A Question for the Christians

[Matrim Fox Cauthon]

A conservative Christian once made the point to me that if you can pick and choose from your holy text based on the idea that some of it's flawed, you can ultimately decide anything you want, and what's to say you don't decide the entire thing's flawed? I struggled with the idea for a while, but I can't really find anything wrong with the point. If I'm going to argue that flawed men wrote about the world being created in seven days because they didn't know better, I can't argue against the idea that flawed men wrote about the idea of a Supreme Being because they didn't know better. Ultimately it led me to question the entirety of my religious beliefs.

I prefer the take of biblical theologian Gerhard von Rad. Although he was talking about the ideal methodology of biblical theology, his perspective regarding the Bible works well for both a religious and irreligious perspective of the Bible. Namely, that the Bible merely provides Israel's own explicit assertions about Jahweh. The actual historicity of the Bible was of secondary importance, as was a fairly universal practice in most of the pre-modern world, to what the Israelites were trying to communicate about their perceived experiences and relationship with Jahweh throughout their mythic history. This methodological approach allows for the existence or non-existence of god to be mostly irrelevant to the discussion of Israelite faith statements about the perceived nature of the divine experience. What's more, this approach acknowledges, albeit indirectly, that the testimony of the divine faith experience will undoubtedly change throughout time, thereby making it possible for contemporary theists to reform their own understanding of the divine experience and relationship.

[The Fan]

Fan,

As a scientist, I have a great deal of respect for science, but it doesn't tell us a whole lot about human interaction beyond the basic brain chemistry behind it. Nor does it adequately address art and culture and the societal bonds that tie us together (and tear us apart). Now, you can have all those things without religion, but that's not how our species developed. Maybe there is a reason for that.

Are you suggesting that without fear of the unknown and our attempt to explain that unknown, we wouldn't have art, culture and society? There is no way to say for certain, but it is certain we wouldn't have this set of art, culture, society. I have read archeologists find significant evidence of art, music, jewelry, decoration and the like to support rudimentary art, culture and society. Now did they also have religion, or a rudimentary form of it? I think there is dramatically less evidence of that, if any.

So, I do think these things would exist without the other, granted they would be different, and religion has given us some appreciable works, paintings, architecture, sculpture, music, etc, although I feel it pales in comparison to the amount it has held this species back overall (the 1000 years of the dark ages for an easy example).

When religion is treated for what it is, a creation of man for man, like a story, song, or painting, it is quite different than when it is treated as some divine truth, some behind the scenes guide to everything, a shortcut to The Secret... that is where the problems stem from. Painful as it may be, there is no pre-ordained destiny, no puppet-master pulling the strings, relieving the individual of their need to be present and accountable for their path through this journey. Still merely an opinion, but with the available evidence (and complete lack of to the contrary), the most informed I can offer.

[TerraPrime]

Maybe there is a reason for that.

Was it Hitchens or some other who proposed an explanation for this? It's the same reason as we have Grilled Cheese Jesus: Human brains are sometimes too good at seeing connections that aren't there. That's basically where superstition came from. Superstitions that have been reinforced by tradition and formalized by rituals are then elevated as religions. From time to time, religion actually progressed and allowed humans a framework to formulate ideas about self and our relation to the world. But let's not kid ourselves into thinking that religions came because of those deeper truths - they did not. Those deeper truths, like the writings of Aquinas or Martin Luther or other major religious philosophers extracted some worthwhile ideas from our rituals and religions, but the products cannot justify the process that lead to their creation, imo.

As I see it, religions exist because we fear death, and we needed some explanation. It is the ultimate impenetrable mystery. We can all experience love and joy and sadness, but we can never grapple the experience of death. That's what sets religions apart from moral codes for me. Moral codes tell us how to behave, i.e. treat others well, don't be selfish, but religions also speak to the greatest of all mystery. Otherwise, people would just follow schools of philosophical thoughts on ethics and morality, instead of following different religions, imo.

Of course, once it came into existence, religion was also, like most human institutions, used as a tool to control the populace by those in power.

