Sunday, May 2, 2010

King Of Ireland, The Problem of Othniel, and Biblical Hermeneutics

At American Creation, my co-blogger King of Ireland has a good post that responds to me and Dr. Gregg Frazer and puts much on the table.

Let me sort some of this out. First there are differences among the personal religious convictions of Jon Rowe, Gregg Frazer, Joe Winpisinger (aka KOI) and John Calvin. Further, the Bible says what it says regardless.

We need to keep that in mind because I see KOI sometimes improperly conflating these things.

Gregg Frazer's notion that submission to government is absolute (even if it's Hitler or Stalin), obedience is conditioned on not sinning against God while doing your best to obey the civil magistrate, is NOT derived from John Calvin's authority, but from the Bible's alone (or, if you will, how Dr. Frazer understands the Bible as the inerrant infallible Word of God).

Likewise, Calvin asserted his teachings were derived from the Bible alone. And indeed, what Calvin believes and what Frazer believes sometimes strikingly parallel. But to (supposedly) find a flaw or contradiction in Calvin's understanding of the Bible is not to find a flaw in Frazer's. Indeed, Dr. Frazer believes in only four of five of Calvin's points. And, surprise, it's because Frazer says the Bible disagrees with Calvin's notion of limited atonement (the L in Calvin's TULIP) that Frazer rejects it.

On a personal note, I am an open minded, hopeful agnostic with deistic, theistic and universalistic tendencies. My rational mind says I don't know if there is a God. My heart says everyone gets into Heaven eventually. Who knows, maybe that temporary punishment for the sins that we do on Earth requires subsequent reincarnation where bad shit happens to you (the question, "what did I do in a past life...?").

My mind is only so open, however. It's not open to Zeus, it's not open to the idea that those 19 highjackers did God's will and were rewarded with virgins and it's not open to the idea that human beings, as a result of the barest or original sin, (eating an apple when God said not to, or coveting, stealing a candy bar) deserve either the horrors that many humans experience on earth (i.e., the holocaust, childhood cancer) or eternal misery.

The first idea (Zeus) is ridiculous -- something in which virtually no one currently believes -- though the last two notions have more than a nominal number of believers. But they are just wrong. They are wrong because I know they are wrong. I don't care what you think the Bible or Koran says. I can and have formed logical arguments as to why they are wrong and sharp minded apologists for either notion (eternal miserable damnation as a default desert for the original or barest sin or Allah sending 19 highjackers into the WTC and rewarding them with virgins) have rationalized why those notions are just and true.

But in the end, they are just plain wrong and I am going to either 1) reject the authenticity of "revelation" that teaches otherwise, or 2) explain why such revelation, properly understood, doesn't teach these things. [Keep 1) and 2) as rationals in mind because they relate to the overarching theme of this post.]

And indeed, some/many Muslims who believe the Koran God's holy and revealed word rationally and vociferously reject such interpretations of the Koran. Just like "Bible believing Christians," some unitarian like Charles Chauncy and John Adams, some Trinitarian like John Murray and Benjamin Rush argue, God's Word in the Bible, properly understood, does not teach eternal damnation, rather temporary punishment, universal salvation. [Interestingly, many early church fathers believed this as well.]

Though, I can't say that I've found evidence that Rush, Murray and Chauncy simply wrote off parts of the biblical canon as "interpolations." John Adams (and Franklin, and of course, we know Jefferson) however did. To Jefferson, most of the Bible was "interpolation," hence fit for his cutting room floor.

One beef some readers -- American Creation's Tom Van Dyke notably -- have with Dr. Frazer's interpretation of America's Founding political theology, is it stands for "reason trumps revelation" -- or man's reason judging what parts of scripture are not true and jettisoning them. Clearly, J. Adams, Jefferson and Franklin did this and said they did.

But did Rush, Chauncy, Mayhew, and others? Well, I can't tell if they said they did like Jefferson, J. Adams and Franklin. But what they did, among other things, was reject the Trinity and eternal damnation. And, the logic goes, since the Bible clearly teaches both those doctrines, anyone who rejects them subjects the Bible to man's razor of reason and edits from it like what Jefferson knew he did (regardless of whether Mayhew, Chauncy, et al. consciously did this).

