Response to Paul Baird’s Response!

I’ve been having a discussion with skeptic Paul Baird of the Patient and Persistent blog. Here is Paul’s response to my response.

And, without wanting to be silly, stated below is my response to his response to my response:

Thanks Paul for taking the time to respond to my response to your stated ethical dilemma regarding God’s grace, a truly ‘repentant’ Hitler and an unrepentant Jew in a concentration camp.

Thank you for restating the dilemma in your own words.

I think that your intuitive difficulty with this question in related, in a signficant way, to a restricted perception of God’s attributes as described by the Judeo-Christian tradition, combined with an excessively anthropomorphic and self-referential opinion of how these divine characteristics play out in relationship to humanity.

In Christianity, God is certainly loving, merciful and compassionate. These are important, even essential, divine attributes. But they are not the only divine attributes. God is also holy and just. Being holy, God cannot associate Himself with sin and moral impurity in any way. And being just, God must deal with sin and moral impurity in the most effective and permanent way possible. By way of the Christian doctrine of Original Sin, every human is born into this world with a sinful nature and is thereby spiritually dead. This is a spiritual condition inherited by all humans and is in no way related to past, current or future conduct. However conduct is certainly influenced during our life as an out-working of this spiritual death.

Paul states in Romans 1:18-2:16 that all humans possess an innate internalized knowledge of God, which is reinforced by an unbiased observation of general revelation (the world and cosmos around us, which constitutes one of my favourite subjects – natural theology). This innate knowledge of God is actively (though not necessarily consciously) suppressed by humans in their natural state of spiritual death, due to the noetic effects of sin (both subconsciously and consciously). Therefore failure to believe in God constitutes, in truth, an active rejection of the natural knowledge and perception of God, and rebellion against this innate knowledge of God.

I personally don’t believe that God viciously and sadistically condemns those who reject Him by casting them Himself into “the lake of fire for eternal torment”. I believe people do this to themselves by their own wilful decision. Such people walk away from God (rather than God walking away from them) and actively jump in the lake of fire themselves (I am currently having visions of the defiant swagman in Waltzing Matilda who prefers to drown himself in the billabong, rather than submit to the authorities after swiping some sheep – although the cultural impact of that vision may be lost on non-Australians!)

Many have described hell as a place of eternal separation from God, and all good things that flow from God, where the door is locked from the inside. This may well be a well-trodden, yet useful metaphor.

I think your perception of these issues reflects an underestimation of the nature and gravity of the spiritual condition of natural humanity, and the gravity of the problem of sin. It also underestimates the gulf between the loving, merciful, commpassionate, yet holy and just God and humanity in it’s natural state. It also overestimates your ability to perceive and discern what is “good” in God’s eyes – the height of the bar in God’s standards. God doesn’t require us to be morally ‘good’ to qualify for a reconciled eternal relationship with Him. His holy and just nature demands that we be morally PERFECT! That is IMPOSSIBLE for even the most pious and saintly person! At least it is impossible by our own efforts alone. This is where Christians rely on the perfection and pure righteousness of Christ. We become spiritually perfect in the eyes of God vicariously through Christ – faith in Christ alone. Through submission to and professed faith in Christ as our Lord and Saviour. We come to God in the “Trojan Horse” of Christ if you like. Or in another sense, God looks on us through Christ-tinted glasses!

So I think that your problem in thinking about this issue is an underestimation and selectively reductionist approach to God’s divine attributes, as well as assuming an excessively anthropomorphic and self-referential judgment of what God ‘should’ (in your opinion) consider adequate grounds for a relationship with humans in their natural state.

Regarding your question of non-Christian moral codes, I want to make it clear that I am NOT claiming that non-Christians cannot live what others would consider “morally good” lives. I am also not suggesting that non-Christian cultures cannot develop moral codes by which to successfully live. What I am claiming is that the whole concept of objective moral standards is incoherent without the existence of God, as described by Judeo-Christian theology. So, while non-Christian individuals and cultures may “develop” or at least unwittingly adhere to pre-conceived objective moral standards, they are doing so (whether they realise it or not) by borrowing capital that originates from God. This may be consciously or subconsciously in the case of individuals and cultures that came after the advent of Judeo-Christianity, or innately and intuitively in the case of pre-JudeoChristian individuals and cultures via the sensus divinitatus. Paul alludes to this moral intuition in Gentiles apart from the Jewish Law in Romans 2:14-15.

In short, I am trying to invoke and appeal to the standard Moral Argument for God, best laid out by Christian philosophers such as William Lane Craig:

Premise 1) If objective moral values exist,then God exists.

Premise 2) Objective moral values exist.

 Therefore,God exists.

Premise 1 is true because…

 there cannot be an objective standard of morality unless there is an objective moral lawgiver. If an atheist were to appeal to some desired “goal”,he would be placing subjective value on the “goal” itself. The atheist cannot justify any form of objective morality without begging the question.

Premise 2 is true because …

1) To deny it would render morality subjective. If morality is subjective,then any and all actions would literally be justifiable from a subjective perspective.

