The Legitimacy of Paradox as a Device in Christian Theology?

My last post surveyed the consequences of attempting to eliminate paradox from Christian belief. As a follow-up to that post, I want to revisit Romans 9:14-20 in response to the claim that there is no logical tension in Paul’s comments in this particular periscope. I understand Paul to be dealing with more than God’s sovereignty in this text. I believe Paul is dealing with three very specific issues: God’s sovereignty, God’s justice, and man’s actions. (The main thrust of Paul’s concern is the fidelity of God’s Word.) The simple question is this: how can God be absolutely free and absolutely just in light of the fact that evil behavior exists. Either God is absolutely free or God is absolutely just, but if human beings are subjected to God’s punishment, God cannot possibly be absolutely free and absolutely just, at least not in any meaningful way. If God is absolutely free, man is not free. If man is not free, he should not be punished. Therefore, if God is absolutely free, man should not be punished. For those of you that have studied predicate logic, you recognize the hypothetical syllogism.

G --> M

M --> P

/ G --> P

Anderson tells us that the cogency of the Rational Affirmation of Paradoxical Theology model depends crucially on the distinction between real contradiction and apparent contradiction. There are several objections to the idea that Scripture includes paradox, or is even thoroughly paradoxical in nature. One such objection rests on the ground that such a state of affairs would mean that Scripture is irrational. But that objection is patently false. Only if Scripture contained actual contradictions could it be the case that Scripture is irrational. However, I want to make it clear that we do not begin with the idea that Scripture could be irrational in the first place, and then set out it to see if in fact it is. We begin with the presupposition that Scripture, by its very nature is thoroughly rational. And because Scripture is rational, any apparent contradictions are just that, apparent. Anderson says, “Not only must this distinction be formally coherent, it must also be plausibly instantiated; which is to say, it must be reasonable to suppose that there are, or could be, instances of merely apparent contradiction.” When we begin with the view that Scripture cannot contain any actual contradictions, we are claiming that Scripture is our epistemic authority, our final standard, and that Scripture is, beginning to end and top to bottom, self-attesting. If a person is threatened by the possibility that Scripture contains apparent contradiction, I would be tempted to think it possible that that person does not in fact begin with Scripture, or place Scripture at the beginning of their reasoning process even if such is their outright claim. The psychological clues in such a scenario seem to me to be that the person who find paradox so perplexing may be placing reason above Scripture and judging Scripture by the criteria of autonomous human reason. Now, let’s get back to Moses, Pharaoh, Paul, and God.

Prior to v. 14, Paul points us to God’s sovereign choice of Isaac over Ismael. Paul pushes the argument up a level as he attempts to point us up to the sovereign election of God. He tells us that Rebekah brought forth two men of the very same substance, equal in every way. Yet, God chose one and rejected the other. And God’s choice took place even prior to their birth. There was nothing in either man’s physical make-up, their intellectual acumen, their race, nothing whatsoever to which we could point that would commend one to God more than the other. Was God’s choice of Jacob arbitrary? Was his choice to hate Esau capricious? We may say that it was God’s plan that served as the basis for these choices. But couldn’t we just as easily say that God’s plan was arbitrary? Well, the answer would be that God’s plan exists for His own glory. So if this plan glorifies God, couldn’t it have been the case that a different plan where both the twins were elected, and where Pharaoh was not predestined to wrath, could have glorified God just the same? If the choices are what they are just because God made them, I don’t see why such an indictment couldn’t be made. But something seems to be terribly wrong with this scenario. I will share why I think this perspective misses the target toward the end of the post.

As Paul shifts from the twins to Pharaoh in his next example, he asks a very important question: Ti oun eroumen? mē adikia para tō theō? mē genoito. What shall we say? Is there injustice with God? May it never be! Why would Paul ask such a question? The only scenario in which this question makes any sense whatsoever is the scenario in which we are attempting to understand how God could be perceived as just when He is engaging in such actions of election previously described by Paul. How is it just for God to choose Jacob over Esau since there are no material differences in the men? And with this question, Paul answers with an emphatic negative. The Greek word genoito is very probably a constative aorist which views the action of the verb as a whole. God forbid that it has been, is, or ever would be the case that there would be injustice with or in God. Add to this that the dative here could still be understood as a locative which carries a sense of in God. So we could read the Paul to be asking, “is there injustice in God?” Once again, if there is no tension here in what Paul is revealing, then there is hardly a good reason for why he should raise the question to begin with.

