What I believe (and don't)

A recent conversation around the blogosphere has left me pondering whether or not my readers actually know my viewpoints regarding much of Christian theology. After all, the name of the blog is The Christian Agnostic, isn't it, and how many of my readers actually know where I stand on key issues of Christian theology? I'm not sure, to be honest. So, then, what exactly are my Christian leanings? That is, what do I really believe regarding the tenets of Christian theology? In light of such questions I have decided to compile a list that briefly surveys said beliefs, and it is this list that follows:

• The Bible: I don't believe the Bible is perfect, inerrant or infallible. I believe it is a book written by wholly human authors that contains the same imperfections that permeate humanity. However, I agree with the writer of 2 Timothy when he says scripture is, "useful for teaching, reproof, correction, and for instruction righteousness." It is, to me, a medium that does in fact aid us in growing more intimate with God, despite its shortcomings.
• Biblical Criticism: I generally believe what the consensus of scholars and historians have inferred about the documents that make up the Bible, as well as what they have concluded about the Israelite culture. For example, I believe the Israelites came from Canaan  (and not from Egypt), that the book of Isaiah is composed of multiple authors, that the book of Daniel was written years after the events it "predicts" etc. 
• Genesis: I don't take the opening chapters of Genesis as history--the rest of Genesis is most likely an etiology. I don't believe in Adam and Eve or the story that describes their supposed fall. This, to me, is just another creation myth--albeit the most sophisticated of the ancient Near East--most likely promulgated in contrast to the opposing pagan creation myths of the time. However, I do believe that it communicates an important point: we are fallen creatures who have removed God from the pedestal.
• Jesus: I don't believe Jesus was God, and it seems pretty clear to me that some of the earliest sources that attest to Jesus--Paul, Mark, and Matthew--have little idea of such a concept. I agree with the majority of scholars that Jesus was most likely a self-proclaimed eschatological prophet who sincerely believed that the end of the world was coming in his follower's lifetime. That being said, none of this turns me away from Jesus. I do believe his words should be heeded--as long as they're interpreted in light of his radical eschatology--despite his mistakes. And I do, especially, believe that Jesus is the best moral prophet to grace mankind, and that he gave us the best example of what a life devoted to God looks like--again, as long as we interpret his life in terms of his extreme apocalyptic worldview. Jesus is, to me, still the best gateway we have to the mind of God, and takes us as close as we can be to the face of God himself. 
• Trinity/Incarnation: Since I don't believe that Jesus was God in the flesh, then I obviously don't believe in the incarnation, or the trinity. Both of these concepts, as I hinted to earlier, seem to not have been promulgated by the earliest Christians. There are only verses here and there, mostly from the later New Testament writings, that even seem to hint at such things. (In fact I believe that if we were to read the Bible from a fresh perspective, with no previous assumptions from outside sources--e.g. the Nicene Creed--we wouldn't close the Bible thinking that there was anything like a trinitarian ontology promulgated.) 
• Atonement: I don't believe Jesus atoned for anyone's sins, and while the Christus Victor theory of atonement appeals to me, it only does so in a metaphorical sense. And I certainly do not hold to the Penal Substitution theory, which seems to make a mockery of any God worthy of worship. 
• Jesus' resurrection: I believe, or at most hope, that Jesus resurrected from the dead. However, I don't believe that the evidential arguments for his resurrection are without their flaws. And I certainly don't believe that said arguments are overwhelmingly irresistible or undeniable. A reasonable person can very much be skeptical about such things, and, if they don't believe in God, then their skepticism is even more warranted.
• Heaven/Hell: I definitely believe in an afterlife--for both logical and emotional reasons. But I don't think anybody knows what the nature of such a life will be. Heaven and Hell, to me, are in the same camp as the opening of Genesis: they are myths that we have constructed to make sense of what we deeply take to be true. In any event, if God does exist, and if he is infinitely loving, and if heaven and hell do indeed exist as well, then I can't help but be a universalist. Moreover, on these conditions, I believe that hell is only temporary, and, in some sense, simply a mental anguish created from enmity towards all that is good and just (i.e. God himself).

