Threads from Henry's Web

Author: henry

  • Appeal to Numbers and Supposed Authority

    When I was in the U. S. Air Force, I had to attend a human relations training program. The instructor was enlisted, but very proudly informed us of his two master’s level degrees. During the course of his presentation he brought up a particular bumper sticker, which happened to be one I had on my car. Of course my buddies made sure he knew I had one, and so he starts to make his point about how I should not have such a bumper sticker. When I disagreed, and pointed out that nobody was obliged to obey my bumper sticker, he became quite annoyed. During a break he came to me and said, “I have a master’s degree in management and one in human relations. Don’t you think I know what I’m talking about?” He had no way to know that I also had a graduate degree, though I possess only a meager one of the same, but he was very shocked when I said that I too had one of those pieces of paper and so was in a good position to know what it was worth.

    His was an argument from authority, and at least it came from an area in which he could claim some authority. He might even have had a point about my bumper sticker. 🙂 But today I’m interested in the argument from authority when one has no authority, and the argument from numbers when one is in the minority. Religious debates, and particularly creation-evolution debates, are often characterized by these types of claims.

    Recently in an online debate I observed someone arguing in favor of a young earth brought up a paper on ocean sediments and their evidence for the age of the earth. When another correspondent questioned the report, the first individual called him an undergraduate student critiquing a paper by a PhD in geology. We get various forms of the argument from authority and the argument from numbers in creation-evolution debates all the time and it’s really quite a humorous process. (You can find this discussion on The Religion Forum.

    Before I go into this just a little more, let me give you relevant links on this topic. The ocean sediment argument is one of those that is so simplistic and so bad that there really aren’t that many detailed refutations online, so let me give some links. First, the source article is ICR’s Impact #8, Evolution: The Oceans Say No!. Note that while the author’s credentials right now are listed as an MS degree, since this document was written, he has received a PhD. Now in case anyone is interested in the basic refutation to this, try the following article from the US Geological Survey: Developing the theory. It gives some of the basics and should lead you to some answers. In addition, Glenn R. Morton’s article Young Earth Arguments: A Second Look and the following article, The Age of the Earth from the Talk Origins Archive expands on material that may not be fully obvious from the more general article.

    Note that there are many people who are quite thoroughly qualified in the field who challenge the views of this “PhD in geology.” And this is the thing that got me thinking about this particular blog entry. Let me give another example. I was debating a Seventh-day Adventist about the proper interpretation of Daniel 8:13 & 14. (I’m ex-SDA, so I occasionally get into these debates.) This individual cites some SDA authorities on the subject, which happen to include my uncle Don F. Neufeld, editor of the SDA Bible Commentary. When I do not accept these individuals as authority (my late uncle would have been appalled at the notion that I would accept his position on authority, but that’s beside the point), he asked how I could hold my opinion against “all those experts.” He suggested I was alone in my opinion. Now I’m not particularly concerned about being alone on an issue, but I found that very interesting, because the interpretation I was proposing is, in fact, one that is either supported or offered as an option by practically every commentary on the book of Daniel. Those who hold the “investigative judgment” position that is held by many SDAs are in a distinct minority. And that is not relevant. I would never use the argument that the SDA position is a minority position as a refutation of that position. It’s perfectly possible that a minority position can be right.

    But it again is an example of someone in a position of weakness trying to use the appeal to numbers. The idea is to convince the person holding a minority view that their view is untenable because it is a minority view. But the argument from numbers when one is in a minority position already is a peculiar form of deception, or even of self-deception. I think the two arguments–from (false) authority, and from (false) numbers are closely related, and they are a favorite of creationists of all stripes, from young earth to intelligent design advocates. The number of fake degrees among young earth creationists is one good example (see Some Questionable Creationist Credentials). The fact that they spend a good deal of time talking about the number of people who support them is another.

    If you have the evidence, talk about the evidence. If you don’t you have to have something to talk about. But why talk about numbers and authority when those are precisely the things you don’t have? For every PhD that creationists can claim there are thousands in opposition. For examples of the argument from numbers see Project Steve, a satire of lists of people in support of some position or another, when that position is actually supported only by a tiny minority.

    Please understand that I am not in any way advocating that one simply accept the real majority position. Sometimes one has to accept authority simply because one is not well enough informed on a particular subject. But those competent in that subject should be able to propose new, minority positions and have them judged on the actual evidence.

    I am not certain just why the appeal to (supposed) numbers and the appeal to (alleged) authority are so popular. I can only think of two options. 1) Someone has such a narrow frame of reference that they simply do not comprehend the numbers. I think my SDA friend falls into this category. He was simply unaware of the numbers involved. 2) Someone knows that he has no solid support, but is using deception to convince people who don’t know any better that their position is better than it really is.

  • God’s Nature in the Natural World – Take 1

    Study Guide Q2: How much of God’s nature and will can be determined from nature? How do the natural and moral laws of God differ?

    This question spans this less and the next, which is about God as creator. I suggest doing it as I’m doing it here and taking a look first from the point of view of God’s direct or “special” revelation, and then looking at it again after looking at God as creator, and what this might mean about the physical world. Applicable additional reading is Psalm 33 and Romans 1-3. Genesis 1-2 & 6-9 provide more advanced background.

    This question is not a primary concern of the book of Hebrews. The reason I suggest studying it at this point is simply to round out one’s doctrine of divine communication. I think that too frequently we look simply at a doctrine of scripture, or of prophetic utterance, and not at the overall view of how God communicates with people.