I don't have personal issues with Romans 13, because like Jefferson, I don't believe St. Paul's words were God's (the Holy Spirit writing inerrant, infallible scripture through Paul's hand) but rather were Paul's and Paul's alone.

However, when I do approach this issue -- biblical hermeneutics -- as a thought experiment, I act as though the Bible were inerrant and infallible. As such, all of the competing texts have to be harmonized so as to not contradict one another (if that is indeed possible).

One argument against the Bible as Truth is that it contradicts itself more than hundreds, but thousands, if not tens or hundreds of thousands of times. I used to argue this. But I discovered it a half truth. It is indisputable that the Bible appears, on the surface, to contradict itself many times over. But a good, smart biblicist can "smooth out" the apparent contradictions.

We are left with what the Bible says, plus a hermeneutical explanation of why it doesn't contradict itself. And that results in Sola Scriptura Protestantism, with thousands of [the Bible + why it doesn't contradict itself], from smart theologians, that contradict one another.

For instance, orthodox Trinitarian evangelicals who believe the Bible inerrant, infallible, argue over, among other things, every single letter of Calvin's TULIP. Outside of historic orthodoxy, biblicists argue the Trinity, Incarnation, Atonement on biblical grounds alone.

Knowing this, I better understood the Roman Catholic case for Papal Infallibility. It's not that the Pope is in fact infallible, but rather that someone has to have the final say on what the Bible means or else the Church is subject to Sola Scriptura Schizophrenia, which in my opinion, accurately describes how Protestantism was destined to be from Luther onwards.

Likewise, the Supreme Court says "we are not final because we are infallible, rather we are infallible because we are final." That is, someone has to have the final say or else we get thousands of schizophrenic, contradictory results of what an inerrant, infallible Bible (or constitution) really says. Such is Protestantism.

I outlined all this because it relates to this specific discussion on Romans 13 and revolt, as well as the broader discussion I've engaged in over the past few years on America's Founding political theology.

But back to the specifics on Calvin, Romans 13 and resisting the civil magistrates. Calvin's teachings seem quite clear that lower magistrates have the privilege of removing a tyrannical king only pursuant to some legally recognized mechanism. The examples he gave were akin to Congress impeaching a President, not revolt against tyrants.

Elsewhere in the same passage in Book IV, Chapter 20 of Calvin's "Institutes of the Christian Religion" Calvin notes:

Herein is the goodness, power, and providence of God wondrously displayed. At one time he raises up manifest avengers from among his own servants, and gives them his command to punish accursed tyranny, and deliver his people from calamity when they are unjustly oppressed; at another time he employs, for this purpose, the fury of men who have other thoughts and other aims. Thus he rescued his people Israel from the tyranny of Pharaoh by Moses; from the violence of Chusa, king of Syria, by Othniel; and from other bondage by other kings or judges.


KOI claims the Othniel example a contradiction in Calvin's writings. Personally, I don't see it. Calvin teaches God sometimes raises up individuals to deliver from tyranny. AND that sometimes the means those individuals use is righteous, sometimes sinful. Likewise, this accords with Gregg Frazer's understanding that, yes, it was God's will that the American Revolution resulted as it did. But that George Washington et al. used SINFUL MEANS to accomplish that end. Indeed, Frazer and Calvin both teach God sometimes uses the sinful means of man to accomplish his will. I can't tell from Calvin's context whether he thought Othniel was one righteously raised up or rather God using "the fury of [a man] who ha[d] other thoughts and other aims," to accomplish His ends. But in any event, there is no apparent contradiction.

