Models of Theodicy Chart

How do we deal with God allowing evil and suffering? This ever-daunting "Problem of Evil" is one of the biggest perennial problems in Theology and the Philosophy of Religion. The academic name for this problem is "Theodicy", and it is one of the things I have blogged about the most on this website, with articles big and small discussing the problem from all kinds of perspectives. Today in teaching Philosophy, we talked about the subject once again. And as a result I decided to turn my class notes into a chart. 

You will note that it lays out the essential logic of the problem of Theodicy in a flowchart of options which are either affirming to the reality of God, or which diminish or deny the reality of God. I have even further simplified this flowchart into an image which can be displayed on one slide as part of a presentation or sermon:

If you would like to use these charts or image, you can click the image above, or download the charts in PDF or JPEG here.

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Heresies Alive!

This weekend I was honored to teach seminarians about the Age of the "Ecumenical Councils" and help them understand the heresies which helped define orthodoxy in the Imperial Church. One of the persistent problems in teaching this material is the interconnected and confusing convergence of different groups in the early Church and the specialized terminology they used to explain themselves and condemn each other. 

So, to help students understand these issues and concepts, I find it helpful to discuss how we find these heresies alive and well in our churches today. We tend to think of heresies as something that happened "back then" which are only of academic interest today. But the fact is, the same heresies pop up over and over and affect people in profound ways. Thus, I created the chart above (and available in PDF HERE) which helps students connect these heresies with the contemporary world. 

Models of Metaphysical Cosmology

In my philosophy class my students are trying to wrap their minds around what is different about how Plato and Aristotle viewed Reality, and how this relates to other thinkers and models of Reality. Basically, Plato is seen as the prototypical rationalist, viewing Reality from the "top down", while Aristotle is seen as a proto-empiricist, viewing Reality from the "bottom up". If this is already confusing, Crash Course has a nice summary HERE.

Anyway, there are many terms that could be used for comparing different views of how to understand the essence of Reality. In one way, we are discussing Metaphysics, because it is a discussion of how the realm of physical reality might relate to "higher" or more fundamental levels of reality (if there are such levels). In another way, we are discussing Ontology, because we are trying to understand what the natures of things are, and what are the essential aspects that make a thing what it is. In a final sense, we are discussing Cosmology, because we are seeking to understand the nature of the Universe (the Cosmos) in relation to various ways of understanding Ultimate Reality. 

So, I have chosen to call it "Models of Metaphysical Cosmology". I know people may disagree, but it's what I will go with right now. My summary chart for teaching can be seen by clicking the JPEG at the top of this post, or by clicking on THIS PDF.

And, if you are up for more charts, you can see my whole collection of charts for teaching Religion, Scripture, Theology, and Philosophy HERE. 

Truth is always Stranger

Tertullian once said “I believe because it is absurd”. It is the strangeness of an idea— it’s undeniable texture and inconsistent density— which is a hallmark of its truthfulness, and not the smoothness and consistency of an idea. The old quip that “truth is stranger than fiction” has much in common with Tertullian here. Fictions have smoothness and consistency, clear beginnings and symmetrical endings. But reality makes twists and turns which, while they do not contradict reason, neither can they be predicted by reason. Real things are irreducible, and defy being fully encapsulated in a conceptual system, to be rendered completely predictable, and hence controllable. 

Can Cattle Breeding trigger the Apocalypse?

A friend recently sent me an article with the overblown and click-baity title of "Birth of first red heifer in 2000 years fulfills Bible prophecy and signals end of days". He asked me what I thought about this. In reply, I told him I’m probably the most un-fun Bible scholar to play this game with. 

This absurd article is based on an obscure read of Numbers 19 where it says “This is a requirement of the law that the Lord has commanded:  Tell the Israelites to bring you a red heifer without defect or blemish and that has never been under a yoke. …  This will be a lasting ordinance both for the Israelites and for the aliens living among them.” [verses 1–2, 10] 

Some sects of fundamentalist Christians interpret it this way: Jesus cannot return until the Third Temple is built in Jerusalem; The Third Temple cannot function unless there are Red Heifers to sacrifice there; Therefore if and when a Red Heifer is born, it will trigger the building of the Third Temple, which will trigger the return of Jesus. Don't blame me for the logical holes in this: I'm just reporting what a subsection of a subsection of a subsection of Christians believe. 

Here are some of the many reasons why this interpretation is problematic...

Jesus, the Bible, and Private Property

The earth is the LORD’S and all that is in it, 

the world, and those who live in it! (Psalm 24.1)

Recently one of our History classes viewed this video in which Billy Graham makes the claim that “Jesus... taught the value of private property” (start at 5:14 for the whole quote). This seems to be an odd claim for the teachings of Jesus, and it generated quite the class discussion, after which the teacher asked me to make sense of Graham’s claim. 

I’ve actually been reading and thinking about this subject for the last 20+ years, but I’ve never penned anything publicly about it. In that time, I have travelled quite a distance politically and economically. I ended the 1990’s and began the 2000’s as a Christian Libertarian, convinced of the goodness and Divine sanction of the Free Market and its Invisible Hand to find the best solution to all social ills. I fundamentally resonated with George W. Bush’s vision of compassionate conservatism and market based public-private partnerships to do good in the world. 

Two decades later, in the midst of an interminable War on Terror which diverts trillions of dollars to the Military Industrial Complex, after a Bank Bailout that diverted trillions of dollars of public money to private coffers, after Occupy and Bernie Sanders and staggering levels of wealth inequality, as we watch public institutions and civic life desiccated and destroyed by ravenous Global Consumerism, after reading and re-reading and re-re-reading Scripture and Christian Tradition on economics and social justice, I have come to reject the naive Christian Libertarianism I embraced as a 20-something. 

As you may guess by now, I am convinced that the Bible as a whole, and Jesus in particular, do not support the post-enlightenment Consumerist concept of "private" property, in which "goods are irrevocably and unaccountably owned and controlled by the libertarian freedom of atomistic individuals, without connection to a higher duty, social purpose, or larger community".

In fact, to understand Jesus’ teaching on property, we have to look at the whole trajectory of the Bible on these issues. And, in short, the Bible nowhere supports our odd and recently formed concept of “private” property. It may be used to support ownership and property in a very publicly accountable sense, with many responsibilities tied to ownership. But it does not support private ownership unaccountable to other social, ethical, or spiritual responsibilities. 

Pontius Pilate and the inversion of Cynicism

One of the many things that interest me about the Passion narrative in the Gospel of John is how he writes Pilate. Pilate is the epitome of worldly wise, battle hardened, cynical wisdom. His one liners of “What is Truth?” (John 18.38) and “What I have written, I have written” (John 19.22) show us the sardonic gallows humor of a man who doesn’t believe anything anymore, except the power of power to crush and silence. And yet...