    The author of Hebrews is focussed on God’s communication specifically through prophets. He does see this as happening in small portions at different times and in different ways. He also clearly sees the communication via the events of history and the testimony of individuals in the long history of God’s relationship with Israel (see especially Hebrews 11). His focus is on showing the superiority of the revelation though Jesus due to the superiority of the messenger. But just what is the actual superiority of the message?

    One exercise I suggest is taking each major topic and then re-reading the book of Hebrews with that topic and its major questions in mind. This means that if one completes all 13 lessons of the study guide, one will have read the book of Hebrews a minimum of 13 times during the course of that study. This may seem like a lot of reading to many people, but the book is actually only a few pages, and you will benefit from such study.

    But the revelation through prophets and even the revelation through Jesus Christ is not the whole of God’s revelation. Paul tells us: “For [God’s] invisible attributes, his unending power and divinity, have been understood and seen since the creation of the world” (Romans 1:20). I would suggest that this is a neglected text. Just how much can one learn simply from the creation without the benefit of direct revelation. Paul seems to think this revelation is sufficient that there is no excuse for missing the essentials of this revelation. Thus apparently one can derive from God’s created things sufficient to be in favor with God, i.e. presumably for salvation, and this is clear enough that one cannot be excused for failing to understand. I don’t think we give enough weight to the implications of this passage in Romans.

    But Paul continues later:

    12 All who have sinned apart from the law will also perish apart from the law, and all who have sinned under the law will be judged by the law. 13 For it is not the hearers of the law who are righteous in God’s sight, but the doers of the law who will be justified. 14 When Gentiles, who do not possess the law, do instinctively what the law requires, these, though not having the law, are a law to themselves. 15 They show that what the law requires is written on their hearts, to which their own conscience also bears witness; and their conflicting thoughts will accuse or perhaps excuse them 16 on the day when, according to my gospel, God, through Jesus Christ, will judge the secret thoughts of all. — Romans 2:12-16

    This passage makes several additional points. First, according to verses 15 & 16, this knowledge is sufficient for one to take into judgment, and God may find the person acceptable. Second, there is an interesting possible allusion to the law written on the heart (Jeremiah 31:33), a characteristic of the Messianic age. Third, it is apparent that one can follow the law instinctively.

    The further passages on the creation emphasize that the creation, the physical universe, results from God’s word, from God’s will and command. This suggests that we can learn a great deal about God simply from the way he has constructed the universe. I would suggest that Christians ignore this aspect of God’s revelation too frequently. I discuss one aspect of this in my post Evolution, Theology, and Respect.

    Let me suggest not conclusions, but questions:

    1. What can we learn about God from nature?
    2. What is the role of the Holy Spirit when we receive revelation?
    3. Does the Holy Spirit always enlighten the mind of one who honestly seeks knowledge (a broadened prevenient grace)?
    4. How does the revelation of God in the natural world interact with direct or special revelation?

  • Do you know these things?

    From the Minneapolis-St. Paul Star-Tribune: Why is the sky blue? Facts you should know.

    The quiz doesn’t provide scoring, but the answers are at the end. Bar that I must say I mentally fudged the amount of water (thinking “about 3/4” instead of the precise 71%), and the “sky is blue question” when I just thought “diffusion,” I knew the answers to these, and I’m no scientist.

    What about you?

  • Cute Bunny Rabbits, Eggs, and Resurrection

    Is there a resurrection in your future? In your near future?

    Often concerned Christians complain about the pagan background of Easter, and such practices as Easter eggs, bunny rabbits, and all the signs of spring. Pagan religions in many countries have celebrated spring and the new life that it represents. Fall and spring festivals celebrate the cycle of life as we know it. I believe there is something very appropriate in placing the Christian celebration of the resurrection at the time of the spring, and I am even pretty happy with some of the pagan connections.

    Christian easter both reaffirms and transforms the idea generally behind spring festivals. (I’m not trying to make a connection with any particular festival here; I’m just looking at spring festivals in general.) We celebrate on the one hand that God does renew things on a regular basis. There may be valleys in our lives, but there are also mountaintops, and if we’re traveling with God, we know that the mountaintops will follow the valleys without fail. For every trial there’s a potential victory. We live in a world of death, but at the same time a world of life.

    As Christians we often look down on those pagan religions that emphasize fertility. Stories of sexual orgies and perversions help foster that attitude. But the elements of excess and perversion are just that–a perversion of something that God made and that God said was good. Human sexuality and reproduction are to be celebrated. Why? Because they provide us with the best example of God’s life giving power placed in our own hands. The passion of a husband for his wife, or a wife for her husband and the response of one to the other provide the greatest metaphor of God’s passion for his people and our response to him. It is not that sex is dirty without the metaphor; it is God’s gift of life and of passion. Try reading Song of Solomon as a love story. Don’t worry about any spirituality; just read it as passionate poetry and enjoy it. It is that passion that represents God’s desire to commune with you, to be intimate with you, and to renew your life.

    At the same time the resurrection transforms the whole idea of a spring festival. In many ancient religions there was an endless cycle of celebrations or commemorations of the changing of the seasons with no expectation that humanity was going anywhere. The resurrection transforms that. We are not in an endless cycle; God has a plan! We’re going somewhere. That’s the central message of Easter. We cannot have Easter without first going through Good Friday. The trial came first. But the cross would be a symbol of death if it was not followed by Easter. The resurrection breaks the cycle and brings life.

    So enjoy the cute fluffy bunnies, and eat the chocolate easter eggs. There’s a resurrection in your future!

  • Hebrews 2:1-4: Such a Great Salvation

    [Note: The reason I am jumping from 1:1-4 to 2:1-4 is that my study guide is thematic rather than verse by verse. Hebrews 1:5-14 is part of the reading for lesson 5. I am not including a post on textual issues in this passage, because there are no substantial textual issues.]

