War and Peace

The following is the final(!) paper for my master's program, on the ethics of war and peace. (Not the book)

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War is one of the oldest ethical questions that have faced Christians. Teaching on war has existed between two poles since the early days of the Church. The early Latin father Tertullian, speaking about the possibility of Christians serving in the military, unambiguously states that "there is no agreement between the divine and the human sacrament, the standard of Christ and the standard of the devil, the camp of light and the camp of darkness. One soul cannot be due to two masters—God and Caesar."¹ Conversely, two hundred years later Augustine wrote, "it is the wrongdoing of the opposing party which compels the wise man to wage just wars."² The traditions they represent, Christian pacifism and just war theory, have coexisted in the Church, sometimes uneasily, ever since.

Christian pacifism was a significant, though not dominant presence in the early church, as represented by fathers like Hippolytus, Tertullian, and Lactantius, and has remained so ever since.³ The pacifist tradition they helped originate was continued in the Middle Ages by the Waldensians and after the Reformation by Protestant denominations like the Mennonites, Swiss Brethren, and Quakers. In the modern era, reforming figures like Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr. have powerfully demonstrated the redemptive power of nonviolence to effect social change and publicly model the love of Christ. Christian pacifism "is more than simply approving of peace, which everyone in some sense would do, it is the conviction that the commitment to peace stands higher than any other commitment"⁴—even the commitment to seek justice.⁵

The biblical basis for Christian pacifism is centered on Jesus as "the image of the invisible God" (Col 1:15 RSV); he reveals the Father to us (Mat 11:27); he is God in the flesh, the final and greatest revelation of the divine (Heb 1:1-2). "He reflects the glory of God and bears the very stamp of his nature, upholding the universe by his word of power." (Heb 1:3) What is true of Jesus is true of God, and it is through the Incarnation that God has revealed to us both who he is and what it means to be truly human. And what kind of God does Jesus reveal to us? A God who responds to evil with mercy (Luk 15:11-32), who "makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust" (Mat 5:45), who submitted to a horrific, unjust death on the cross, the ultimate demonstration of nonviolent love in the face of evil and an example for Christians to follow (1 Pet 2:21). The Incarnation is the "normative revelation of God" for Christians,⁶ and a major implication of it is that God is nonviolent.

Further support can be drawn from the teachings of Jesus. The first and most greatest commandment is to love God with all your heart, and inseparable from this is the command to love your neighbor as yourself. (Mat 22:34-40) But Jesus expands this command to include not just those we identify and get along with, but our enemies (Mat 5:43-45, Luk 6:35-36). We are to respond to evil, persecution, and violence not in kind, not with violent resistance (Mat 5:39) but with love and mercy. In doing so we are simply following the example of God, who loved us and showed us mercy (especially through Christ) when we were sinners and his enemies (5:8,10). These sharpened teachings are not simply unreachable ideals or general attitudes we are supposed to have; Jesus fully intended for us to obey them just as much as he intended for us to obey his command to love one another.

Commenting on and expanding Christ's teachings, Paul writes, "Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore love is the fulfilling of the law" (Rom 13:10) According to him, we are called to engage not in physical violence, but in spiritual warfare.⁷ (2 Cor 10:3-6) We must "Repay no one evil for evil...but overcome evil with good" (Rom 12:17,21). Violence, Christian pacifists argue, is not redemptive; it only leads to more evil, more violence, and so it can never positively advance the causes of justice or mercy. "The only ultimately redemptive response to sin and how it profoundly distorts human social life is, as Paul asserted, to seek to overcome evil with good (Romans 12). The only way successfully to resist violence without simply adding to violence in the world is overtly non-violent resistance."⁸ (Emphasis the author's)

While I support nearly all of the points made by Christian pacifism and believe that its Christ-centered message of peace needs to be heard more widely, I cannot follow its case to the absolute conclusion that war and violence are never permissible. In this it confuses private duties, in which a Christian is responsible foremost for his own soul, with public duties, in which a Christian, especially a parent or civil authority, is responsible for the protection of those in his care.⁹ One need look no further than the present situation in Iraq and Syria for an example of a situation in which an exclusive prescription of nonviolence would be impossibly idealistic (i.e. placing moral ideals before people), and for that reason heartless towards the vulnerable facing the real danger of violent persecution or death. For the sake of peace as the most important commitment and to avoid dirtying one's own hands, Christian pacifism is willing to allow death, suffering, and injustice to befall innocents. For the sake of loving one’s enemies, it is willing to compromise on loving neighbors, innocents, and those one may be charged to protect. Christ's teachings of pacifism and nonresistance are a high and vital calling for his followers, but to refuse to fight in the defense of others is to impose those teachings on those who, by and large, are not able to obey them to the utmost. It is to force martyrdom on them. To deny that such difficult choices ever have to be made is simply to deny the pervasive reality of sin in our world.

Christian pacifism also runs into some exegetical difficulties. It ignores Jesus' propensity to use hyperbole to accentuate his moral teachings; for example, I know of no one who has ever applied Matthew 5:29-30 literally and mutilated themselves to avoid sinning. Likewise his command to hate one's father and mother (Luk 14:26) is qualified by (among other things) his act of compassion on Mary from the cross in John 19:26-27, as well as Paul's command to provide for one's family (1 Tim 5:8). Its flat definition of Jesus as the "normative revelation of God" wanders dangerously close to Marcionism when it allows this reality to invalidate the depictions of God as blessing warfare in the Old Testament, reiterated in Heb 11:32-34. In context, its use of Romans 12 and 13 is also somewhat ambiguous: the justification for Christians not avenging themselves is not God's unwavering mercy but his self-declared monopoly on vengeance (Rom 12:19), and in Romans 13:1-7 Paul describes governing authorities as instituted by God, bearing the sword to execute his wrath (as a proxy) on the wrongdoer.

Thus even in the biblical support for Christian pacifism are found the seeds for just war theory, which holds that while war is evil, it may be permissible in certain circumstances. Augustine was the first to articulate the rationale that since the state is God's servant, appointed to bear the sword against wrongdoers (Rom 13:4), there are cases in which war (and capital punishment) can be just, in congruence with the examples of the Old Testament.¹⁰ Nonetheless war remains at best a lamentable necessity, an evil made permissible only by the presence of worse evils.¹¹ The Scholastic theologian Thomas Aquinas built on the teachings of Augustine, going into more detail on the specific criteria that make a war “just” and reiterating that the aim of war is the restoration of peace and justice to the social order.¹² The early reformers (except the aforementioned proponents of pacifism) continued to uphold the just-war tradition.

Just war theory distinguishes between at least two sets of criteria. Jus ad bellum criteria evaluate whether or not a given war is justifiable and include things like declaration by a competent authority, a just cause, proportionality of the means of war, exhaustion of peaceful means of resolution, and probability of success. Jus in bello criteria, including proportionality of force and discrimination of targets, are intended to minimize the evils of a war already in progress and avoid dehumanization of the enemy.¹³ Unlike Christian pacifism, just war theory does not hold that war always necessarily creates a worse evil than it overthrows, or that violence against a military opponent necessarily leads to hatred. It is possible to love one's enemies while using force to stop them from harming others, remaining ready (even eager) to lay down one's arms when peace is declared. God himself faces the same challenge of honoring and loving us (as his sacred image-bearers) even as we persist in destroying each other.

Just war theory enjoys plenty of biblical precedent, especially throughout the Old Testament, which presupposes that warfare can be legitimate. Abraham gets into a skirmish to rescue his nephew Lot (Gen 14:13-16), and is presented as an example of faith in the New Testament (Rom 4:11-12, Heb 11:8-30). The same can be said of Joshua (cf. Heb 11:30), the judges, and David (Heb 11:32-34), who are praised for their faith, including their willingness to fight in the name of God. In the New Testament, John the Baptist (Luk 3:14), Jesus (Luk 7:2-9), and Peter (Acts 10:1,24-48) have encounters with soldiers, in which we receive no hint that their profession is inherently sinful. As previously mentioned, in Romans 13:1-4 Paul states that governing authorities are servants instituted by God, appointed to bear the sword against wrongdoers. In John's apocalyptic vision Christ is depicted as one who "it is called Faithful and True, and in righteousness he judges and makes war." (Rev 19:11) "While the warfare in question is spiritual, nevertheless the suitability of the war metaphor implies that the activity itself is not a violation of the purposes of God. By way of contrast, God is never described as a 'harlot' or in terms of other occupations that are by their very nature immoral."¹⁴

Yet the logic of just war theory must not be taken too far. If overapplied, especially as a set of criteria for evaluating whether a given war is a "just" war, it risks becoming a moral "free pass" for war and killing, declaring them to be "good" when (as the destruction of God's image) they remain anything but. Just war theory can even end up sanctioning an implicit "end justifies the means" philosophy: if the end is considered to be "just", the horrors of war are declared "righteous". The Latin word iustus that is translated to "just" here should probably be taken to mean more "lawful", "legal", or "legitimate" in this case than positively "righteous", as is the connotation of the Greek dikaios. The point of Christian pacifism that violence is never redemptive is somewhat true; besides its destruction of the image of God, all war can do is prevent a greater evil or injustice by way of a (hopefully) lesser; this must not be confused with the actual creation of goodness or justice.

Both just war theory and Christian pacifism, when applied alone, have parallels with the kind of theodicy David Bentley Hart calls out for trying to make evil and suffering morally intelligible.¹⁵ The latter has echoes of a "greater good" theodicy: we are right to allow evil and injustice to occur in the short term for the sake of a longer-term good that cannot come about any other way. The suffering of innocents at the hands of the unjust is perversely necessary for the sake of the justice which, it is thought, can only come about through nonviolence. Conversely, just war theory can paint killing as "right" if it prevents a worse evil from occurring, which is dangerously relativistic. How can the Christian equally, consistently condemn and fight against all violence and injustice—both that within himself and that committed by others?

This tension is real, a consequence of the fallen world in which we live, and it is tempting to resolve it by simply adopting either a total pacifism that denounces all war as evil or a doctrine of "holy war" that makes (just) war into a positive norm. But the tension is an integral part of a truly biblical approach to war. Just (or perhaps "justifiable", or "permissible") war theory is good when it acknowledges that war is an evil and seeks to make it less so, and that any doctrine of war can only ever be a concession to human sinfulness. Yet war may be a necessary evil.¹⁶By pretending that we are already entirely free from war, we may unwittingly become culpable in even worse evils: Fr. David Alexander, an Orthodox chaplain in the U.S. Navy, says that "To fail to defend the innocent is paradoxically consenting to their elimination and extermination."¹⁷

Yet still more, the Christian pacifist tradition is needed as a voice of compassion and restraint even on our cautious dealings with war, a reminder of the potential of human sin and weakness to twist even the best intentions into dehumanizing atrocities. If just war theory is a concession to the reality of sin and human weakness, the voice of pacifism rings from a coming age without sin in which war will truly be obsolete—an age in which we within the Church already dwell, and into which we beckon all who will come in the name of the Lord (cf. Rev 22:17). Unlike just war theory, pacifism truly represents God's loving design for how we are ultimately made to live; any participation in war, even with the best intentions, falls short of this vision. In this evil age, sometimes it is necessary to fight; but as Christians, let us fight as those who have renounced violence (cf. 1 Cor 7:29-30), as ready and waiting to lay down our arms at the first chance of peace, as those looking forward to the final banquet where we will enjoy communion not only with our God and our neighbors, but with our enemies.