Paul opens his next point with the Greek gar, which is epexegetical, or an explanatory conjunction. Paul is not going to explain in greater detail what he is getting at. And this takes us beyond v. 20 and all the way through v.29 and actually chapter 11 if you want to get technical. He immediately points the audience to God’s dealing with Moses and Pharaoh to reinforce his revelation. He begins by reminding the audience that God has mercy on whom He pleases. In other words, this is nothing new. God has revealed the truth of his sovereignty previously. Paul provides the reason God is not unjust. There is something in God that gives Him the express right to have mercy on whom He desires and to have compassion on whom He desires. Paul begins with the presupposition that God is perfectly just in all that He does. But the very fact that the question of justice has been raised at all points to the seemingly undeniable tension that God’s sovereignty creates current in the state of affairs. Why would Paul even think to use such language in the text unless the tension is present. Not only is the tension present in what some commentators think is a hypothetical, there are a few commentators that have argued that Paul is dealing with a real objection being posed by a real objector. Either way, the only reason to bring up the question is if there is something to the fact that Paul’s perspective on God’s actions over the course of the history of redemptive pose something of a challenge to God’s justice. Are these sovereign acts of God also just?

Paul makes a preliminary conclusion, “So then.” Paul tells us that “it” does not depend on the will of man or the works of man, but on God who has mercy. What is the “it?” The “it” refers back to vv. 1-5 for this is the entire point of Romans 9-11. The objects of salvation, the called, the elect of God does not depend on man’s behavior nor man’s will. It depends entirely on God. And if this is true, then how can God find fault with those whom He has not elected since we are all the same. If God chooses not based on us, then why do some of us suffer His wrath and others not? How does that square with what we know and experience to be true about justice? The example of Pharaoh is even more emphatic. Paul reminds us that God raised Pharaoh up for this very purpose: to demonstrate His power in Pharaoh and that His name would be proclaimed through the world. From this Paul concludes again that God has mercy on whom he desires and He hardens whom he desires. This is another absolute statement in defense of God’s sovereign control of everything that comes to pass in His creation.

In v. 14, Paul rejects any suggestion that the way God does things in creation could be considered unjust. And here in v. 19, we have the same question being asked in a different way. If God chooses and does not choose based only on His own purpose, if it has nothing to do with the wills or the works of men, ti [oun] eti memphetai? tō? Why does he still find fault? Concerning the variant, oun, while it is omitted in Sinaiticus and Alexandrinus, it is in P46 and in Vaticanus. The word shows that Paul is drawing a logical inference from what has just been said. The flow of the discourse seems to make the logical inference impossible to miss as well. The Greek word, memphetai, has the sense of blame. It means to bring an accusation against against someone on the basis that the person in question is clearly to blame. It is the same word used in Heb. 8:8 where the writer tells us that God found fault with the old covenant making the way for a new covenant in Christ. The other interesting thing to note is that the voice of this verb is either middle or passive. This means that God did not just fix the blame on men. The blame was found passively or reflexively. This eliminates the possibility that they were to blame because God had simply declared it to be so. The blame was real, and it arose from within God’s nature.

The next question demonstrates that if you feel the tension in Paul’s argument, then you are reading Paul correctly; tō gar boulēmati autou tis anthestēken? Once more, this sentence begins with the post-positive epexegetical gar which is an explanation for what was just said. Literally, the clause reads, “for the will of Him who has resisted?” In other words, the idea is that God should not find fault with men who are simply doing His will since God’s choice for them to do the things He has decreed they do, has nothing to do with their will, their works, or anything else that might in them and everything to do with God’s plan. Now, the reason God should not find fault with men, if Paul’s account of God’s actions in the history of redemption is correct, is because no one has ever been able to resist God’s will. And under these circumstances, it feels as though God could be called unjust.