    Because this passage is packed quite tightly, let me phrase it first:

        1Because of this
    we need to pay even greater heed
        to the things which we have heard
        so that we won’t drift away.
    2The message
        brought by angels {ref: Galatians 3:19}
            was firm,
            and every transgression and disobedience received its just punishment.
    3How then shall we escape
        after neglecting such a tremendous deliverance?
            The Lord spoke of this deliverance first,
            then it was confirmed to us by those who heard him.
            4God also confirmed their testimony
            with signs and wonders and various powerful deeds,
            and with the Holy Spirit
                apportioned according to his will.

    There are quite a number of ways this could be done, but this should give a picture of the elements of the passage.

    This passage has a fairly simple basic meaning: The law is good, but the message brought by Jesus is better. In the section I skipped over, 1:5-14, our author has established that Jesus is greater than the angels. Now we start to see the purpose of those passages. (While I recommend reading the entire book of Hebrews each week during this study, at a minimum, read from the beginning of the book to 2:4.) As modern Christians, this argument seems redundant. We’re used to seeing Jesus as greater than the angels; as trinitarian Christians we are used to seeing him as God incarnate, so it seems redundant to spend all this time establishing that he is greater than the angels. But remember that when Hebrews was written, all of this was still rather controversial. It would be centuries before the precise definition of the trinity and the details of the incaranation as we know them today were defined.

    So relying on the tradition that the law was mediated by angels (Galatians 3:19), originally intended to honor the law, our author now states that the message that Jesus has brought is greater, primarily because of the messenger. But he also introduces the specific problem he’s writing this letter to correct. There are people in the audience who are in danger of giving up and straying from the faith, probably because they feel that the reward is too long in coming.

    pay even greater heed. This is a call to both pay attention to the word and also to keep it. See Deuteronomy 32:46, which uses the same Greek word for “paying heed” as does this verse.

    to the things which we have heard. The gospel message, passed on by those who first preached the message to them. It is possible that this community was established by eyewitnesses to the ministry of Jesus (see below).

    so that we won’t drift away. “Drift away” is a nautical term. It is likely that our author is developing a nautical metaphor here, combining the Greek words for “paying heed” or “holding fast” and “drift away.” Barclay says:

    But both these words have also a nautical sense. Prosechein can mean to moor a ship; and pararrein can be used of a ship which has been carelessly allowed to slip past a harbour or a haven because the mariner has forgotten to allow for the wind or the current or the tide. So, then, this first verse could be very vividly translated: “Therefore, we must the more eagerly anchor our lives to the things taht we have been taught lest the ship of life drift past the harbour and be wrecked.” It is a vivid picture of a ship drifting to destruction because the pilot sleeps. (William Barclay, the Letter to the Hebrews [Revised Edition], p. 21.)

    every transgression and disobedience received its just punishment. The law had required punishments, and was very strict. Christians often view the New Testament as much easier and lighter. In some ways this will be expressed in Hebrews as well, but the way in which it is “easier” is not that the requirements or less or that it is less important. It is not an easier path; it is, in fact, even harder. But what makes it so much better is the help that we have. Jesus is our pioneer, our advocate, and so we have a much better path and a much better guide.

    How then shall we escape after neglecting such a tremendous deliverance? The new message provides greater requirements, a greater goal, but also a greater possibility. Think of a person trapped by a flood. They try to swim, but fail, and turn back. They try a boat, but it sinks. Then someone provides a full pontoon bridge over which they can cross to dry ground without even getting wet, and a vehicle to ride in. If the person who is captured then fails to go to safety, what can possibly be done? This is essentially what our author is starting to say here: Jesus has provided a way that is so much better that he cannot imagine anything else that one can do. If we neglect this salvation, we’re just going to drown!

    What makes the way better? That is the message of the latter part of verse 3 and of verse 4:

    • The Lord spoke of this deliverance first,
      The message was brought by the Son (1:1-4). The greater message is carried by a greater messenger.
    • then it was confirmed to us by those who heard him.
      We received the confirmation from eyewitnesses who heard the words spoken.
    • 4God also confirmed their testimony
      In case we doubt their word, God confirms it. The term is a rare one and probably has a legal sense of “corroborate.”
    • with signs and wonders and various powerful deeds,
      The signs and wonders that followed the apostles confirm the message. But more importantly the gospel transforms lives. I’m writing this on the Saturday of Easter weekend, and so the cross’s transforming power is in my mind. The transforming power of the cross is demonstrated in its own transformation. (See my Good Friday meditation on Threads from Henry’s Web, Transforming the Cross.)
    • and with the Holy Spirit apportioned according to his will.
      The presence and gifts of the Holy Spirit, given according to God’s will in order for his church to accomplish the gospel commission, are evidences of the reality of the message of the gospel.

    More powerful message = greater necessity for obedience.

  • Transforming the Cross

    Transforming the Cross

    Not Ashamed of the Gospel: Confessions of a Liberal Charismatic[The following Good Friday meditation is extracted and slightly adapted from my book Not Ashamed of the Gospel: Confessions of a Liberal Charismatic, pp. 17-22. This post was truncated at some point in the history of this blog. This is a restoration of the content on January 6, 2018.]

    There might be many reasons why someone would be ashamed of the good news about God that is represented in what we call the “gospel.”