And, contrary to KOI's assertion that Dr. Frazer refuses to answer his Othniel claim, Gregg has done so repeatedly. For instance here when Dr. Frazer wrote:

... [T]here are plenty of tyrants in the history of Israel after Saul who are not removed despite pleas from the people. If it’s as “simple” as you’ve made it, God should have interceded on behalf of all of the others. Also, God does not only recognize kings of Israel (His people) who’ve gone through a special anointing ceremony to be His “anointed.” Romans 13 says that all rulers are “ministers of God” and “servants of God.” And God refers to pagan civil rulers as His “servants,” His “shepherds,” and His “anointed” (see e.g. Jeremiah 25:9; 27:6; 43:10; Isaiah 44:28; 45:1). So, what applied to David re Saul applies to all civil rulers AS FAR AS TAKING OUR OWN INITIATIVE IS CONCERNED. GOD may remove a ruler or even raise up a deliverer to remove a ruler or use the sinful rebellion of people to remove a ruler – but we have no authority or permission to do so on our own initiative. It isn’t up to us to decide, but rather God. You talk of having “a time to have the Spirit come upon you” -- as if that were up to you to generate. As if you were in control of the Spirit of God!!! God can send His Spirit; God can raise up a deliverer; God can determine that it’s time for a tyrant to fall – but that doesn’t mean we can or that we can simply decide that we are such deliverers!

You say that “’appointed’ authority can come under judgment themselves and their former slaves can even be the ones to take them out.” True. What is NOT true is the notion that WE get to decide when that time has arrived or that, contrary to clear command from God, we can do it our own way on our own timetable. You ask why the Declaration of Independence can’t be an example of this – BECAUSE THERE WAS NO REVELATION TO THE AMERICAN REVOLUTIONARIES TO TRUMP THE BIBLICAL COMMAND NOT TO REBEL. God did not reveal to them that this was an Othniel situation and He did not reveal to them that He had appointed an Othniel to deliver them! Othniel didn’t decide on his own – He received revelation from God.


Likewise Frazer's orthodox understanding of the Bible teaches God's actual revelation stopped with St. John's Book of Revelation. Therefore, whereas Othniel received revelation, George Washington, did not because, accordingly, he could not have. Unless that is you are a Mormon and you believe revelation continues after the end of the biblical canon.

Finally, let me said a word on what I think motivates KOI and many other Christians who refuse to accept Dr. Frazer's understanding of the Bible. It parallels my 1-2 explanation for why I reject eternal damnation (especially if eternal damnation is as bad as some claim). I wrote it's wrong because I know it's wrong. And therefore, I either 1) reject the authenticity of "revelation" that teaches otherwise, or 2) explain why such revelation, properly understood, doesn't teach these things.

In other words, it's an a-priori. On this Romans 13 issue, the reaction in the mind of the Bible believer is NOT "what does the Bible really teach, putting all of the competing texts together so they don't contradict one another?" but rather, "that interpretation CAN'T be true, because it would mean I couldn't rebel against Stalin or Hitler."

And the believer is therefore left with two options: Either disregard as authentic revelation those texts of the Bible that contradict your a-priori as false revelation (hence Adams' notion of interpolations in the Bible or Jefferson's cutting room floor where everything St. Paul said ended up) OR try to explain why the Bible, properly understood, cannot possibly teach this, with the outcome already determined.

King of Ireland in this sense, operates entirely in the tradition of America's Founders who argued rebellion against tyrants is obedience to God, regardless of what you think the Bible says. Regardless of what verses and chapters of the Bible you could throw at them, the Whigs' minds were already made up on the matter.

Whether this constitutes "reason trumping revelation" I'll let the readers judge.

11 comments:

King of Ireland said...

"And, contrary to KOI's assertion that Dr. Frazer refuses to answer his Othniel claim, Gregg has done so repeatedly"

He has answered me but not convincingly. That is more of a theological discussion not that germane to this blog. I would have to ask him if he agrees with Calvin that Othniel's actions were righteous. If so then his whole Romans 13 argument is toast. He tried to slip out of my trap by saying that Othniel's actions were not neccesarily righteous. But he either has to denounce his hero on this point or lose his entire thesis. Calvinism had evolved a great deal in regards to its teaching on resisting tyrants long before the enlightenment. For crying out loud Ponet was Calvin's contemporary!

King of Ireland said...

