Geoff's Miscellany

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theology

Why I am no longer a Calvinist

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I used to be a Calvinist. I’ve since slowly drifted away from that point of view.

A few years ago I wrote about why.

Below I’ve simplified/clarified those reasons.

I know how complicated these debates get, and we see through a glass darkly. Our understanding of time, determinism, human will and consciousness, moral goodness, the Bible, and our own limits are but a drop in the bucket compared to the thousands of other constraints upon our knowledge of God.

Below, I’m defining Calvinism as “belief in the five points of Calvinism as articulated in the canons of the Synod of Dordrecht.”

  1. Limited Atonement
    While the Bible clearly teaches that God’s salvation is only acquired by some, it also says he is the savior of all humanity (1 Timothy 4:10). It also says the same in 1 John 2:1-2. Jesus (not just his death) is the atonement for all humanity. I think the implicit logic in both passages is that the believer can be confident of God’s salvation to those who believe precisely because it is God’s intent for all humanity. This leads to a psychological issue.
  2. Psychological Problem of Calvinism
    In Calvinistic teaching, the chief cause of salvation is unconditional election. What this ultimately implies is that your perseverance until the end is determined by God’s unchangeable decrees of history. This means that whether you persevere in your faith or lose your faith is entirely up to God. But we know that some people do, in fact, leave the faith. This means that God led them to believe they had saving faith when they did not. Therefore, you don’t know if you’re saved or deceived about your salvation while ultimately being destined to apostasize. It’s a serious epistemological problem which makes for an even more serious motivational one. In this viewpoint, assurance of salvation is, as far as I can tell, a chimera and only incidentally correct. If assurance of salvation is instead knowable based on what 1 John 2:3, Matthew 7:14-27, and  Romans 8:28 say (conscious allegiance to Christ), then you may be saved with or without assurance of salvation but any deception is self-deception, not a feature of the wheels of history or God’s plan to damn you.
  3. Romans 9-11
    Romans 9, does say why God rejected Esau, also says why God rejected the religious leadership in Jerusalem: Romans 9:30-33. I think this section of Scripture is about the death of Christ (see Romans 11:11-15) and the subsequent difficulty of sharing the gospel in Israel, especially Jerusalem. It is not, I submit, Paul’s total philosophy of every person’s salvation history. Israel’s rejection of Jesus and of Paul’s gospel about Jesus have resulted in riches for all the nations of the earth and will result in salvation for Israel as well. The big proof that Paul is not teaching that God picks some for salvation without regard for their life history can be found in Romans 11:17-24. Paul makes clear that those whose hearts were hardened can repent and those who were shown mercy can reject that mercy.
  4. The Calvinist Notion of Sovereignty is Incoherent
    In most Calvinist preaching I’ve heard, God’s sovereignty is not about his authority as the king of the universe or even the king of his people. Rather, the word signifies his algorithmic oversight of every discrete event in the cosmos. In the Bible, God’s kingship is a metaphor about the relationship between God and his people that implied a two-way street of care, protection, and legal enforcement on the one hand and loyalty, admiration, and obedience on the other. In Calvinist rhetoric and theology, sovereignty is precisely the opposite. It’s a doctrine of one-way causal management. It is in no way political or reciprocal.
  5. The Bible Doesn’t Seem Designed To Explain God’s Exact Relationship to Time
    The New Testament tells us that the Old Testament is inspired to prepare the world for Christ, to train us in righteousness, to rebuke the lawless, and to be fulfilled by Christ. It isn’t clear to me that we need to know how God relates to time to be righteous or understand the gospel. What is clear to me is that many people who hardly give the issues of Calvinism a second thought, whether they belong to Calvinist churches or not, live righteously. So these issues, while perhaps open to human scrutiny are not necessary for Christian discipleship or personal development.
  6. The Warnings of Apostasy
    While this is a bit controversial, if somebody can reject the gospel after having believed it genuinely, then a wrench is thrown in the gears of the idea that grace is irresistible, and that divine election guarantees perseverance of the saints. Teaching the Bible over the years has lead me to have to let passages like those below have their full force as warnings to the effect that the gospel promises are only for the faithful. That faith may be weak, even the size of a mustard seed. But it must persist for somebody expect God’s salvation. God can show mercy to whomever he wants, of course, but he promises to show mercy to the faithful. Which means that the apostasy passages are warnings to believers lest they die without faith and in their sins. Paul said that he needed to use spiritual disciplines lest he abandon his faith (1 Corinthians 9:27) and that believing gentiles could reject the gospel (Romans 11:21-24). Jesus told parables to the effect that those who believe the gospel should be careful how they hear it, lest circumstances lead them to reject the gospel (Matthew 13:3-9). And Peter warned that false teachers who used to believe will be worse off than those who had never believed (2 Peter 2:1 and 2 Peter 2:18-22). This isn’t the same as saying that one can “lose their salvation” by sinning here or there. Instead, it’s saying that through intentional definitive rejection or habitual disuse, one can lose one’s faith in Christ. If this is true, and I think it is, then Calvinism, as I held it, is not.

