Wolterstorff or Nietzsche The web of belief: On Doubt Part II

The second thing I have thought about in relation to my friend’s doubts is that our beliefs are not all of the same importance.  This is called the “Web” or “Mosaic” of belief.  This is an idea of Alvin Plantinga and Nicholas Wolterstorff. Some beliefs are central to our worldview, to our Christian belief.  If Jesus did not rise from the dead, there is no Christianity. Christianity is not merely a philosophy or set of moral teachings.  Christianity is the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus.  Similarly, the Bible is the basis of our faith in a profound way.  If the Bible is not true, then our faith is vain.

Again, I admire my friend in that he felt he had reason to reject the Bible as true, and so felt that he must reject Christianity.  If the Bible does not give us correct information, then we believe a fraud.  It would be a reason to reject Christianity.  If a “hard-core” belief (an essential belief) is attacked and fails, then the result should be to reject one’s faith.  However, when a hard-core belief is challenged, we should seek a “rebutting defeater.”  An argument lodged against our faith is a “defeater.” A “defeater” is an argument which seeks to unfound our faith.  We should look for a counter-argument, a “rebutting defeater” to answer that charge against our faith.

I usually give my students the following illustration.  Someone comes to me and says, “Your wife is being unfaithful to you.”  My first reaction would be to laugh.  If that person continued and said, “I saw your wife at the university library having lunch with a guy!” I would respond by asking what he looked like.  If they person responded, “He was blond, had glasses and they were laughing a lot.”  Again, I would laugh relieved.  He would have been one of our tenants, a Master’s student in Old Testament at the university here in Leiden. The extra details would give me my rebutting defeater.  My love for my wife and her love for me might not end my worldview, but it would end my world and I would not entertain doubts about her faithfulness lightly.

In my friend’s case, I could not see why the objections he gave were of such a magnitude that he would have to give up his faith.  I will give a couple examples.

He told me that the Hebrews could not have had a literary language (such as is in the Pentateuch) because the only evidence for western Semites having written language were some legal contracts found from that period.  In other words, until the seventh century there was no evidence (outside the Bible) that the Hebrews would have had a developed enough language to write about such things as law, poetry, creation, etc. The only evidence for western Semites having writing came from walls of caves of mines which the Hebrews worked at the time of Moses, and the contracts were not sufficient to support the sort of literature in the Pentateuch.

I was honestly rather mystified by this argument.  When I was in seminary Dr. Gleason Archer used the proof of the western Semites (Hebrews) having writing at all to show that Moses indeed could have written the Pentateuch.

It seems that the question is one of a “hermeneutics of suspicion” or a “hermeneutics of generosity.”  Not willing to give up 19th century liberal biblical scholars’ rejection of Moses’ ability to write in Hebrew in 1450 or 1200, current scholars take that same evidence Archer took to support Mosaic authorship and use it to attack Mosaic authorship.

If we use a “hermeneutic of generosity”, the Bible tells us that Moses was a “son of Pharaoh’s daughter.”  He would have been educated in the languages of the area and period (Egyptian hieroglyphs and other Ancient Near Eastern languages and literature).  Surely if this was so, then Moses could have written the Pentateuch.  However, if we will only believe the Bible when what is outside the Bible attests to it, we will have little to believe.  If on the other hand, we accept that the Bible is a trustworthy historical document in so far as we can test it, there is no problem with Mosaic authorship (whatever we think about Ezra’s “redaction”).

My friend also said that there were no “-iah” (-yah) names (Hezekiah, for instance) until the seventh century.  I remembered that in the Book of Job which is supposed by some to be one of the oldest books in the Bible that one of the main characters was Eli[ya]hu (the vowel pointing could be disputed).

He felt that there was clear proof of the Pentateuch being written in the seventh century.  Again, I think most evangelical OT scholars would accept that Ezra or the “Chronicler” carried out a redaction about that time. My friend’s objection seems more like a “hermeneutics of suspicion” than a cause for doubt.

