Geoff's Miscellany

Miscellaneous Musings

Geoff

A thought from a recent friend.

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I recently made friends with a man who has a philosophy degree and was taking engineering classes to go to graduate school for computer programming. He became very interested in New Testament studies and his philosophical and logical training from his two fields of expertise led him to make this remark:

I was shocked at the leaps in logic and the variety of strange assumptions about dates and authorship that do not have any basis in actual evidence.

When one is an insider in a field, outsider remarks can often stink of terrible dilettantism. But I think that occasionally outsiders from sister subjects (philosophy is remarkably similar to the practice of history when it comes to carefully reviewing the foundations of knowledge) can notice important gaps of knowledge when a field becomes insular.

Leonard Euler once made a similar remark concerning apparent contradiction in mathematics that are reconcilable to how the Freethinkers treat the New Testament and any difficulty therein as instantaneously culpable or demonstrative or absolutely contradictory.

Mathematics is regarded as a science in which nothing is assumed that cannot be derived in the most distinct way from the primary principles of our knowledge. Nevertheless, there have been people far above average who have believed to have found great problems in mathematics, whose solutions are impossible; by this they imagined themselves to have deprived this science of all its certainty. Indeed, this reasoning that they propose is so deceptively attractive that much effort and insight is required to refute them precisely. However, mathematics is not lessened in the eyes of sensible people, even when it does not clear up these problems entirely. So then what right do freethinkers unwaveringly think they have to reject the Holy Scripture because of a few nuisances which mostly are not nearly as considerable as the ones in mathematics?

My point isn’t that the Bible has no contradictions, but only that within the field of New Testament studies the data set is not taken merely as a given. It is often taken as a hopelessly flawed given that can only yield true data if the content of the text is, not so much doubted (that would be a useful exercise), but assumed to be disingenuous or inferred to be disingenuous because it contains certain difficulties.

Confusion with Calvinism

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I used to be a Calvinist. I’m not one these days. But I wish to voice my thoughts about a linguistic aspect of Calvinism that has always been confusing. This post is not about whether Calvinism is true. It is about using words in a confusing way that, incidentally, does come up in debate between Calvinists and non-Calvinists from time to time.

And here is the confusing bit in a nutshell:

The modern popular level Calvinist’s phrase for God’s control over every event of history is “the sovereignty of God.” The but in normal English usage, to be sovereign simply means to be a ruler of some sort. Thus, in Calvinist discourse the language of God’s kingdom in the gospels is often confused with the Calvinist language about God’s control over all events because synonymous words are used to refer to completely different things.

The lexical issue
For instance, John Piper says this:

…[H]ere’s what I mean by the sovereignty of God: God has the rightful authority, the freedom, the wisdom, and the power to bring about everything that he intends to happen. And therefore, everything he intends to come about does come about. Which means: God plans and governs all things.

When he says, “I will accomplish all my purpose,” he means, “Nothing happens except what is my purpose.”

The issue is not whether this statement is true. The issue is that the word sovereignty, in any other context means:

  1. supreme and unrestricted power, as of a state
  2. the position, dominion, or authority of a sovereign (ruler/king/prince/etc)
  3. an independent state

In other words, sovereignty means kingdom or rulership.

But, in the technical terminology that is used in this form of theology, sovereignty is disconnected from God’s kingship (his right to rule the cosmos as he sees fit and judge the peoples therein) and is directed to God’s relationship to cause and effect (in Piper’s case, God is seen as the omnidirective  immediate cause of all events).

The Gospels, the Kingdom of God, and the language of Sovereignty
The issue, for many Christians who are Calvinists or who flirt with its doctrines (I saw this problem a lot on BSM mission trips when I was younger) is that they start reading the meaning sovereignty as a technical term about God’s control of everything into Jesus’ language about God’s kingdom. This is only natural because in normal English usage, kingdom and sovereignty are synonymous.

The problem that immediately arises while reading the gospels is that God’s kingdom is something that has arrived in history (Mark 1:14-15), something that is prayed for (Matthew 6:9-13), something that is to be entered into (Mattew 5:20), and something that is opposed by the world as it currently stands (Luke 17:21).

So the problem (and again this is not meant to falsify or argue against Calvinism) is that the kingdom of God language in Scripture is the language of God’s opposition to evil, his offer of forgiveness to those who would repent, and his judgment of those who refuse it. Kingdom language is, by definition, not language about God’s control over all events. It is, by definition, language about God’s interruption of the normal course of human events.