Anyway, there’s that.

Trinity Sunday: Wesley on the Trinity

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Today I taught a brief Sunday school lesson on the doctrine of the Trinity. It got me to thinking about this sermon by Wesley: On The Trinity. Here are some selections and my annotations:

Hence, we cannot but infer, that there are ten thousand mistakes which may consist with real religion; with regard to which every candid, considerate man will think and let think. But there are some truths more important than others. It seems there are some which are of deep importance. I do not term them fundamental truths; because that is an ambiguous word: And hence there have been so many warm disputes about the number of fundamentals. But surely there are some which it nearly concerns us to know, as having a close connexion with vital religion. And doubtless we may rank among these that contained in the words above cited: “There are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost: And these three are one.”[1]

Wesley acknowledges that one may make many errors with regard to religious ideas and still be a Christian. But in this very paragraph, he does go on to say that one must still believe some version of the doctrine of the Trinity to be a Christian. The bold passage of Scripture above is a problematic textual problem, Wesley deals with this later on in the sermon, but for out purposes, it will suffice to say that the basic tenets of the doctrine of the Trinity Wesley will later explicate are contained in Scripture.

I do not mean that it is of importance to believe this or that explication of these words. I know not that any well-judging man would attempt to explain them at all. One of the best tracts which that great man, Dean Swift, ever wrote, was his Sermon upon the Trinity. Herein he shows, that all who endeavoured to explain it at all, have utterly lost their way; have, above all other persons, hurt the cause which they intended to promote; having only, as Job speaks, “darkened counsel by words without knowledge.”[2]

I agree with the essence of this. That the Bible teaches the basic tenets of the doctrine of the Trinity is a case easily made depending on what one means. But the cases for some theoretical framework of the doctrine are problematic and confusing at best.

I dare not insist upon any one’s using the word Trinity, or Person. I use them myself without any scruple, because I know of none better: But if any man has any scruple concerning them, who shall constrain him to use them? I cannot: Much less would I burn a man alive, and that with moist, green wood, for saying, “Though I believe the Father is God, the Son is God, and the Holy Ghost is God; yet I scruple using the words Trinity and Persons, because I do not find those terms in the Bible.” These are the words which merciful John Calvin cites as wrote by Servetus in a letter to himself. I would insist only on the direct words, unexplained, just as they lie in the text: “There are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost: And these three are one.”[3]

Wesley pulls no punches here in his criticism of Calvin burning Servetus. I agree with Wesley’s willingness to use the words Trinity and Person in expressing his understanding of the Bible’s teaching about God the Father, the Son, and Holy Spirit. But I’m unwilling to insist that others grasp those concepts of assent to that terminology to call themselves or to be called Christians.

“[A]s strange as it may seem, in requiring you to believe, “there are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost: And these three are one;” you are not required to believe any mystery. Nay, that great and good man, Dr. Peter Browne, some time Bishop of Cork, has proved at large that the Bible does not require you to believe any mystery at all. The Bible barely requires you to believe such facts; not the manner of them. Now the mystery does not lie in the fact, but altogether in the manner.
For instance: “God said, Let there be light: And there was light.” I believe it: I believe the plain fact: There is no mystery at all in this. The mystery lies in the manner of it. But of this I believe nothing at all; nor does God require it of me.
Again: “The Word was made flesh.” I believe this fact also. There is no mystery in it; but as to the manner how he was made flesh, wherein the mystery lies, I know nothing about it; I believe nothing about it: It is no more the object of my faith, than it is of my understanding.[4]

Again, the Bible never says to believe anything about the manner in which Trinity exists, but only that Father, Son, and Spirit are divine, distinct, and one. In other words, the point is not, in any manner of speaking, to get us to figure out the manner of God’s existence in this respect, but to reveal enough of God as to inspire us to live for Christ and worship rightly.