[Scion of Valyria]

As I see it, religions exist because we fear death, and we needed some explanation. It is the ultimate impenetrable mystery. We can all experience love and joy and sadness, but we can never grapple the experience of death. That's what sets religions apart from moral codes for me. Moral codes tell us how to behave, i.e. treat others well, don't be selfish, but religions also speak to the greatest of all mystery. Otherwise, people would just follow schools of philosophical thoughts on ethics and morality, instead of following different religions, imo.

I'm not sure if death is as much of a driving force to the origins of religion as we tend to make it out to be. Some of the earlier religious traditions I know of rarely bothered in giving a silver lining to the afterlife. The Greeks had Hades, but it wasn't exactly a warm place. Early Hebrew beliefs didn't really involve any afterlife, AFAIK, and the ones held by the early Greeks and Mesopotamian cultures were never particularly comforting. I always saw religion existing because people needed to explain where they and the world they inhabited came from, sort of a creation story run rampant and pervading into other aspects of life (such as how to live, explaining disasters, etc). And then, as you say, turned into a tool for control.

[TerraPrime]

I'm not sure if death is as much of a driving force to the origins of religion as we tend to make it out to be. Some of the earlier religious traditions I know of rarely bothered in giving a silver lining to the afterlife. The Greeks had Hades, but it wasn't exactly a warm place. Early Hebrew beliefs didn't really involve any afterlife, AFAIK, and the ones held by the early Greeks and Mesopotamian cultures were never particularly comforting. I always saw religion existing because people needed to explain where they and the world they inhabited came from, sort of a creation story run rampant and pervading into other aspects of life (such as how to live, explaining disasters, etc). And then, as you say, turned into a tool for control.

I wasn't thinking that they wanted comfort for their fear of the cessation of existence. More that it is a topic that people sought explanations, as they did for other natural events, except that death is also tied to our awareness of existence and. I don't think that some of the religions do not have very comforting view of the afterlife means that it wasn't an issue that people turned to religion for explanations.

Of course, I'm not a cultural anthropologist nor a scholar in comparative religion, I just play one on the internet. :P

[Galactus]

I wasn't thinking that they wanted comfort for their fear of the cessation of existence. More that it is a topic that people sought explanations, as they did for other natural events, except that death is also tied to our awareness of existence and. I don't think that some of the religions do not have very comforting view of the afterlife means that it wasn't an issue that people turned to religion for explanations.

Of course, I'm not a cultural anthropologist nor a scholar in comparative religion, I just play one on the internet. :P

I'd argue that religion is mainly an explanation for why magic doesen't work.

[Galactus]

I found trying to believe that I was in some kind of contact with tHS to be more of a mindfuck than just believing that I had to accept the doctrines of a book.

I think the idea is that when you'r in contact with the Holy Spirit you'll know directly and inituitively: Because there's nothing in the universe like it and you can't mistake it for anything else.

Which makes it utterly useless for persuading others, obviously.

[Eponine]

I think the idea is that when you'r in contact with the Holy Spirit you'll know directly and inituitively: Because there's nothing in the universe like it and you can't mistake it for anything else.

Which makes it utterly useless for persuading others, obviously.

I can't argue with someone else's subjective experience.

What I find perverse is the promise that Christians make that if you seek god you will find him, or he will find you, which is a fucking lie.

ETA: And to clarify, this isn't a case of being "mad at god". Any anger that I have is over wasting what could have been wonderful years when I was young, but instead were spent in prayer and "seeking god's will" and receiving emptiness in return.

[Galactus]

I can't argue with someone else's subjective experience.

What I find perverse is the promise that Christians make that if you seek god you will find him, or he will find you, which is a fucking lie.

ETA: And to clarify, this isn't a case of being "mad at god". Any anger that I have is over wasting what could have been wonderful years when I was young, but instead were spent in prayer and "seeking god's will" and receiving emptiness in return.

Oh, don't worry. Calvin has an answer for that...(Calvinism is very logical, just not very nice)

[Eponine]

Oh I was a Calvinist myself, funny thing. I spent years convinced that I just hadn't been "chosen".

The charming thing about Calvinists is how most of them claim not to believe in double predestination. So although original sin made you unfit for heaven from conception, and only the election of god being applied to you could cause you to desire god, god didn't choose you to be damned, you did that all yourself. You can't choose to believe, but it's your fault that you don't believe.