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1. Tertullian, On Idolatry, XIX, < http://newadvent.org/fathers/0302.htm> (11 April 2015).
2. Augustine¸ The City of God, XIX.7, < http://newadvent.org/fathers/1201.htm> (11 April 2015).
3. John Jefferson Davis, Evangelical Ethics (Phillipsburg, NJ: Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing, 2004), 242.
4. Ted Grimsrud and Christian Early, "Christian Pacifism in Brief," Peace Theology, < http://peacetheology.net/pacifism/christian-pacifism-in-brief/> (14 April 2015).
5. Davis, Evangelical Ethics, 243.
6. Grimsrud and Early, "Christian Pacifism in Brief."
7. Davis, Evangelical Ethics, 243.
8. Grimsrud and Early, "Christian Pacifism in Brief."
9. Davis, Evangelical Ethics, 246.
10. Augustine, The City of God, I.21.
11. Augustine, The City of God, XIX.7.
12. Davis, Evangelical Ethics, 247.
13. Kevin Allen, "Orthodoxy and War," Ancient Faith Radio, 11 August 2013, < http://www.ancientfaith.com/podcasts/aftoday/orthodoxy_and_war> (7 April 2015) and Davis, Evangelical Ethics, 248.
14. Davis, Evangelical Ethics, 250.
15. David Bentley Hart, The Doors of the Sea: Where Was God in the Tsunami? (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2005), 44,61.
16. Fr. Stanley Harakas, “No Just War in the Fathers,” In Communion, 2 August 2005, < http://www.incommunion.org/2005/08/02/no-just-war-in-the-fathers/> (15 April 2015).
17. Allen, "Orthodoxy and War."

The Problem of Evil

The following is the greatly extended version of a paper written for my apologetics and ethics class, with a good deal more detail and long quotations. As you will notice, it is heavily influenced by an amazing little book, The Doors of the Sea by David Bentley Hart, which is one of the most strikingly cogent and sensitive treatments of the problem of evil I have encountered.

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"How can a good, all-powerful God allow suffering and evil to exist?" This simple question, posed innocently and not-so-innocently innumerable times by children and philosophers alike, is undoubtedly the hardest one the Christian apologist has to grapple with, and a major reason for nonbelief among skeptics. If history has taught us anything, it is that this all-too-brief work will certainly not settle the question once and for all. But perhaps I can at least steer the conversation onto a slightly more constructive, edifying track.

Stating the problem

The Greek philosopher Epicurus was one of the first to state the problem: "Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent. Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent. Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil? Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?"¹ Philosopher John Mackie presents a similar argument in the form of a logical proof: "good is opposed to evil, in such a way that a good being always eliminates evil as far as it can, and...there are no limits to what an omnipotent thing can do. From these it follows that a good omnipotent thing eliminates evil completely, and then the propositions that a good omnipotent thing exists and that evil exists are incompatible."² This is the logical form of the problem of evil, which seeks to argue that the existence of evil is logically incompatible with God's existence.³ The softer evidential form only seeks to demonstrate that evil renders God's existence unlikely or unbelievable, or that "pointless evil" (which probably exists) is incompatible with theism.⁴ "Natural evil" (evil that does not appear to be due to the actions of free, morally responsible beings⁵) is an especially convincing example of "pointless evil", since there is no obvious agent to hold responsible for it except God the creator.

But entirely aside from its philosophical form, the problem of evil exists even more powerfully as an emotional/pastoral problem, the cry of a heart anguished by suffering and demanding to know why God allows tragedy, much of it apparently senseless to befall us.⁶ A father who lost his children in a tsunami, a woman who has just learned her cancer has returned, a man who suddenly loses his job and is unsure how he will provide for his family—these people are probably not making a philosophical argument against God's existence, and they certainly don't want an explanation of why God allows evil. They may even believe in God, but as the one who apparently stood by and allowed terrible tragedy to befall them. We must never so close ourselves off to the plight of others that we allow ourselves to discuss the philosophical form of the problem of evil in isolation; it never exists in such a pure state.

An even stronger form of the problem of evil is stated in Dostoevsky's classic novel The Brothers Karamazov, by the skeptical rationalist Ivan. Ivan's argument is striking for its deeply Christian background: he accepts God's existence and acknowledges that "all suffering will be healed and made up for, that all the humiliating absurdity of human contradictions will vanish like a pitiful mirage ... something so precious will come to pass that it will suffice for all hearts, for the comforting of all resentments, for the atonement of all the crimes of humanity, of all the blood they've shed; that it will make it not only possible to forgive but to justify all that has happened with men—but though all that may come to pass, I don't accept it. I won't accept it."⁷ Though he accepts God, Ivan cannot accept the world he has made or the terms of the salvation that he offers to men. Even though he concedes a future harmony that will justify all evil, in light of the sufferings of children Ivan rejects that harmony because of its monstrous, unjust cost: "It's not worth the tears of that one tortured child...if the sufferings of children go to swell the sum of sufferings which was necessary to pay for truth, then I protest that the truth is not worth such a price."⁸

Orthodox theologian David Bentley Hart comments: "What makes Ivan's argument so novel and disturbing is not that he simply accuses God of failing to save the innocent; in fact, he grants that in some sense God still will 'save' them... Rather, Ivan rejects salvation itself, insofar as he understands it, and on moral grounds. He rejects anything that would involve such a rescue—anything that would make the suffering of children meaningful or necessary."⁹ His objection is thus a powerful rebuke of attempts to logically justify the existence of evil, whether by appealing to a "greater good" or by arguing that the possibility of suffering is inherent to a world that supports life. Dostoevsky’s genius is that he sees not only that the history of suffering and evil is not morally intelligible, but "that it would be far more terrible if it were."¹⁰

If this is the case (as I am convinced it is), then a good deal of Christian theodicies fall on their face, insofar as they try to show that there is some divine plan that justifies the existence of evil, renders it meaningful or purposeful. If we are to learn anything from Ivan Karamazov, it is that suffering and evil are, must be, meaningless, purposeless, that there is no divine reason for their existence and that they are ultimately accidental to God's plan. God does not have the slightest need of evil to accomplish any of his purposes. This is because evil is not simply a tool in God's box of means, "but is only a shadow, a turning of the hearts and minds of rational creatures away from the light of God back toward the nothingness from which all things are called."¹¹ Thus there is no way that evil can supply any deficiency in God's goodness or power.¹² God does not will evil for anyone, nor does he will that anyone should perish. (Ezek 33:11, 2 Pet 3:9) Ivan's mistake, subtle though it may be, is assuming that evil and suffering are somehow necessary to bring about the future reconciliation, or that they contribute to it in any way.

Created freedom

What can be justified, then, is not the actual existence of evil, but the possibility of evil. This is the point of the "free will defense"—free will makes evil possible (though not necessary), but it is also indispensable to God's purposes for us.¹³ God created us from dirt, in his image, to enact his benevolent rule over the creation (Gen 1:26-28). Though we should be wary of peering too deep into the mind of God, we see throughout the Bible that he made us to know him—from Adam to Noah to Abraham to Moses (cf. Exo 33:11). The greatest miracle in the Biblical narrative is God taking on flesh and becoming one of us, to adopt us as his sons and daughters (Gal 4:4-7) and to know and be known by us (Gal 4:9), which is eternal life. (Jhn 17:3) "God has fashioned creatures in his image so that they might be joined in a perfect union with him in the rational freedom of love."¹⁴ I believe that God created us simply to love us and to be loved by us, as a father loves his children.

But the genuinely loving relationship God desires with his creatures requires that there really be someone to love besides himself—that there be not simply passive recipients but active reciprocators of his love, like him and yet other than him. So Isaac of Nineveh: "In his great love God was unwilling to restrict our freedom, even though he had the power to do so. He has left us to come to him by the love of our heart alone."¹⁵ In classical Christian teaching, one major consequence of the image of God in which we are created is that we share in his freedom, as the church father Irenaeus says: "Humanity was free from the beginning. For God is freedom and humanity was made in the image of God."¹⁶ And Gregory of Nyssa: "He who created human beings in order to make them share in his own fullness so disposed their nature that it contains the principle of all that is good, and each of these dispositions draws them to desire the corresponding divine attribute. So God could not have deprived them of the best and most precious of his attributes, self-determination, freedom."¹⁷ This freedom is what makes it possible for us to return God's love and realize the purpose for which we are made, but while we are not yet made perfect in faith and love (cf. 1 Jhn 4:16-19), it also makes it possible for us to separate ourselves from God as well as submit to him.

Yet because of the genuine other-ness of the creation from God, we cannot blame him for this misuse of liberty or hold him responsible for it—we can only blame ourselves. In the patristic and medieval understanding, evil is a privation of the good and a descent into uncreation and nonbeing, movement away from God, rather than something with positive existence. How can God, who calls to all men through the created order and the primordial longing for himself he has placed in our hearts, be blamed when we reject this call and turn away from him? Gregory of Nyssa, responding to this charge, states this in better words:

Thus God cannot be held responsible for evil, for he is the author of what is, and not what is not. It is he who made sight, not blindness ... And that without subjecting us to his good pleasure by any violent constraint. He did not draw us toward what is good against our will, as if we were an inanimate object. If when the light shines very brightly ... someone chooses to hide his eyes by lowering his eyelids, the sun is not responsible for the fact that he cannot see it.¹⁸

Thus evil is not a "cost" of creaturely freedom that is justified by the "greater good" it produces. For it to be a cost would mean that it naturally or necessarily follows from freedom, which it does not. The loving union of free creatures with himself is essentially part of his purpose for us; sin and death are "a contingency and an absurdity"¹⁹ and do not contribute to this purpose in any way. Is this freedom worth the risk? It is presumptuous and beyond our finite minds to set ourselves up as judges of this. So "the rejection of God on these grounds cannot really be a rational decision, but only a moral pathos," such as Ivan expresses.²⁰

Divine freedom

Some may argue that the view of creaturely freedom I have set forth compromises God's sovereignty over his creation. But this is to confuse God's sovereignty with his being the only free agent in the universe. The existence of genuinely free creatures does not in the least threaten God's status as all-powerful creator or providential, sovereign sustainer. In fact, it is ironically arrogant on our part to suggest that we could have such power over against God in the freedom he himself has given us. Is it not limiting of God to deny that he can "at once create freedom and also assure that no consequence of the misuse of that freedom will prevent him from accomplishing the good he intends in all things"?²¹

A discussion of God's absolute sovereignty is incomplete without also keeping in mind his absolute freedom and absolute transcendence. Remembering God's freedom is important first of all because it reminds us that our own freedom is only a finite reflection of the infinite freedom of the one whose image we bear. His transcendence (as most effectively expressed though the apophatic tradition that is unfortunately largely obscure to the west) is just as essential, for it reminds us that his ways are higher than our ways, his thoughts higher than our thoughts (Isa 55:9), and that it is foolish for us to try to confine God to the same web or logic of causality as his creatures.