Not that every Christian believer adverts to this; perhaps, at first, not one in twenty: But if you ask any of them a few questions, you will easily find it is implied in what he believes.[5]

Not every Christian, especially new Christians, explicitly will hold to the doctrine of the Trinity, but you can ask them questions long enough to discover that they implicitly accept the doctrine. Earlier and then later in the sermon (not quoted above) Wesley observes that some through invincible ignorance or involuntary rejection (through misunderstanding of Scripture, the doctrine, or personal confusion) who reject the basic tenets of the Trinity will still be saved. This seems reasonable. In my mind, it’s an open question as to whether or not the basic tenets of the gospel imply the Trinity so clearly that any Christian implicitly believes the doctrine. I will say that anybody who believes in God implicitly believes in the Triune God as the only God (if the doctrine of the Trinity is true). But do all who believe the gospel even know that the Holy Spirit is anything other than their own emotions due to poor instruction or that God is uncreated? I mean, the “who made God” question of the atheists confused so many genuine Christians who just had no knowledge, might many true Christians have such little knowledge of Scripture as to have no set of beliefs which imply the Trinity? I would say, “Yes.” That seems to be obvious. But that doesn’t make the doctrine less true, less essential (in terms of definitive of historic Christian orthodoxy), or less helpful for those who understand it.

References

[1] John Wesley, The Works of John Wesley, Third Edition., vol. 6 (London: Wesleyan Methodist Book Room, 1872), 200, “Here are the arguments Wesley marshals in favor of this often excluded passage from 1 John:  “(1.) That though it is wanting in many copies, yet it is found in more; and those copies of the greatest authority:—(2.) That it is cited by a whole gain of ancient writers, from the time of St. John to that of Constantine. This argument is conclusive: For they could not have cited it, had it not then been in the sacred canon:—(3.) That we can easily account for its being, after that time, wanting in many copies, when we remember that Constantine’s successor was a zealous Arian, who used every means to promote his bad cause, to spread Arianism throughout the empire; in particular the erasing this text out of as many copies as fell into his hands.””

[2] John Wesley, The Works of John Wesley, Third Edition., vol. 6 (London: Wesleyan Methodist Book Room, 1872), 200.

[3] John Wesley, The Works of John Wesley, Third Edition., vol. 6 (London: Wesleyan Methodist Book Room, 1872), 200–201.

[4] John Wesley, The Works of John Wesley, Third Edition., vol. 6 (London: Wesleyan Methodist Book Room, 1872), 204.

[5] John Wesley, The Works of John Wesley, Third Edition., vol. 6 (London: Wesleyan Methodist Book Room, 1872), 205.

A Reconsideration of God’s Impassibility

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When I was in seminary, I abandoned the doctrine of divine impassibility. For readers who do not know, divine impassibility is the doctrine that God is not affected by creation. It sounds weird at first because in the Bible, God answers prayer, gets involved with Israel, and shows wrath against sin.

The reason this doctrine was so important to the early church is that they had the idea that if God changes from one state to another, then God is no longer the source of all being(s). Why? Because God is becoming something else (changing) and therefore not the source of all being. If God is not the source of all being because God is pure ‘being’, then he isn’t divine.

I had decided that any doctrine which claims that God cannot suffer paints a monstrous truth about God: that God is uninterested in the well-being of his creatures. The problem is that I had misunderstood what the early church meant by this idea. I had thought that since the ancient Greeks saw God as impassible, the early Christian converts from Gentile nations just adopted the idea from Greek philosophy without realizing that it cannot be found in the Old Testament. It hadn’t crossed my mind that the idea might be a necessary corollary to some other Christian truth.

A couple of years ago, I spent several months revisiting the ancient arguments for God’s existence based upon the nature of cause and effect, gradations of goodness in human experience, the existence of consciousness, and the nature of logic and mathematics. All of these arguments entail a God upon whom all things aside from God depend for existence. This means that God must be ‘being itself’, thus God is never in any ultimate sense, becoming anything. God is not, by definition, going from one state to another. Of course, this realization forced me to think much more carefully about how I interpreted certain Old Testament passages about God’s emotions. C.S. Lewis mentions this difficulty in Letter to Malcolm, when he observes that the Old Testament authors take no pains to protect any sort of doctrine of divine impassibility from the notion of a stormily emotional Jehovah (51-52).