The language of sovereignty in Calvinist thought is the language of affirming that everything that happens everywhere is God’s will is always God’s will. If this meaning is imported into Jesus’ language about God’s kingdom coming, then the language makes no sense:

  1. “The kingdom of God is at hand” would mean “God is doing his will perfectly in all of creation just like always”.
  2. Praying for God’s kingdom to come would mean “pray for everything to happen as usual.”
  3. “Enter the kingdom” would mean “be in the cosmos as usual.”

Piper demonstrates that even Calvinists with doctoral degrees in Biblical studies succumb to the problem when he says this of God’s kingdom on page 27 of his book God is the Gospel:

“Jesus came into Galilee, proclaiming the gospel of God, and saying, ‘The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel’” (Mark 1:14). In other words, the
reign of God has broken into this world to set things right for the sake of his people; therefore repent and believe this good news. In fact, if you do, you are part of his people. In a world so full of brokenness
and sin, there simply can be no good news if God does not break in with kingly authority. If God does not come with sovereign rights as King of the universe, there will be only hopelessness in this world.

He gives a marvelous description of Jesus’ announcement of the kingdom breaking into the world. But right at the end of it he uses the word sovereign according to it’s typical English usage. He notes that God has sovereign rights. I agree with this statement fully, yet it is confusing if we interpret this statement with Piper’s normal meaning for God’s sovereignty. God would not need to assert his sovereign rights as King of the cosmos, because in Piper’s view every event that happens is God’s will.

One other issue
In discussions with people wherein one denies the Calvinist notion of God’s sovereignty (that God does everything that happens in the world), the Calvinist often incredulously asks why you deny God’s kingship or rights over the universe. This is a clever rhetorical trick, but it is only possible because of a lexical confusion. Many rhetorically honest Calvinists don’t do this. But many others may only do it by mistake.

Conclusion
I propose that Calvinists come up with a new term (they won’t) for God’s direction of all events so that people don’t get confused when reading the gospels. Maybe even the old term “meticulous providence” will do. This is similar to the need of coming up with a better term for Christian growth than sanctification (because the Bible uses the word differently than the theologians). This step has been taken with the doctrine of the Trinity: when referring to Jesus as the second person thereof, we often say, “God the Son” because “son of God” rarely means “second person of the Trinity” in the Bible (in the Old Testament, son of God can mean a king, the elders of Israel, the angelic host, and by implication of the genealogies, Adam).

Are we being Sabotaged?

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Today I read a book from the 1940s titled, “The Simple Sabotage Field Manual.”

I don’t know why I read it. I guess I wanted to know if it would bear similarity to how I thought in my early twenties.

What I noticed was that the last section of the book describes ways to sabotage businesses that are strikingly similar to the way that the average human being operates at work. There are also hilarious similarities to “best practices” in management, education, and leadership theory:

Don’t order new working materials until your current stocks have been virtually exhausted, so that the slightest delay in filling your order will mean a shutdown.

In making work assignments, always sign out the unimportant jobs first. See that the important jobs are assigned to inefficient workers of poor machines.

Insist on perfect work in relatively unimportant products; send back for refinishing those which have the least flaw. Approve other defective parts whose flaws are not visible to the naked eye.

Above is modern work for a giant corporation. Below you’ll see a description of any job with frequent meetings or incompetent staff.

When training new workers, give incomplete or misleading instructions.

To lower morale and with it, production, be pleasant to inefficient workers; give them undeserved promotions. Discriminate against efficient workers; complain unjustly about their work[The Peter Principle at work.].

Hold conferences when there is more critical work to be done[It works every time for not working every time].

Multiply the procedures and clearances involved in issuing instructions, pay checks, and so on. See that three people have to approve everything where one would do [While you’re at it, put the new cover page on those tps reports].

It even has a prophecy about how people will behave at movies:

Audiences can ruin enemy propaganda films by applauding to drown the words of the speaker, by coughing loudly, and by talking.