Divine transcendence is what allows God's freedom and sovereignty to coexist with the limited freedom and sovereignty of his creatures. Such is his absolute, transcendent freedom that "in his omniscience, omnipotence, and transcendence of time, [he] can both allow created freedom its scope and yet so constitute the world that nothing can prevent him from bringing about the beatitude of His kingdom."²²  Simply affirming God's sovereignty without equally affirming his freedom and transcendence means denying both of these things by holding him responsible for absolutely everything that happens, with the catastrophic moral consequences that Ivan (along with numerous church fathers) glimpses. As Hart says:

When any meaningful difference between will and permission has been excluded, and when the transcendent causality of the creator God has been confused with the immanent web of causation that constitutes the world of our experiences, it becomes impossible to imagine that what God wills might not be immediately convertible with what occurs in time; and thus both the authority of Scripture and the justice of God must fall before the inexorable logic of absolute divine sovereignty.²³

If this view of things seems logically impossible, then I ask you to consider whether you have fully submitted your logic to the claims of God, or whether you make your concept of God subject to a system as constraining as that of the Jews who could not accept an upside-down kingdom inaugurated by a crucified Messiah or the Greeks who scorned the resurrection of the body as a pointless absurdity. Why should God's freedom or transcendence (not to mention love) be any less absolute and unconditional than his sovereignty? If your conception of God does not allow all of these things and more to be realized  to their utmost without being conditioned or limited by each other, then it is too small. In fact it is always too small, and the only appropriate way to affirm any proper theology is as the incomplete speculation of a finite image-bearer still being made perfect in faith.

In fact we must affirm the possibility of this view to guarantee the certainty of redemption but avoid making the creation in all its beauty and decay into "the work of one all-determining will",²⁴ and sin and death into instruments of God rather than enemies. It is squarely against this kind of theodicy that Ivan's objection is raised: "the moral rationality of Ivan's rebellion remains entirely unassailable...when it is set against those forms of theological fatalism that, having failed to understand the difference between primary and secondary—or transcendent and immanent—causality, defame the love and goodness of God out of a servile and unhealthy fascination with his 'dread sovereignty'."²⁵ The "solution" of ascribing the force of divine volition to everything that befalls man—even his eternal destiny—flatly contradicts the universal scope of redemption as set forth in verses like 1 John 2:2 and 1 Tim 2:4 and the goodness of God visible throughout Scripture. If the sovereignty of God is so meticulous that double predestination is true as claimed by Calvin, then his freedom, transcendence, and goodness become meaningless:

God would be the author of and so entirely beyond both good and evil, or at once both and neither, or indeed merely evil (which power without justice always is). The curious absurdity of all such doctrines is that, out of a pious anxiety to defend God's transcendence against any scintilla of genuine creaturely freedom, they threaten effectively to collapse that transcendence into absolute identity—with the world, with us, with the devil. For, unless the world is truly set apart from God and possesses a dependent but real liberty of its own analogous to the freedom of God, everything is merely a fragment of divine volition, and God is simply the totality of all that is and all that happens; there is no creation, but only an oddly pantheistic expression of God's unadulterated power. ... such a God, being nothing but will willing itself, would be no more than an infinite tautology—the sovereignty of glory displaying itself in the glory of sovereignty—and so an infinite banality.²⁶

Hidden within Ivan's objection to the world God has made is the prophetic voice of a truer, deeper, more subversive Christianity, a voice that cries out against all the injustice and absurdity manifested in death and evil. God is not worthy of worship simply because of his raw power or terrific glory, but because of his goodness and his divine love that direct his power and make his glory one to be ecstatically adored rather than dreaded. And all of these attributes are always fully expressed to those able to discern them, without impairing or qualifying each other. "For if indeed there were a God whose true nature—whose justice or sovereignty—were revealed in the death of a child or the dereliction of a soul or a predestined hell, then it would be no great transgression to think of him as a kind of malevolent or contemptible demiurge, and to hate him, and to deny him worship, and to seek a better God than he."²⁷

It is also worth mentioning that the traditional Calvinist answer to the problem of evil—that there is no distinction between divine permission and willing, and that God in his sovereign will somehow ordains evil as well as good yet somehow remains free from its moral taint—works only at the most philosophical level. It is no comfort at all (and may in fact do more harm than good) to tell someone reeling from tragedy and loss that their situation is a part of God's inscrutable plan and that they should simply rejoice in his glory rather than question his council. Hart scathingly rebukes such a theodicy:

Words we would not utter to ease someone else's grief we ought not to speak to satisfy our own sense of piety. ... Most of us would have the good sense to be ashamed to speak such words [i.e. that tragedy and suffering are a result of God's eternal, inscrutable, and righteous counsels]; we would recognize that they would offer no more credible comfort than the vaporings of the most idiotically complacent theodicy, and we would detest ourselves for giving voice to odious banalities and blasphemous flippancies. And this should tell us something. For if we would think it shamefully foolish and cruel to say such things in the moment when another's sorrow is most real and irresistibly painful, then we ought never to say them; because what would still our tongues would be the knowledge (which we would possess at the time, though we might forget it later) that such sentiments would amount not only to an indiscretion or words spoken out of season, but to a vile stupidity and a lie told principally for our own comfort, by which we would try to excuse ourselves for believing in an omnipotent and benevolent God. 

In the process, moreover, we would be attempting to deny...a knowledge central to the gospel: the knowledge of the evil of death, its intrinsic falsity, its unjust dominion over the world, its ultimate nullity; the knowledge that God is not pleased or nourished by our deaths, that he is not the secret architect of hell, that he has condemned all these things by the power of the cross; the knowledge that God is life and light and infinite love, and that the path that leads through nature and history to his Kingdom does not simply follow the contours of either nature or history, or obey the logic immanent to them, but is opened to us by way of the natural and historical absurdity—or outrage—of the empty tomb.²⁸

For if a Calvinistic theodicy were true and everything that happens is providentially willed by God for his glory according to the impenetrable mystery of his will, then why should anyone mourn or decry any evil at all? But rather, "blessed are those who mourn" (Matt 5:4), who raise a fist and freely shed tears at the absurdity of evil, suffering, and death, "for they will be comforted." If God himself is the one behind ours sufferings, then to whom can we pray for deliverance?

Other objections

In keeping with Ivan's objection, I have mostly addressed the problem of moral evil—what about natural evil? At this point the Enlightenment view of the universe as a finely-tuned machine, a "closed causal continuum",²⁹ which is the only one known even by a good many Christians, makes understanding difficult. In the New Testament, the word kosmos, "world" or "universe", is often used to refer to the present "order" that enslaves the creation and is opposed to God.³⁰ So the "world" hates Jesus (Jhn 15:18-19) and has been overcome by him (16:33); the devil is described as the "ruler of this world" (Jhn 12:31, 14:30, 16:11) or even the "god of this world" (2 Cor 4:4), which lies "in the power of the evil one" (1 Jhn 5:19). In the biblical imagination (and that of early and medieval Christianity), the world is not governed simply by fixed laws, but by spiritual powers (cf. Col 1:16, Eph 1:21), that is, angels.³¹ Yet some of these heavenly authorities have rebelled against God, and so the creation at large finds itself in a similar situation to humanity, fallen and longing for redemption, to be restored to its creator.

C.S. Lewis was a tentative proponent of this theory:

It seems to me, therefore, a reasonable supposition, that some mighty created power had already been at work for ill on the material universe, or the solar system, or, at least, the planet earth, before ever man came on the scene: and that when man fell, someone had, indeed, tempted him. This hypothesis is not introduced as a general 'explanation of evil': it only gives a wider application to the principle that evil comes from the abuse of free will. If there is such a power, as I myself believe, it may well have corrupted the animal creation before man appeared. ... The Satanic corruption of the beasts would therefore be analogous, in one respect, with the Satanic corruption of man. ... If this hypothesis is worth considering, it is also worth considering whether man, at his first coming into the world, had not already a redemptive function to perform.³²

Ronald Osborn echoes Lewis' view and likewise considers it to be the historically orthodox one: "there is a clear sense throughout the New Testament that we are living in a time of temporary dualism in which God has permitted certain parts of his creation—and not humans alone—the autonomy of radical freedom and even defiance, which God himself must in some sense struggle against."³³ Though strange and largely unknown to modern Christians, this perspective is not incompatible with the scientific one any more than rational and theological views on creation are with each other. Thus in the classical Christian understanding, there is arguably no separate category of "natural evil" that occurs apart from the actions of moral agents.

Another possible objection: if free will is essential to God's desire for union with us, and free will entails the possibility for evil, how can God promise a future paradise with no evil unless it is also devoid of free will? At this point an important distinction must be made between two kinds of freedom. We usually associate "freedom" with "free will": the ability to freely choose between alternatives. But a higher understanding of freedom is the freedom to become what we were made to be: "to be able to flourish as the kind of being one is, and so to attain the ontological good toward which one's nature is oriented; freedom is the unhindered realization of a complex nature in its proper end (natural and supernatural), and this is consummate liberty and happiness."³⁴ This is the kind of freedom which God enjoys absolutely, and in which we progressively grow through deification. Compared to this, the freedom to choose is actually a liability, a power that, if misused, hinders our progression toward this higher kind of freedom. It is a reflection of our incompleteness, our nature as "an animal who has received the vocation to become God."³⁵ In heaven, we will have no need to deliberate between possibilities; nothing will hinder us from enjoying God forever, which is true freedom.

This raises the obvious question: why did God not simply create us in this state of eschatological bliss to begin with and eliminate any possibility of evil and suffering? This may be the impetus for Ivan's false assumption: if God could have created a world without any evil but created this one instead, then evil must be necessary for his purposes somehow. This crucial question takes us onto very thin ice indeed. This is partly because there is nothing arbitrary in God's willing as in ours (as though his freedom meant, as it does for us, the obligation to deliberate and choose between an array of mutually exclusive alternatives), so it may not even be justifiable to speak about his actions in hypothetical terms.³⁶

For God is infinite actuality, the source and end of all being, the eternally good, for whom mere arbitrary "choice"—as among possibilities that somehow exceed his 'present' actuality—would be a deficiency, a limitation placed upon his infinite power to be God. His freedom is the impossibility of any force, pathos, or potentiality interrupting the perfection of his nature or hindering him in the realization of his own illimitable goodness, in himself and in his creatures.³⁷

Yet we can attempt to imagine God's reasons for creating as he did, while acknowledging that we are not in a position to pass judgment on what we do not understand, or constrain God's freedom by our rationalizing. Possibly (and very tentatively), if the creation were made in its final perfection, it would not really be other than God, but merely an extension of his will. Irenaeus, responding to the question, explains that by its very nature, the perfection God embodies and intends for us is the fruit of maturity:

It is precisely in this that God differs from humanity: God creates; humanity is created. He who creates is always the same, while they who are created must acknowledge a beginning, an intermediate state and a maturity ... They receive knowledge and progress towards God. For in so far as God is always the same, to that extent human beings founds in God will always be making progress toward God.³⁸

Because of this limitation not of God but of our own nature, "it was possible for God Himself to have made man perfect from the first, but man could not receive this, being as yet an infant."³⁹ He further says of the possibility of Adam and Eve being created perfect: "Their being good would be of no consequence, because they were so by nature rather than by will, and are possessors of good spontaneously, not by choice"⁴⁰ and goes on to ask, "how could you be God when you have not yet become human? How could you be complete when you have only just been created?"⁴¹

The justice of God

Yet till now I have not been answering the question posed by evil in a truly biblical way. The Bible's response to evil is not to explain it (or even the possibility of it), but to exhort us to join God in his ongoing defeat of the powers responsible. A theodicy which does nothing but justify the way things presently are can only succeed in explaining "why paradise is not a logical possibility"⁴²—hardly a praiseworthy end. The problem of evil cannot be resolved by rational explanation; the solution only becomes visible through the eyes of faith, when we learn to stop gainsaying God's works and to trust him (as in Isa 45:5-13), becoming part of the divine answer that is lived as well as believed. "Either one 'sees' that glory [even through horrific suffering and evil] or one does not—and in either case one may be moved by a love of the good. ... To believe in the infinite goodness of being, one must be able to see it, and this no mere argument can bring about."⁴³

So the final answer to the skeptic's question, "Why did God create the world as it is, and us as we are?" is this: to know and love him, with a love that is stronger than death. So Maximus the Confessor: "When God, who is absolute fullness, brought creatures into existence, it was not done to fulfil any need, but so that his creatures should be happy to share his likeness, and so that he himself might rejoice in the joy of his creatures as they draw inexhaustible upon the Inexhaustible."⁴⁴ Seeking rational answers becomes out of line if it keeps us from this divine vocation. It is terribly ironic for us to base our rejection of God on the fact that he made us able to reject him.