The Apocalyptic Jesus (Part II): The imminent kingdom of God

Let us continue with our series which attempts to highlight the imminent eschatology of Jesus (part I here), an eschatology we would label as apocalyptic. In the previous post I highlighted how important it is to interpret the ministry of Jesus against the backdrop of the worldview of second temple Judaism, and how this worldview shaped and catalyzed the apocalyptic framework. This will be important to keep at the forefront as we, in this post, delve into another focal point of Jesus ministry: the Kingdom of God.

To those familiar with the New Testament it should come as no surprise to hear that Jesus’ ministry was organized around and predicated on the Kingdom of God. Jesus spoke of this Kingdom probably more often than he spoke of anything else. In fact, in the book of Matthew alone the phrase “kingdom of God” (or kingdom of Heaven) is used thirty-seven times, while it is used thirty-two times in Luke’s Gospel! In the Lord’s Prayer Jesus famously asked for “Thy Kingdom come.” Scholar Craig Keener notes that “virtually every stratum of Gospel tradition testifies that Jesus regularly announced the kingdom, there should be no doubt that this was a characteristic emphasis of Jesus teaching.” In the same vein,  secular historian Michael Grant claims the following in his book Jesus:

[E]very thought and saying of Jesus was directed and subordinated to one single thing […] the realization of the Kingdom of God  upon the earth[…] This one phrase sums up his whole ministry and his whole life’s work. (p. 10-11)

So it’s clear then, Jesus’ ministry was about one general focal point: the kingdom of God. But what exactly was meant by this phrase? Was it metaphorical or literal? Christians these days interpret the phrase “kingdom of God” as meaning a Christian lifestyle of love, or some interpret it as world evangelization. But in order to find out what Jesus meant by the phrase we need to understand how it was used in second temple Judaism.

In The Historical Jesus of the Gospels Craig Keener claims that in Jesus’ time the phrase “kingdom” signified the concept of “rule”, “reign”, or “authority” (p. 196).  Again, Michael Grant, in agreement with Keener, claims that “the Hebrew term [kingdom] refers not so much to a realm as to the dynamic kingly rule and sovereign action of God.” (p. 15) So, the kingdom of God seems to represent God’s sovereign rule and reign. To quote Keener again, “When Jewish people prayed for God’s kingdom to ‘come,’ they weren’t simply invoking God’s mystical presence among them for the present time; they were praying for God’s future reign to come.” (p. 198)

Moreover, we can survey Jewish texts in the second temple Judaic period and see how they used the phrase “kingdom of God.” The Kaddish prayer states the following: “May he establish his kingdom in your lifetime and in your days, and in the lifetime of the whole house of Israel, speedily and at a near time.” In the Testament of Moses 10:1 it says that “[God’s] kingdom shall appear throughout his creation, and Satan shall be no more[.]” And from the Dead Sea Scrolls 4Q246 it states the following: “His kingdom will be an everlasting kingdom and all his ways in truth. He will judge the earth in truth and all will make peace. The sword will cease from the earth and all provinces will worship him[.]” These uses of kingdom surely seem to imply the reign, rule and authority of God.

Thus, the phrase “kingdom of God” seems most plausibly to be conceived as the restoration of God’s rule and authority as seen through the Davidic Kingdom, brought about by divine intervention ( see part I).  Again, this is what was expected by most Jews and it makes perfect sense to interpret Jesus’ use of the phrase “kingdom” in this vein—any other interpretation only strains credulity and is anachronistic.  For, as the Jews believed, God’s authority obviously was not being exercised in second temple Judaism since the Jews were still being oppressed. But, His rule was soon to come, and his Kingdom would be established once and for all. At least this is what Jesus and many Jews believed.

This brings us to Jesus actual statements about the kingdom, and exactly how close he believed God’s rule was to being realized:

The kingdom of God has come near you. Luke 10:9

Truly I tell you, there are some standing here who will not taste death until they see that the kingdom of God has come in power. Mark 9:1

The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent and believe in the good news.  Mark 1:15

You must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an unexpected hour. Luke 12:40

Truly I tell you, this generation will not pass away until all these things have taken place. Mark 13:30

And will God not grant justice to his chosen ones who cry to him day and night? Will he delay long in helping them? I tell you, he will quickly grant justice to them. Luke 18:7-8

Obviously this is the tip of the iceberg. Anyone who’s ever cracked open the New Testament will see phrases of this kind peppered throughout. The point is that Jesus believed God’s intervention, which aimed at establishing his kingdom once and for all was right around the corner. So close in fact that his disciples wouldn’t even die before it happened. So close that Jesus’ own ministry was the first fruits of the ushering of this kingdom. This is apocalypticism, plain and simple.