2) It is universally self evident that certain things are objectively wrong (such as torturing babies for fun). The existence of objective moral values is as self evident as the existence of the external world. Hence,the burden of proof is actually on the one who denies the reality of objective moral values. The fact that many people may deny that the burden is on them does not free them of the burden of proof anymore than the fact that there are literally millions upon millions of people who deny the existence of the external world would take the burden off of them. Both the denialist of the external world and the denialist of objective moral values bear a burden of proof.

If morality is based on the nature of God,then doesn`t that mean we have the right to kill people if God himself executes a sentence of death on whomever he chooses?

No because the objective morality of God entails that circumstances play an important role when it comes to determining what is moral in any given situation. For example,a judge has the moral authority to sentence someone to imprisonment but that doesn`t give normal citizens the right to go around imprisoning people against their will.

 If objective morality is ultimately self evident,then why do we need to go outside of man in order to account for it?

Saying that objective morality is self evident doesn`t equate to saying objective morality is inherent to our nature. It simply means that we recognize there is a realm of objective moral values. Objective morality can only be grounded in a being that is inherently moral by nature.

(Source: http://www.evidenceforchristianity.org/)

 

Professionals like William Lane Craig can express this argument in a much more cogent way than I necessarily could. Here is a good article on the subject. This is obviously a whole other discussion by itself and essentially “off topic” from the original question.

You inadvertently reveal an underlying emotional component to your otherwise rational objections to this ethical dilemma with your references to “pious nuns stuck in a nunnery praying at all hours of the day in splendid isolation” and apparent “cynical, manipulative & insincere… abuses of salvation” by many self-professed Christians throughout history. Also by your references to effluent in response to points (7) & (8). I think that, in many ways, this intuitive emotional revulsion to the concept of the Christian God and His claims on your life, and the resultant challenge to your existential and moral autonomy, motivates your responses to this issue even more than rational argument.

In answer to your charge of  “cynical, manipulative & insincere… abuses of salvation”, I think you assume that God is a mindless ticket machine – if you stick the right ticket in the slot, the arm of God blocking the door to heaven opens mindlessly and without question! It doesn’t work like that. Another divine attribute in omniscience – meaning that God knows perfectly what is in our heart and knows if we are sincere or not in our profession of faith in Christ. I think you need to give God more credit as the ultimate Cosmic Mind to be able to discern who has authentically and truthfully put their faith in Christ, and those who are trying to abuse His gift of salvation. God is the final Judge. Not us.

Regarding the ongoing behaviour of apparently “saved” Christians, the apostle Paul has something to say about this:

 What shall we say, then? Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase? By no means! We are those who have died to sin; how can we live in it any longer? Or don’t you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life.

(Romans 6:1-4)

So while we are justified, not by our good works or ethical conduct or by living what others would judge as a good upstanding life, but by God’s grace through faith alone in the person and work of Jesus Christ, our behaviour and lifestyle should visibly improve and reflect our newly created self. This should happen inherently by the indwelling of the Holy Spirit and the resultant fruits of the Spirit (Galatians 5:22-23). But it should also be a conscious decision by the rebirthed Christian to choose to live differently as a visible expression of gratitude for God’s gracious gift of salvation and reconciliation through Christ. So the genuinely reborn Christian (and I do stress “genuine” versus “professed) who continues to live apparently as a “sh*t”, as you so deftly put it, is not living out the genuiness of his new position in Christ and is disrespecting God’s gift of grace. It is still possible for a rebirthed Christian to continue to look backwards and continue to live “in the flesh”, but this Christian is selling himself (and God’s grace) short. Either that, or the person’s profession of Christian faith is not genuine.

Your response to points (10) & (11) regarding the “unpardonable sin” is a non-seqitur regarding the wondrous “scandal” of God’s grace. Much has been said about the unpardonable sin in the past and many Christians have fretted over the possibility of unwittingly committing it. My understanding after hearing varied teaching on the matter over many years is that “blasphemy against the Spirit” involves permanent and unremitting rejection of the bidding of the Spirit to accept God’s gracious gift of salvation through faith in Christ. This, I guess, would be manifest by someone who knowingly and stubborny rejects Christ and persists in this rejection until death. As such, I maintain (as does orthodox Christianity) that there is no sin too big or too awful that God can’t or won’t forgive if it was committed by someone who is genuinely repentant (again stress on the word genuine). I am assured that God’s perfect knowledge, perfect discernment, perfect justice and omniscience enables him to recognise genuine repentance from that which is disingenuous.

My final point is to further stress that becoming a Christian involves coming into a relationship with God through faith and submission to Christ, not by joining a certain political party or lobby group. It may be that genuine Christian rebirth results in a person seeing certain things differently and changing their mind on some issues. But the changed opinion follows rebirth, not precedes it. Regarding science and faith issues, evolution is not necessarily incompatible with Christian faith as many genuine and authentic Christians such as Alister McGrath and Francis Collins have shown admirably. Mechanisms of life’s origins, for me at least, are still a moot point and are second or third tier issues, not central to my faith. Personally, I am uncommitted on this point and see merit in both ID and theistic evolutionary arguments. So I maintain my initial suggestion that you have a rather restricted and fallacious view on what constitutes a fully developed Christian worldview and lifestyle. I encourage you to ‘open the aperture’ further and appreciate the diversity of Christian opinion and thinking in these secondary and tertiary issues.

Thanks again for your interactions. I hope my response has been useful.