This is the challenge of the Christian: not simply to explain the world as it is, but to see and even dwell in the new creation that is emerging from the old by acquiring a merciful heart and learning to see the creation through the eyes of divine, universal love. "The Christian vision of the world...is not some rational deduction from empirical experience but is a moral and spiritual aptitude—or rather, a moral and spiritual labor."⁴⁵ This labor involves adopting a radically different perspective on the creation that overflows with love for all things; in Dostoevsky's novel, this perspective is exemplified by the saintly Father Zossima, who serves as a sort of living answer to Ivan's objection.⁴⁶ A passage from the writings of Isaac the Syrian further describes this otherworldly love:

What is a merciful heart? A heart aflame for all of creation, for men, birds, beasts, demons, and every created thing; the very thought or sight of them causes the merciful man's eyes to overflow with tears. The heart of such a man is humbled by the powerful and fervent mercy that has captured it and by the immense compassion it feels, and it cannot endure to see or hear of any suffering or any grief anywhere within creation. Hence he constantly lifts up tearful prayers for God's care and mercy upon even unreasoning brutes and enemies of truth and all who do him injury.⁴⁷

All this is in obedience to the Lord's command to "Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you." (Mat 5:44) Hart comments,

To see the world as it should be seen, and so to see the true glory of God reflected in it, requires the cultivation of charity, of an eye rendered limpid by love. Maximus the Confessor taught that it is only when one has learned to look upon the world with selfless charity that one sees the true inner essence—the logos—of any created thing, and sees how that things shines with the light of the one divine Logos that gives it being.⁴⁸

The Christian faith, in its truest form hidden within Ivan's objection, does not try to justify or make sense of suffering and death, but overcomes it. We are to carry within ourselves the paradoxical victory of 2 Cor 4:6-14 that does not only undo death but transforms it into the way to eternal life. In the victory of Christ death, the ultimate subversion of God's creation, has itself been subverted, "in order to change death, in whatever shape it comes, into an approach to life."⁴⁹ The incarnation, death, and resurrection of Christ bring about the freedom and redemption described in Romans 8:18-23, which is such that Paul is able to say, "I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us." Again, this is not to say that evil and suffering in any way contribute to this glory. "The cross of Christ is not, after all, simply an eternal validation of pain and death, but their overthrow."⁵⁰

Thus in the Christian gospel, the meaning of life (and meaninglessness of death) is found ultimately not in a rational explanation, but in the divine Logos (that is, meaning) who for our sake became man and tasted death in order to triumph over it. The comfort it offers in the midst of suffering is that "when I see the death of a child, I do not see the face of God but the face of his enemy."⁵¹ The gospel itself, as revealed in Jesus Christ, can be considered the most truly biblical answer to the problem of evil. Maximus the Confessor says powerfully: "Therefore the mystery of the Incarnation of the Word contains in itself the whole meaning of the riddles and symbols of Scripture, the whole significance of visible and invisible creatures. Whoever knows the mystery of the cross and the tomb knows the meaning of all things. Whoever is initiated into the hidden meaning of the resurrection knows the purpose for which God created everything in the beginning."⁵²

As one of the most timeless and powerful objections to Christianity in history, the problem of evil is a heart check for Christians, a test of whether their faith is well-balanced or predominantly intellectual. The over-hasty answers of past apologists serve as a humbling reminder of our limited powers of explanation and the need active faith in God. It is a sort of "spiritual hygiene" that points to the subversive theology of the gospel and exposes inadequate visions of it for what they are.⁵³ Though often disguised as a purely philosophical problem, it cannot be resolved simply by thinking and debating; it takes authentic faith to even glimpse the answer God has provided, which is why it will probably continue to be raised until Christ returns to put a final end to evil once and for all. In the face of the most awful evil, the most tragic suffering, and the nihilistic absurdity of death, we as Christians are called not merely to defend the justice of God, but to become it. (2 Cor 5:21)

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1. John Hospers, An Introduction to Philosophical Analysis (Abingdon, Oxford, United Kingdom: Routledge, 1990), 310.
2. C. Stephen Evans and R. Zachary Manis, Philosophy of Religion: Thinking About Faith (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2009), 159–160.
3. Evans and Manis, Philosophy of Religion, 158.
4. Evans and Manis, Philosophy of Religion, 169.
5. Evans and Manis, Philosophy of Religion, 157.
6. Evans and Manis, Philosophy of Religion, 156–157.
7. Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov (New York: Barnes & Noble Books, 1995), 217.
8. Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov, 225–226.
9. David Bentley Hart, The Doors of the Sea: Where was God in the Tsunami? (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2005), 40–41.
10. Hart, The Doors of the Sea, 44.
11. Hart, The Doors of the Sea, 73.
12. Hart, The Doors of the Sea, 74.
13. Evans and Manis, Philosophy of Religion, 163.
14. Hart, The Doors of the Sea, 82.
15. Isaac of Nineveh, Ascetic Treatises 81 in Olivier Clément, The Roots of Christian Mysticism: Texts from the Patristic Era with Commentary (New York: New City Press, 2014), 57.
16. Irenaeus, Against Heresies IV.37.4 in Clément, The Roots of Christian Mysticism, 81.
17. Gregory of Nyssa, Catechetical Orations 7 in Clément, The Roots of Christian Mysticism, 81.
18. Gregory of Nyssa, Catechetical Orations 5 in Clément, The Roots of Christian Mysticism, 86–87.
19. Hart, The Doors of the Sea, 68.
20. Hart, The Doors of the Sea, 69.
21. Hart, The Doors of the Sea, 83.
22. Hart, The Doors of the Sea, 83.
23. Hart, The Doors of the Sea, 90.
24. Hart, The Doors of the Sea, 68.
25. Hart, The Doors of the Sea, 89.
26. Hart, The Doors of the Sea, 90–91.
27. Hart, The Doors of the Sea, 91–92.
28. Hart, The Doors of the Sea, 99–101.
29. Hart, The Doors of the Sea, 49.
30. Hart, The Doors of the Sea, 64.
31. Hart, The Doors of the Sea, 48.
32. C.S. Lewis, "The Problem of Pain" in The Complete C.S. Lewis Signature Classics (New York: HarperCollins, 2002), 632.
33. Ronald E. Osborn, Death Before the Fall: Biblical Literalism and the Problem of Animal Suffering (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2014), 144.
34. Hart, The Doors of the Sea, 71.
35. Words of Basil of Caesarea, quoted by Gregory Nazianzen, Eulogy of Basil the Great, Oration 43, 48 in Clément, The Roots of Christian Mysticism, 76.
36. Hart, The Doors of the Sea, 108.
37. Hart, The Doors of the Sea, 71–72.
38. Irenaeus, Against Heresies IV.11.2 in Clément, The Roots of Christian Mysticism, 87.
39. Irenaeus, "Why man was not made perfect from the beginning", Against Heresies IV.38.1, < http://newadvent.org/fathers/0103438.htm> (31 March 2015).
40. Irenaeus, " Men are possessed of free will", Against Heresies IV.37.6, < http://newadvent.org/fathers/0103437.htm> (31 March 2015).
41. Irenaeus, Against Heresies IV.39.2 in Clément, The Roots of Christian Mysticism, 87.
42. Hart, The Doors of the Sea, 58.
43. Hart, The Doors of the Sea, 88–89.
44. Maximus the Confessor, Centuries on Charity III.46 in Clément, The Roots of Christian Mysticism, 32.
45. Hart, The Doors of the Sea, 58.
46. Hart, The Doors of the Sea, 58.
47. Isaac the Syrian, Ascetical Homilies 81 in Hart, The Doors of the Sea, 59.
48. Hart, The Doors of the Sea, 60.
49. Clément, The Roots of Christian Mysticism, 42.
50. Hart, The Doors of the Sea, 80.
51. Hart, The Doors of the Sea, 103–104.
52. Maximus the Confessor, "Ambigua" in Clément, The Roots of Christian Mysticism, 40.
53. Hart, The Doors of the Sea, 43–44.

The Cosmological Argument for the Existence of God

The following is a paper written for my apologetics and ethics class.

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The cosmological argument for the existence of God is one of the most venerable arguments of classical apologetics. It seeks to infer the existence of God from the existence of the cosmos or of objects within it.¹ It comes in two main forms which I will attempt to treat concurrently: the temporal form, which is based on the existence of a cause or explanation for the beginning of the universe, and the nontemporal form (or argument from contingency), which seeks an explanation for why there is something rather than nothing.

The temporal form of the cosmological argument is best known today as the Kalām cosmological argument, which was originally developed by Muslim philosophers but is widely promoted today by Christian apologists like William Lane Craig.² It has the following structure: 1) Whatever begins to exist has a cause 2) The universe began to exist 3) Therefore, the universe has a cause.³ It is temporal in that is seeks to locate the cause of the beginning of the universe (both temporal and ontological), identifying this "first cause" with God.

The nontemporal form of the cosmological argument, or "argument from contingency" is perhaps stronger since it does not depend on the assumption that the universe began to exist. It is best known as the work of Thomas Aquinas, who assumed (per Aristotle) for the sake of argument that the universe is eternal, since its createdness could only be known by revelation.⁴ It has the following logical form: 1) If any contingent beings exist, a necessary being exists (as the ultimate cause of their contingent existence) 2) Some contingent beings exist 3) Therefore, a necessary being exists.⁵ Unlike the temporal form, the nontemporal form does not seek to locate God as the "first cause" of the universe, but rather as the nontemporal reason for its existence when it could just as easily have not existed (this is what it means to be contingent), as the reason why there is something rather than nothing.

Besides their temporal/nontemporal focus, the premises of these arguments correlate fairly closely. The first premises seem evident from everyday experience and common sense: we expect there to be a reason or explanation for everything, even if we don't know it; we never consider that something might "just exist" for literally no reason at all. We implicitly hold to what Gottfried Leibniz called the "principle of sufficient reason", that nothing is true or exists without there being a sufficient reason for its being so and not otherwise,⁶ for objects in the universe; why should it not also hold for the universe as a whole? This principle is also foundational to the scientific method.