He felt that it was clear that Second Kings had been written to trash all other contenders for the throne of Judah, except Josiah and that it was unthinkable that the priests and kings would have “forgotten” the Law and it would suddenly be found by Josiah.  But is that not what the OT text says? Why is it hard to believe that those who repressed the true priests of God and persecuted them, who murdered them, and worshipped the Baals, would not pay attention to the Law?  I recalled at that time how Jehoiakim cut up the scroll of Jeremiah and burned it in the fire. Jer. 36. It doesn’t seem too strange then that the knowledge of the Law would fade under such rulers or that they would be godless.  Kings of Israel and Judah were to read from the Law every day, even to make their own handwritten copy, but many obviously did not. 

It seems highly believable that some priests might hide a scroll of the Law in the Temple would also not be strange.  They would want to protect it. 

There is a somewhat similar story in Leiden in the Netherlands from World War II.  The Nazis had a tendency to take over universities in conquered lands.  They granted themselves doctorates from prestigious universities like Leiden.  When Leiden was about to fall, the beadle’s staff disappeared.  The beadle is the university official who presides over doctoral defenses.  Without the staff no doctorates could be issued.  After the Nazis were defeated someone found the beadle’s staff hidden in the rafters of the Pieterskerk...

I don’t mean that we should “explain away” all doubts.  That would be fideism, but I want to say that we must think carefully, long and hard before we give up a hard-core belief.  I will examine evidence of any sort, but I am unlikely to accept something just because another liberal scholar casts one more doubt.  It’s not about one “smoking gun”, it’s about the general and overall trustworthiness of Scripture.

The first line of defense should be turn to your community, your church, your colleagues and friends.  The second line of defense is hold onto your hard-core beliefs and look for a rebutting defeater, an argument which answers the doubt.  The final line of defense is humility.

I doubt therefore I am: On Doubt Part I

Note about my long silence... I actually wrote this blog about six months ago.  I let time pass so that the sting might not be felt personally.  I mean no disrespect or unkindness.  I hope to help anyone who is struggling with doubt.

“That’s me in the corner!  That’s me in the spotlight! Losin’ my religion!”

I had a conversation with a friend who has decided that he cannot remain a Christian, at least that was what I understood from his comments. He had doubts about teachings of the Bible and about the truth of the Bible itself. Since he could not reconcile these things, he decided he must abandon his faith.

First, I want to congratulate my friend for being honest.  Something counted against his faith.  I had a famous professor of Old Testament, Dr. Gleason Archer.  Archer used to say that “If nothing can stand against your faith, nothing can stand for your faith.”  What he meant was that if you could never be dissuaded from believing you were a fideist.  A fideist is someone who will continue to believe even when the evidence is against him or her.

Though there is a large argument between “evidentialists” and “presuppositionalists”, I have always agreed with Archer and other evidentialists like Norman Geisler and William Lane Craig, among others.  We should be able to give evidence when challenged for our belief and we should try in so far as is reasonable to answer challenges to the truth of our faith.

So, I applaud my friend that he is willing to go where he believes the evidence leads.  However, I have been provoked and saddened by how he carried out that task.

For one thing he seems to have kept his doubts to himself until he was convinced that the Bible was untrue and Christian theology false or mean.  He didn’t speak to anyone until he was convinced that he must abandon his faith.  This may have been due to fear of rejection or fear of consequences, but it seems rather like a form of academic pride. 

Everyone has doubts.  We all struggle from time to time and perhaps we struggle always with some shreds of doubts.  To assume no one can help, if that’s what he did, is to be rather arrogant.  It is to assume you are somehow enlightened, while your compatriots are Neanderthals, theologically speaking.

When confronted by doubts it is often the case that we are afraid of being rejected if we voice those doubts.  That’s quite understandable.  But there is a subtle temptation connected with doubts. It’s the idea that I am one of those enlightened ones who knows the truth of everyone else’s error.

If someone had a compound fracture, with bone sticking out of the ripped flesh and blood spurting out, we would immediately do first aid.  No one would blame the person (at least then) for being hurt.  Somehow, however, when we have doubts we tend to hide.  “I can’t have doubts. I’m a Sunday School teacher. I can’t have such doubts.”  Actually at least speaking for myself, doubt is an unwanted companion that I have struggled with all my life.  Everyone has doubts of one sort or another.