But this line of thought can be taken even further, and can illuminate further elements of Jesus’ ministry. Think of some of Jesus’ extreme commands in the vein of asceticism: Taking no thought or concern for subsequent days.   To make oneself a eunuch for the kingdom’s sake. A lack of concern for material things, including personal possessions and even shelter. Jesus’ willingness to die etc. (This asceticism is also illuminated in Paul when he told the churches not to marry.) It should be obvious from reading the Gospels that Jesus kept a general distance from the way normal society took its course. He simply didn’t care about what most Jews and Romans cared about. And why should he have, since he believed the world was about to end due to God’s intervention. Why care about possessions if they won’t be important any longer? Why care about what’s going to happen tomorrow, since tomorrow might not come at all? Why care about your family or marrying a woman if such things won’t matter when God intervenes? This point is driven home in Karl Frank’s book With Greater Liberty when he states that “the conviction that the end of the world was near always fostered asceticism.” (p. 30) It should be obvious that this ascetic outlook fits like a glove with an apocalyptic worldview, and therefore gives us more reason to regard Jesus as an apocalyptic prophet.

Thus, we see that Jesus’ ministry rested on the fulcrum of the kingdom of God. Yet we’ve seen that in second temple Judaism the kingdom of God represented God’s eventual intervention which would establish once and for all his sovereign authority. And we’ve seen that Jesus made statements that explicitly state that this intervention was right around the corner and would happen within the lifetime of his disciples. Lastly, we saw that Jesus’ indifference to the common matters of the world makes perfect sense under the condition that Jesus believed the world would be ending soon. Everywhere we turn, the apocalyptic framework makes perfect sense when predicated of Jesus’ ministry. 

The Apocalyptic Jesus (Part I): Apocalypticism and John the Baptist

I realize that this current series of articles is going to turn off some of my Christian readers—hopefully only momentarily. I understand that. The idea that I’m entertaining and arguing for is completely contrary to any form of orthodox Christianity, and it will be seen as heretical and blasphemous. I understand that as well. But before you dismiss what I’m about to argue, please understand that I once felt the same way. The idea that Jesus (wrongly) expected the world to end in his own lifetime is something that I would have scoffed at only about four years ago. But after reading the scholarly arguments put forward for the apocalyptic Jesus thesis, and after a hard road of trying to convince myself otherwise, this viewpoint just seemed to be the most logical explanation of Jesus’ ministry that I had ever come across. I didn’t want this view to be true, I really didn’t. But at the end of the day I had to follow the evidence where it led; and it is this evidence that I will attempt to put forward over the next few articles. I admonish you, the reader, not to let your preconceptions rule your judgment of the evidence—though I know that this is almost impossible. Please try to be as objective as possible and read with an open mind.

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Apocalypticism

It should go without saying that a historical figure’s life, words, and deeds should be studied and judged within the larger context of their immediate culture. Jesus is no different. Jesus lived in the time of second temple Judaism (515 BC-70AD) and during the latter part of this time period a certain worldview was rampant and ubiquitous among the Jews—namely, that of apocalypticism.

Apocalypticism is an eschatology (i.e. set of beliefs about the end of the world) wherein the end of history is brought about by divine intervention and is thought to be happening very soon. It is this belief that became the primary worldview of second temple Jews for a few reasons. You see, starting in the eighth century B.C., the promised land of the Israelites was constantly under attack from foreign powers. The most important of these attacks took place in 586 B.C. and subsequently led to the exile of the Israelites from the southern kingdom and their subsequent oppression by the Babylonians. This exile was interpreted by the prophets as punishment from God for Israel’s lack of faithfulness and sin. So the prophets promised that if Israel got their act together and sincerely repented of their unfaithfulness, then God would restore them their land and would reestablish them among the nations. But unfortunately the land was never restored back to their control and their land was continually dominated by more and more increasingly powerful nations, despite the fact that Israel had indeed repented of their unfaithfulness—this happened for a couple centuries. So if Israel, God’s chosen people, had done what God wanted, then why wasn’t he fighting for them any longer? Why was he now the one no longer being faithful?

