Dispensationalism and the Interpretation of Scripture Part 4: The People of God, Israel and the Church

It's been over a month since my last post in this series, so I thought I'd start it back up again. Is there a single people of God like most Christians throughout history have believed or is there two as many dispensationalists believe? Dispensationalists, reacting both to an oversimplified identification between Israel and the Church that is sometimes found and to the view that Israel has been cast aside and is no longer God's people, have in general fallen all the way off the other side of the horse and imposed an oversimplified and massively wrong division between the two, sometimes even going so far as to say that the two have entirely different destinies, covenants, or even administrations of salvation. I think dispensationalists are right to make some distinction between Israel and the Church but they go wrong when they posit to peoples of God instead of one. I don't have enough time to go through this topic in enough detail to really do it justice and list all the relevant Scripture and such, but I'll outline some of my thoughts on this.

In the Old Testament, there was a single people of God, Israel. But then of course there's Israel and then there's Israel. Some within the group were considered truly part of God's people in a way others were not even if those others were supposed to be - some were the remnant or the true Israel. And not all in this group were necessarily ethnic Israelites either since Gentiles too could eventually become incorporated into this body (indeed, many non-Israelites were among those who journeyed out of Egypt and took part in the great events and covenants at the founding of Israel as a nation and people of God). So from the very beginning, Israel was God's people but this people, ethnic Israelite or not, also incorporated converted non-Israelites. At this time (or at least it had become so by NT times), it was generally expected, though, that the converted would combine religious identification and ethnic identification by, among other things, submitting to the right of circumcision and "becoming a Jew". In Jesus' time, Gentiles who wished to convert were also baptized as a right of passage into God's people.

The Old Testament spoke of a time, though, when other nations would call on God and God would acknowledge them and make them his (in fact, this was a main reason of why God chose Israel in the first place - as a beginning to something greater that was meant to sweep out even unto the Gentiles). Somehow, they would follow the Law or join with Israel and yet somehow not exactly. How all this would work out and what it would look like was yet to be revealed.

In the New Testament, we do not see the creation of a new people of God. What do we see instead? We see Jesus, the True Israel himself, taking on the role of Israel and its duties and reforming God's people, Israel, about himself. And what do we begin to see? Non-Jews and non-Israelites seem to be allowed inclusion into this people but the ethnic identification with the Jews is not required of them. As the True Israel, incorporation into Jesus means incorporation into the one people of God, so these Gentiles truly became co-citizens in God's people with their Jewish brethren who were already there for generations. This incorporation therefore means a kind of incorporation into the covenants and promises of the Old Testament. Jesus is the vine, Israel, and we, both Jew and Gentile are the branches of God's people. God's one people are a holy nation, a priesthood, elect, etc. - all terms for Israel now applied to anyone who is incorporated into Jesus by faith in him. The old uses of the Law, its ethnic particulars for the Jews at the point in history before the cross, are now past and it takes on a new role suitable for people of all ethnicities as the people of God is expanded greatly beyond its previous ethnic boundaries.

Jesus' followers, the true Israel, were at first almost entirely Jewish but soon they began actively converting Gentiles and Paul championed full inclusion of the Gentiles in God's people on the basis of faith and declared that they did not need to follow the ethnic particulars of the Law and become Jews - God accepted both Jew and Gentile on the same basis, that of faith. So now, this one people of God which previously was almost entirely roughly identified as Israel included a lot of Gentiles, thus expanding God's people beyond ethnic Israel to form one entity neither Jewish nor Gentile but rather universal and transcending the distinction (and indeed transcending all ethnic distinctions and particularities) - a new thing called the Church which included both. The old covenants, promises, etc. are thus expanded and transcended so that God is no longer simply interested in particular promises to a particular people but more grand, larger promises to all peoples. The promise of the land for the Jews, for instance, is now transcended, and God's people, Jews and non-Jews, are promised the entire earth.