There is a sense in which what I am saying does not really matter. One can be a Christian without bothering to figure any of this out. Paul’s standard for Christian conversion is rather meager  by many confessional standards (or robust since it requires obedience to Jesus): confess with your lips that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead (Romans 10).

But if you go on thinking about the nature of emotions, particularly in their physical manifestation in human beings, they require a physical/chemical reaction to the environment. God has no environment, if anything, God is the environment in which all space-time has its being. Thus either the Biblical revelation about God’s interaction with creation is wrong or it is given by way of analogy.

The Bible, since it is God’s revelation to the church, requires us to deny the first part of the disjunctive premise, thus God’s revelation appears to be given in Scripture, in some measure, by analogy. But there are certain events in Scripture that are considered ultimate as revelations of God’s nature. For instance, Paul understands the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus as a revelation of the fact that God is loving toward weak and ungodly sinners and enemies (Romans 5:1-11).

Here is a rough outline of the premises and conclusion of an argument for God’s impassibility:

  1. The world made up of things which change.
  2. Things which change, by definition, depend upon causes to change.
  3. God is the cause of the whole world, and therefore not the world.
  4. God depends upon nothing for God’s being.
  5. God is unchanging or impassible.

This may seem opaque. That’s okay, I’m trying to avoid too much philosophical language. But the big idea (God’s unchangeability) can be summarized this way:

  1. God is unchanging, Scripture teaches this (Malachi 3:6, James 1:27) in moments of explicit teaching. Reason dictates that it is so as well.
  2. God is love. Scripture teaches this as well (Romans 5:5-11, 1 John 4:8-16).
  3. Love is a positive perfection of God, God need not change to be loving and caring.
  4. Wrath, sadness, anger, etc are privations of mercy, bliss, and harmony. God suffers no privation, therefore these words in Scripture are analogies about God’s works in creation that correspond to human experience.
  5. Thus, God is, regardless of the state of the creation, unalterably loving.

God’s Love and God’s Impassibility

David Bentley Hart argued in his essay, No Shadow of Turning that God’s impassibility is precisely the guarantee that God’s love is God’s being. Love is not a state from which God could capriciously move or worse, be influenced to move from. As compelling as the idea of a God who suffers with creation can be, it seems that a stronger hope and certainly a more scriptural and reasonable one is that the terrors of creation do not alter God at all, but rather await their sure defeat in space time by God’s own indestructible love and power.

The Incarnation and God’s Impassibility

It it indeed the case as a part of God’s work when the Word of God became flesh and dwelt among us, the Son of God suffered as a man. Paul Gavriluk argues in chapter two of his book The Suffering of the Impassible God,

…by calling the Christian God impassible the Fathers sought to distance God the creator from the gods of mythology. In this debate the major goal was to rule out popular pagan modes of imaging the divine realm as unworthy of the Christian God. Second, the Fathers viewed impassibility as compatible with select emotionally coloured characteristics, e.g., love, mercy, and compassion.

Many Christians see the revelation of God in Christ as a revelation that God could suffer and change. But in more ancient times this revelation showed what God was like all along despite the piecemeal and partial (Hebrews 1:1-2) revelation which was given in the Old Testament. The revelation of God in Christ is that God is love rather than capricious like the pagan gods or the forces of nature.

God is unchangeably loving. The Trinity, remains the same even as my own religious state of mind wavers, my character changes (for better or worse), the creation groans, and the gospel is preached well or poorly. God the Father, who sends the Son for our salvation, and who upon the enthronement of his Son sends us the Holy Spirit ever remains love and loving. God is goodness. Thus, though the church and humanity are commanded to imitate God’s love (and indeed my nature would flourish should I choose to do so as I am created in his image), his interest in the final salvation of humanity neither waxes nor wanes depending upon this or that congregation’s spiritual temperature (Peterson, Long Obedence, 44).

Notes:

My Translation of Romans 5:1-11

For Christ, while we were weak, at the appropriate time, died on behalf of the ungodly. You see, with difficulty somebody would die on behalf of a righteous man, indeed, on behalf of a good man somebody might even dare to die. Now God demonstrates his own love for us this way: while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Therefore (more so really), having been declared righteous in the present by his blood, will we be saved by him from the wrath. For if, being enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of his Son (more so, having already been reconciled), we will be saved by his life. Now, not only this, but we are boasting all the while in God, through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received this reconciliation.