    Historically, the shame was in worshipping a convicted and executed criminal, calling him God and following his teachings.  Very few people doubt that Jesus died, and that he was executed by the barbaric method of crucifixion.  Raised from the dead, alive today—that’s another matter entirely.  But the death is the best established thing about Jesus.  I’ve entered into debates about whether such a person as Jesus existed historically.  All of these debates start—must start—with a list of things that I will demonstrate limiting myself strictly to the tools of a historian, to the extent that past events can be demonstrated.  These are the things that Jesus did or that happened to him.  Many scholars have created such lists.  Invariably, “crucified by the Romans” is on them.  Jesus’ death by crucifixion is as established as a historical fact gets.

    It seems remote and distant to us.  If we have shame in anything about Jesus or Christianity, it is something different than it was for Paul and other early disciples.  For us, the cross is the symbol of a religion, a person, or a faith system.  We see it on churches every day.  We have pictures of crosses, sometimes with a figure of Jesus hanging on them.  Sometimes the figure will be portrayed with a halo.  We make earrings and necklaces with crosses.  We know the crucifixion is a horrible thing, but the symbols involved in it have become commonplace and familiar, and they are objects involved in the rituals of the church, not in execution.

    We may be ashamed of some of the people who carry crosses, or of some of the groups that worship in buildings with crosses on them.  We may object to where crosses are placed, such as on the lawns of public buildings.  But none of this is quite what the “shame of the cross” would have been for the early followers of Jesus.

    Put yourself back in Paul’s time.  Jesus was recently executed.  The one political power in the world was the authority by which that execution was carried out.  That particular form of execution was one reserved for the worst, and especially for rebels and political offenders.  There was a shame in worshipping someone who had been crucified.  It had the aura and the stigma of worshipping a mass murderer, perhaps a bit like modern Americans would feel about a cult worshipping Charles Manson.

    But in addition, it was something dangerous.  The followers of Jesus were proclaiming as divine someone executed by the Roman authorities.  Divinity was being carried by someone who was a rebel and a dangerous character.  Proclaiming the kingdom of a rebel was an act of rebellion in and of itself.

    And here we have Paul proclaiming that he is not ashamed of this good news.  He glories in the cross, glories in an instrument of shame.  In disaster, he finds good news.

    One of the key elements of that good news lies in the fact that you see a cross with much different emotions than did the people of Paul’s day.  That element is transformation.  The symbol of the cross has been transformed from one of disaster, death, agony, shame, and despair into one of hope for many people.  Not all people, and we’ll discuss that as well.

    That transformation comes from the way in which God used the experience of the cross.  God came to the earth in the human form of Jesus.  God experienced life with us.  He took action as we might need to take action under the circumstances of our lives.  He found himself in an occupied country, living under cruel foreign domination.  He didn’t just come and appear on a mountaintop.  He got involved in human experiences, human emotions, human weaknesses, and yes, human strengths as well.  When it came down to it, he died a death in just the way that a human would have to do it in that time and place.

    The first part, then, of the transformation was involvement.  The cross would never have been transformed as a symbol without the involvement.  God, the infinite gap-crosser, crossed the gap and stayed on our side long enough to experience the worst of the worst.

    But not only did he get involved, he stayed involved.  The second part of that transformation was endurance.  God didn’t quit.  He carried through.  If he had not, we could think of the wonderful time when God was with people, lived with us, talked with us, worked with us, but we would always have a distance from him, because he would never have experienced the one thing that seems to terrify most of us—death.  “Through death, he destroyed the one who had the power of death” (Hebrews 2:14).  “He endured the cross; he treated the shame with contempt” (Hebrews 12:2).

    Jesus knew when to ignore what others thought was shame.  The shame was intended to fall on the one who was punished.  But Jesus had no reason to be ashamed and he knew it.  Knowing what one should ignore is an important part of living in this imperfect world.  Many people, Christians and others, have endured torture and death with dignity and even peace because they knew this lesson.  What was intended to bring shame on them instead became a source of glory.

    The transformation that Jesus accomplished on the cross, symbolized by the transformation of the cross itself, is something that we all can grasp.  Circumstances and our environment are not fixed things that we have to take as they are.  They can be transformed by our attitude and by the way that we deal with them.  Every cross in your life, everything that you would prefer not to have done or not to have encountered can be transformed.  When we give testimonies of things that have happened to us, this is what we are doing.  Some think that testimony meetings are about telling how dark our lives were before God intervened.  And sometimes they are.  But if you are focusing on the darkness, and the negative things that have happened, perhaps you haven’t let those things be transformed yet.  Did you become involved, stay involved, and endure?  Did you have contempt for the supposed shame?  The real point of a testimony, a witness, is to present how things have changed, not how much they are the same.

    But there’s one more part of this process.  Some of you may be wondering whether I’m going to ignore it.

    Jesus triumphed over the adversity.  He rose again from the dead.  His movement should have died.  It came back to life.  Without this, the transformation could not have taken place.  In this sense, only one who was God, or totally in tune with God’s spirit, could have triumphed.  We daily deal with circumstances and troubles.  Jesus was dealing with the nastiest circumstance of all—death.  He was there to deny and destroy the one who had the power over death.

    I’m not going to argue here about the physical resurrection of Jesus.  It’s very hard, if not impossible to prove a miracle.  But I do think the greatest evidence that something different happened that day in Palestine is that the movement surrounding Jesus didn’t go away.  Having seen Jesus crucified, his movement should have failed, but it didn’t.

    But the critical element in transforming the symbol of the cross from one of shame to one of hope and glory was simply that the followers of Jesus believed that he had conquered death.  You may debate me about the idea that without something special happening on the morning of the resurrection, the followers of Jesus would simply have scattered.  You may have another explanation you think works as well.  But I think there can be no doubt that unless the followers of Jesus believed that something had happened, there would have been no transformation, no Jesus movement, no Christianity, and the cross would forever have remained a symbol of shame, or passed into history as an example of the barbarism of ancient cultures.