The second premise is supported by philosophy and science, Mathematically, apologists argue, it doesn't make any sense to say that the universe is literally eternal, with no beginning; infinity is just a concept, and it is absurd to propose that (for instance) an actually infinite amount of time has progressed in the universe.⁷ As well, this objection does not answer the nontemporal form of the argument which assumes a beginningless universe; claiming that the universe (or the existence of matter and energy) is necessary as well as eternal simply makes the cosmos itself into Aquinas' necessary being and is actually closer to pantheism (identifying God with the cosmos) than scientific naturalism. So it is fairly uncontroversial to claim that the universe is contingent, that it could have been (or not been) other than it is. Scientifically, twentieth-century cosmology has strongly supported the Big Bang theory, which postulates a clear beginning to the universe;⁸ the second law of thermodynamics also indicates that the universe has a finite age.

If these premises are both accepted, some conclusions can be drawn about the first cause/necessary being. (Granting that it is not simply the universe itself) At the very least, it would have to be outside space and time, eternal, and omnipotent in order to be the first/ultimate cause of everything else. To avoid an infinite regress of causes, it must be uncaused, self-existent, or necessary. If we grant that the universe had a beginning, it also seems that this being must be personal, since if the first cause were merely impersonal or mechanical, then the universe would be coeternal with it.⁹

Unsurprisingly, skeptics have raised a number of objections to the cosmological argument. A common one is to point out that no explanation or cause is given for the first cause/necessary being whose existence is being proven. This is taken to be a form of special pleading, a convenient exemption from the general rule of causality which is argued for everything else; if God does not need a prior cause, why does the universe?¹⁰ As well, it is argued that the first cause whose existence the argument seeks to prove is hardly the God of Christianity, since it provides no evidence for, say, his singularity, goodness, immanence, continuing interaction with the universe, or even continuing existence.¹¹ As its employment by Enlightenment philosophers demonstrates, the cosmological argument works just as well for deism (not to mention Islam) as it does for Christianity.

Other objections take issue with the premises of the argument. A variety of scientific theories have offered alternatives to the Big Bang as the beginning of the universe, such as the steady state model, a cyclic universe with an endless series of collapses and "bounces", vacuum fluctuation models, chaotic inflation theory, and the many-worlds hypothesis.¹² Another approach is to argue that it because time is a property of the universe, it simply makes no sense to speak of anything "before" the Big Bang, or of its having a "cause", since both of these concepts are dependent on time.¹³

Other objections question the first premise, that everything has a cause. This is true on an everyday level, but is causality truly universal? In other words, since we know our concept of causality via inductive reasoning, can we use it deductively as a premise of the cosmological argument? Already, quantum physics seems to present a counterexample, making causality less than universal. If we can't assume that the principle of sufficient reason applies in a truly ultimate sense, then it would seem we can't be sure of the soundness of the cosmological argument. Perhaps the question of why we exist is unanswerable, or simply meaningless.¹⁴

The objection that no cause is sought for the first cause is a misunderstanding of the argument. The first premise only applies to contingent entities, or objects that begin to exist. Since the first cause is understood by definition as beginningless or necessary, no prior cause or explanation is needed to explain it. "It is not arbitrary to deny that God has a cause, because, if God did have a cause, he would not be God."¹⁵ Some forms of this objection are reducible to objections to the second premise; if the universe is caused/had a beginning, then it is reasonable to seek an explanation for it. If what is being objected to is simply the possibility of a necessary/eternal being, that is a whole different, more philosophical argument.

Objections to the second premise are unconvincing. Attempts to get around the Big Bang and show how the universe may have no beginning tend to be highly speculative and nearly as faith-based as theism. Additionally, they apply only to the temporal form of the argument: even if our universe is part of some infinite series or tree of universes, the existence of the whole series is still yet to be explained.¹⁶ The question "why is there something rather than nothing?" is unanswered, since it is dependent only on the contingency (not the finitude) of the universe. As previously mentioned, if naturalists argue that besides being eternal, the universe is not contingent (i.e. it is necessary), the resulting worldview would seem to be closer to pantheism (the universe itself is God), which is not a place I think many skeptics would like to go.¹⁷

The objection that it makes no sense to speak of anything "before" the Big Bang, or its having a cause, is very interesting, since it actually gets at a central mystery of Christian theology proper, the eternality of God, from a scientific angle. It is true that there is no "before" the Big Bang in the temporal sense. But according to what the vast majority of Christians believe about God, he is able to exist and act outside of space and time in ways we cannot even imagine, which does not make it any less possible. It seems more accurate to say that the kind of causality we are talking about when speaking of a "first cause" is more (onto)logical than temporal.

Objections to the first premise are, in my view, the strongest, or at least the most consistent within a position of philosophical naturalism. The idea of the universe being a quantum fluctuation only pushes the question back, since it assumes the preexistence of the quantum vacuum.¹⁸ But objecting to the a priori assumption of universal causality seems at least somewhat promising: perhaps the causality that we consider a universal pattern of reality does not apply on the highest level. Can we be sure? Perhaps the existence of something rather than nothing is absurd, a "brute fact" for which no explanation can be given or should be sought. I know of no refutation of this proposition. But it does seem profoundly at odds with the drive of science to rationally seek explanations for everything. Why give up this quest when it comes to the ultimate reason? At the very least, claiming the universe came from nothing or that its cause is unknowable would seem to be just as much a faith-based claim as claiming that it was created.

Once unacceptable responses have been pared away, debates on the cosmological argument reduce to questions of the principle of sufficient reason: does the existence of the universe have a cause or explanation? This is a question whose answer cannot be "proven" one way or another by logic, science, or anything else. Apologetics can point out this underlying difference between theism and naturalism, but cannot overcome it; this is what is meant when someone points out that "you can't argue someone to Christ." Nonetheless, the cosmological argument is valuable in that it demonstrates the difference between positions and how each is consonant with its respective worldview. It can help to overcome derision and caricatures from each side and promote honest, significant dialogue which has the potential to create real faith.

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1. C. Stephen Evans and R. Zachary Manis, Philosophy of Religion: Thinking About Faith (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2009), 67.
2. William Lane Craig, Reasonable Faith: Christian Truth and Apologetics (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2008), 96.
3. Lee Strobel, The Case for a Creator: A Journalist Investigates Scientific Evidence that Points Toward God (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2004), 98.
4. Jaroslav Pelikan, The Growth of Medieval Theology (600–1300), vol. 3 of The Christian Tradition: A History of the Development of Doctrine (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1978), 290–291.
5. Evans and Manis, Philosophy of Religion, 69–70.
6. Craig, Reasonable Faith, 99.
7. Strobel, The Case for a Creator, 102–104.
8. Strobel, The Case for a Creator, 104–107.
9. Strobel, The Case for a Creator, 111.
10. Austin Cline, “Cosmological Argument: Does the Universe Require a First Cause?”, About Religion, < http://atheism.about.com/od/argumentsforgod/a/cosmological.htm> (17 February 2015).
11. Evans and Manis, Philosophy of Religion, 70.
12. Craig, Reasonable Faith, 128–134, 144–150.
13. Cline, “The Cosmological Argument.”
14. Evans and Manis, Philosophy of Religion, 75.
15. Evans and Manis, Philosophy of Religion, 71.
16. Evans and Manis, Philosophy of Religion, 74.
17. Evans and Manis, Philosophy of Religion, 73; Craig, Reasonable Faith, 109.
18. Strobel, The Case for a Creator, 117.

The New Perspective on Paul and the Meaning of Justification

The following is the final paper for my Contemporary Issues in Theology class, which I refer to as Contemporary Issue in Theology since it focused entirely on the New Perspective on Paul.

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In the last thirty years, scholarship on Paul (especially Protestant scholarship) has been in a state of turmoil unprecedented since the Reformation. The culprit: the "New Perspective on Paul" (NPP), a paradigm for understanding the writings of the apostle that dares to examine some of the reformers' most cherished doctrines in a new light. Its supporters claim not to be introducing a new teaching, but correcting a long period of historical blindness that has kept their predecessors from understanding Paul rightly. Just what is the NPP? Referring to the movement with a unitary name is misleading, since there is no such single, monolithic theological entity.[1] Nonetheless, its major proponents share some key similarities in their theology.

The NPP understands itself as a corrective to Christian theologians' long history of misunderstanding the Judaism of Paul's time, from the early church to the twentieth century and beyond.[2] In modern theology, second-temple Judaism is commonly viewed as coldly legalistic and self-righteous, hoping to earn salvation from God by self-driven moral performance.[3] Based on this understanding of what Paul was reacting against in his letters, the salvific "faith" that he champions was defined in opposition to the "works" of the Jews, who became symbols of the basic, universal sin of works-righteousness; the essence of the gospel was to be found, it was thought, in Paul's teaching of justification by faith alone, rather than by works.[4] Eventually this consensus began to change via dialogue between Jewish and Christian scholars, the discovery of second-temple Jewish documents like the Dead Sea Scrolls, and the study of the Septuagint, the Hebrew scriptures translated into Greek which served as Paul's "Bible", and the ways it shaped his understanding of key terms like "righteousness" in relation to their meanings in classical Greek.[5] Jews who had long been calling out Christian scholars for misrepresenting their religion began to be joined by Christians like G.F. Moore, R.T. Herford, and James Parkes.[6]

The turning point came with the publication of E.P. Sanders' book, Paul and Palestinian Judaism, which drew on recent historical research on second-temple Judaism to paint a picture that was drastically different than the "traditional" Christian one. This reinterpretation centered on his concept of "covenantal nomism", which proposed a new understanding of the place of the law in Jewish faith and practice. The law, Sanders said, was never a list of instructions to perfectly follow in order to earn God's favor and salvation; this was simply a caricature. Rather, it was to be understood within God's prior covenantal election of Israel. The law was not the way to enter the covenant, but the way to live within it, and it included means of atonement to maintain the covenantal relationship despite transgressions.[7] Sanders' vision of Judaism placed the electing, saving grace of God before human obedience, just as Christian theology does. His conclusions about Judaism are foundational for the theology of the NPP, though its supporters do not agree with all of his conclusions, especially his view of Paul as arbitrarily jumping from Judaism to Christianity, rejecting the law simply because it is not Christ.[8]

The NPP proper seeks a coherent understanding of Paul's theology that avoids the mistakes of earlier scholars, based on Sanders' insights, especially his view of Judaism characterized by covenantal nomism.[9] In light of their historical context, several of Paul's concepts that are key to the theology of what is now known as the "old perspective on Paul” are reinterpreted. Nomos, or "law", is no longer abstracted to refer to a universal moral imperative on humanity in contrast to the principle of “faith”; it is simply taken to refer to the Torah, the Mosaic law, and the Jewish way of life following from it. Erga nomou, "works of law", are no longer human-driven efforts to "earn" righteousness or salvation, but, in light of the phrase's usage in 4QMMT (a document from the Dead Sea Scrolls written by a second-temple Essene sect), are understood as particular commands of the law acting as "boundary markers" that clearly delineate the difference between Jew and non-Jew, or more generally the law's function of establishing this boundary.[10] Dikaiosynē, the Greek word that is translated to both "righteousness" and "justice" (as well as "justification" in Gal 2:21), is no longer taken to be an abstract moral quality as in classical Greek usage, but is understood more relationally in light of its usage in the Septuagint as referring to God's covenant faithfulness or to our inclusion in the covenant. "Justification", formerly taken to be virtually synonymous with "salvation" or "the gospel", is now understood to refer more to something that happens after salvation, namely a divine declaration that one is justified, vindicated, "in the right", a member of the covenant.[11]

