will no longer have to tell people about the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, for they will already know who this God is.
Wednesday, December 28, 2011
Answering Critics: Resurrection Proves Christianity?
Recently, I saw a video by YouTuber Omedyashar (a.k.a. Yosef), a former Christian who converted to Orthodox Judaism. In his video, he responds to the following question:
"In the New Testament, Jesus' ascension into heaven was witnessed by many people. As you place great emphasis on the importance of witnesses and witnessing an event as proof, for example Mount Sinai where God speaks and everybody hears, what is your understanding of how so many people may have witnessed such an event if it either did not happen or could not happen due to Jesus being a false Messiah?"The question has a great deal of merit, but can be made even stronger. If we give secular historians the benefit of the doubt, what information can we glean about Jesus of Nazareth? I will go through three passages believed by the majority of New Testament historians to be historically authentic.
First, Jesus' claim in Matthew 11. Jesus says: "All things have been handed over to me by my Father, and no one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal him." This passage is considered historically authentic because Jesus is claiming to be unknowable. Yet, the post-Easter church taught that you can know Jesus. Therefore, this passage is very unlikely to have been fabricated. In this passage, Jesus is claiming to have a unique relationship to the Father, superior to all of humanity, and to be the only way to know the Father.
Second, Jesus' parable of the tenants in the vineyard in Mark 12. In this parable, the landowner goes away on a long journey and leaves a group of tenants in charge. During the harvest, the owner sends a series of servants to collect payment, and each time, the wicked tenants kill the servant. Finally, the owner sends his own son to collect payment, and the tenants kill him as well. The landowner represents God the Father. The servants represent the prophets of Israel. The son represents Jesus, and the land represents the land of Israel. The point of the parable is that because of the disobedience of the people of Israel, God would strip the land from the Jews and give it to the gentiles, at least for a time. In this parable, Jesus portrays himself as superior to all the prophets.
Third is Jesus' saying in Matthew 24: "But concerning that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but the Father only." Here, Jesus places himself in a position on an ascending scale. He sees himself as superior to humanity, and even above the angels in heaven. Historians consider ths passage almost indisputably authentic, because the church would not invent a passage where Jesus ascribes ignorance to himself (the knowledge was suppressed in his subconscious). Indeed, the manuscript evidence shows that many copyists tried to remove the phrase "nor the son" from the passage.
However, there is also strong evidence for the historicity of Jesus' resurrection. The passage recording the appearance of Jesus to more than 500 people at one time comes from 1 Corinthians 15. 1 Corinthians is one of the best attested books in the New Testament, considered by secular historians as authentically Pauline, and written around the year 56 of the Common Era. The passage I am about to quote, however, is considered, even by atheists like Gerd Ludemann, a piece of oral tradition that dates back to within 5 years of the crucifixion. Here it is.
For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. Then he appeared to more than five hundred brothers at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have fallen asleep. Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles. Last of all, as to one untimely born, he appeared also to me.Yosef's video response, far from answering this challenge, shows just how indefensible Rabbinical Judaism is against evidential arguments. First, let's get the quick answers to his questions out of the way.
(1 Corinthians 15:3-8 ESV)
Q. Why is James not considered among the twelve?
A. Because it was a separate appearance to James the brother of Jesus, who was not one of the twelve apostles.
Q. Why didn't Paul refer to this appearance to 500 when he preached to the people of Antioch in Acts chapter 13?
A. He didn't need to. He made mention of Jesus' repeated appearances to many people over many days. The people of Antioch were convinced by Paul's teaching, and by the next Sabbath, huge crowds came to listen to the preaching of Paul and Barnabas.
Q. Couldn't an imposter have posed as the resurrected Jesus for the 500?
A. Conspiracy theory hypotheses to explain the belief in Jesus' resurrection have been universally rejected from the professional historical journals since the 18th century. The conspiracy hypothesis implies that the disciples suffered torture and died for something they knew firsthand to be a lie. Worse than that, the hypothesis is deeply anachronistic. The idea of a crucified Messiah was as absurd to Second Temple Judaism as the idea of a married bachelor, and Jewish expectations of the day precluded anyone experiencing resurrection before the general resurrection at the end of the world. No one was expecting Jesus to come back from the dead.
Q. Jesus wasn't the firstfruits of the resurrection.
A. The Tanakh teaches about resurrection in Isaiah 26, Ezekiel 37, and Daniel 12. So I am glad that he affirms that God can raise the dead. However, resurrection is not merely the return of the soul to a lifeless body.
The Second Temple belief in resurrection is stated well in Daniel 12:2. "Those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awaken; some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt." Resurrection was defined as something that happens at the end of the age, where the dead will be brought back to life and transformed supernaturally into an immortal state, where they will then be judged by God.