How does Paul solve the tension? To the disappointment of some, Paul does not solve the tension. He reasserts God’s sovereign right to do as He pleases in creation. And the real lesson here is that he rebukes the man who demands that there should be some solution to the tension. The idea of that God is unjust should never even be raised. Why? Because we begin with the view that God is absolutely and perfectly just and we are not open to the possibility that He could be otherwise. That is how Scripture reveals God and whatever Scripture reveals God to be, then that is how God is. Paul spends vv. 21-29 reinforcing the fact that God is sovereign and that we are the objects of His rich mercy. No man should dare place God in the dock and proceed to judge God’s actions based on some finite human morality or some finite human system of reason or logic. We begin with God and all that God is and from there we shape our system based on the revelation that God has given of Himself in Scripture. Clearly, the human mind has difficulty reconciling how God could be just given that He is absolutely free to carry out His plan which includes inflicting wrath of men for doing what He planned they do. When we encounter such difficulties, we can either allow human reason to judge Scripture, or we can make the decision to trust what Scripture clearly teaches elsewhere about God and accept the difficulty as something to be consistent with what we would expect from a finite mind attempting to understand plans that flow from an infinite one.

There are three very broad possibilities where paradox and Christian doctrine is concerned. One, it is always irrational to affirm paradox; Christian belief is unavoidably paradoxical; therefore, it is irrational to affirm Christian belief. Two, it is always irrational to affirm paradox; no central doctrines of Christian belief contain paradox; therefore, it is not irrational to affirm Christian belief. Three, it is not always irrational to affirm paradox; Christian belief involves paradox; therefore, it is not irrational to affirm Christian belief. One and two places reason over faith as magistrate. One indicts faith while two exonerates it, but judges it nonetheless. Three places faith over reason as magistrate and judges human reason according to the final standard of divine revelation in Scripture.

Heidegger: A Philosopher’s Failed Attempt to Ground Knowledge Outside God

Philosophy is a very complex field. The critical component can produce despair, darkness, gloominess, and downright frustration. Nothing is safe from criticism and challenge. Everything has to be qualified and defined and re-qualified and re-defined ad nausea it seems. Here, the simplest belief will be challenged and subjected to more criticism than one could possibly imagine. No assumption is safe. Everything must be justified, and therefore, defended. On the flipside, the constructive component of philosophy has had more attempts than there are seemingly, grains of sand in the oceans and beaches combined, to satisfy man's quest for truth, for knowledge, for meaning.

Martin Heidegger is one philosopher among an endless stream of the history of philosophers to throw his hate in the ring. Heidegger’s influence on philosophy, both critically and constructively, is profound. As is the case in many, if not most philosophies, Heidegger’s aim was to answer the skeptical challenge to human knowledge. At the very heart of epistemology is the skeptical question of the existence of an external world and how a human subject could ever have access to such a world. If human beings are trapped within the confines of their mind, it is only reasonable, or so it seems, to ask how a human subject, trapped in the world of thought, could ever transcend that world to access an external world. How does the human mind process information and data about objects outside itself? This question, Heidegger thinks, uncritically accepts the Cartesian notion of that the world consists of mind and matter. This means that the skeptical challenge is operating on the assumption of Cartesian epistemology. This epistemology is something that Heidegger challenges. The reason for such a challenge is that Heidegger believes that Cartesian epistemology fails to adequately answer the skeptic’s challenge. If Heidegger is successful in constructing an epistemology to replace Cartesian foundationalism, he has a chance to undermine the skeptic’s challenge at its most basic level. And if Heidegger can undermine the skeptic, it means he can provide ground for human knowledge.

Heidegger’s most significant work in this endeavor is known as Being and Time. The basic issue is that Heidegger objects to making epistemology the prime starting point. After all, how we know is much to do with what we are. Heidegger argues for the primacy of metaphysics over epistemology. For the presuppositional apologist that follows Van Til, this sounds very familiar. True knowledge is understanding the world as God understands and has created it. Van Til begins with the Creator/creature distinction and develops his epistemology in accord with his metaphysic. 