One of the best-known proponents of the NPP is British New Testament scholar N.T. Wright, who has written extensively on Paul's life, writings, and theology. He believes that the traditional Protestant reading of Paul is heavily colored by Martin Luther's theology and his struggle against Catholic teaching, and seeks to situate the apostle and his letters back in their first-century Jewish historical and salvation-historical context.[12] Jews in Paul's time "were not sitting around discussing how to get to heaven, and swapping views on the finer points of synergism and sanctification. ... They were hoping and longing for Israel's God to act, to do what he had promised, to turn history the right way up once again.[13] "Salvation", for them, was distinctly corporate (not individual) and this-worldly. Though they had returned to the promised land from exile, the exile still continued in a metaphorical sense, as life was still far from the way it should be.[14] God's "righteousness", far from an abstract moral quality, was his covenant faithfulness, his commitment to end this exile and fulfill his redemptive promises to Israel.[15]

But not just to Israel. God's initial covenant with the childless Abraham entailed the creation of a family more numerous than the stars—but this family was not just identified with Israel. Rather, "in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed." (Gen 12:3 ESV) "Paul's view of God's purpose is that God, the creator, called Abraham so that through his family he, God, could rescue the world from its plight."[16] The Abrahamic covenant was the answer to the problem made evident in the previous eleven chapters of Genesis, namely sin, death, and the fall of God's creation into corruption. For this reason, Wright frequently describes the covenant, considered by the Jews to be the founding moment of Israel, as God's "single-plan-through-Israel-for-the-world".[17] But as it turned out, Israel was just as sinful as its neighbors. (Rom 3:9-20) Thus there was a new, twofold problem: Israel, too, was in need to rescue, and its sin prevented the promises made to Abraham from having their intended effect of blessing for the nations.[18] This, according to Wright, is the context of Paul's teaching about justification and the gospel. How was God going to be faithful to his promises for the world, through Israel, in light of human unfaithfulness?

Answer: through Jesus the Messiah. Jesus obeyed the law perfectly yet took the curse for disobedience (as in Deu 28) on himself (Gal 3:13-14); by rising from the dead, he made "a way through the curse and out the other side, into the time of renewal when the Gentiles would at last come into Abraham's family, while Jews could have the possibility of covenant renewal, of receiving the promised spirit through faith."[19] The point of all of this is not simply to establish a soteriological system of "justification by faith", but to fulfill the Abrahamic covenant by creating the global family of faith that God promised him and to restore the creation to the way it should be. (Gal 3:7-9)

For Wright, justification is not the imputation of Christ's obedience "to our account"; still less is it synonymous with "salvation" or the gospel. Rather, in the context in which it is first mentioned in Paul's letters (Gal 2) as well as in contemporary Jewish writings, it is a status of vindication, a divine declaration that a person is part of God's covenant family and will be saved at the last judgment. Paul's point is not to establish a dichotomy between the opposing principles of "faith" and "works", but to insist that it is by faith in Christ, not works of the Torah (becoming Jewish, joining the nation of Israel) that God's people are now marked out.[20] The present verdict of justification is by faith alone, but it anticipates the final verdict of justification described in Romans 2, which will be by works. This is possible because of the work of the Holy Spirit in our hearts, transforming us and manifesting our justification; as Paul goes on to explain especially in Romans 6-8.[21] Wright seeks to restore "the Jewish, Messianic, covenantal, Abrahamic, history-of-Israel overtones", which he feels are screened out by the traditional Protestant understanding of Paul[22] but become visible with a study of Paul in his Jewish context.

The NPP is often met with criticism from conservative Protestant theologians. Foremost among Wright's critics is John Piper, who wrote a book to critique Wright's claims on Paul and justification. He alleges that the NPP, especially as represented by Wright, dangerously distorts the gospel taught by the Reformation tradition.[23] One frequently criticized tenet of the NPP is its claim that justification per se is not part of the gospel. Piper argues that the gospel is only good news if it includes justification; without it, in light of our sin, the announcement of Jesus' vindication and lordship is terrifying.[24] "[Paul's] announcement of the death and resurrection and lordship of Jesus became good news in Paul's preaching precisely because in some way he communicated that believing in this Christ brought about justification."[25] He appeals to Romans 5:1 to show that justification is part of how someone becomes a Christian, since it involves a crucial change in the relationship of the sinner to God without which there can be no salvation. Without justification, the gospel gives guilty rebels against God no reason to hope for a good outcome for themselves. Sinclair Ferguson also claims that Wright has exaggerated the gospel individualism and subjectivism to which he sees the NPP as an antidote.[26]

Piper also questions what he sees as Wright's redefinition of "righteousness" as impartiality and covenant faithfulness (on the part of God) or a status of vindication and covenant membership (on our part). Rather, Piper argues, as he has elsewhere, that righteousness is the same for God and man: "For both the defendant and the judge, righteousness is 'an unwavering allegiance to treasure and uphold the glory of God.' This is what makes God and humans 'righteous.'"[27] Because of this and contrary to Wright, the imputation of Christ's righteousness (his unfailing obedience to God's righteous demand "that we unwaveringly love and uphold the glory of God"[28]) does make sense and is a real and vital part of justification. Justification is not simply a status given to us by a courtroom declaration, but the counting of a real, alien moral righteousness as ours; "in Christ we are counted as having done all the righteousness that God requires".[29] J. Ligon Duncan points out that in its discussion of justification, the NPP tends to neglect atonement theology, actually investigating the work of Christ and how it functions in favor of focusing on the person of Christ as Lord and Messiah.[30]

Piper and others also dispute the NPP's reassessment of first-century Judaism as a "religion of grace". Piper believes that Paul's descriptions of his pre-conversion life depict him not as a humble supplicant of God's grace, but an arrogant blasphemer; as well, Jesus' teachings on the Pharisees show that they pursued Torah not out of gratitude to God but a craving for human glory.[31] Ultimately, ethnic pride and legalism have the same sinful root: self-righteousness.[32] J. Ligon Duncan also believes the NPP's case is inconclusive because it only denies that first-century Judaism was essentially Pelagian. But Luther only ascribed semi-Pelagianism to the Catholic church and Judaism, and this description still appears accurate.[33] He also criticizes the NPP for allowing a provisional theory on first-century Judaism to dominate its exegesis and diminish what the text is actually saying in favor of overwhelming context.

Finally, Piper emphasizes that both now and in the end, faith rather than works is the instrument of justification. He believes Wright's case for final justification on the basis of works from Romans 2:13 is inconclusive in its immediate context.[34] With extensive support from historic Protestant confessions, he reiterates the Reformation truth that a transformed life of obedience is necessary for the Christian, but it is only evidence and confirmation of our faith in Christ whose righteousness is the sole basis of our justification, both now and for eternity.[35] J. Ligon Duncan alleges that the NPP "diminishes the New Testament emphasis on the importance of the problem of sin and its forgiveness in relation to the Gospel" and focuses on Paul's soteriology and ecclesiology without considering his anthropology and hamartiology.[36] As a result of all of these factors, proponents of the old perspective believe that the NPP amounts to a corruption of the true gospel.

Several loci of disagreement between perspectives are evident. Most basically, they contrast on what second-temple Judaism was like, especially in relation to the Mosaic law: prototypically legalistic, or a "religion of grace" characterized by covenantal nomism. "Works of the law" are viewed as either meritorious actions intended to earn righteousness before God, or "boundary markers" or "badges" to mark one off as a member of the covenant. God's "righteousness" is his moral perfection and more specifically "[his] unswerving commitment to preserve the honor of his name and display his glory"[37], or his covenant faithfulness and impartiality as a judge. "Justification" is either the imputation of Christ's righteousness and the forgiveness of sins, or God's public declaration that someone is "in the right", a member of the covenant; the perspectives also differ on the relative importance of justification in the gospel. The NPP views the human condition more corporately as alienation from God's covenant of redemption which is intended to save from sin and death, in contrast to the more individualistic traditional stress on escaping God's wrath for sins and having a righteousness to stand on at the final judgment. Procedurally, the perspectives differ on the relative priority of the well-tested Reformation tradition and new historical-contextual research as guides for exegesis.

I find the New Perspective more, but not totally convincing. It answers several theological problems I have had with believing the old perspective. It rightly calls out the flaws of the Lutheran view of the "law" (which is also present, to a lesser degree, in Reformed theology) as a harsh judge or taskmaster that exists to show us our sin and drive us to God's grace. While this may be true on an individual level, it doesn't work when applied to the historical narrative of the Bible, which is the focus of the NPP. If sin is virtually equivalent to self-justification, why did God give the Israelites a law that plays right into it and then leave them to struggle with it for thousands of years before sending the Messiah it was supposed to "point" to all along? What of all the Jews who lived and died before this time, who knew the law only in its negative function of inciting and condemning their sin? And if this function of the law continues in the church age (as Luther’s universalizing treatment of the law implies), why do we not repent of breaking the Sabbath or eating pork? This telling makes the law, as described by Paul, seem like something God saves us from, or at least a deliberately ineffective measure for dealing with sin. As well, the law itself commands its hearers to seek life and righteousness by obedience to it (Lev 18:5, Deu 6:25) which is seen as possible at the present time (Deu 30:11-14); the old perspective does not take these verses seriously, or even contrasts them with justification by faith! Crucially, the old perspective does not (in my experience) attempt to explain how the Judaism Paul denigrated is different than the Judaism established by God in the Old Testament, which is essential to avoid a neo-Marcionite reading of Scripture.

I also believe the NPP offers a somewhat better account of justification. The "traditional" view is based on an Anselmian, inward-oriented, demanding view of God's righteousness/justice that needs to be "satisfied" by the punishment of sin, whether in us or in Christ. The critical point of justification is a change in the divine disposition towards us, from "against us" to "for us".[38] I do not believe that this is an accurate understanding of God's justice. Though I don't exactly agree with Wright's understanding of "righteousness", I agree with him that the imputation of Christ's righteousness does not make sense; the logic of imputation is foreign to the Bible as well as common sense. Piper's criticism that the New Perspective understanding of "justification" makes it into little more than a status[39] rings hollow; what is imputed righteousness if not a legal status with no corresponding moral reality? Isn’t that exactly the point of justification by faith alone? The old perspective bases its view of justification on a merit-based concept of salvation, which, with the Orthodox Church, I believe is not a part of biblical soteriology.[40]

Finally, along with Wright I find it ironic that in his rebuttal Piper repeatedly appeals to Reformation tradition as normative. This is seen as he assumes that the old perspective is the default or "obvious" interpretation of Scripture; Ferguson calls it the "old wine" in reference to Luke 5:39 (seemingly unaware that the "new wine" stands for the gospel in this parable).[41] Aside from the fact that little effort is made to trace this tradition back any earlier than the sixteenth century (and thus demonstrate that it is not itself a corruption of an older tradition), it is hard to reconcile Reformed theologians' appeals to it with their claimed ancestors' opposition to established tradition and willingness to pursue fresh readings of Scripture. What do you do when a theology that emerged in defiance of tradition becomes the new tradition?