This is exactly what Israel was asking itself, and out of these questions apocalypticism was generated. For it was then thought that Israel was no longer being punished by God for being unfaithful, rather Israel was being punished by God’s enemies (both spiritual and physical) for being faithful! Thus, the Israelites were suffering for their faith, instead of suffering for lacking it, as had previously taken place. Moreover, Jews were beginning to stand up to their oppressors, and consequently were being martyred left and right for their faith; thus cognitive dissonance caused the Jews to cook up an afterlife and a day of final judgment, in which the faithful would be vindicated, and the enemies of God who were oppressing his chosen people would finally get what they had coming to them—since God obviously wasn’t doing this currently. This day of God’s intervention, restoration, and subsequent judgment was seen to be more and more imminent, because it was thought that God surely would not let his children suffer needlessly. Hence, it was seen by a majority of Jews in second temple Judaism that God’s cosmic intervention was right around the corner, and any day now the messiah would come and drop the curtain on this inversion of world powers.

We see these pronouncements of apocalypticism in the Assumption of Moses, 1 Enoch, the Book of Daniel, Isaiah 24-27, Zechariah 9-14, 4^th Ezra, the Apocalypse of Abraham, 2^nd Baruch, the Dead Sea Scrolls, and in the Essene movement. The point is that second temple Judaism was soaked in an apocalyptic worldview, and it is in this context that the ministry of Jesus must be interpreted—to claim the opposite is anachronistic. To quote critical NT scholar Dale Allison from the book The Apocalyptic Jesus: [T]o propose that Jesus thought the end to be near is just to say that he believed what many others in his time and place believed. (p. 23)

The question then is, Did Jesus really believe the end was near?

Those that came before and after

One way to best understand Jesus’ ministry is to survey the ministry which was the genesis for his own, as well as surveying the ministry that was generated from his. Let us begin with the former.

It is no secret that Jesus was baptized by John the Baptist. For Jesus to submit himself to be baptized by John, he obviously had some theological and doctrinal continuity with him and his ministry.  As Scholar Craig Keener notes in The Historical Jesus of the Gospels, the “baptism indicates, at the least, that Jesus knew and accepted John’s message[…] Jesus’ message stood in continuity with John’s[.]” (p. 176) Not only this, but Jesus explicitly praised and endorsed the Baptist himself. He stated that John was “more than a prophet” (Matthew 11:9) and that “among those born of women there has not risen one greater than he.” (Matthew 11:11) Therefore, it seems clear that Jesus thought very highly of John, and, since John preceded him, Jesus believed his ministry to be a continuation of John’s.

But what exactly did John the Baptist preach? Well John was quite clear that Israel needed to turn to God and repent, but why? Well, John asked “Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come?” and stated that “the ax is laid to the root of the trees.” (Luke 3: 7 and 9) That is to say, John expected God to intervene soon—the ax is laid to the root of the trees—and therefore repentance was necessary if one wanted to be on God’s side when he intervened. Again, Keener states that “John was a wilderness prophet proclaiming impending judgment.” (p. 167)

Moreover, the fact that John was a prophet living in the wilderness should not be overlooked. You see, many Jews expected Israel’s restoration to occur in the wilderness—partly because of verses like Hosea 2:14-23—and the prophets seem to have insinuated that a new exodus would take place there. The Qumran community was an apocalyptic movement and they lived exclusively in the wilderness for the same reasons—though it is not thought that John was part of the Qumrans. Thus, a ministry in the wilderness, as John had, seems to have clear apocalyptic implications.

