To my knowledge, I do not differ from Augustine or Calvin on the issues discussed below. I realize that I am very naieve, however, and I'm sure that others on this board (SDG, for example) will be quite able to argue very well that not only are Augustine and Calvin inconsistent, but I am inconsistent with each of them.
Thus I offer my humble, very personal, and vulnerable fledgling attempt to articulate my answers to MaraJade's questions.

Mara Jade wrote:

1) Why are you a Christian? What makes you stand firm in your belief when you get criticism from unbelievers?

I have been struggling with my personal apologetic ("Why do I believe?") for quite some time now. I am still a Christian because -- and this is more important and robust than it sounds at first -- I can't find any better explanations for reality. After all, what is the best reason to believe something is true? Is it not because whatever it is seems, after careful investigation, reflection, and trust of your sources, to be the best explanation for the state of affairs? (Of course, you're already assuming some truth about the state of affairs, but we needn't discuss that in detail right now.

)

The primary competitor to my Christianity continues to be agnosticism/atheism. But whenever my mind travels the "what if there's nothing out there?" path, I run into Paul's Romans 1:20 apologetic:

The Apostle Paul wrote:

For since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities--his eternal power and divine nature--have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse."

I am an evolutionist, but I scoff at the idea of atheistic evolution - it's far more absurd to me than the theistic alternatives.

So once I've bought into theism, I'm left to decide which theism is true, and the quest becomes much more directly historical, as all our major world religions, obviously, had their origins sometime in human history.

The important part here is that, assuming the true religion _has_ been revealed to us, we are left to trust our forebears. Of course, even your contemporary atheist hasn't personally verified all the scientific truths s/he holds, so we're all trusting other people's integrity in very important, fundamental ways.

In the little looking into history that I've done, Xianity appears to be the most true, and the most in accord with the rest of life; i.e., it is the best explanation for the state of affairs (the universe) that I have found so far.

I don't think I've ever come against strong criticism, though I'm taking a philosophy class at a non-Christian school this fall, and we're going to be reading Paul, so I just might have to be defensive once in a while. I'll probably be a little offensive, too, I expect.

But my challenge to a critic is to come up with a "better story", that has more evidence (using the term in a general sense) to support its truth claims. I haven't found one.

Mara Jade wrote:

2) What do you think about the Christian doctrine of heaven and hell?

I think it is true, because the Bible says so and the doctrine makes logical sense. I'll explain more when I get to your last question.

Mara Jade wrote:

Do you think that morality is as black and white as that?

For God, yes. He knows all, and His word is able to divide asunder soul and spirit, joints and marrow, and all that.

But actually, the salvation issue isn't about morality, anyway. The salvation issue rests in its entirety on whether or not one trusts Christ for his/her salvation, and that, in turn, rests entirely on God's grace (which, by definition, cannot be deserved). The last question will get the answer that tries to tie all this together...

Mara Jade wrote:

Do you believe that a truly good and selfless God would knowlingly create imperfect creatures, some destined for hell?

It makes sense to me that by definition, an infinite and perfect being is deserving of all possible praise, glory, and honor. Given that this Perfect Being exists, and that out of His overflowing abundance of His own perfection He created a perfect creation, just as He is the best of all possible self-existing beings (which reduces to the idea that there is only one possible self-existing being), His creation must be the best of all possible worlds.

I'd better interject here that God is unchanging. Yes, I claim that He is "static". I believe this because nothing else makes sense. Here are two reasons:

God is unbounded by any limitation that is not purely logical, and that is not truly any boundary at all. To ask questions like "could God create a rock so big He can't lift it?" is to ask something that has no sensible meaning; it is not to ask a thing but a non-thing. If God existed within some sort of time, that is, if God underwent change that He could not reverse, then He would be bounded by a limitation that is not purely logical. And if He only experiences change that He can reverse (though even "reverse" is too restrictive, as it implies only one dimension of possibility) at will, He effectively experiences all of His existence simultaneously, "at once", "forever". That sounds to me like a self-fulfilled, "static" bliss.
Also, I buy the familiar argument that there can only be one "Best of All Possible Self-Existent Beings". If that Being becomes something other than what it was at sometime in the "past", then that Being is no longer the single BoAPSEBs, is He? Therefore, He doesn't change, because change would imply a "becoming" less than He was at some other "time", and the concept is absurd.

In case it isn't apparent at this point, I don't think it makes sense to talk about God somehow "not knowing" about any aspect of anything. Nothing can be hidden from Him, because he has no "future" in the sense that we understand it, and every aspect of His creation is constantly and utterly dependent on Him for its existence. How could He possibly "not know" about something, or "choose not to be sovereign" over something? (My biggest disappointment with "The Openness of God: A Biblical Challenge to the Traditional Understanding of God" was that not one of the authors presented a challenging philosophical argument, or a remotely satisfying philosophical foundation. They all kept making their theological arguments without even making philosophical sense out of them. Perhaps I shouldn't be so hard on them on this point, because they _did_ put the word "biblical" in the title.)
But what about evil?