Perhaps because of these appeals to tradition, the old perspective tends to neglect to engage the NPP on its own turf: new historical research into second-temple Judaism and Paul's Jewish context. Piper's engagement with it is mostly limited to a chapter warning that studying first-century ideas may not be illuminating (which Wright satisfactorily rebuts[42]). I also agree with Wright that the New Perspective is more Trinitarian, creational, and Israel-focused than the old,[43] themes which are far too important to neglect when reading Paul. I consider his theology of synergism[44] to be an important part of soteriology rather than a "bogey-word" to be avoided.

Yet the New Perspective is not perfect. Many of its faults may simply be consequences of its break with Protestant tradition on such central doctrines and the need to distinguish itself from the "default" interpretation of Paul, which is not entirely without value. While I am sympathetic to N.T. Wright's points about the Jewish context and connotations of Paul's usage of terms like dikaios(yne) and erga nomou, I have trouble following the gospel narrative he builds out of them; it feels unintuitive, like an external interpretive grid laid over the text which confuses more than it enlightens. Some of this is from how he tends to look for one clear-cut context in which to define words, and then feels free to use this meaning everywhere (e.g. defining "justified" in light of what we can know of the "Antioch incident" in Galatians 2, and then reading it through this lens throughout Paul's writing). How does James use dikaioō in his epistle? In Wright's telling, the word seems to be defined almost entirely by context, with little innate meaning.

As well, due to its methodological emphasis on studying Paul in his social, cultural, and historical context, proponents of the NPP tend to interpret his letters in a very human way, more so than their opponents. Wright complains that the old perspective does not keep the Holy Spirit in sight in its understanding of final justification,[45] but he interacts little with how the same Spirit may be speaking through Paul to grant his words new dimensions of meaning for the church he helped found, beyond his original context. The old perspective does this better. Both perspectives also still tend to look largely to Paul (rather than the other epistles or, even the gospels) to understand what "the gospel" basically is, though Wright somewhat sees past this.[46]

Another result of the project of distinguishing itself from the old view is that the NPP tends to draw strong theological dichotomies for detractors like Piper to jump on: ethnocentrism vs. moralism,[47] or justification vs. reconciliation with God.[48] Both perspectives seem to support the familiar dichotomy between justification and sanctification, creating a sharp disconnect (or strictly one-way relationship) between justification and any moral righteousness on our part.[49]

The NPP works better as a part of a larger whole than as a complete account of the gospel; for example, Duncan is correct in pointing out that it says little about the atonement in itself. Wright and others, with their rigorous study of Paul's context, have produced a set of hermeneutical tools for glimpsing new dimensions of Paul's theology—but it would be foolish to use these new ideas exclusively (Wright would probably agree with this). James Dunn considers the NPP to be complementary with the historic Protestant doctrine of justification.[50] I would go a different route and combine it with an Orthodox understanding of soteriology, Christology, eschatology, and anthropology. Justification includes both reconciliation and vindication, with a definite beginning that is also maintained as the Christian continues to live and grow through right relationship (union) with God and the destruction of sin by the atonement of Christ and the power of the Holy Spirit. Contrary to the old perspective, I believe the whole of Scripture testifies that God is always, unconditionally “for” us; the question is whether we resist his grace or allow it to be effectual in us. There is no need for justification to convince him to bestow grace on us or make up for a deficiency in merit on our part. This approach overcomes the shortcomings of both perspectives, complementing traditional Christian soteriology with the fresh insights of the NPP and offering a more satisfying answer to the issues at hand.

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1. Tom Wright, Justification: God's Plan and Paul's Vision (London: Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, 2009), 12.
2. Michael Wise, “Some Comments on Origins of the New Perspective: Part 1,” course notes.
3. George Foot Moore, "Christian Writers on Judaism," Harvard Theological Review 14 (1921), 252–253.
4. Francis Watson, Paul, Judaism, and the Gentiles: Beyond the New Perspective (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2007), 30,37,51.
5. Wise, "Some Comments on Origins of the New Perspective" (both parts), course notes.
6. James D.G. Dunn, The New Perspective on Paul (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2005), 199.
7. E.P. Sanders, Paul and Palestinian Judaism (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1977), 422.
8. Watson, Paul, Judaism, and the Gentiles, 49; Dunn, Word Biblical Commentary: Volume 38A, Romans 1–8, (Dallas: Word Incorporated, 1988), lxvi.
9. Dunn, The New Perspective on Paul, 1–6.
10. Dunn, The New Perspective on Paul, 8–15.
11. Wright, Justification, 111–113.
12. Wright, Justification, 53–58.
13. Wright, Justification, 37.
14. Wright, Justification, 41.
15. Wright, Justification, 52.
16. Wright, Justification, 73.
17. Wright, Justification, 103.
18. Wright, Justification, 175.
19. Wright, Justification, 104.
20. Wright, Justification, 96.
21. Wright, Justification, 163–168.
22. Wright, Justification, 62.
23. John Piper, The Future of Justification: A Response to N.T. Wright (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2007), 16–17,25,37–38,61,181–183
24. Piper, The Future of Justification, 89.
25. Piper, The Future of Justification, 90.
26. Sinclair Ferguson, "What Does Justification Have to do with the Gospel?", Ligonier Ministries, 1 February 2010, < http://www.ligonier.org/learn/articles/what-does-justification-have-do-gospel/> (31 January 2015).
27. Piper, The Future of Justification, 71.
28. Piper, The Future of Justification, 164.
29. Piper, The Future of Justification, 171.
30. J. Ligon Duncan, "The Attractions of the New Perspective(s) on Paul," Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals, 2009, < ttp://www.alliancenet.org/partner/Article_Display_Page/0,,PTID307086_CHID560462_CIID1660662,00.html> (31 January 2015).
31. Piper, The Future of Justification, 152,154.
32. Piper, The Future of Justification, 159.
33. Duncan, "The Attractions of the New Perspective(s) on Paul."
34. Piper, The Future of Justification, 108.
35. Piper, The Future of Justification, 110.
36. Duncan, "The Attractions of the New Perspective(s) on Paul."
37. Piper, The Future of Justification, 66.
38. Piper, The Future of Justification, 184.
39. Piper, The Future of Justification, 78.
40. Vladimir Lossky, The Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church (Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir's Seminary Press, 2002), 197.
41. Ferguson, "What Does Justification Have to do with the Gospel?".
42. Wright, Justification, 31–34.
43. Wright, Justification, 212,222.
44. Wright, Justification, 163–168.
45. Wright, Justification, 163–164.
46. Wright, Justification, 60.
47. Piper, The Future of Justification, 160.
48. Wright, Justification, 199.
49. Wright, Justification, 180, 187.
50. Dunn, The New Perspective on Paul, 194.

Position Paper: Ecclesiology and Eschatology

The following is the fifth and final position paper for my systematic theology class, on ecclesiology and eschatology.

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I affirm, with the Nicene Creed, that the Church is one, holy, catholic, and apostolic.[1] In the first place, this means the Church is one, a unity. I believe this unity is visible and organic, not just invisible and spiritual. That is, the Church, the Church Christ founded in the first century, has not split into pieces or grown into multiple "branches", all of which can be considered to be part of the true Church, over time. This unity is based on the unity of God and of those who are in Christ. In Christ, the many members of the Church are reconciled to God and each other, united into one body (Rom 12:4-5, Col 1:18-20) by the mystery of the sacrament of communion, by which we all become partakers in the singular body and blood of Christ (1 Cor 10:16-17), as well as by baptism and the indwelling of the one Holy Spirit. (1 Cor 12:12-13) So the apostle is able to say of the Galatians that "in Christ Jesus you are all sons of God, through faith. For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. ... you are all one in Christ Jesus." (Gal 3:26-28 RSV) I define the Church by this biblical teaching rather than by empirical observation which suggests that it is diverse and divided.

The understanding of the unity of the Church as being merely spiritual in nature is thus unacceptable. It does not do justice to the incarnational nature of the church as both a divine and a human institution, just as the Lord, while fully God, also became fully human for our sake. Instead, it creates a division between the Church's two natures and holds that unity applies only in its invisible nature. In this it is an echo of the old heresy of Nestorianism, which imposed a sharp distinction between Christ's human and divine nature.[2] Bishop Timothy (Kallistos) Ware explains that the separation between the visible and invisible church is only a reflection of our limited human perspective; the body of Christ is a single, incarnational reality just like Christ himself.[3] The unity of the Church is not merely an ideal to strive after; it is a promised and ever-present reality. Through historical study and a long period of spiritual seeking, I have come to identify the Orthodox Church as the same church that Christ founded.

Second, the Church is holy. This holiness is based on God's perfect holiness and is not dependent on the holiness of its members, least of all its imperfect earthly members. This view has been firmly established at least since the fourth-century Donatist controversy, when it was argued by Augustine.[4] This holiness is very much an "already-not yet" reality; mysteriously fully present and yet not fully realized in us. The apostle John says something similar: "Beloved, we are God's children now; it does not yet appear what we shall be, but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is." (1 Jhn 3:2) We are already God's children, but what we will ultimately become in him is not yet clear. Just as we partake in the body and blood of Christ through the Church, we also participate in his holiness through the worship, sacraments, fellowship, and prayer life of the Church. Titles for the Church like the people of God (2 Cor 6:16), bride of Christ (2 Cor 11:2), and temple of the Holy Spirit (1 Cor 3:16-17, 6:19; Eph 2:21-22), as well as the body of Christ, all hint at the holiness in which all in the Church have a share.

Third, the Church is catholic. This is a frequently-misunderstood term, and not just because it is often seen as synonymous with "Roman Catholic" (as I used to think). It is often taken to mean "universal", as referring to the nature of the one Church as extending through time and space. While this is true of the Church, the word "catholic", as originally used, means "full and complete, all-embracing, and with nothing lacking.[5]" This can be seen from its Greek composition from the roots kata and holos, meaning roughly "according to the whole". This means, among other things, that the local church is not simply a piece of the true Church; the fullness of the entire Church is found in every single local church; nothing is lacking for its members to participate in the richness of the faith. As Paul says, the Church "is [Christ's] body, the fulness of him who fills all in all." (Eph 1:23, see also Col 2:10).

Fourth, the Church is apostolic, in at least three ways. Most simply, it began with the apostles. It is the Church established by Christ on the apostles' testimony to him. Second, it preserves the apostolic teaching of Christ, which was originally received from Christ (Mat 28:18-20) and is especially expressed in the New Testament. The Church receives, treasures, and passes on the apostolic tradition as described in the NT (1 Cor 11:2, 2 Thess 2:15, 2 Tim 2:2). In this way it is "the pillar and bulwark of the truth." (1 Tim 3:15) Third, like the apostles themselves, the Church is sent into the world with a mission (the Greek word apostolos means "sent one"), "to bear witness to His Kingdom, to keep His word and to do His will and His works in this world."[6] In this respect, the Church, and we individually as members of it, continues the work that Christ commissioned the apostles to do.