    But the fact is that those followers did believe, they didn’t scatter, but continued to proclaim the victory of the person the Romans had crucified.  And it was in that proclamation that the cross was transformed.

    Jesus could have died with dignity, endured the shame, and risen from the dead, but if nobody had arisen to proclaim those facts, no transformation would have taken place.  It took human beings getting involved, carrying the message, and acting on the good news.  I’m sometimes accused of being very human oriented in my religious beliefs.  But I believe that this orientation toward what people do and how they respond is thoroughly Biblical.  Not only did God accomplish reconciliation through Christ, but he gave us the same ministry.  In other words, God knows and intends the human element to be critical in carrying out his mission on earth.

     

  • Ernest Lucas on Daniel

    In an earlier post, Dating the Book of Daniel, I mentioned that I had ordered Ernest Lucas’s volume on Daniel in the Apollos Old Testament Commentary series. I now have received, read, and returned that volume, and I thought I would post a few notes.

    I have to admit that I continue to be puzzled at the number of conservative scholars who either embrace or allow a late (2nd century BCE) dating of the book of Daniel. Lucas covers this issue in some detail throughout the book. He does not make a specific statement on Biblical inerrancy, though I would be surprised to hear that he does not accept it, but he nonetheless believes that one can see certain portions of the book as history presented as prophecy.

    He takes an unusual approach in that he does not argue the dating and authorship of the book in the introduction, but rather presents basic lines of evidence throughout the commentary, and then summarizes them in an epilogue. His view is that a conservative scholar with a high view of inspiration can hold either of the major views on dating, a sixth century or a second century composition. He does argue rather forcefully for the unity of the book, which would exclude various composite theories of authorship, including a late author writing in Hebrew building on either an Aramaic document, or a collection stories written in Aramaic.

    In the prophetic interpretation portions of the commentary, Lucas sees all of the major prophetic sections ending at the time of Antiochus Epiphanes. Thus the little horns of chapters 7 & 8 both refer to Antiochus. This interpretation is not unusual in critical commentaries, though it hasn’t been a common conservative view until recently. Even more unusual for a conservative Christian commentary is that he also interprets chapter 9 as ending with Antiochus, rather than using it as a Messianic prophecy. I must be clear here–he does not rule out the application to Jesus that is common in Christian interpretation, but he does believe that interpretation is less probable. The key reason for this is his interpretation of the “word to restore and rebuild Jerusalem” (Daniel 9:25) which he believes most probably refers not to any decree, but to one of Jeremiah’s prophecies of the time. The chronology
    does not work for the ministry of Jesus in this case. Of course, it also doesn’t work for Antiochus Epiphanes, but Lucas calls the time frame symbolic rather than precise. I think he’s quite possibly right on the time period not being intended as precise, but again I am not used to seeing that position in an ostensibly conservative commentary.

    In Daniel 10-12, the final section, which the vast majority of the commentators agree refers to the history leading up to, and the reign of Antiochus, Lucas offers the option of viewing most of the material as history written as prophecy, and then tries to avoid the obvious conclusion, assuming that is the case, that 11:40-45 are an inaccurate prophecy. He suggests that this section is a loosely worded way of saying that Antiochus would come to an end. I’m afraid here that I have to say that I would prefer that a commentator either admit that the text is wrong, or that the prophecy must have some other application. If this does apply to the death of Antiochus, it goes well beyond any normal concept of “general.”

    Despite any tension that may result from the author’s view on dating, which is unlikely to satisfy either a liberal or a conservative audience, this is truly a well-written and well-researched commentary. There are two features of this commentary that I especially appreciated.

    Lucas applies some excellent literary-critical methodology to the stories, and to some extent to the prophecies, discussing the plot and characterization. Daniel is particular susceptible to the literary-critical approach, which can produce some substantial insights from the stories. Too often the main questions asked in studying Daniel are whether it is historical, whether the prophecies are really predictive, and what they mean. There is substantial value in the stories if one will take the time to think about them seriously, and Lucas does that.

    Second, Lucas interacts with commetators who range from the very conservative to the very liberal/critical. He doesn’t ignore the various arguments and concerns, nor does he usually dismiss them without discussing the evidence. He does occasionally dismiss some complex theory of authorship quite abruptly, but normally he does so with particularly convoluted and low probability theories.

    I strongly recommend this commentary to any student of Daniel. Whether your view is conservative or liberal you will find material that challenges your view, and will help you to think through the material more thoroughly. Lucas provides his supporting methodology throughout. In particular, I would recommend this commentary to those interested in pursuing genre and or literary criticism in the book of Daniel.

  • What’s So Good About Democracy?

    Is democracy the right thing for every country in the world? Is America the best example of this? Should we make it one of our policy goals to implement democracy in other countries?

    Newsweek’s Christopher Dickey doesn’t like America’s example of democracy, and he says so at length at The Mechanics of Democracy (Newsweek on MSNBC). He cites the problems in the 2000 presidential election, particularly here in Florida as a good reason not to be smug about American democracy. Now while I think that the election in Florida was quite comical, and I also think that the US Supreme Court accepted a case they had no business accepting, I nonetheless think 2000 was a fine year for democracy in America.