So, as Paul said, Gentiles have been grafted onto the plant, Israel. But some other branches have been cut off because of unbelief - the unbelieving Jews. This, of course, does not mean God is done with them. No, they are the natural sons, the natural branches - they belong on the tree and are meant, if they are willing, to be regrafted. So as you can see, things are not nearly so simple as many dispensationalists make it. Yes, there is some discontinuity between Old Testament Israel and the Church and between how things went on with each. But that doesn't in any way mean that there are two peoples of God. Believing Israel is still the core, the natural trunk of the tree or the main branches of the vine - the others having been cut off - and "the Church" is simply the name for this new thing, this new stage of God's People which transcends all ethnic and national distinctions.

Previous posts in this series: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3

Final post in this series: "The Tribulation and Rapture"

Chavez Finally Goes Too Far!!!

According to recent news, Venezuela's radical socialist president, Hugo Chavez, has announced a series of value-based reforms in order to get his country in line with his own tastes. He's done a lot of bad or crazy stuff in the past, but this time he's truly sunk to a new low and shown himself for the true dictator and ultimate evil curmudgeon that he is. CNN reports that "The president has a long list of ... recommendations: Don't douse foods with too much hot sauce, exercise regularly, eat low-cholesterol foods, respect speed limits."

Don't douse foods with too much hot sauce!?! Who does he think he is!?! What an outrage! As if there was really such a thing as too much in the first place! It is time, O Venezuelans to rally against this infernal, cruel and petty dictator, this enemy of hot sauce! Foreign lovers of hot sauce, unite in solidarity with our oppressed Venezuelan brethren!

Presentism and the Direction of Groundings

Presentism (or any other theory that's antirealist about the past), at least in many versions, does not seem to be able to make a distinction between an old universe and a new one which just recently popped into existence with all the appropriate evidence for the past already there. Consider, for instance, a view according to which current dispositions or the state of the universe plus laws of nature provide the truth makers for past-tensed statements. Now take some statement S about the distant past and the presentist's candidate for the truth-maker of S, D (some disposition or state plus laws). It seems perfectly possible that D might be part of the present time and yet S be false - that is, that D might be there and yet the universe could have been very different than it had been or at least that it had not actually existed until very recently. For instance, God could have just created the universe ten minutes ago complete with all the dispositions, laws, et cetra which the presentist takes to make true statements about what the universe was like, say, ten years ago. But of course, if God did in fact just create the universe all such statements will fail to be true. So any such proposal for the truth-maker of a claim like S is going to fail since it seems possible for the truth-maker to be there without in fact making S true.

Of course, now that I've mentioned God here, it might be suggested that God himself could provide a way out of this - God is sort of supposed to be the ultimate ground of reality anyway, so why not let some state or decision of God ground claims like S? But for almost any candidate, it seems hard to see why it would be that kind of state that does the grounding and even once we have that kind narrowed down we may still wonder why this particular state grounds the truth of some statements and not others or why God has some particular contingent grounding-states and not others. If it is something under God's control or subject to his decision then it seems we have an extreme kind of super-Calvinistic view that even many Calvinists would cringe at (though perhaps not all - even though even the staunchest probably should) and certainly it would not leave any room for moral responsibility.

The best candidate, then, appears to be God's memories. That is, God's memory that p grounds its having been the case that p. But this clearly won't work. After all, a state's being a memory that p is itself at least partially grounded in its having been the case that p. And this is incompatible with what was just said about memories grounding it having been the case that such and such. So if we do appeal to memories of God, we cannot appeal to them as memories - they must be some more basic state which, because they ground the past facts, are therefore memories since the past facts ground their even being memories. But now we are left with the same question as before as to how we are to identify such states and why God even has them. And suddenly using states of God no longer looks so much different from using any other piece of reality which we are supposed to hook up in a systematic way with the truth and falsity of past-tensed sentences.

In general, presentism and its ilk is weird because of all the required dependencies of the past on the present rather than vice versa as is most plausible. Indeed, this failing of presentism - which seems to be required since presentism only allows present things to do any grounding in the first place - is what seems to give rise to all the problems I just mentioned above. And it seems crucially connected to the problem I've noticed in this earlier post about how presentists and the like cannot allow for moral responsibility for the past.