Related to the second meaning, the continuity of the faith of the Church with the apostles' teaching can be seen in the process of apostolic succession, by which the teaching is passed down in an unbroken chain of leadership stretching from the apostles to the present. This idea was argued by the pre-Nicene church fathers to rebuke false teachers who based their ideas on their own reading of Scripture or a "secret tradition" that Christ passed on apart from the apostles. Irenaeus, the most revered theologian of the second century, was a prominent spokesman for apostolic succession, writing in his work Against Heresies, "It is within the power of all ... to contemplate clearly the tradition of the apostles manifested throughout the whole world; and we are in a position to reckon up those who were by the apostles instituted bishops in the Churches, and [to demonstrate] the succession of these men to our own times; those who neither taught nor knew of anything like what these [heretics] rave about."[7] Like the early Church, I see the episcopal model of church polity as normative, since the role of bishops (overseers) was and is crucial to the preservation and articulation of orthodox Christian teaching.

I affirm the infallibility of the Church—the whole Church. "This again follows from the indissoluble unity between God and His Church. Christ and the Holy Spirit cannot err, and since the Church is Christ's body, since it is a continued Pentecost, it is therefore infallible."[8] Again, the apostle teaches that the Church is the "pillar and bulwark of the truth." (1 Tim 3:15) As well, Christ promised the Spirit to guide the Church into all truth. (Jhn 16:13) This teaching is frequently misunderstood. It does not mean that any individual within the visible Church is infallible, as Roman Catholics would claim. It also does not mean that the Church cannot hold mistaken points of view or opinions; for example, the Orthodox Church is currently considering the possibility that it may have been mistaken about the heretical status of the Oriental Orthodox churches for the past 1500 years. (That is, that they may not actually hold the view on Christology that was condemned by the council of Chalcedon) It also does not mean that large portions of the Church cannot fall into false teaching, as was seen in the Arian controversy. The infallibility of the Church pertains to dogma, particularly the canons of the seven ecumenical councils as well as lesser councils or other teachings that are later accepted by the whole Church. In matters like these, I believe that according to the promises of Christ and the guidance of the Holy Spirit, it is impossible for the whole Church to embrace error.

I affirm the function of the Church, as a place where the salvation of the gospel of Christ is made manifest. This occurs through the worship of the Church directed to God, the participation of its members in riches of God's grace, and the outward-oriented ministry of the Church to the world. In worship which transcends time and place, the Church joins the angels and "the spirits of just men made perfect", the Church of all ages and places, in their unceasing praise of God (Heb 12:22-24). Through the Church, we enter communion with both God our father and our brothers and sisters in Christ; again, we all become part of the one body of Christ. "We are members one of another" (Eph 4:25); it is in the Church, not individually, that we receive salvation and are transformed into Christ's likeness. "The church thus serves not only as a signpost of the coming fulfillment of divine purposes with and for the whole creation but as a manifestation of that fulfillment 'ahead of time', as it were—already in this age, yet fully to come in the eschaton."[9] Though salvation is a lifelong journey, through the Church we experience it in eschatological fullness, so that Paul is able to speak of the whole path of salvation in the past tense. (Rom 8:29-30) And again, the Church is apostolic in that it is sent out into the world both to witness to Christ (Acts 1:8) and to demonstrate the love of Christ through practical action as well as words. (1 Jhn 3:17-18)[10]

I affirm that the Church is the continuation and fulfillment of national Israel as the people of God. Through Christ it inherits the promises made to Israel. Paul argues extensively for the Church's continuity with Israel repeatedly in Romans (2:28-29, 3:28-31, 4:11-12,16,18, 9:7-8, 10:12); elsewhere he says "There is neither Jew nor Greek ... for you are all one in Christ Jesus." (Gal 3:28) It is not that God's covenant with Israel has been revoked (Paul argues this extensively in Romans 9-11); rather, this covenant is fulfilled in all that it set out to accomplish in the new covenant in Christ's blood, plus the promised salvation of the gentiles. (Isa 52:10) Therefore, since Christ is the one mediator between God and man (1 Tim 2:5), it is advisable to interpret Paul's words about the continuing future of Israel in Romans 11 as presaging a large-scale conversion of Jews into the Church.[11] There is no other way leading to salvation.

I deny that the Church consists essentially of a collection of individuals who are "saved", have an "authentic relationship with God", are "true Christians", etc. My definition of "Christian" is dependent on the Church, rather than the other way around. The Church is the incarnational institution established by Christ, which preserves the apostolic faith truly witnessing to him, and they are Christians who belong to it. There is definitely a sense in which Christians are seen as constituting the body of Christ, but as members of it. (1 Cor 12:27) In other words, when we become Christians, the Church does not expand to include us; we become part of its unity. The unity of the Church amid divisions among its members depends on there being something recognizable as the "Church" that continues whole even after schism, which is not possible if the Church is nothing more than a collection of individuals.

It is frequently said that "outside the church there is no salvation." Does this mean that everyone who does not formally belong to the "true church" is not saved? By no means! Just as those who are formally members of the Church can still be living according to the law of sin and death, dead to the life of the Church,[12] "there may be members of the Church who are not visibly such, but whose membership is known to God alone."[13] I do not claim that God's grace is limited to those within the Orthodox Church; I don't fully understand the mysteries of his love. But this does not mean that the "true" Church is invisible or discontinuous from the visible Church, or that it is not necessary to seek salvation through it. "What God may do should not become the outer perimeter of what humans should do."[14]

I affirm (again with the Creed) that Jesus will come again with glory to judge the living and the dead, and his kingdom will have no end. He will return the way he left the disciples (Acts 1:11) to judge the nations (Mat 25:31-33). The kingdom of God, currently present only within the Church, will triumph over and succeed the kingdom of this world (Rev 11:15), and this kingdom, Christ's kingdom, will be eternal. (Luk 1:32-33) Everything beyond the creedal statement is opinion. One of my opinions of this judgment (shared widely by Orthodox theologians) is that I don't interpret Matthew 25:31-33 literally, that we will wait in line with everyone who has ever lived to be sorted by Christ as judge. Rather, "the very presence of Christ as the Truth and the Light is itself the judgment of the world."[15] As Jesus teaches in Matthew 25, we will be judged based on how we have fulfilled the law by loving and serving others (Rom 13:10), or, equivalently, by how we have loved and served him. (Mat 25:40,45)

I deny that God actively imprisons or tortures people in hell. The judgment is our response to Christ's return in glory, not a literal proclamation by him of our individual fate. We are not "sent" to heaven or hell by any external power, but by our own hearts. Thomas Hopko explains: "Now men can live without the love of Christ in their lives. They can exist as if there were no God, no Christ, no Spirit, no Church, no spiritual life. At the end of the ages this will no longer be possible."[16] I believe that the essence of hell is not being banished from the presence of God (which would be a relief for those who hate him, appears to consider God's presence in quasi-spatial terms, and which, if applied consistently, would simply be annihilation), but continuing to exist eternally in the presence and knowledge of God. For the righteous, this is heaven, for the wicked; it is the torment of hell. The fire of hell is none other than our God, the consuming fire. (Heb 12:29)

I affirm that we cannot know when Christ will return, as he makes clear. (Mat 24:36, 25:13; Mar 13:32; Luk 12:40; Acts 1:7) Though much about the eschatological day of the Lord is obscure, the Scriptures make very clear that Jesus will return at an unexpected time. (How this will work when one group or another always seems to be expecting his imminent return, I don't know!) Any teacher or sect that claims to have knowledge of the day of Christ's return is either lying or deluded, and refuses to listen to the teaching of Scripture about this. The truth is, Christ could return tomorrow or he could return in centuries. We cannot know one way or another. Hence, Jesus teaches us to be ready (Mat 24:42-51), to live in a state of readiness. This readiness does not look like stocking up and preparing for an imminent and expected disaster, but like actively practicing the teachings of Christ, living the life of the Church in a constant vigil so as to greet the Lord at his return.

I affirm (once more with the Creed) the resurrection of the dead and the life of the world to come, as especially taught by Paul in 1 Corinthians 15. The resurrection will be the completion of the salvation from sin and death that Christ purchased for us. It will be a bodily (not just spiritual) resurrection, but not a return to our mortal bodies. Rather, our once-weak bodies will be raised imperishable, glorious, powerful, and spiritual (rather than physical, whatever that means. (1 Cor 15:42-44) In this, as in the rest of salvation, we will follow the example of Christ, "the first-born from the dead". (Col 1:18) The resurrection of the dead will be the Lord's ultimate victory over death (1 Cor 15:54-55) and will also be accompanied by the perfection of the rest of the creation (Rom 8:21). The world will become the paradise that God created it to become; the kingdom of heaven will fill the whole earth. (Rev 11:15) God's good purposes for his wayward creation will be completed, for all eternity.

I deny that the goal of eschatology is to discern a hidden schedule of events that will take place in the "end times". The subject of eschatology may be described with language like an "eschatological agenda"[17] or even "God's timetable".[18] This linear kind of thinking, which risks over-focusing on the order of events a the exclusion of their deeper meaning, simply misses the point of eschatology. The point is Christ, who is the true End we look to. (Rev 22:13) "Wherever He is present, there the End is also present."[19] In other words, the End is not some series of events to look forward to in the future—for those in the Church, the End is already here!

Thus Paul is able to speak of our deliverance to the kingdom of the Son in the past tense (Col 1:12-13), and our resurrection with Christ and elevation to the heavenly places. (Eph 2:4-6) As he says elsewhere, "behold, now is the acceptable time; behold, now is the day of salvation." (2 Cor 6:2) The End is not simply waiting at the conclusion of history for us; for Christians, it is an eternal now, as if intersecting with every point on our time line at a right angle from the transcendent beyond, calling us out of the linear succession of moments that seems so natural to our existence and into eternal life. Thus, I disagree with the tenor of eschatological theories about the "rapture" the tribulation, the millennium, and the nature and relative ordering of these things, especially inasmuch as they are presented as what the study of eschatology is "really about". They are highly speculative (sometimes approaching conspiracy theories) and needlessly distract from the fact that the End has already come. Glorify him!

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1. "The Nicene Creed" in The Orthodox Study Bible (eds. Jack Norman Sparks et al.; Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 2008), 1791.
2. Patrick Barnes, The Church is Visible and One: A Critique of Protestant Eschatology (12 January 2015), 30.
3. Timothy Ware, The Orthodox Church (London: Penguin Books, 1993), 243–245.
4. Jaroslav Pelikan, The Emergence of the Catholic Tradition (100-600) (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1978), 311.
5. Thomas Hopko, The Orthodox Faith, (12 January 2015), I.2.16.
6. Hopko, The Orthodox Faith, I.2.16.
7. Irenaeus, Against Heresies (Kindle Edition: Veritatis Splendor Publications, 2012), III.3.1.
8. Ware, The Orthodox Church, 248.
9. James R. Payton Jr., Light from the Christian East: An Introduction to the Orthodox Tradition (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press Academic, 2007), 150.
10. Millard J. Erickson, Christian Theology (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2013), 972–974, 978–979.
11. Erickson, Christian Theology, 965.
12. Hopko, The Orthodox Faith, IV.1.9.
13. Ware, The Orthodox Church, 248.
14. Payton, Light from the Christian East, 171–172.
15. Hopko, The Orthodox Faith, I.2.14.
16. Hopko, The Orthodox Faith, IV.8.2.
17. Erickson, Christian Theology, 1119.
18. Erickson, Christian Theology, 1095.
19. Stephen Freeman, "Is There a Christian Theory of History?", Glory to God for All Things 7 November 2014, < http://blogs.ancientfaith.com/glory2godforallthings/2014/11/07/christian-theory-history> (16 January 2015).