Still, even other Calvinists (although admittedly I knew fairly few since the fundy school I went to wasn't supportive of the doctrine) did not have a scenario for god rejecting those who sought him. The doctrine was more along the lines that only those who god had called would have a desire for god.

I decided that I would kill myself and get it over with. I felt that there was hope for annihilation and because depression isn't rational, I believed that anything would be better than continuing to live with the knowledge of future damnation. But, perhaps because I was 17, the world offered a lot of distractions against death. After a lot of wavering about my decision, finally I reached the theologically dubious but non-suicidal conclusion that maybe a display of sincere obedience was necessary before experiencing god. And that takes us to where my account as far I usually share on the board commences.

[sologdin]

spent years convinced that I just hadn't been "chosen".

this is a fantastic position to take--i accept the doctrine of the elect, but i am not among them--i am in fact one of scripture's losers. it's like reading nietzsche's derogatory descriptions of "the herd" and nodding, yep, that's me. it's both intellectually honest and a demonstration of philosophical maturity.

[Eponine]

spent years convinced that I just hadn't been "chosen".

this is a fantastic position to take--i accept the doctrine of the elect, but i am not among them--i am in fact one of scripture's losers. it's like reading nietzsche's derogatory descriptions of "the herd" and nodding, yep, that's me. it's both intellectually honest and a demonstration of philosophical maturity.

This made me laugh. It's way too generous an assessment. You have no idea how emo the whole thing was, right down to framing the reasons for my inability to commit suicide as being the same as Bertrand Russell's - perhaps not entirely untrue in essence, but horribly pretentious (I mentioned I was 17, right?)

Even more so, at the time I saw my place in the kosmos (yay for Calvinist double meanings!) as a tragic inevitability - you probably wouldn't label the poor member of the herd as having any particular philosophical maturity if at the same time he was admitting to his station, he was being soundly beaten by the ubermensch.

Yet even as I am now, my position wouldn't be changed if I had cause to believe that there was a Calvinist god. If it's the state of humanity that the unbeliever never had the agency to believe, is that any reason to desert him or to be ashamed to stand with him in his unbelief?

[El-ahrairah]

The charming thing about Calvinists is how most of them claim not to believe in double predestination. So although original sin made you unfit for heaven from conception, and only the election of god being applied to you could cause you to desire god, god didn't choose you to be damned, you did that all yourself. You can't choose to believe, but it's your fault that you don't believe.

Hm what do you mean here. I had thought the very definition of Calvinism, as opposed to other soteriological systems like Lutheranism which also expound on divine Election, is that is does teach "double predestination".

Now it's true that all orthodox Christians would say the default condition of Man is that he is heading straight to Hell of his own will, and thus God never actually "damns" anyone. But there is still a sense unique to Reformed doctrine that God chooses to throw a lifeline to some helpless sinners and specifically ignore others in the same predicament. As the Canons of Dort of the Dutch Reformed Church say:

Moreover, Holy Scripture most especially highlights this eternal and undeserved grace of our election and brings it out more clearly for us, in that it further bears witness that not all people have been chosen but that some have not been chosen or have been passed by in God's eternal election— those, that is, concerning whom God, on the basis of his entirely free, most just, irreproachable, and unchangeable good pleasure, made the following decision: to leave them in the common misery into which, by their own fault, they have plunged themselves; not to grant them saving faith and the grace of conversion; but finally to condemn and eternally punish them (having been left in their own ways and under his just judgment), not only for their unbelief but also for all their other sins, in order to display his justice.

And likewise, across the Channel, Chapter III of the Westminster Confession of Faith tells us:

By the decree of God, for the manifestation of his glory, some men and angels are predestinated unto everlasting life, and others foreordained to everlasting death... The rest of mankind [i.e. the Reprobate], God was pleased, according to the unsearchable counsel of his own will, whereby he extendeth or withholdeth mercy as he pleaseth, for the glory of his sovereign power over his creatures, to pass by, and to ordain them to dishonor and wrath for their sin, to the praise of his glorious justice.