So, it seems that Jesus had continuity with John’s ministry, and his ministry seems to have had an apocalyptic element to it. And thus it makes even more sense to view Jesus as an apocalypticist due to his theological predecessor John the Baptist. But what about Jesus’ immediate followers and successors? Did they show any signs of imminent eschatological expectations? You bet they did. Let us survey just a few verses to demonstrate this:

Besides this, you know what time it is, how it is now the moment for you to wake from sleep. For salvation is nearer to us now than when we became believers. (Romans 13:11)

In a very little while, the one who is coming will come and will not delay. (Hebrews 10:37)

You must also be patient. Strengthen your hearts, for the coming of the Lord is near. (James 5:8)

The one who testifies to these things says, ‘Surely I am coming soon.’ (Revelation 22:20)

It should be quite apparent from these verses that the earliest followers of the Jesus movement expected their salvation and vindication—which included the return of Jesus—to manifest very soon. At any moment Jesus would be riding on the clouds to usher in that very thing.

So where did this belief come from? Because this belief was not some peripheral doctrine of Jesus’ immediate followers.  It seems to be a ubiquitous eschatology that permeates the deepest desires of the Jesus movement.  If Jesus did not believe that the end was near, then why did his posthumous ministry hold to such a belief? How do we explain the ubiquity of apocalypticism in Jesus’ followers? Is it really just plausible to say that Jesus’ followers just all happened to form this mistaken belief independently of one another? Or is it not more plausible that the ubiquity of their belief had its genesis in the teachings and beliefs of him whom they called their Lord?

Now when you pair this with the eschatology of John the Baptist then our thesis becomes even more compelling. For if the Jesus movement branched out from an apocalyticist movement, and if the successors of the Jesus movement maintained apocalypticist beliefs, then it really only makes sense that Jesus himself was also an apocalyticist. The denial of this claim is simply implausible. For then one would have to address why Jesus endorsed John’s ministry, yet had a completely different eschatology—even though his eschatology seems to be apocalyptic, a point we’ll argue for in the next few articles—and why Jesus’ followers jettisoned (their master) Jesus’ eschatology in favor of an apocalyptic one. This latter thesis is too ad hoc and it violates the principle of parsimony. It seems that simplicity prevails here, and it seems most plausible that Jesus, like those immediately before and after him, was an apocalypticist. To quote Dale Allison: “[T]o reconstruct a Jesus who did not have  strong eschatological or apocalyptic orientation entails discontinuity […] with the movement out of which he came as well as with the movement that came out of him. Isn’t presumption against this?” (p. 21)

God has not revealed

I don’t believe that God has explicitly revealed anything to us as a human race, and it’s here that I part ways with the traditions of mainstream Christianity. I don’t believe scripture is God’s revelation to man—i.e. I don’t believe scripture can be preceded by a “Thus saith the Lord.” Obviously, I think the same regarding all other self-proclaimed holy books—even without needing to read them (see below). (Note that I do not take this to imply that scripture is not inspired, since I don’t believe inspiration necessarily entails any objective revelation.)

So why do I hold this belief, despite my self-identification as a Christian? Well for one thing, if the Bible is God’s be-all end-all of revelatory knowledge, he seems to have done a poor job of unambiguously alerting us to this fact. Are all the individuals who were raised Muslim, or Mormon, or Hindu just supposed to have a Damascus Road experience, and subsequently bow down to the book that completely contradicts their own worldviews that they have been indoctrinated with? Were all the millions of individuals who have perished, and continue to perish, without accepting the “good news” of Christianity simply being rebellious sinners who resisted God’s clear revelation? Forgive me, but I find this to be ridiculous. I personally have met adherents of other faiths (as we all have) who were devout and faithful followers of their God, and I find that it strains all credulity to believe that they knew that it was actually the Holy Bible that was God’s perfect revelation, as opposed to their own holy book, and were simply resisting this intuitive knowledge.

Moreover, are we just supposed to take the Biblical claims of revelation at face value? Well, if we can do this, then we have warrant for doing this for any self-proclaimed holy book or piece of writing, and thus we end up in confusion and contradiction. Heck, I once encountered a homeless man who claimed that he was a modern day prophet for God. If claims of revelation can be taken at face value, then who are we to say this man is a false prophet?