Aquinas on God’s Joy

Again. Joy and delight are a kind of repose of the will in the object of its willing. Now God is supremely at rest in Himself, Who is the principal object of His will, as finding all sufficiency in Himself. Therefore by His will He rejoices and delights supremely in Himself. Saint Thomas Aquinas, Fathers of the English Dominican Province, Summa Contra Gentiles, vol. 1 (Bellingham, WA: Logos Bible Software, 2010), 190.

Aquinas on God’s Love

For it belongs properly to the nature of love that the lover wills the good of the beloved. Now God wills His own and others’ good, as stated above. Accordingly then God loves both Himself and other things.
Again. True love requires one to will another’s good as one’s own. For a thing whose good one wills merely as conducive to another’s good, is loved accidentally: thus he who wills wine to be preserved that he may drink it, or who loves a man that he may be useful or pleasing to him, loves the wine or the man accidentally, but himself properly speaking. Now God loves each thing’s good as its own, since He wills each thing to be in as much as it is good in itself: although He directs one to the profit of another. God therefore truly loves both Himself and other things.
Moreover. Since everything naturally wills or desires its own good in its own way, if the nature of love is that the lover will or desire the good of the beloved, it follows that the lover is referred to the beloved as to a thing that is in a way one with him. Wherefore it appears that the proper notion of love consists in the affection of one tending to another as one with himself in some way: for which reason Dionysius describes love as a unitive force. Hence the greater the thing that makes the lover one with the beloved, the more intense is the love: for we love those more who are united to us by the origin of birth, or by frequent companionship, than those who are merely united to us by the bond of human nature. Again, the more the cause of union is deeply seated in the lover, the stronger the love: wherefore sometimes a love that is caused by a passion becomes more intense than a love arising from natural origin or from some habit, although it is more liable to be transitory. Now the cause of all things being united to God, namely His goodness, which all things reflect, is exceeding great and deeply seated in God, since Himself is His own goodness.2 Wherefore in God not only is there true love, but also most perfect and most abiding love. Saint Thomas Aquinas, Fathers of the English Dominican Province, Summa Contra Gentiles, vol. 1 (Bellingham, WA: Logos Bible Software, 2010), 191–192.

Interesting Insight from Charles Finney on Justification

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In the lecture on justification in his Lectures on Systematic Theology Charles Finney uses the distinction between legislative, judicial, and executive functions of government to consider the doctrine of justification:

Justification is the pronouncing of one just. It may be done in words, or, practically, by treatment. Justification must be, in some sense, a governmental act; and it is of importance to a right understanding of gospel justification, to inquire whether it be an act of the judicial, the executive, or the legislative department of government; that is, whether gospel justification consists in a strictly judicial or forensic proceeding, or whether it consists in pardon, or setting aside the execution of an incurred penalty, and is therefore properly either an executive or a legislative act. We shall see that the settling of this question is of great importance in theology; and as we view this subject, so, if consistent, we must view many important and highly practical questions in theology.

Now, I’d never even considered that such a distinction in the roles of government might apply conceptually to the kingdom of God. But it seems to make some sense. For instance, while obeying the law gives life, the Bible also teaches that nobody will be justified by works of the law (for all sinned according to Romans 3:23). It also teaches that justification comes by faith, by grace, through Christ, and strangely enough, to those who are obedient to the law (Romans 2:13).

But with the exception of Romans 2:13, the meaning of which is contested, most other passages about justification (being declared righteous by God or the resumption of a properly ordered relationship with God) treat it as a rather personal reality (through grace, by faith, in Christ, etc). It’s not about whether or not somebody has done as much good as they can, because no matter how much good is done, guilt is still guilt. In Finney’s taxonomy, the judicial office of government is purely that of determining whether or not the law has been broken by this or that person. So for him, as far as the law goes, there can be no justification for anybody who has done anything wrong, ever (Romans 3:20 seems to say exactly this). But as far as appeal to the law-giver (legislator) or the branch of government responsible for action (executive) justification, pardon, and reconciliation are possible. So sinners cannot, by any means, appeal to the law for forgiveness (though the Law of Moses offers conditions of pardon, these do not come through the system of elders/judges). But sinners can appeal directly to the law-giver and king of God’s kingdom for forgiveness: a gracious and kind God.