"King of Ireland in this sense, operates entirely in the tradition of America's Founders who argued rebellion against tyrants is obedience to God, regardless of what you think the Bible says."

This is not at all what I believe. In fact, I used to share Frazer's interpretation of Romans 13 possibly harsher. It was through reading and studying other parts of the bible that I realized my interpretation was wrong.

Frazer can be refuted using nothing but the bible. Othniel does that by himself. If God endorses these actions as righteous then Romans 13 cannot say what Frazer says it does.

Jonathan Rowe said...

"I would have to ask him if he agrees with Calvin that Othniel's actions were righteous. If so then his whole Romans 13 argument is toast."

I don't see how this is the case. Frazer already noted God can, for his own reasons, give folks special exemptions to rules that otherwise bind universally.

Your argument, it seems to me, is like saying because Cain and Able were excused from the prohibition on brother sister incest, it's okay for me to marry my sister (actually I know of at least one public brother sister couple who argues the Bible validates their relationship for that very reason).

"He tried to slip out of my trap by saying that Othniel's actions were not neccesarily righteous."

Did he say that? Or did I say that? I am not as familiar with the Bible as he is. And I'm not as familiar with the tale as you are.

Rereading his argument, Frazer believes Othniel was raised up by God to deliver and that was okay because Othniel received specific commands from God to do so while George Washington didn't. Othniel lived during a time when God was revealing to men. George Washington didn't.

"But he either has to denounce his hero on this point or lose his entire thesis."

This is a false choice, I don't see why Frazer has to denounce Calvin. And even if he had to, he would and still be able to make his point.

Jonathan Rowe said...

"Frazer can be refuted using nothing but the bible."

You didn't refute him. At best you offer an alternative plausible explanation.

"Othniel does that by himself. If God endorses these actions as righteous then Romans 13 cannot say what Frazer says it does."

This is known as a non-sequitur where the conclusion doesn't follow from the premise.

I know you took issue with me putting a lot on the table in my past post. And I did probably talk about some things I could have left out. However, much of what I wrote DID INDEED relate to this very point. The Bible, on its face, appears to contradict itself OVER AND OVER AND OVER again until you get some smart theologian who does his best to smooth out the contradicts and come forth with norms. I think Frazer does a very good job doing that with Romans 13 and the other text. But perhaps you smooth out the apparent contradictions differently.

So then that means we are in TULIP land where evangelicals who believe the Bible inerrant, infallible and contractionless argue over every single point of TULIP because there are texts that seem to go different ways on all of those points.

King of Ireland said...

"Rereading his argument, Frazer believes Othniel was raised up by God to deliver and that was okay because Othniel received specific commands from God to do so while George Washington didn't. Othniel lived during a time when God was revealing to men. George Washington didn't."

Where does it say in the Bible that he received revelation from God? It does not. If he did not need it then why did Washington?

ME:
"He tried to slip out of my trap by saying that Othniel's actions were not neccesarily righteous."

Your response:

"Did he say that? Or did I say that? I am not as familiar with the Bible as he is. And I'm not as familiar with the tale as you are."

Yes he said it. This is my one issue with you on this stuff. You have to read the bible for yourself. I am not saying that from a theological point of view but a historical one. It is a book of history.

ME:

"But he either has to denounce his hero on this point or lose his entire thesis."

Your response:

"This is a false choice, I don't see why Frazer has to denounce Calvin. And even if he had to, he would and still be able to make his point."

His thesis is that the founding political theology is not Christian so you are right. I should have stated that you lose a good part of your thesis that the founders had to turn to enlightenment thinking to find "resistance theories". A large part of this argument is based on the influence of Calvin. He contradicts himself and is not reliable.

Your argument, it seems to me, is like saying because Cain and Able were excused from the prohibition on brother sister incest, it's okay for me to marry my sister (actually I know of at least one public brother sister couple who argues the Bible validates their relationship for that very reason)."