But the faithful in Scotland and Holland are both opposed to the Lutheran teaching, which speciifcally declares belief in predestination of the just and not of the lost. From the Epitome of the Formula of Concord:

The predestination or eternal election of God, however, extends only over the godly, beloved children of God, being a cause of their salvation, which He also provides, as well as disposes what belongs thereto. Upon this [predestination of God] our salvation is founded so firmly that the gates of hell cannot overcome it...

However, that many are called and few chosen, does not mean that God is not willing to save everybody; but the reason is that they either do not at all hear God's Word, but wilfully despise it, stop their ears and harden their hearts, and in this manner foreclose the ordinary way to the Holy Ghost, so that He cannot perform His work in them, or, when they have heard it, make light of it again and do not heed it, for which [that they perish] not God or His election, but their wickedness, is responsible.

[Eponine]

El-Ah, in my experience, American reformed belief is generally that of the Dutch reformed. AFAIK, offshoots from the Dutch make up the largest reformed sects in America, largely due to the settling of Dutch immigrants around the Grand Rapids area as well as in New York - pretty much the only places with large reformed populations are where the Dutch settled. Simply not granting saving faith to the reprobate is not double predestination, as it is not an active work of God and because God did not put them in the situation where they need salvation. Even in the Formula of Concord, it is not God who stops the ears and hardens the hearts, but that is the action of the reprobates themselves. For it to be what a Calvinist would term as double predestination, God would have to be the active participant in hardening their hearts and in causing their sinfulness.

Now you're probably asking, but what about Pharaoh? A popular answer in modern Calvinism is that instead of actively hardening his heart by creating fresh evil in it, God simply gave Pharaoh over to his own sinfulness. I recommend RC Sproul's Chosen By God as a foremost example of popular Calvinist theology.

I never developed a rigorous philosophy about this, because my deconversion wasn't gradual as far as Calvinism was concerned - that is, I didn't reject Calvinism for Arminianism on my way to atheism, so once I concluded that Christianity was false, it wasn't necessary to draw a special refutation for any one sect of Christianity. However, my inclination now is that Calvinism requires double predestination at some level, and most Calvinists are intellectually unwilling to accept this because it doesn't fit their woo woo conception of what God should be like (Calvinists being woo woo? It's relative). At best, I see it as if one were the parent of a toddler who disobeyed and wandered off and wandered into a lake. And I stand there and say - hey he chose to disobey me, I didn't put him in the lake, I'm just letting him reap the consequences of his own disobedience...

[El-ahrairah]

However, my inclination now is that Calvinism requires double predestination at some level, and most Calvinists are intellectually unwilling to accept this because it doesn't fit their woo woo conception of what God should be like (Calvinists being woo woo? It's relative).

How exactly does Calvinism "require" it? Do you mean to be logically consistent? I don't think Calvinism is terribly consistent with the Bible itself, but it works fine otherwise.

Now if you really want this double predestination, and you deny that God's "passing over" of certain people - as articulated in the Reformed confessions - is equivalent to it, then you have to say that humanity's default state is basically good, and God has to remove those which He decides to transform into depraved sinners from that state. Hence bye-bye Original Sin.

[Eponine]

I do think that Calvinism is more internally consistent than other Christian theologies (that I'm familiar with), and I think that no theology is completely consistent with the Bible since the Bible isn't consistent with itself.

But you seem to think that passing over the damned is double predestination? I'd be inclined to think that it's a more honest definition.

Where I think that the necessity for double predestination comes in is insofar as it has always been God's plan for some people to go to hell. The base tenet of Calvinism is that ultimately, nothing happens outside of God's perfect will, foreknowledge and power, and to say that God is truly passive in anything is antithetical. This implies that it most glorifies God for some people to go to hell - which is acknowledged and accepted in Reformed theology, and perhaps in the Bible (Romans 9).

[Galactus]

Wouldn't the puritans be considered calvinists? Or is that just my orthodox lutheran environment talking?

[El-ahrairah]

I do think that Calvinism is more internally consistent than other Christian theologies (that I'm familiar with), and I think that no theology is completely consistent with the Bible since the Bible isn't consistent with itself.

Hm and why is that? There's quite a case to be made that the Arminian gospel is sincere, while the Calvinist one is a deception. "Accept Christ and you shall be saved", versus "Accept Christ and you shall be saved. But you may or may not be among the Elect and my message may or may not be meant for you".