    Why? For the simple reason that we settled the election through a legal process, however messy it may have been. We had no violence, no revolution, and though many people’s feathers were ruffled, we went back to governing the nation afterward. We can complain about the courts, but in the final analysis, the Supreme Court’s opinion of what is its business is what holds, so I can think the case was none of their business all I want, and it is quite meaningless. The same thing applies to issues of popular vote and the electoral college. We have a system that prescribes that electors are chosen at the general election, and that those electors then choose the president and vice-president. The person who wins that vote in the electoral college is the president, all whining and complaining about popular votes aside. If we want a tidier end result, somebody needs to get out there and win by a more substantial margin.

    If you haven’t gotten my drift by now, let me tell you. It’s not that I approve of the results of all these elections. It is that I don’t think democracy as such is an ultimate value. My concern is for a constitutional government that has reasonable rules of succession, and that can maintain the general support of the people for the system, even when it does not do so for the particular people.

    Let’s look at the situation in Florida in 2000. The problem for Republicans was that the Florida Supreme Court was dominated by Democratic appointees. The problem for Democrats was that the U. S. Supreme Court was dominated by Republican appointees. By philosophy, Republicans should have left the issue in the state courts, but that was a loosing proposition for them. Democrats would normally have been more likely to see a federal issue, especially if minority voters were being under-represented, but for them, the Florida Supreme Court was the best option. Politics being what it is, it was too much to expect either party to argue on principle that the issue should be decided by a court that was likely to rule (or had already ruled) against them. Any Republican who had followed principle on this one would have had my undying admiration, but considering I have a record of voting for the loser in election after election, that might not be a great incentive!

    Despite all this, the system worked, in my view, because we got a government peacefully, and were able to revisit the situation four years later. Democrats would do well to ask not why they keep getting close elections stolen, but rather why they have been unable to win a clearer margin of victory against a Republican candidate who’s popularity has varied from marginal to dismal. Is it perhaps because Democrats haven’t put up a sufficiently credible candidate?

    But then we start to look at the rest of the world. While I wouldn’t have a problem with them following our example, as messy and just plain human as it is, I wonder if they really should do so. I was in the U. S. Air Force during operation Just Cause, sometimes called “Just ‘Cuz We Wanted To” by the less reverent among us. In that case, the United States took the position that it had the right to indict and then arrest the president of a foreign country, something we couldn’t do to our own president, and then we went to war to demonstrate that. I visited Panama after the invasion under the new government. Prior to the invasion one could walk the streets of Panama City at night in relative safety. Afterwards, crime was rampant, and visiting military personnel were required to stay inside at night, and it was recommeded behavior for visitors generally. Businesses normally had armed private security guards.

    Panama is better off today than it was just after the invasion, but I have to wonder where it would be as a country if we had not interfered? People have questioned George Bush’s doctrine of a preemptive war, but what was the justification for the invasion of Panama?

    But let’s look at another angle. Should we have creating a government that we like as a war aim in a foreign country. Let’s assume for a moment that there was justification for invading Iraq and removing the regime of Saddam Hussein. Given such a justification, is it either good or practical to have as a war aim the creation of a government that suits a list of American requirements? I must question whether it’s good, because I can’t see how we have the right to determine just what type of a government another country should have. I question whether it’s practical simply because we are unlikely to make a workable set of requirements that combine our ideals with that country’s culture.

    We have a contradictory set of aims in our foreign policy. We want certain other countries to be democratic. We want them to elect “good” governments by our standards, and we want them to provide adequate security to prevent terrorism against our interests based in their territory. We could accomplish the latter two–a government we approve of, and a level of security–by becoming an occupying power, and investing the effort, determination, and ruthlessness required of that process. But of course that would not be democracy. The Romans used that type of method in setting up client states. “He’s your king, but we have to approve.”

    I think war is sometimes necessary. But a war that pursues impossibly large or contradictory goals, and pursues those goals with insufficient force is simply a way to kill people.

    We need to make a decision as a nation. Is it our responsibility to create democracy around the world? If so, we need to foster democracy, and that will inevitably mean that governments will come to power that we don’t like. Some of those governments will be too weak to deal with terrorism and criminal activities. Others, like Hamas, may be terrorist oriented themselves. But if democracy is our goal, then we need to live with that. If security is our goal, then our behavior should be different. Support of somewhat repressive regimes, assuming they’re effective, might be a better way to accomplish this goal in many cases. But harassing friendly governments (in this definition) about their human rights record, while rejoicing in the benefits of the security that provides, is hypocritical, and I suspect counterproductive in the long run. On the other hand we could only take military action when we have a limited security goal that does not involve taking responsibility for the government of the country in the process.

    The Democrats are right, I think, in asking for an exit strategy from Iraq. But they are wrong on making it time based. We should look at where we are now, create a set of conditions to fulfill, and exit when those conditions have been fulfilled. Those conditions should not include making certain the new government of Iraq is going to succeed, or that it will be a completely friendly one. Those latter two are impossible goals unless we intend to become an occupying power for the long term.

    I don’t think the United States would make a good occupying power. At least I hope not.

  • Why Doesn’t God Speak Directly?

    Note: I strongly recommend that if you are taking my class in Hebrews, or who are following my study guide through the book answer the study guide questions before reading this entry. The purpose of the thought questions is to provide an opportunity to think. These are just some of my own thoughts on the question.

    Q#2: Why does God use prophets rather than speaking to everyone?

    The actual genesis of this question was in a small study group I was leading several years ago. Part of the group program was that we would take however much time the members wanted to and work through the meaning of each passage as long as the group cared to do so. This led to some rather lengthy arguments, and often to nitpicking the meaning. (You should only use this kind of approach in a study group if everyone truly wants to do it.) In one such session we were debating some passages in Revelation, and one of the members finally gave in to frustration and said, “Why can’t God just write all this out in the sky clearly, so that we would know beyond any doubt what it meant?”

