Welcome, jgardner83! Happy to have you join the conversation but you might want to lean into the microphone a little but more! If you have actual technical issues see the Most Helpful Robert.
The problem with Divine morality is that it requires good to be defined as whatever God tells us is good and not derived from its consequences. So you have the spectacle of Christian apologists defending acts of genocide because God commanded it. So genocide is bad depending on who does it.
The other problem with Divine Morality is that the center of gravity of moral discourse shifts. Moderns find the idea of human slavery abhorrent. But in the Bible it never occurred to anyone that it might be evil. Paul envisions the elimination of human distinctions in the Kingdom but not because we will have a just society but because all distinctions of class and gender and ethnicity will simply disappear altogether. Unfortunately the Parousia did not come and society continued on.
I love how Christians now take credit for Abolition in the US. I just wonder why it took them 1700 hundred years and the Enlightenment to figure it out. I always remember Ashoka, the Indian emperor who converted to Buddhism and forcibly suppressed the slave trade – in the third century BC!!!
For me the doctrine of Hell was the first “chink in the armor” as Prof Ehrman puts it. Even at my most devout I could never wrap my head around the idea of eternal conscious torture. And what really bothered me was the idea that I was supposed to enjoy the bliss of Heaven at the same time some people I knew were being tortured. What kind of sick f–k could do that? And if they could would you want to hang around them for all eternity?
Karl Rahner developed his theory of the anonymous Christian as a way of dealing with this type of situation. He would say that Ashoka in choosing to do something that was genuinely good, because he perceived (not necessarily consciously) it as a genuinely good thing to do, he is implicitly oriented toward the incomprehensible goodness of God, even if he were an atheist. This idea is based generally on the moral philosophy/theology of Thomas Aquinas without claiming that Thomas himself would have held this position.
I do like the sound of that. In another thread if I’m not mistaken, you mentioned that he was something of a Modalist, which given my background, makes him of special interest. I should try to find something of his to read.
…only one end of a theological spectrum…
I suppose I was thinking of Divine Command Theory. But if you move from this position you are sliding once again towards The Euthyphro Dilemma. How can a Christian of any stripe claim that there is any form of goodness that can exist apart from God? That’s not a rhetorical question.
I would say that Ashoka found his Buddhist faith inconsistent with the slave trade. Having the power he had the responsibility. I note not without regret that most Christians in the last 2000 years have found their Christian faith perfectly consistent with the slave trade. And when they had the power they did not take the responsibility. It was left to the post-enlightenment secular nation-state to perform this service. (Not to editorialize but this fact is obscured somewhat by the strong presence of religious folk involved in the Abolitionist movement. I congratulate their willingness to deviate so far in their actions from the commands of their scriptures. But the truth remains. When Christians were at their most powerful politically and culturally they took no action.
Sorry, as one who has himself occasionally been accused of holding views I merely describe I should have known better. Actually if truth be told I’m just a baby hypnotized by a scintillating crib mobile floating above him. My mobile contains ideas and I will confess I am frequently more interested in how engaging they are rather than if they’re true or not. For example, I am fairly obsessed with the idea of reincarnation but don’t actually believe it for a minute. It’s just interesting.
Robert wrote:
Yes, both Karl Barth and Karl Rahner can be described as modalists, either as a criticism or as an appreciation. They both denied it, I believe, but they are certainly closer to modalism than they are to the social trinitarian end of the spectrum. They were not temporal modalists, as that was condemned by the church. That may distance them from One-ness Pentecostalism, but I don’t know much about the finer points of any of these three modes of modalism.
And Barth, too. Interesting.
After seeing your post, I searched to see if there were any books out there that dealt with Modalism. Unfortunately, they all seem to be written by apologists or detractors.
I came across a site, where I read:
So what’s at stake? Nothing less than the very nature of God Himself. Modalism tells us that God is not the God of orthodox Christianity. He operates in another way. It’s a denial of who God is in His very nature. And when you get God Himself wrong, well then you’re very wrong indeed. You’re a heretic.
I feel happy that I no longer possess such certainty of belief and am not in a position to tell anyone they got God wrong.
Friends, with the view that what’s good for the goose is good for the gander I am monitoring the Southern Baptist Convention Annual Meeting taking place this week in Dallas (where else, right?). This thread was intended to provide a forum to discuss current events and I am happy that it has stimulated comment. We’ve paid attention to events within the Roman Catholic Church and the election of a new Pope so it’s time to head to the good ole USA and notice the unfolding story of the largest protestant denomination. On top of everything else they were my own tribe. I still speak the language.
Last year the SBC delegates voted against(!) an even more restrictive ban on women in pastoral positions than the one already in place. The Convention routinely removes churches with female pastors. The convention also voted to oppose the use of in-vitro fertilization. That turned out to be somewhat controversial.
For 2025 proposed resolutions are:
On Appreciation for the City of Dallas
On the Centennial Anniversary of the Cooperative Program
On the Harmful and Predatory Nature of Sports Betting
On Banning Pornography
On Restoring Moral Clarity through God’s Design for Gender, Marriage, and the Family
On Standing Against the Moral Evils and Medical Dangers of Chemical Abortion Pills
On Advocating for International Religious Freedom
On Honoring the Centennial Anniversary of the Baptist Faith and Message and Celebrating the 25th Anniversary of the Baptist Faith and Message (2000)
It’s pretty obvious which ones will draw the most attention from outsiders but it will be interesting to observe the internal debate (if any).
The original Baptist Faith & Message from 1925 was a general statement of principles and not intended to be a binding creedal statement. The polity of the SBC traditionally has been voluntary association between autonomous churches. Now back in the old days this wasn’t much of a problem since most SBC churches were pretty much identical anyway. However with the advent of the modern political church and the domination of the convention by the fundamentalists, it became necessary to double down on some hot button issues that might cause a church here and there to go astray. Hence, the 2000 revision of the BF&M. Do right, or else!
Going way back in the Baptist tradition, I believe there was a stong aversion to any binding creeds, emphasizing freedom of conscience instead.
True. Ironies abound. In early America, Baptists, being a minority, were enthusiastic supporters of the constitutional concept of separation of church and state. Now being so dominant, and led by right leaning politicos, deny such a principle even exists!
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