Notes on Boyd's Satan and the Problem of Evil Chapter 5B

Sorry about the long time between posts - I've been out of town for a week.

Last time, I talked about the first major section of chapter 5 of Boyd's book. Today I finish my discussion of that chapter. From here on out (though with some bumps along the way), Boyd begins to really shine as he really starts to work out his theodicy in greater detail without all the open theistic baggage weighing him down. He begins the final half of this chapter addressing the question of why, given that we should be free so that we can love or reject God, do we have such a strong power to reject, kill, and do other bad stuff to other people. His answer relies on the idea that God didn't just create isolated individuals for one-on-one relationships. Free creatures were created to live in a society bound together by relationships and mutual responsibility for and towards one another. We are supposed to freely love and care for one another. But to be free love and bless means that we are also free to hate and curse and when we begin to start down that dark path, everyone suffers at the hands of everyone else whether directly or indirectly and we share a collective responsibility for much of the evil that transpires. Some of what he says about this even directly reflects some of the same kinds of things I've said in this previous post.

The one major logical mistake he makes is with his TWT3 - "Risk entails moral responsibility" - which is neither supported by what he says nor is in the least bit true. I'm pretty sure he had something else in mind when he wrote this. Other than this, though, this second half of chapter 5 is very well-done and I think there's really a lot of truth in it or at least is pointing us in substantially the right direction.

Notes on Boyd's Satan and the Problem of Evil Chapter 5A

After a brief discussion of some "dynamic theories" of time, I thought I'd return to Boyd and talk about chapter 5 of his book (see here for the previous installment). In this chapter, Boyd really now does confront the issue of how, if there is so much indeterminism and free will going on in the world and God doesn't have EDF (Exhaustive Definite Foreknowledge), God can ensure that certain things happen according to his plan. After all, it sure seems like his creation could just so happen not to cooperate and thus render God's plan ruined. Things could work out, for instance, so that God would not have a people for himself after all since no one ever freely turns to him. Boyd's answer is, roughly, that unpredictability or indeterminism at an individual level is consistent with very good predictability at a larger level. Complex systems with chaotic, indeterministic parts can emerge extremely stable and very predictable. So at a societal level we can almost certainly guarantee that a certain percentage of people will smoke, etc., but we can't do this kind of thing with anything near certainty with a given individual. On the basis of his exhaustive knowledge of his own character and unwillingness to give up and the predictability of human nature in general, God can be certain that a certain percentage of people (or at the very least, some people) will turn to him or would turn to him if there was ever a Fall.

I don't think this response works. Notice that for all the apparent predictability in complex systems, they are still not completely predictable with absolute certainty if they consist of indeterministic pieces and chance at the larger level is not entirely eliminated. But it's not clear how one could have a system for which, at this larger level, there is no chance whatsoever given that it has chancy parts. It would have to be incredibly complex and have extraordinary, perfectly-functioning, indestructible mechanisms existing for the purpose of instantly and completely correcting at the system level sudden aberrant fluctuations of any kind in the behavior of its parts (and of course this would be a problem if the mechanism itself contains indeterministic parts).

Human societies, though, are not like that at all. They are not so insulated and jerry-rigged that they can't deviate from a large scale pattern of change. History depends in large part on the decisions of individuals - individuals which affect other individuals, and so on throughout history. Often, things which weren't inevitable happen, things which change the entire course of history. The actions of Martin Luther are one example - sure, maybe some other person would probably eventually spark a similar kind of religious revolt against Rome but the very specific writings and character of Luther himself had a very specific and very huge impact on Germany and thus on the rest of the world that would have been different if he himself had not been the one to act as he did in all those important moments when he did. Often in history, specific individuals and sometimes even specific actions of particular individuals hold enormous sway over the course of history in a way that simply cannot be predicted if one does not have prior EDF of the way things will turn out.