This leads us to another point, namely that the act of God supposedly choosing prophets to privately record his revelation seems extremely problematic. Understand that inspiration by God of prophets in order to expound revelation is a private and subjective experience, on the part of the prophet. So how can we, who are not in any way involved in this experience, ever objectively verify that God is behind the scenes pulling the strings, as it were? As outsiders we are in no epistemic position to affirm, or deny, that an individual is indeed a spokesman for the big man upstairs. The role of prophet, then, as a medium for revelation is not satisfactory—at least not if God wants this revelation to be clearly given to all mankind.

This isn’t even the worst part, however, regarding God’s supposed method of revelation. For it’s not as if the so-called vehicles of divine revelation are contemporary individuals with whom we can converse and question. No, the mediums of so-called divine revelation are primitive, anonymous authors writing hundreds (and some thousands) of years ago. How can a reasonable person ever be convinced that writings of this nature are indeed God’s clear message to the human race? Not to mention that these writings are liable to a myriad of different and often conflicting interpretations. Couple this with the fact that there are innumerable denominations based on these differing interpretations, and one is inevitably drowning in the sea of uncertainty and obscurity. These are the fruits of God’s “clear” revelation.

Please understand that my point of contention here is not necessarily that God has not revealed anything to us. Rather, it is that even if he has indeed done so, he has done so in the most ambiguous, obscure and confusing fashion possible. It is not clear that God’s revelation is to be found in the Christian scriptures (which cannon?); it is not even clear that Christianity is true; it is not clear that Jesus is God; it is not clear that God has explicitly intervened in the world in the past; it is not clear that God has a plan for us; it is not clear that there is hope for a future realm wherein we will be in communion with him; it is not clear that God even desires communication with us; it is not even clear that God exists.  Note again that I’m not claiming that any of these propositions are false, but only that their truth is not clear, irresistible, and unambiguous.

These are the reasons I don’t believe that God has revealed anything to us. This is hard for fundamentalist Christians to swallow, and obviously they wouldn’t agree with me. But my faith is more than believing that the Bible is a manual that has been dropped from heaven, pre-packaged with the do’s and don’ts of God. The Bible is nothing but our own struggle to understand what in world is going on in this universe, and where God fits into this discussion, if anywhere. I’m alright with the ambiguity and obscurity of existence, and we all should be—there’s nothing we can do about it. But most of all we should stop pretending that this ambiguity doesn’t exist and that God has explicitly lifted the veil from our eyes. For as Paul said, indeed we see through a glass darkly.

Dale Allison on the Bible

"The inexplicable divine mystery still speaks through the old pages and through my hermeneutical confusion; and in the end I must pursue the book because it has always pursued me. It has made me feel like a worm and no man, and it has made me sing the song of Simeon. It has made known my transgressions so that they are ever before me, and it has freed me from my past so that I am free indeed. It has so shaped my intellect that, even when I do not end with it, I always begin with it. And what little good deed doing I have done has come from memory of the Good Samaritan and of the Son of Man's words to the sheep and the goats.

I have come to live and move and have my being in the Bible [...] and in the Christian traditions it has brought forth. I want this book read to me on my deathbed. Despite my modernity and my cynical nature, despite my dissection of it and my quarrels with it, the Bible remains profitable for teaching, for correction, and for training in righteousness. It comforts. It inspires. It commands. When I push its pages apart, I lay my finger on God's heart. I hate to see people not reading it."

Taken from The Luminous Dusk .

God is not good

One issue that is constantly at the back of my mind is the so-called problem of evil. This problem is formulated in many (usually philosophical) ways—e.g. as Epicurus’ or Hume’s famous dilemma between forfeiting God’s goodness or his sovereignty in the light of evil. Yet, I think that when most people feel the weight of this dilemma, they feel it emotionally and not intellectually—at least that’s the case with me. When confronted with the callous reality of suffering in the world, the question immediately arises regarding how a good and loving God could be behind the scenes, pulling the strings as it were. I mean, if the God of Christianity exists, then why do children die by the thousands every day—by starvation and disease to name a couple--or why do natural disasters constantly kill significant percentages of the inhabitants of the world in a cyclical fashion? Why is there so much filth, injustice, suffering, disease, abuse, neglect, terror, sorrow, and death in a world supposedly created and sustained by a good and loving God?