But I’ve never seen this taxonomy God’s role in justification in a Bible commentary and I’d never noticed it from reading Scripture. This doesn’t mean that Finney is wrong, but it’s just gone unnoticed for a while, now.

Theology Thursday: Karl Barth and Christian mindset.

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Several years ago, I read a few volumes of Karl Barth’s Church Dogmatics. During that period of my life I wasn’t sleeping much and I probably read too quickly. Anyhow, I’m trying to just read 10 pages a day now. I’ll eventually finish, or maybe I won’t. Reading the Bible and doing what Jesus says is better, but Barth is useful for preachers because he helps build the habit of comparing the church’s preaching back to Jesus. In other words, he reminds pastors to go back to Jesus and stay on task.

And without further ado:

The criterion of past, future and therefore present Christian utterance is thus the being of the Church, namely, Jesus Christ, God in His gracious revealing and reconciling address to man. Does Christian utterance derive from Him? Does it lead to Him? Is it conformable to Him? None of these questions can be put apart, but each is to be put independently and with all possible force. Hence theology as biblical theology is the question of the basis, as practical theology the question of the goal and as dogmatic theology the question of the content of the distinctive utterance of the Church.
Karl Barth, Geoffrey William Bromiley, and Thomas F. Torrance, Church Dogmatics: The Doctrine of the Word of God, Part 1, vol. 1 (London; New York: T&T Clark, 2004), 4–5.

Barth’s main point here is that the standard for theology is “the being of the Church.” People could easily read that and think, “What the heck?” But he explains himself: Jesus is the being of the church. Thus, the standard for theology is (not immediately) “is it true?” This is because one might have a definition of truth that is false or silly! Instead the standard is, “Is it comformable to, based on, and directed toward Jesus Christ?

Now, don’t get me wrong, I think truth matters for theology. But Barth is making the point that if by “truth” somebody means, “that which is laboratory tested, that which makes me feel good, that which conforms to my worldview” then this question will do no good for theology (but I would add: yet).

Why does this matter? Well, last week I wrote about having Christian mindset. I think that Barth’s writings can help us in this matter. The following questions can help us return to Scripture not merely to be right and not merely to learn right decisions but to learn the right approach to ideas and decisions:

  1. Is my mindset conformable to Jesus Christ
  2. Is my mindset based on Jesus Christ?
  3. Is my mindset directed toward him?

These questions can lead one to a rather ruthless form of repentance from all sorts of idolatries, cowardices, and hardnesses of the heart. So, once again, while speculative theology and practical theology have their place in the Christian life and while the Bible certainly has its place in those things, do not forget to read it in order to have the wisdom for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus (2 Timothy 3:14-17).

Speculative Theology and Universal Creatorship

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I had lunch with a friend yesterday to talk to him about, among other things, a video game he is programming. He mentioned this thought experiment that came to him in the process:

Every hypothetical universe that would allegedly be as good or better than this one has a creator, even completely random ones created by rolling dice to determine constraints (for role playing games and so-on). Even hypothetical universes imagined for the sake of thinking about multi-verse theory are imagined. Thus, anybody who finds the argument from suffering compelling, but accepts various writers, thinkers, and other hypothetical universe constructors to be good or real is inconsistent.

Imaginary is not meant to mean unreal, but simply conceived in the mind. One might object, “but in our universe, real, conscious beings suffer.” That’s fine, it’s a thought experiment, but if there is a creator behind the entire cosmos, one must imagine that any involvement in the life of humans on earth would have to be a statistical anomaly (we’re zero percent of the universe). This is a crass anthropomorphism, but the Bible is full of them, so deal with it.* An omniscient being (if we imagine for the sake of argument that this being is like us…which God isn’t really) who is managing the cosmos would find any individual event incredibly insignificant.

Also, he noted that this isn’t meant to be a proof of any sort, but a thought experiment to determine whether or not a world created in which suffering is conceivable or even necessary is necessarily created by an evil being.

Anyway, it’s an interesting experiment. My mind has gone several directions with it over the past 24 hours.

Your thoughts?

*The Bible acknowledges that it uses anthropomorphisms (Deuteronomy 1:31 and Numbers 23:19) in order to help people repent of their sins and seek forgiveness. Even calling forgiveness, ‘forgiveness’ implies an anthropomorphism because God isn’t literally a banker who tallies up our moral debts.