Epistemology must be grounded, after all, in something. We may ground it in the experience of the individual, or the cognitive processes of the human mind, or the transcendent God of Scripture. But, we we are to avoid skepticism, we must ground it somewhere and whatever we ground it in, that ground must provide adequate stability to stave off skeptical challenges. This grounding led Heidegger to ground knowledge in his complex idea of Being. Over the course of his life, Heidegger made several attempts to account for intelligibility and its grounding in Being apart from God. For the sake of simplicity, I will spare you the complexity of Heidegger’s concepts of Dasein, Anyone, and language. My point is much more basic than that. In the end, Heidegger’s project ended in failure because of the circularity involved in attempting to ground knowledge in Being. Man cannot inform man of what man is without stepping outside of himself and conducting an evaluation on himself. But since such an undertaking is already colored by man’s bias, his being what he is as a result of his existence within a context, within time, it is impossible to avoid the circular nature of Heidegger epistemic aspiration. What sort of thing is evaluating this other sort of thing simply cannot be known if knowledge the thing itself is both the evaluator and the thing being studied! The impossibility of shedding prior knowledge in order to account for prior knowledge is simply impossible if knowledge is grounded in the finite knower. Heidegger spent a lifetime trying to succeed where no man ever has. Despite his many excellent contributions to philosophy, his failed to accomplish his goal: provide for human knowledge apart from the God of Scripture.

Heidegger’s aim is very basic: he desires to ground human knowledge on a foundation precludes the transcendent, self-contained, ontological Triune God of Scripture. He rejects the view that the beginning of knowledge is the fear of God. He rejects the view that all the riches of wisdom and knowledge are deposited in Christ. There is a problem of what is termed reflexivity in Heidegger. If it is the case that culture and history determine our sense of what it is to be, then our idea of Being and Time must also be the products of history and culture. If it is not the case that culture and history determine our sense of what it is to be, then Heidegger’s project collapses. This is where every attempt to ground human knowledge in anything other than God ends: collapse, and complete failure.

It was not the aim of this post to cover the fine and complex details in Heidegger’s philosophy. My aim was to show that Heidegger’s philosophy, like every other pagan philosophy fails to provide for the intelligibility of human experience, and in this case, the human experience of knowledge. It is the fear of God alone that is the beginning of all knowledge and wisdom. Christians would do well to keep this in mind when engaging the culture evangelistically and apologetically. Our answers to the pagan are not designed to satisfy the pagan. They are designed to satisfy God.

The Innate Antipathy in Unbelieving Thought

In his project with J.P. Moreland, “Philosophical Foundations For A Christian Worldview, William Lane Craig gives us a glimpse into his philosophy on the capabilities of the unregenerate mind. Apparently Craig believes there is no innate antipathy in unbelieving thought. Craig writes, “The fact that there is tremendous interest among unbelieving students in hearing a rational presentation and defense of the gospel, and some will be ready to respond with truth in Christ.”[1] You see Craig is displaying a specific philosophy regarding the nature of the unregenerate mind. In order for Craig’s statement to be true, the unregenerate mind must be in a condition of neutrality as it relates to God and His divine truth. The best approach to examine Craig’s statement is to turn to Scripture and allow Scripture to inform our philosophy in this case. We will perform a critical analysis of Craig’s philosophy regarding the nature of the unregenerate mind by examining it in light of the divine Scripture.

The apostle Paul explains in Romans 8:6-8 that the mind that is set on the flesh, which the unregenerate mind surely is, is hostile toward God. What does Paul mean “hostile toward God?” The Greek lexicon tells us that the word ἔχθρα means a state of enmity, or to be an enemy. It is to have ill will, or hatred for someone. It described the state between Russia and the USA during the cold war, or any two warring countries as far as that goes.