One common apologetic response is the “We cannot see the whole picture” adage. I think we’ve all heard this, and maybe thought it: God’s ways are not our ways, therefore while we look at this or that act of suffering, we are not in a position to step back from it as a whole and see how it all woves into the fabric of all of existence. The point articulated here is basically that our view of things is incomplete and because of that we lack a God’s eye view with which to see how the evils in the world relate to one another. Therefore, these acts which we mistakenly characterize as evil could actually be good when the entire picture is unraveled, and thus we lack justification for pinning these evils on the character of God.

 Surprisingly, to some of my readers, I am not sympathetic to this view. Don’t get me wrong, I agree that our vantage point as humans is finite and that we should be careful when attempting to extend this viewpoint beyond its reach to make judgements that we have no right to make. Nevertheless, the aforementioned apologetic script runs into many problems of its own. For instance, if the seeming evils of this world are really instruments for good, then it seems hard to absolve God of the label of evil. For it seems quite obvious that the rape of a woman or the death of a child is evil, and no matter what good comes of it the individual who arranged these events is morally culpable for using these acts of evil as instruments to achieve some good. More than this, the argument could also be made that if God’s purpose is to achieve certain goods, then, since he is omnipotent, he could achieve those goods without the utilization of evil—at least without the evil that is not tied to free will.

However, I still think that even these objections given are wrong-headed, and this is where I make my transition into the real subject of this post. My argument is that all this talk of God as morally culpable or morally virtuous, as well-behaved or misbehaved, is simply the wrong way to conceive of and speak of God’s relation to the world and man. You see, when one begins talking about whether an individual is morally justified or morally culpable regarding specific acts, they are assuming that that individual is a moral agent. That is, they are assuming that the individual is an agent among others and is somehow part of a moral community. When determining one’s moral standing we are asking questions regarding the moral obligations and duties of that individual and how they relate to a moral community, and subsequently we desire to determine whether or not that individual has satisfied those obligations. But the question that needs to be posed with respect to God is whether or not he is a moral agent in this way. And the answer seems to be a resounding “No.”

Remember that God, as classical theism has conceived of him, is not a being among beings, or an agent among agents. He is not, as many contemporary theologians have promulgated, simply a person with all good attributes maximized. That is to say, he is not a being with the attributes of omnipotence, omniscience, and benevolence etc. No, he is being, he is existence, he is goodness etc., and his being is his goodness which is his power which is his knowledge. So the significance of this to our discussion is that God is not a creature among creatures, or a being among beings, or a person among persons, or an agent among agents, or an existent among existents, therefore it seems that God is not one among many, and thus is not part of any moral community. This seems to entail that God is not a moral agent. That is to say, there are no moral obligations or duties that God needs to fulfill, and therefore he cannot be seen as morally virtuous nor unrighteous. Again, these terms simply don’t apply unequivocally or literally to God. God cannot be morally good or evil, the way we use these terms, any more than God can be corporeal.

Now even many Christians, or theists, will feel uncomfortable with this. For isn’t a central claim of orthodox theology (whatever that is) that God is morally good and just? Sure, but classical theists have always understood these terms to apply to God analogously, and not literally—just like any predications of God. So, we can indeed say that God is good, as long we know that we don’t mean that God is literally morally good.

Now the skeptic is most likely yelling at the computer screen right about now, articulating the following response: If this whole post was simply to show that moral terms cannot be applied literally but only analogously, then nothing has been solved. For we can still say that God is analogously evil, instead of literally evil, and the problem of evil still rears its ugly head. However, this is simply not the case, because for a scholastic perfection is the tell-tale standard of goodness, and perfection is achieved when a substance perfectly achieves the ends set down by its nature—that is, when an end is actualized—and evil is seen as a privation—that is, the absence of an end that should have been actualized. Therefore since God is pure actuality and pure being, it follows that he is a perfect being, and thus is good. Furthermore, since God is purely actual then he contains no privations, and thus no evil—again, with the understanding that these terms are being used analogously when applied to God.

So, in the grand scenario of things this means that the problem of evil is a category mistake when promulgated to question the existence of God. The whole talk of good and evil, well behaved and misbehaved, morally culpable or morally virtuous, simply doesn’t apply to God. God is not evil, and he is not good, as long as these are predicated literally.