The fact that ours is the best of all possible worlds means that if someone could comprehend and evaluate the entire history, state, and future of our creation, it would apparently be the best possible creation imagineable by an Infinitely Perfect Self-Existent Being. If that is the case, then this creation is also perfect. (In general, to say something is the "best possible" does not imply that it is perfect, because in general, things are limited by overwhelming contextual imperfections. But we don't have any of those in this case.)

So now we have to explain the existence of evil in our world, because it certainly does exist - though I use that term loosely. Evil is not a "thing", in that it has no existence in itself apart from a lack of goodness. Just as the hole in my umbrella exists, though without my umbrella it could not, evil exists, though without good it could not.

Evil is a lack of perfection, keeping in mind that God is the only infinitely perfect being. It is logical that God could (and did) create a perfect, dependent (contingent), finite creation. Given that He did so, every conscious aspect of that finite creation would owe God for its very existence, let alone the pleasure of having experiences. That finite consciousness would therefore be morally required to perfectly give God all possible (that is, all that is possible for that finite being) glory, honor, and praise. For a finite being to exercise anything less than perfect stewardship (unmitigated devotion to his/her Creator) of every bit of his/her finite domain is "sin". Since the duty is infinite ("all possible") and to an infinite Creator, the slightest failure is justly deserving of infinite punishment.

Thus, Hell.

I'll mention here an analogy that I quite like. In the arts (our mini-creatorship bestowed upon us by God) we use contrast (whether visual, aural, spatial, or linguistic) to create beauty. The painting that is God's creation is more beautiful (and therefore more perfect) because of the existence of the pockets of shadow that there are; without the dark, the light would have no contrast, and therefore less beauty (within the finitude of its creature-ness). Taken as a whole, the painting is more perfect for its localized faults. When you're living in one of those pockets of shadow, as we all are, it's hard to see the big picture.

The Fall

God intended for Adam to fall through Satan's temptation. God gave us free will, in that we exercise a decision-making faculty that is not coerced but by our own desires. Pre-fall, man had the desire to do good, and the possibility of doing less-than-good (evil). At the fall, man exercised his ability to do less-than-good. Now, man only has the desire to do evil, and it is only through God's grace ("common grace", for non-Christians, and "salvific grace" for Christians) that humans ever do any good at all.

You may point out that I haven't really explained how the first less-than-perfection came to be, and you're right. I haven't; I don't think I could do justice to the issue right now, especially off the top of my head. But just in case you think that throwing a different understanding of "free will" into the mix somehow gives us a better explanation, I'll argue that it doesn't.

Unless you believe that God's creation is self-existent (not relying on God to continue existing), then whatever your stance on election and predestination, to be consistent you must acknowledge that God is responsible for the existence of evil. After all, He is responsible for His creation, and however much you may argue that in some inexplicable sense He "decides to give up His sovereignty to allow humans to have free will", it doesn't make sense that any part of a non-self-existent (that is, contingent) creation could do something completely outside all senses of His will. If everything that exists metaphysically relies upon God, then by sustaining creation's existence God continuously endorses its state (in the context of its past and its future). There is evil in creation, and God sustains His creation. Therefore God sustains the existence of evil, and God is responsible for the existence of evil.

If you believe that any part of God's creation is self-existent, then you believe in a different God than I do (perhaps not in a historical sense, but at least in an attributive sense).

Now, though I have stated that God is responsible for evil, I have not stated that He is the cause of evil. You may feel that I am quibbling over synonyms, as I did when I first heard this explanation/argument. On the other hand, you may recognize, as I did, that there's just no way to state that God isn't, in some fundamental sense, "responsible" for evil, unless you start denying attributes of God, or attributing God's attributes to His creatures.

Theology of Time

I'd better throw in here some details about my personal theology of time.

As I mentioned above, God is unchanging and static. His creation, however, moves along a timeline. We experience change, and we are not static. God does not experience time/change as we do, so it doesn't truly make sense to speak of Him in such terms unless we are describing an intersection between Himself and our timeline. But human language has no capacity to speak in a truly time-less sense, and our minds have no true power to comprehend such a state directly. But we can use analogies to make better guesses about what it might be like, and those analogies exist within words. So the following analogies speak of God as if He experiences time and change, though He does not. If it helps, you can imagine an extra, ficticious sort of "God-level of time" that sits outside of all that actually exists, so we can speak of God in terms of imaginary "God-time".

I did not make up the following analogy for this board; I came up with it before I was even particularly interested in movies. Honest.