No, I have none such problem in that I believe that a good part of Genesis is myth. Myth in that it is much like oral history that is exaggerated to prove a point. I have not studied it much but if Hebrew history is anything like Greek at the time then I am sure even in the historical books a lot is left out and simplified. I know in Greek history it is hard to separate the myth from the truth at times.

Ed's friend Henry Neufeld writes a lot on this stuff. This is where the inerrantists mess up.

With that stated, the story of Othniel gives great weight to a Locke like interpretation of Romans 13 over a Frazer one. THIS IS DONE USING THE BIBLE NOT IGNORING IT AS YOU SAY.

"I know you took issue with me putting a lot on the table in my past post. And I did probably talk about some things I could have left out"

I enjoy the discussion on all of it. I just do not want to get off the topic of interposition or cloud it with all the other stuff. It is an important point in weighing the importance of Christian ideas on the founding. If Calvin is your only evidence against the DOI being an interposition then you are in trouble.

Jonathan Rowe said...

"No, I have none such problem in that I believe that a good part of Genesis is myth."

That's a very important point that I tried to at least allude to in the long post.

Gregg doesn't believe any part of Genesis is myth. He believes in a different form of Christianity than you do. Because of the differences in premises, I think he knows further discussion with you won't make much progress.

King of Ireland said...

ME
"Othniel does that by himself. If God endorses these actions as righteous then Romans 13 cannot say what Frazer says it does."

Your response:
"This is known as a non-sequitur where the conclusion doesn't follow from the premise."

Why not? His actions clearly go against what Frazer would limit to acceptable under Romans 13.

Jon:
"I don't see how this is the case. Frazer already noted God can, for his own reasons, give folks special exemptions to rules that otherwise bind universally.

In other words:

God is promoting rebellion like I stated and you reproduced in your response. This is not room to wiggle of this one. Unless, Frazer breaks with Calvin and says that it is not evident that God commanded Othniel to do what he did. He will state something like just because God raised him up and his spirit was on him it does not mean that God told him to do it.

This goes against all logic and theology like this is what the founders and other thinkers rejected for good reason. It was not so much the bible they rejected it but bizarre interpretations of it that were "authoritative".

Jonathan Rowe said...

We may also have a word problem here: Interposition. That term, as I understand it, started with Calvin in his teachings on Institutes. That's why I've followed Calvin's strict teachings.

Now you may point to other sources before and outside of Calvin that have something to do with "resistance." However I don't think these are properly termed "interposition" as that is a Calvinist concept.

King of Ireland said...

Jon stated:

"Gregg doesn't believe any part of Genesis is myth. He believes in a different form of Christianity than you do. Because of the differences in premises, I think he knows further discussion with you won't make much progress"

It will not on the theology. It turns into a unproductive discussion that is not that germane to this blog. But my objections in my recent post on pure historical. Either Calvin said it or he did not.

King of Ireland said...

Jon stated:

"Now you may point to other sources before and outside of Calvin that have something to do with "resistance." However I don't think these are properly termed "interposition" as that is a Calvinist concept."

Others wrote about the same concept. It is based on convenant theory. I am not sure if the Catholics used the same word but they started the whole thing. I think Vindicae is the best one from what I have read about it as far as laying out the whole theory and how it relates to the bible.

Thing is that it is not in the Bible. It does not contradict it. In fact, I think flow logically from some things that are in the bible. But it is not in there.

I got to go to work we can pick this up later. Maybe I will do a post on Ponet and we can discuss how you think he is different from Locke. He might be. I do not see it but I have not read enough of both to know.

King of Ireland said...

"King of Ireland in this sense, operates entirely in the tradition of America's Founders who argued rebellion against tyrants is obedience to God, regardless of what you think the Bible says. Regardless of what verses and chapters of the Bible you could throw at them, the Whigs' minds were already made up on the matter.

Whether this constitutes "reason trumping revelation" I'll let the readers judge"

I am starting to think that reason trumping revelation means someone using reason to refute Frazer's version of what the Bible says in Frazer's mind.

I come at this from a former literalists perspective. I was way harsher than Frazer at one point until I started to think outside the narrow box that I was taught to view the bible in.