The next section must be reproduced in total because it describes the modern worker or student:

  1. Work slowly. Think out ways to increase the number of movements necessary on your job: use a light hammer instead of a heavy one, try to make a small wrench do when a big one is necessary, use little force where considerable force is needed, and so on.
  2. Contrive as many interruptions to your work as you can: when changing the material on which you are working, as you would on a lathe or punch, take needless time to do it. If you are cutting, shaping or doing other measured work, measure dimensions twice as often as you need to. When you go to the lavatory, spend a longer time there than is necessary.[Good strategy for getting paid not to work!] Forget tools so that you will have to go back after them.
  3. Even if you understand the language, pretend not to understand instructions in a foreign tongue.
  4. Pretend that instructions are hard to understand, and ask to have them repeated more than once. Or pretend that you are particularly anxious to do your work, and pester the foreman with unnecessary questions[How many meetings have you experienced like this?].
  5. Do your work poorly and blame it on bad tools, machinery, or equipment. Complain that these things are preventing you from doing your job right[If you’re a teacher you’ve heard, “My printer broke.”].
  6. Never pass on your skill and experience to a new or less skillful worker.
  7. Snarl up administration in every possible way. Fill out forms illegibly so that they will have to be done over; make mistakes or omit requested information in forms.
  8. If possible, join or help organize a group for presenting employee problems to the management. See that the procedures adopted are as inconvenient as possible for the management, involving the presence of a large number of employees at each presentation, entailing more than one meeting for each grievance, bringing up problems which are largely imaginary, and so on.[It’s like the writers said, “Use unions to ruin everybody’s day.”]

In conclusion, this book could totally be used as a guide to ruin things you don’t like or, more nobly, it could be used as a guide to what not to do at work.

Note: This is meant to be funny, but due to its description of reality, it accidentally seems plausible.

Church Giving

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One of my least favorite things in which to participate, at any church, is a fund raising campaign.

If they are put on by an external committee or a fund raising team from the denomination they are often worse than awful. Here’s my list of beefs:

  1. They often utilize fliers that misrepresent Scripture. Often with quotes like this, “Are you going to build a house for me to inhabit?” 2 Samuel 7:5
  2. They take up a great deal of church service time that is explicitly designated for Word and Sacrament (or Ordinance if you’re Baptist).
  3. A great deal of stake is put on them that makes them a time of tremendous stress on pastors, deacon boards, and committed families.
  4. They feed into an event rather than Scripture/discipleship oriented church calendar.
  5. Giving is treated as a sort of supernatural transaction.

Now then, here’s the problem. Churches, particularly Baptist or non-denominational churches, are funded almost entirely by the local membership. Thus, giving must, at certain times be increased. But how can a church do this as a part of the process of discipleship rather than merely as a project of the current leadership?

Here are my thoughts:

  1. A church could move in the direction of treating the morning services as a time for discipleship (training people how to do everything Jesus taught Matthew 28:19-20) rather than programming designed purely to invite new people.
  2. In so doing, giving could then be taught about, not as a weird supernatural transaction between God and the giver, but as a way of sustaining the church community in actual human history. In other words, giving is covenantal with a concern about the traditions of the past (the message of Scripture), the present situation (people who need to eat and to know the gospel), and the future (whatever that may be).
  3. In this respect, the church, as an institution and as a people, would be able to focus on money in relationship to the teachings of Jesus. People who are learning to be frugal and generous would also be those in charge of the church’s finances. Thus the teaching about money from the pulpit and in Sunday school would not only be a begrudging moment wherein people are shamed into supporting a new building. Instead, handling money would be one part of the whole Christian life: being less worldly, more generous, more hospitable, and a part of a community (the church) that must function in a real world economy.
  4. So, if giving to the church took a back seat to the goal of training people to be like Jesus and to use their finances wisely, it would seem that capital campaigns and other such things could be done away with.

Loving your enemies and politics

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Jesus is pretty clear about loving your enemies:

Mat 5:43-48  “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ (44)  But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, (45)  so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven. For he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust. (46)  For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? (47)  And if you greet only your brothers, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same? (48)  You therefore must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.

Luk 6:27-36  “But I say to you who hear, Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, (28)  bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you. (29)  To one who strikes you on the cheek, offer the other also, and from one who takes away your cloak do not withhold your tunic either. (30)  Give to everyone who begs from you, and from one who takes away your goods do not demand them back. (31)  And as you wish that others would do to you, do so to them. (32)  “If you love those who love you, what benefit is that to you? For even sinners love those who love them. (33)  And if you do good to those who do good to you, what benefit is that to you? For even sinners do the same. (34)  And if you lend to those from whom you expect to receive, what credit is that to you? Even sinners lend to sinners, to get back the same amount. (35)  But love your enemies, and do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return, and your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High, for he is kind to the ungrateful and the evil. (36)  Be merciful, even as your Father is merciful.