So in a complex system like human society, there is indeed quite a bit of predictability. The sheer complexity of society does a lot to dampen the effects of chance due to its individual members (this cancelling-out effect is the benefit reaped for larger complex systems - they are much more stable and predictable than smaller, less organized systems). But it does not fully eliminate it. Sure, we can predict fairly well the percentage of people that will smoke. But that's just what most likely will happen. The more complex and organized things are, the less of a chance things will deviate from their predictable path, the more stable a system is, and the less likely a single chance action or event will be able to upset the course of the system. But the system can still be broken out of its path if there is a sufficiently large, widespread breakdown and a huge, coincidental mass of chance fluctuations all around the same time.

It's incredibly improbable - practically impossible even - for my entire body, for instance, to undergo quantum tunneling and suddenly pop out of my current position and appear in, say, China. It's not so improbable with a single one of my particles but for just one of them to do it wouldn't be for me as a whole to do it - that would require a massive coincidental and simultaneous tunneling by most of my particles in the exact right combination, etc. And that's just probably not going to happen. But it's still possible. In the same way, the prediction of the percentage of smokers is what is most likely going to happen but it is still possible for reality to widely deviate from what is most probable - even if it is almost entirely certain. So even though it is massively improbable that no one would ever respond to God's continuous pursuit of us, it is still possible even if the chance of it is vanishingly small. So, contra Boyd, Boyd's view does in fact commit us to the view that God's plans - which are supposed to happen and be assured to happen - may in fact never happen. But since that goes against Scripture, so much the worse for Boyd's view!

Next time...the rest of chapter 5...

Moral Responsibility and the Unreality of the Past

It is a necessary condition for freedom or moral responsibility concerning some action A that I am the ultimate explanation for A - A ultimately depends on me for its existence. So to be responsible for something, I must be the metaphysical ground for it. But not only that, it is also necessary that I have some sort of control over A, that the fact that A is my action rather than something else is also dependent on me and explained by me. It is my contention that views of time - such as Presentism - which do not acknowledge the reality of the past cannot allow that anyone is morally responsible for their past actions. And if they are not morally responsible for such, then they cannot justifiably be punished or praised (or whatever) for them either.

The problem, in a nutshell, is that if the past does not exist then neither do my past actions. But if I have no past actions, then there are no actions for me to be held responsible for. Anti-realists about the past must, then, make revisionary adjustments to our views about responsibility and insist that we can be "responsible for our past actions" only in the sense that we are responsible for the past-tensed fact that we committed such past actions. Already, this is in conflict with the natural idea that in order for me to be responsible for something there must be some action which is directly ascribable to me as mine - instead, we must have something else that I am responsible for or which is ascribable to me. But let's put that aside for now.

Different views will cash out these past-tensed which we are responsible for in different ways. One way is simply to assert that past-tensed facts are primitive facts, unanalyzable and irreducible to anything more basic (or that these facts involve primitive tensed properties like having performed action A). But why should I or anyone care about such primitive facts or think they have anything to do with whether I ought to punished or praised? After all, if facts about what I could have done are also primitive in the same way and such facts do not justify praise or blame, how could these other facts do the same? What's the difference? In neither case is the fact explained by me or is it something that I am responsible for in any sense. These facts are simply there, free-floating with no input from me as to what they are or how they are and with no relevant dependence on me that could make any difference as to my responsibility for anything. In neither case is there any control over what these things are like. If there was, then I would now have control over the past, which I simply do not - at least not in any significant enough way.

But let's say these past facts aren't primitive facts after all. This is hardly any better. Why should we be held responsible for physical states of the world or states of God or whatever? After all, that things are this way is not in any way up to us or explained by us or relevantly dependent on us. So either way the Anti-Realist goes, there's no getting around the fact that without a real past, there can be no moral responsibility for our past actions. Elsewhere, I've argued that freedom or moral responsibility also requires a real future. So, all in all, friends of moral responsibility ought to be eternalists about time and accept the reality of past, present, and future.