But you seem to think that passing over the damned is double predestination? I'd be inclined to think that it's a more honest definition.

Well it seems to me there's these three possibilities.

1. Arminian/Wesleyan protestantism, + (sort of) Catholicism. God predestines neither the saved nor the lost, you go to Heaven or Hell on your own initiative. No Pelagianism allowed here, the Grace of God is still absolutely necessary, but in the end the choice in Man's.

2. Lutheranism. Single predestination - God elects the saved but not the lost, who are lost by their own fault. I'm not sure if this position is exactly logically coherent, but it's clearly different from the other two.

3. Calvinism Double predestination - God predestines both the saved (whom He chooses to lift out of their sinful condition) and the lost (whom He chooses to leave alone). Like I said, the only way we can make God's rejection of them any more stark is if we toss the idea of Original Sin.

And I guess in theory we could have a fourth system, where the saved have free will and yet the damned do not. But that would be quite creepy.

Where I think that the necessity for double predestination comes in is insofar as it has always been God's plan for some people to go to hell. The base tenet of Calvinism is that ultimately, nothing happens outside of God's perfect will, foreknowledge and power, and to say that God is truly passive in anything is antithetical. This implies that it most glorifies God for some people to go to hell - which is acknowledged and accepted in Reformed theology, and perhaps in the Bible (Romans 9).

Hm, I think this question is where Calvinism itself splits into warring camps. Supralapsarians say God created the World with saints and sinners picked out from the beginning and chose to permit the Fall as the way to accomplish this, and infralapsarians contend that He chose to do His electing and reprobating as a result of His foreseeing the Fall.

Wouldn't the puritans be considered calvinists? Or is that just my orthodox lutheran environment talking?

Yep I'm pretty sure they qualify.

[Eponine]

Hm and why is that? There's quite a case to be made that the Arminian gospel is sincere, while the Calvinist one is a deception. "Accept Christ and you shall be saved", versus "Accept Christ and you shall be saved. But you may or may not be among the Elect and my message may or may not be meant for you".

I'm not sure I'm up for this conversation today! But if God has perfect foreknowledge, is he constrained by his foreknowledge? Is he all-powerful or not? As far as my opinion of God continuing to create beings to go to hell though, I don't think that the distinction between Calvinist and Arminian matters, except in the case of open theology, which I know you don't hold to. Yet I think that open theology is the only logical path of Arminianism, or else you have a God who you claim is omniscient and omnipotent, yet the choice of any person to Heaven or Hell is beyond his control. The idea of such a being voluntarily giving up control over anything makes no sense considering that he not only created everything but in him all things hold together, and if we start attributing things to the mysteries of God and saying that theology needs have no logical consistency, well we can give that kind of reasoning for any sort of bullshit we want to invent.

Well it seems to me there's these three possibilities.

1. Arminian/Wesleyan protestantism, + (sort of) Catholicism. God predestines neither the saved nor the lost, you go to Heaven or Hell on your own initiative. No Pelagianism allowed here, the Grace of God is still absolutely necessary, but in the end the choice in Man's.

2. Lutheranism. Single predestination - God elects the saved but not the lost, who are lost by their own fault. I'm not sure if this position is exactly logically coherent, but it's clearly different from the other two.

3. Calvinism Double predestination - God predestines both the saved (whom He chooses to lift out of their sinful condition) and the lost (whom He chooses to leave alone). Like I said, the only way we can make God's rejection of them any more stark is if we toss the idea of Original Sin.

Where is the real difference between single and double predestination in this definition, if there are only two possible states? Declining to elect someone amounts to the same thing as predestining them to be lost. The only way that there could be a meaningful distinction is if there was a way to have faith without having been elected. I suppose that one could have a theology that God definitely elects the saved, and those who aren't elected have a choice, but I'm not sure I know of any sect that follows that thinking.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

Eponine,

During the epistle reading today I noticed that St. Paul said that God is incapable of lieing. Therefore, by definition, God according to St. Paul is not omnipotent. As to predestination. Knowing the path is not controling the choices individuals make along the path, therefore, knowledge does not obviate free will and predestination fails, in my opinion.