    Now that’s not the same question I’m asking, but it’s related. We’re starting the study of Hebrews, and the key passage for this first lesson is Hebrews 1:1-4. God has spoken at various times and in various ways through the prophets. Now, in the last days, he has spoken by means of his Son. But you and I still have to listen to God speak to someone else. We don’t see a physical Jesus or hear him preach. Instead we read reports of what he said to other people 2,000 years ago. We don’t even get to listen to the author of Hebrews; indeed, we can’t seem to agree on who he (or some say she) is. So again we’re hearing him speak to other people, and we are kind of eavesdropping. Why doesn’t God make it clearer? Why doesn’t it speak directly to me?

    It’s not just speaking directly, though. It’s the clarity that’s important. If God would just make the message personal, we would not have to consider just what the principles are, and how to apply them to our own lives–we’d know!

    Personally I believe that God does speak to each person directly, but clarity is another matter. In doing prayer ministry, one reason people will ask me to pray with them is that they believe they have heard from God, but they’re not sure that it is God, or they’re not sure just how to put it into practice.

    This is not a question that we can resolve in a single blog entry, but it’s a good question to think about. Let me make some suggestions to think about, and then also provide links to some other things I have written on the same subject.

    1. God wants us to learn to think. We often treasure the work of the prophets, and we like the results of the wisdom writers, but are we willing to do the work that goes behind wisdom? Hebrews 5:14 tell us: “14Solid food is for the mature, for those who through practice have exercised their understanding to distinguish good and evil.” God may well want us to practice our own judgment and discernment and grow in wisdom.
    2. God wants us to hear from him in a community. Any one of us can go wildly astray on our own, but when we have accountability to brothers and sisters, at a minimum we have to consider the response of those close to us to what we say. Even writing this blog entry has made me give new consideration to this particular question.
    3. God wants to leave us free to make unpressured decisions. This is hard for some of us to understand, because we think we want to know and do precisely what God commands. But if God made himself too obvious, we might feel pressured just by his obvious presence, sort of like having the boss breathing down our neck.
    4. Those who actually listen to God are rare. It’s possible that God is speaking a great deal more than we are hearing, and that the prophets are the ones who listen more. If this one sounds good to you, make sure to consider the idea of the prophetic call Ezekiel 1 or Isaiah 6, for example, in this connection. Is it possible God calls many, and only a few hear and report the situation?

    Now let me provide a few links to material on this topic.

    For inspiration and testing claims that someone is speaking for God read my series that starts with The One Ended Crod. In addition, the Participatory Study Series pamphlets What is the Word of God?, The Authority of the Bible, and Spiritual Gifts: Prophecy.

    On the possibility that God prefers freedom to security and certainty, see my entry Evolution, Theology, and Respect.

  • Evolution, Theology, and Respect

    In my book Not Ashamed of the Gospel, I comment that God respects us:

    • God Respects You
      Some of my more theologically inclined friends may be questioning this one, but God created humanity a little bit less than God (Psalm 8:4), and he allows human beings to make their own choices and plot their own course. He tries to communicate, but he doesn’t force communication.

    What I mean here by respect is that God allows us choices, but God also respects those choices. We often assume that God can do anything, and in His infinity, that is likely close to true. But when operating in finite space and time, God has to meet priorities. So the question is, what is God’s highest priority? Is it our safety and comfort? If it is, he should make the world “child-safe” so that we cannot injure ourselves or one another. On the other hand, suppose God valued our intelligence and independent decision making more than our comfort. In that case, he would have to allow our decisions to be independent, to leave us to live with the results of our decisions. Every act taken to make us safer involves a constraint on our decision making or on respecting the consequences of those decisions.

    It’s interesting that in responses to my book, two things have predominated. First, many have told me that they appreciate the book, but that they question (or are disturbed by) my support of evolution. Second, folks are interested in an expansion of my views on salvation and what it means, and this is a key element of that second point. The two points are related. In the process of salvation, God respects human choices, and in the process of biological evolution, God respects the freedom of his creation.

    This principle is expressed in Galatians 6:7, “. . . you reap whatever you sow” (NRSV). A great deal more theology is built on the earlier chapters of Galatians, but it is instructive to note that Paul ends his epistles generally by discussing the life of the Spirit–the change in life that is to take place in a follower of Jesus. When he does this, he makes it very clear that our choices and our actions are critical. I believe this principle of sowing and reaping applies on a much wider basis than we usually assume, and in fact applies even in issues of salvation.

    For those who track “Henry’s heresies” I go past Arminian in my view of salvation and am at least semi-pelagian, if not fully pelagian in my theology. Since that’s a certified heresy, so to speak, you now have a clear case over which to make such an accusation. 🙂 Specifically, I believe that salvation is dependent on a free choice to put one’s trust in God, and that the resulting salvation includes, as something that is essential and not optional, a change or spiritual restoration in the individual. Thus people can make good choices and bad choices and that God respects those choices by allowing the results of such choice.

    Would freedom truly be freedom if there were no consequences of actions, either positive or negative? I’m honestly not sure of the answer to that question. I am certain that freedom would be quite meaningless. Yet frequently the Christian theology of prayer seems to imply that God should alleviate or eliminate the results of our own choices. This can go even further when people pray that a hurricane be turned aside from them, or that it simply be completely dispersed. But such dangerous weather patterns are actually a positive part of the environment, though they are terribly inconvenient for us. (For more of my views on prayer see The Hand of God, The Hand of God: Miracles, and The Hand of God: Prayer.)