Notes on Boyd's Satan and the Problem of Evil Chapter 4B

At the end of chapter four (see here for some criticisms of the first part), Boyd, in Satan and the Problem of Evil, gives what he takes to be scientific and experiential support for his open theism - that is, evidence that is supposed to show that the future does not exist (and hence is not known in an exhaustive definite manner by God). Boyd suggests that science supports this view by appealing to the fact that most plausible interpretations of quantum theory in physics require indeterminism. But of course indeterminism - causal "openness" - is perfectly compatible with the future not being open in Boyd's sense. Indeterminism and eternalism (the view that all times past or present or future exist) are perfectly compatible. It is a common confusion not to notice this, but of course Boyd is pretty much entirely confused throughout this science section. He takes indeterminism to show that the irreversibility of time is real, however, I'm not really sure what he even means by "the irreversibility of time". I take it that he has in mind something like the arrow of time - that is, the directedness of time or the things within it. But of course, indeterminism has no direct bearing on this issue, contra Boyd. A system can be indeterministic in a past-to-future direction, a future-to-past direction, or even both. So indeterminism on its own, even quantum mechanical indeterminism, really says little if anything about Boyd's "irreversibility of time" (despite the people he cites in support of what he says - these are issues that scientists unfortunately often get as confused about as lay people). Thus, contra Boyd, quantum mechanics does not in the slightest support his views and is perfectly compatible with all manner of eternalist or anti-open theist views.

If Boyd's discussion of quantum mechanics was somewhat confused, his discussion of relativity theory is a complete mess. First of all, though, he suggests that Scripture treats God as temporal but I've dealt with these sorts of contentions in this previous post. Boyd then notes that relativity theory doesn't show that time is unreal as if that helped him. But of course those who object to theories like Boyd's based on relativity theory would mostly agree with this, so I'm not sure how this is supposed to be helpful. Boyd claims that the theory does not address the ontological status of the future but this is contentious and, I would suggest, false. For instance, say event E1 is in the absolute future of my current space-time coordinate (pretend for the moment that I'm a point-particle). Now, given relativity, any event E2 which is neither in my absolute past nor present nor "light-like" related to me will be simultaneous with me in some reference frames and not in others (these are called "space-like" related to me). So let us take an event E2 which is very close to the space-time cone carved out by my absolute future. There are parts of my absolute future which, in some reference frames are simultaneous with E2 since they are space-like related to it. Assume E1 is space-like related to E2. Now we have two events - E1 and E2 - which lie on a simultaneity line but one of them - E2 - lies on such a line with me and the other lies in my absolute future. So there's no room to say that E1 doesn't exist since it lies on a simultaneity line with E2, which also exists, and everything which lies on a single simultaneity line is equally real. So Boyd (or Capek, who he cites) really can't get out of eternalism without reinterpreting relativity theory or treating it merely instrumentally (which sometimes Boyd confusingly sounds like he's doing, other times not - I'm not sure even he knows exactly what he's trying to do here). The rest of Boyd's discussion is basically the same as the mass of confusions he's posted on his blog and which I've addressed previously in this post.

In response to the argument that time was created with creation and since God is above creation he is above time, Boyd confusingly tries to respond to this by saying that God's experience or measurement of time is different than ours. But that doesn't even address the argument at all since it wasn't about experience or measurement in the first place - this is a metaphysical or physical argument based on the nature of God and the apparent fact that our time dimension is essentially a component of our space-time universe and hence cannot have existed outside of it. I'm really not sure what Boyd was after when he started talking about measurements here.

Boyd's argument from experience is essentially this - our experience of ourselves as free and morally responsible presupposes or is the same as an experience of ourselves as being undetermined. But of course this, again, does not support his views in the slightest. As I've said previously, indeterminism is perfectly compatible with eternalism or anti-open theism. So again, nothing Boyd says here provides even the slightest shred of evidence for his views.

Next time, more on Boyd's book...