Therefore, it is incorrect to think of Lazarus and others raised from the dead as resurrected. A better term would be resuscitation. They were brought back to life, but in the same weak, frail, mortal bodies in which they died, and they all died at a later date. Jesus was the first and only so far to be resurrected into the supernaturally powerful and immortal state as predicted by Daniel. Hence, he is the first of the resurrected dead.
Q. Didn't Jesus abolish the law, which would make him a false prophet under Deuteronomy 12?
A. Jesus did not abolish the law. He reinterpreted it so that it became an internal moral guide. Even the Rabbis agree that the Law of Moses makes no sense unless it is interpreted. After the destruction of the second temple, the vast majority of the Mosaic commands simply could not be followed, and required reinterpretation in order to be followed. The only difference I have with Rabbinical Judaism is that I believe that it is Jesus who has the ultimate authority over interpreting the Torah, and not the Rabbis.
Except for the last one, these types of questions betray a deep ignorance of the New Testament. An undergraduate in any decent seminary could have answered them.
With that out of the way, we can get to the real heart of the issue: the Rabbinic dismissal of evidence. Historically, the Rabbis have been somewhat paranoid of evidence that might undermine their claims to absolute authority over the Jewish people. No example better illustrates this than the Akhnai Oven in tractate Bava Metzia of the Talmud:
It is taught: On that day R. Eliezer brought forward every imaginable argument, but the Sages did not accept any of them. Finally he said to them: "If the Halakhah (religious law) is in accordance with me, let this carob tree prove it!" Sure enough the carob tree immediately uprooted itself and moved one hundred cubits, and some say 400 cubits, from its place. "No proof can be brought from a carob tree," they retorted.Besides the misquote of Exodus 23:2, which says do not go with the majority, the deeper problem here is that the Rabbis simply refuse to admit any evidence that clashes with their beliefs. God himself must submit to the will of the Rabbis.
And again he said to them "If the Halakhah agrees with me, let the channel of water prove it!" Sure enough, the channel of water flowed backward. "No proof can be brought from a channel of water," they rejoined.
Again he urged, "If the Halakhah agrees with me, let the walls of the house of study prove it!" Sure enough, the walls tilted as if to fall. But R. Joshua, rebuked the walls, saying, "When disciples of the wise are engaged in a halakhic dispute, what right have you to interfere?" Hence in deference to R. Joshua they did not fall and in deference to R. Eliezer they did not resume their upright position; they are still standing aslant.
Again R. Eliezer then said to the Sages, "If the Halakhah agrees with me, let it be proved from heaven." Sure enough, a divine voice cried out, "Why do you dispute with R. Eliezer, with whom the Halakhah always agrees?" R. Joshua stood up and protested: "The Torah is not in heaven!" (Deut. 30:12). We pay no attention to a divine voice because long ago at Mount Sinai You wrote in your Torah at Mount Sinai, `After the majority must one incline'. (Ex. 23:2)"
I actually agree with one atheist blogger when he said: "One simply cannot presuppose the truths of disputable historical events prior to investigating whether or not those events actually took place and keep a straight face."
It is very hard to take someone seriously who holds a position on historical events and absolutely refuses to allow evidence to change his mind. The idea that the Rabbis today have an uncorrupted and authoritative tradition that comes from Moses on Sinai is a historical claim and is subject to historical investigation. If you do not allow your views on this matter to be falsified by evidence, you risk delusion.
You become like the man who went to his doctor believing that he was a dead corpse. The doctor argued to the patient's satisfaction that corpses have no pulse and cannot bleed. The doctor then pricked the finger of the man, and blood came out. The man looked at his bleeding finger and concluded "I guess corpses can bleed." The man, like the Rabbis, was not open to evidence. And what better evidence is there against the Rabbinic tradition, than the evidence for the radical self-image and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth. If the Rabbis were correct, then the last thing one would expect is for the God of Israel to resurrect from the dead a man who saw himself as the great divine judge of humanity as prophesied in Daniel 7.
So again I ask: on what consistent basis can the Rabbis accept the historicity of the Exodus while rejecting the historicity of the radical self-image and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth? And if your religion cannot handle this evidence, I suggest you get yourself a new religion.
For further reading on this subject, the Resurrection of the Son of God by N.T. Wright is a thorough, scholarly work on the subject. Wright is one of the world's leading scholars on late Second Temple Judaism and provides a very detailed account on the people, culture, and idea of resurrection during that time period. Wright also does ground-clearing work, refuting every major alternative hypothesis to the resurrection.
Thursday, December 22, 2011
Pascal's Wager Against Calvinism
One of the more inventive arguments for the existence of God is an argument invented by Blaise Pascal. At the end of his life, Pascal wrote out various thoughts on the big questions of life, such as whether or not God exists. His pragmatic argument, known as Pascal's Wager, is an argument for people who have heard his arguments for the Christian faith and were still indecisive about it.