I think his teaching here should become a controlling priority in lives of Christians. Be kind to those who oppose you. But there are two ways to get this wrong (btw, I’ve preached on this and maybe blogged about it…if I have, sorry). I’ll use a political metaphor because in my experience people of different political persuasions are usually (though not always) more likely to fall into the corresponding trap:

  1. The error on the right
    This mistake is simply that of finding exceptions to Jesus command here and immediately inferring that it therefore never applies. This error comes up more in conversation than in writing. It often goes like this: You want me to love my enemies…but what about Hitler? Or perhaps Christians who are unaware of Jesus’ teaching on this score will equate kindness to enemies with weakness.
  2. The error on the left
    This error is equally silly but more compelling at first glance. It goes this way, “Did you hear about that horrible tragedy that did not befall me? I totally love the person who did that. Therefore, I am a disciple of Jesus regardless of how I treat those around me.” This error comes with other blanket statements too: “Christians should never use violence,” “Christians should forgive everybody,” etc. In it’s stupidest expressions, this view essentially internalizes that nobody is the Christian’s enemy.

The problems with both of these errors are obvious, given a little thought:

  1. Both errors require their adherents to assume that exceptions to the rule of enemy love invalidate the teaching as a general stance. If there are times when violence is necessary helps accomplish a provisional good, then Jesus is wrong. On the right, the teaching is tossed out. On the left it is misapplied. Yet, there are exceptions in the gospels and the epistles to almost every imperative in the sermon on the mount. The Biblical authors knew that Jesus’ teachings assumed valid exceptions.
  2. Both errors make kindness to people with whom you actually have contact unnecessary. The error on the right makes kindness to local enemies seem like weakness (that would be like forgiving Hitler). The error on the left makes it unnecessary (I forgive all the terrorists, I don’t have to be kind to you).
  3. Similarly to problem 2, both ignore that the command is meant to be a general stance (kindness/mercy) toward the people in one’s immediate circle of experience: “Bless those who curse you,” “Pray for those who persecute you,” “Go be reconciled with your brother.”
  4. The error on the right ends up being a way for ill informed Christians to shame informed Christians for following Jesus’ teachings.
  5. The error on the left ends up being a way for ill informed Christians to shame Christians who have used things like violence to save a life, protect a child, or who have called the police when in danger.

The actual teachings of Jesus about loving your enemies are transformative, just as he meant them to be but it has to be something we commit to doing, not something we find exceptions to or merely claim to do.

Tips for loving your enemies:

  1. Remember that your enemies might also be the people that you wish to curse, persecute, or hate. Pray for forgiveness, pray for their well being, and be intentionally polite to them in the near future.
  2. When somebody obviously hates you, pray for them.
  3. When such a person is rude to you in person, try having an actual conversation with them about why.
  4. If such a person is dangerously, violently, or illegally treating you poorly notify the authorities. Seriously, sometimes the loving thing to do is to ensure that somebody does not hurt somebody else.
  5. Or even, avoid the person. Paul says, “as much as depends on you, be at peace with all people.” Given time to cool off, perhaps both of you could learn to be cool with each other.
  6. Whether you view the passage as being about pacifism or not, do not use your interpretation as an excuse not to actually do what Jesus says.

The Transfiguration

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One of the weirdest stories in the gospels is the transfiguration. Despite how strange it is though, its meaning is apparent. All three versions of the story contain God’s command to the bystanders:

  1. Mat 17:5  He was still speaking when, behold, a bright cloud overshadowed them, and a voice from the cloud said, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased; listen to him.”
  2. Mar 9:7  And a cloud overshadowed them, and a voice came out of the cloud, “This is my beloved Son; listen to him.”
  3. Luk 9:35  And a voice came out of the cloud, saying, “This is my Son, my Chosen One; listen to him!”

In all of these gospels, the story happens shortly after Jesus’ revelation of his impending death to his friends.

In all of these gospels, Moses and Elijah (two of the biggest names in the Old Testament) are present.

In all of these gospels, of all the people who could have spoken, God spoke to the disciples and told them to listen to none other than Jesus.

I think the point is obvious. Our response to the gospel must be faith in Christ and they only kind of faith that will due is the kind that trusts Jesus as a man with something to say. Jesus had something to say about his death, his resurrection, about God, about life, about forgiveness, about sin, about history, and about you. The question the gospel authors leave us with is, “Will you listen to him?”