    So what does all of this have to do with evolution? It is very common for Christian advocates of evolution to indicate that evolutionary thinking does not make any difference to theology, that a Christian can accept evolutionary theory without it having any impact on faith. Depending on one’s starting point, that may or may not be true. Young earth creationists, for example, assume an early “good” state, that they believe is described in Genesis, in which there was no death and sin. They assume that all death entered the world with sin. In order to accept evolutionary theory, they would have to change that view. One might decide that spiritual death entered the world along with sin, but that physical death happened all along.

    This is one issue on which old earth creationists face the same problem as do theistic evolutionists, with one difference. Old earth creationists would have to explain why God would use a progressive form of special creation in which so much death was required, when death is not actually part of the creation process. What is the purpose of life, death, and major extinction events, if repeated interventions on God’s part are nonetheless required to produce new categories of creatures.

    But there are two issues that stand out. Inefficiency in creation via evolution and the extreme violence of the process, as animal eats animal. I’m obviously not the first to notice this.

    There, indeed, those who flatter themselves with the notion of reading the purposes of the Creator in his works ought in consistency to have seen grounds for inferences from which they have shrunk. If there are any marks at all of special design in creation, one of the things most evidently designed is that a large proportion of all animals should pass their existence in tormenting and devouring other animals. They have been lavishly fitted out with the instruments necessary for that purpose; their strongest instincts impel them to it and many of them seem to have been constructed incapable of supporting themselves by any other food. — John Stuart Mill, On Nature

    In addition, I have heard this particular objection in many private conversations. What does it say about God if he used such a violent method to produce diversity? Well, in my view, the evidence is in, and biological evolution, variation + natural selection, is the means by which he chose to diversify life. From the point of view of theology, the question is simply to ask what this reality means.

    Young earth creationists can defend against this charge of violence by saying that God created things good, but that they have been messed up by sin. Thus they hope to avoid the problem. God does things well, but they have been corrupted. I would like young earth creationists to construct a model of an “ecology” in which nothing dies and no creature eats another one. They could follow that up by constructing a world in which there actually was choice, but nobody every made a less than optimal one. (I think the latter is possible, but suspect the world would be pretty boring.)

    Even if we don’t find it troubling that animals devour one another, what about people? When human beings are involved we call it the “problem of evil.” The focus of this question is often the holocaust, though human history provides plenty of examples of human beings oppressing, torturing, and killing one another. I find it interesting that it is difficult for some people to stomach the notion of myriads of animals killing one another over millions of years, yet somehow manage to deal with the number of people who have killed one another in the world’s history. One explanation is that God is doing this for a demonstration to the universe (presumably people on other worlds) about the nastiness of sin, but one would have to wonder just how dense the “universe” is if it takes this long to figure out that there’s a problem. I think there actually is some light in the “demonstration to the universe” view, but I think we need to go a bit further.

    As I suggested before, while we may call God “good,” we need to reexamine our understanding of God’s priorities. It seems pretty clear to me that God’s priority on the preservation of physical life is a bit lower than ours. If God chose to diversify life by having creatures compete for limited resources, then he made it necessary that the results of various actions of the creatures, and numerous random factors, be negative and even fatal. The freedom of creation is more important than its comfort. Now in this latter case “freedom” doesn’t mean the same thing as in conscious choices, but the same principle is involved. Action produces reaction. Choices, conscious or not, have consequences.

    Thus to me the fact that God chose natural selection as the guiding force in diversifying life suggests that God puts a high priority on freedom, and that he does not choose to alter reality for our comfort or to protect us from the results of our own choices, or from more or less random factors such as destructive weather or earthquakes.

    This adds a division to miracles, as I discuss in my Hand of God essays (see links above). God likes the natural laws by which he manages the universe. We should not expect miracles to alter that reality for our convenience, nor should we expect them to be necessary to alter the processes of nature or the production of life. The key miracle, apart from existence itself, is that God reaches out to communicate with us. I would also expect that such communication would not be forceful; that God would not intervene to directly alter our minds and understanding.

    Let me add a note here. In any basic course in the Philosophy of Religion, students are presented with the problem of evil. God is omnipotent, God is good, yet there is evil. If God is good, one would assume that he would want to eliminate evil. If he omnipotent, he should be able to eliminate it. So what’s the solution? The professor will tell you that there is no way to deal with the problem without dealing with at least one of the legs of the triad. You can say God is not omnipotent, and so is unable to eliminate evil. You can say “good” means something other than what we commonly mean by it. Finally, we could decide that evil is not really so bad after all. In a sense, I have done all three here. First, I’ve suggested that God must have an order of priorities when acting in a finite realm; that limits omnipotence. He can’t create a world in which the results of creatures’ decisions are respected, and yet also make certain that everyone is comfortable. Second, “God is good” does not necessarily mean that God wants every small animal, or even every person to live a comfortable life. Third, by looking at the positive effects of hurricanes (and I’ve experienced a number of these lately!) I’ve questioned whether evil is really evil.

    In this system the answer to the question of why the holocaust took place is that evil people made evil choices and took evil actions, and that apathetic people made ineffective choices and did not prevent those evil actions. There were either an insufficient number of good people, or they also made choices that did not effectively stop the evil actions. The solution, therefore, is for people to learn to make better choices. If God solves this problem, he will do so by communication, but the choices and the actions will remain with people. Taking the “reaping what you sow” principle seriously means that we can’t assume that God will come and solve our problems for us. God is expecting us to take responsible action ourselves.

    Thus evolution shows to us a God who allows freedom in his creation. It’s not a safe universe, but it is an interesting one.