When we doubt, we should remember that we live in a community. We are part of a body, the body of Christ.  When one part of the body hurts, all parts hurt.  If a person hides their doubts and then suddenly announces their decision to renounce faith, they rip the body open.  I am sorry for the harsh images, but I imagine a TV show we watch here called, “The Incredible Dr. Pol.” Dr. Pol is a veterinarian. Sometimes abscesses grow inside the body until the sac bursts and pus flows out.  If it is too late, sepsis sets in and the animal dies.  A cancerous tumor can be similar.  The tumor grows while no one knows and then suddenly it is revealed.

Doubt is insidious.  It is ever present.  We need a strategy to deal with it before the sack of pus bursts.  If we are honest with each other and allow others in, we can get help.  If, however, we become seduced to the pride of being “in the know”, we keep others away and the illness progresses.

There is a scene in one of the volumes of the Chronicles of Narnia by CS Lewis in The Silver Chair.  The children are in the castle of Queen Jadis. They have freed Rilian from the chair.  They had almost gotten away, but she keeps them busy, talking to them.  While she talks, she a green powder into the fire in the hearth. A bewitching smell comes over the children and they start to parrot her words, “There is no Narnia.  This is home.”  Suddenly one of the characters, an unlikely hero, Puddleglum stamps on the fire with his large webbed foot. Puddleglum is a Marsh Wiggle. He is a rather awkward, ungainly, gangly, pessimistic and strange creature who is equally strange looking.  It hurts Puddleglum a lot, but he knew that the only way to end the enchantment was to stamp out the fire.  Being a Marsh Wiggle he didn’t have the same sort of sense of smell and wasn’t bewitched.

I often feel like Puddleglum.  Unlike him, however, I’m color blind.  I don’t see things the same way as others do, literally.  However, I also don’t see things the same way because I have studied apologetics and philosophy for more than 40 years.  After all my studies I have some insights into the sorts of “powder” the devil uses.

In any event in the body of Christ there are many “doctors and EMTs.” We don’t have to and shouldn’t suffer alone when we doubt.  We should seek help before it’s too late. We should turn to our community of faith to find help.

Solomon and wealth

Solomon started well.  When he was being installed as king he prayed for wisdom and knowledge to rule wisely rather than for wealth. Because he prayed wisely and asked humbly for wisdom and knowledge God promised him wealth as well.

However see on what basis Solomon prays “You have show great and steadfast love to David my father and have made me king in his place.” 2 Chr. 1:8. Solomon is appealing to God due to God’s covenant love (steadfast love; hesed), God’s unconditional love which he expressed when he made the covenant with David that his son would sit on his throne.  We know that ultimately this applied to Jesus.

Solomon Prays for Wisdom

2Ch 1:7  In that night God appeared to Solomon, and said to him, “Ask what I shall give you.”

2Ch 1:8  And Solomon said to God, “You have shown great and steadfast love to David my father, and have made me king in his place.

2Ch 1:9  O LORD God, let your word to David my father be now fulfilled, for you have made me king over a people as numerous as the dust of the earth.

2Ch 1:10  Give me now wisdom and knowledge to go out and come in before this people, for who can govern this people of yours, which is so great?”

2Ch 1:11  God answered Solomon, “Because this was in your heart, and you have not asked for possessions, wealth, honor, or the life of those who hate you, and have not even asked for long life, but have asked for wisdom and knowledge for yourself that you may govern my people over whom I have made you king,

2Ch 1:12  wisdom and knowledge are granted to you. I will also give you riches, possessions, and honor, such as none of the kings had who were before you, and none after you shall have the like.”

As king of Israel Solomon was to follow the instructions for kings in the Torah, the Pentateuch.  Deuteronomy 17:14-20 He is told in Deuteronomy 17:16 not to multiply horses. 