God's creation moves through the frames of a three-dimensional movie with an [effectively] infinite framerate. From God's perspective, all the reels of this film are laying out on a table, and He is able to see and comprehend every frame simultaneously. Keeping in mind that He is actively sustaining the existence of every aspect of that film, we realize that He is able to simultaneously act within any and every frame without experiencing time/change Himself, though we, travelling through the frames of this movie, see Him acting in different ways at different times.

You may note that to this point, all my arguments have been philosophical, and not relying on scripture. I will rectify that briefly.

People who are not keen to jump on the predestination bandwagon often bring up scriptural passages that indicate that we make choices, that we are responsible for our actions, and that we are commanded to take particular steps to be saved. The argument then runs, "If our salvation or damnation has been decided already, what's the point? We should all just do whatever we want, and God will do whatever He wants."

I have a few responses to that sort of thinking:

God makes promises in scripture, and He keeps those promises. The fact that one's eternal salvation is predetermined does not preclude that one's salvation experience, or one's decision to follow Christ, is not also predetermined. God works through His people and His creation, not in spite of them.
We are commanded to evangelize. This is because God works through His people and His creation. Sure, every person's eternal state is predetermined. But God still uses evangelists to reach His elect.
We must live Christian lives, as we are commanded to do in scripture. God keeps His promises; He has explained to us the doctrines of His kingdom, and given us moral commands. The eternal state of one's soul is not independent of one's faith in Christ (and therefore from the way one lives one's life).
For the same reason we must live Christian lives, we must also pray. The fact that the answer to our prayer is predetermined does not preclude that our decision to pray a certain thing, or not to pray it, is also predetermined. God promises a correspondence between our prayers and His answers; to conclude that "God will do whatever He wants regardless of what I do" misses the point.

Stacked against such verses as John 3:16 and Romans 10:9, we have Romans 8 and 9, among other passages.

In Romans 8:28-30, Paul wrote:

And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. And those he predestined, he also called; those he called, he also justified; those he justified, he also glorified.

In Romans 9:10-23, Paul wrote:

Not only that, but Rebekah's children had one and the same father, our father Issac. yet, before the twins were born or had done anything good or bad--in order that God's purpose in election might stand: not by works but by him who calls--she was told, "The older will serve the younger." Just as it is written: "Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated."
What shall we say? Is God unjust? Not at all! For he says to Moses, "I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion." It does not, therefore, depend on man's desire or effort, but on God's mercy. For the Scripture says to Pharaoh: "I raised you up for this very purpose, that I might display my power in you and that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth."
Therefore God has mercy on whom he wants to have mercy, and he hardens whom he wants to harden.
One of you will say to me: "Then why does God still blame us? For who resists his will? But who are you, O man, to talk back to God? "Shall what is formed say to him who formed it, 'Why did you make me like this?'" Does not the potter have the right to make out of the same lump of clay some pottery for noble purposes and some for common use?
What if God,, choosing to show his wrath and make his power known, bore with great patience the objects of his wrath--prepared for destruction? What if he did this to make the riches of his glory known to the objects of his mercy, whom he prepared in advance for glory--even us, whom he also called, not only from the Jews but also from the Gentiles?

In effect, Paul is arguing that because God is the creator, He defines what justice is, and He has the right to have mercy as He wills, and the right to contrast that mercy with damnation as He wills. Unnerving or not, that's the state of affairs.

I don't really see a way around these verses, whereas those commonly used to argue against the obvious conclusions of Romans 9 are usually not directly teaching doctrine, but relating history or exhorting people to become Christians, or to become better Christians.

It took me a couple years to change my mind; I used to be a hardcore semi-Pelagian, though I didn't realize that's what I was.

I'll also mention here that in order to relate historical occurances, which happened in the timeline of God's creation, scripture is forced to refer to God with chronological terms. Such occurances happened within our timeline, so why not tell the story from that perspective? There is no reason to assume that such perspectival relations of these histories lead us to a doctrinal conclusion about God's entire relationship with our timeline. We learn that He acts within it, yes, but not whether or not He is bound by it.

There are verses that refer more directly to God's relationship with our timeline ("a thousand years are as a day", etc.), but I won't start listing them here. I don't rely on them to come to my conclusions. Though I don't dismiss the idea, I don't personally argue that there is strong, direct scriptural support for what I believe is true about God's relationship with our timeline.

I think that we can philosophically work out some things that make sense, and as always, we can test those philosophical ideas against scripture to see if they are consistent, and to see if they complement one another.

That's all for now.

This brief document is by no means complete. I realize I have left some huge, gaping holes -- even in the issues I did address -- and I've probably endorsed a heresy or two along the way. But my intent has been to articulate what I believe, and my theology isn't complete and perfect -- yet.

Take it for what it's worth.

--matt
Contact me if you wish: moquist AT css DOT tayloru DOT edu