Pascal asked his audience to construct a chart, labeling one axis objective and another subjective. Label one "God exists" and the other "God does not exist" On the subjective axis, label one "follow God" and the other "do not follow God"
If you choose to follow God, then you have infinite to gain if you are right and only finite loss if you are wring. If you choose not to follow God, you have finite to gain if you are right and infinite loss if you are wrong.
The main objection to this argument is the trickster deity approach. The trickster deity will send you to heaven if you are an atheist and to hell if you are a theist. Does this refute Pascal's Wager?
Hardly.
In order for this objection to work, the trickster god has to be as likely to exist as the God of the Bible. However, I have given arguments for the existence of an omniperfect God, which if successful exclude the possibility of a trickster god. Even if those arguments fail, Pascal's Wager gives the unbeliever a very heavy burden of proof. That unbeliever has to give arguments for the existence of the trickster god that are at least as strong as arguments for the God of theism. Otherwise, one can argue that since there are better arguments for God than for the trickster deity, theism is more likely to be true and therefore is the wiser bet.
All of this is well and good, but how does it apply to Calvinism? I'm glad you asked. One of the key prooftexts for Calvinism is Romans 9:16, which in the ESV states "So then it depends not on human will or exertion, but on God, who has mercy." History has given a myriad of interpretations regarding what exactly "it" is. It could be national election, or election to service, or the circumstances in which you are born, or God's criteria as to which people get saved. Also, some of the "not...but" verses in the Bible, such as John 6:27 (Do not work for the food that perishes, but for the food that endures to eternal life) do not exclude the "not" section but merely de-emphasize it.
However, Calvinists insist that Romans 9:16 states that the salvation of individuals does not depend in any way on human will or exertion. Can we come up with a practical argument to reinforce other arguments? No. But we don't have to, because Pascal already has. Assume that salvation either does or does not involve human will, and assume that we can choose either to believe it or not to believe it.
If it does involve human will and we believe it, our belief bolsters our evangelism and apologetics efforts and more people receive salvation.
If it does not involve human will and we believe that it does, our belief bolsters our evangelism and apologetics efforts and no fewer people receive salvation.
If it does involve human will and we do not believe that it does, our belief harms our evangelism and apologetics efforts and fewer people receive salvation.
If it does not involve human will and we do not believe that it does, our belief harms our evangelism and apologetics efforts and no fewer people receive salvation.
From a practical standpoint, we should believe that salvation does involve human will and exertion. We have everything to gain if we are right, and little to lose if we are wrong.
How might the Calvinist respond to these charges? The first is that belief that human will affects salvation robs God of his glory. Even if true, this objection hardly defeats the argument. Would you rather risk robbing God of some of his glory for a finite period of time (until you go to heaven and God corrects you), or risk souls spending eternity in hell for an infinite period of time?
Another objection is that practical arguments should not shape our beliefs. However, no one lives this way. If you see a lump on your skin, and there's only a 10% chance that it is a malignant tumor, and a 90% chance that it is benign, should you then assume on the basis of probability that it is benign and simply ignore it? Another example is the insurance industry. There is only a small chance that your home will be destroyed by a natural disaster, but does that justify not getting insurance? Because the payoffs are unequal, a prudent individual will seek to minimize risk and maximize reward. Similarly, practical-minded individuals will assume that libertarian free will plays a role in salvation and will bias his thinking in favor of it. They will assume free will, and give the free will position every benefit of the doubt.
Similarly, if the God of the Bible is more likely to exist than trickster deities, then prudent individuals should give theism every benefit of the doubt.
James Galyon objects to an older version of the argument, declaring that the Synod of Dort states that evangelism makes a difference in the salvation of the evangelized. Much of his argument is based on a misunderstanding of this wager, and I will admit his misunderstanding is my fault. The original version of this argument was a bit vague. My argument is not that Calvinist denominations ignore the call to evangelism and apologetics. Indeed, James White, a borderline hyper-Calvinist is perhaps the best counter-cult apologist in the Western world.
My argument is that (1) if salvation does not depend on human will or exertion, it is logically impossible that any human choice (including evangelism) could make any difference in anyone's salvation (if it could, then election would be conditional), and (2) how we do evangelism and apologetics is hugely impacted by our views on this issue. If we believe that people can be argued into or out of the right beliefs through reason and evidence, then we would put a lot more effort into those areas.
Beliefs very much affect our behaviors and motivations. As Alvin Plantinga said: "I would not go to the refrigerator to get a beer if I believed that beer did not exist." Similarly, the consequences of our actions do impact human behavior, whether or not they ideally should do so. Digging a ditch only to fill it again is demoralizing, and a vicious form of punishment. If Americans believed that visiting the moon again would lead to enormous scientific breakthroughs, I guarantee that NASA would not be hurting for funding the way it is now. Our beliefs about the consequences of our actions significantly affect our actions and motivations.
The mere mandate to proclaim the gospel to all simply does not have the motivating power as the belief that how we present, how we argue, whether our apologists win debates, and the skill of our salesmanship all make a difference in the salvation of others.
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