The same apostle Paul informs the Galatian Churches in Gal. 5:17  that the fleshly state or mindset or worldview sets its desires against the things that are spiritual and the spiritual mindset or worldview sets its desires against the fleshly or unregenerate worldview. The antithesis could not be more axiomatic. The apostle Paul reveals a view, a philosophy if you like, that informs his readers that he sees the unregenerate worldview and mindset as fundamentally hostile toward God. The contrast between how the regenerate and unregenerate think could not be more obvious in Paul’s theology. Does Paul think that the unregenerate worldview is really the product of a lack of rational argumentation and evidence? Is the unregenerate intellect really the product of the intellect itself or is it something beyond the intellect that does in fact affect the unregenerate mindset?

Our third truth, once again given through the beloved apostle Paul, is that the unregenerate mind is in such a state that it rejects the things of the Spirit of God. In fact, Paul tells us in 1 Cor. 2:14 that the unregenerate worldview holds spiritual matters in utter contempt and considers them moronic at best. The Greek word moria is where we get our word moron. It is this word Paul uses to describe the unregenerate intellect’s contempt for spiritual matters.

Another example of the unregenerate mindset is located in Romans 3:10-18. Paul tells the Roman Church that unregenerate men do not understand, do not seek God, are altogether useless, and that there is no fear of God before them. If the fear of God is the beginning of wisdom and knowledge, and there is no fear of God within them, then it logically follows that they have no interest in true knowledge and wisdom. Adding to this state is the state Paul described two chapters earlier to the same Church. Romans one tells us explicitly that God has given the unregnerate man all the information and evidence he needs. God has made Himself known to them and has given them an inexcusable amount of evidence all around them. Truly, the knowledge of God is inescapable for the unbeliever.

Another place where Paul gives us a glimpse into the mindset of the unregenerate is located in 2 Cor. 4:4 where he is clear and adamant that the unregenerate mind has been blinded so that they might not see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ. Moving back a few sentences, Paul refers to the same state existing among the Jews, telling us their minds were hardened and that until his very day the veil remains. (1 Cor. 3:14) Another example is given by Paul to the Philippian Church in Phil. 3:18-19 where Paul describes men whose minds are set on earthly things as enemies of the cross, whose end is destruction, whose god is their appetite, and whose glory is their shame.

Robert Duncan Culver writes, "In Pauline literature acts of sin proceed from a sinful heart. Paul's figures for this sin at the center are 'the sin,' 'the body of sin,' 'our old man,' 'this body of death,' 'flesh,' 'the body of sin and death,' and 'the carnal mind.' All are figurative expressions for the sinful 'heart' which in turn is a figure for the center of man's rational being."[2] Clearly Paul's anthropology and hamartiology have not been affected by Greek philosophy. The fountainhead of Paul's philosophy, in you insist on calling it that, is divine revelation. He anchors his view of man and sin in Adam, in creation, and moves from there. Absent from Paul's language is anything remotely resembling the philosophy of Aristotle, Plato, or Socrates.

Finally, from a philosophical point of view, Craig operates on an unproven and in my opinion, a mistaken assumption. He uses the phrase "rational presentation and defense of the gospel." Craig seems to think their is such a thing as neutrality in human reason. However, what makes a view reasonable in terms of unbelieving thought is not at all without controversy even though Craig seems to indicate that he thinks it is. The philosophers spend large amounts of time arguing to the contrary. There is no agreed upon criteria accepted by these young students at university by which the gospel might be tested and deemed acceptable in their eyes, as if such an approach is morally acceptable within Christian theism to begin with.

Craig's philosophy is contrary to a clear biblical theology regarding the nature of fallen man as well as the nature of sin. In addition, he begs the question of criteria in his view that all these students measure knowledge or true beliefs by the same standard. They do not. The unregenerate worldview is opposed to Christian theism from end to end. The two have a radically different metaphysic, epistemology, and ethic. Only divine revelation is capable of bridging the gap to make contact between the two possible.

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[1] William Lane Craig, Philosophical Foundations For A Christian Worldview (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2003), 5.

[2] Robert Duncan Culver, Systematic Theology (Great Britain, Christian Focus Publications, 2005), 361