Deut 17:16 But he shall not multiply horses to himself, nor cause the people to return to Egypt, to the end that he should multiply horses: forasmuch as the LORD hath said unto you, Ye shall henceforth return no more that way.

In other words he is told not to build up a great army.  This is because God himself is Israel’s protector.  The king is not to trust his army.  To get horses he would have to send servants to Egypt to buy them because horses were not available or bred everywhere.  If the king of Israel wanted to buy horses from Egypt he would have to make an alliance with them.  He would become entangled politically with Egypt having to support Egypt against other enemies.  The king of Israel was not to make alliances with other heathen nations.  All surrounding nations worshipped false gods and often had disgusting practices, such as offering child sacrifices to Molech or fertility rituals which involved sexual immorality.

Earlier in Exodus 23:33,34 God had told Israel:

You shall make no covenant with them or with their gods. "They shall not live in your land, because they will make you sin against Me; for if you serve their gods, it will surely be a snare to you.

Though this and a couple other warnings are specifically relating to Israel conquering the land, they did not do as they were told and did end up in idolatry.  The warning to the king in Deuteronomy is the same sort of warrning.

The king was not to build up a big army and feel secure in it.  (Remember Gideon who overcame with only 300?). God was their defense.

1 Kings 10:26 And Solomon gathered together chariots and horsemen. He had 1,400 chariots and 12,000 horsemen, whom he stationed in the chariot cities and with the king in Jerusalem.

1Ki 10:27  And the king made silver as common in Jerusalem as stone, and he made cedar as plentiful as the sycamore of the Shephelah.

1Ki 10:28  And Solomon's import of horses was from Egypt and Kue, and the king's traders received them from Kue at a price.

1Ki 10:29  A chariot could be imported from Egypt for 600 shekels of silver and a horse for 150, and so through the king's traders they were exported to all the kings of the Hittites and the kings of Syria.

So, Solomon broke this command not to multiply horses (build up a big army and trust it or to enter alliances to build one up).  He also sent his servants to Egypt to get them against what the Law commanded.

It was also common that to enter into an alliance a king would have to marry a daughter of the king with which he was entering into an alliance.  The king of Israel was not to do this, but Solomon did it many times.

Deu 17:17  Neither shall he multiply wives to himself, that his heart turn not away:

1 Kings 11 tells the story of Solomon’s wives.  He had seven hundred wives of royal birth (i.e. he entered into 700 alliances with heathen nations).  He also had 300 concubines.  Vs. 3 This was against God’s law.  He had seen his father’s polygamy and fell to even worse temptation.  God’s intent was always one man and one woman Gen 2:23, 24.

Solomon’s foreign wives led him astray.  He worshipped false gods and even put up altars to false gods and allowed their depraved practices. Vss 4-8. He even, for instance, put up an altar to Molech (“The King”) a god who required child sacrifice.  Molech was a hollow metal idol.  The idol had outstretched hands up raised.  The priests built a fire in the idol and then put a live baby on the hands of the red hot metal “god.”  Probably Solomon was trying to be kind to his foreign wives and didn’t see a problem with them having their religion, but he fell into temptation himself.  He was basically asking for the protection of all these foreign gods.  Yahweh wasn’t enough.  As a result God ripped his kingdom in two and his son only inherited half a kingdom.

Solomon’s wealth was world renown, but it was also wrong and a trap.  God had also said:

Deu 17:17 b  neither shall he greatly multiply to himself silver and gold.

The King was supposed to use his wealth to free those in slavery and provide for the poor.   Solomon spent his wealth on show, palaces and thrones. 

For instance Solomon had to build a new throne for the princess of Egypt whom he had married.  So here he shows not only that he has disobeyed God by getting horses and chariots from Egypt, he has entered into an alliance with Pharoah and married his daughter.  Not only has he married her, but he wastes money on a special palace.

2 Chronicles 8:11 Solomon brought Pharaoh's daughter up from the city of David to the house that he had built for her, for he said, “My wife shall not live in the house of David king of Israel, for the places to which the ark of the LORD has come are holy.”

Solomon had completely lost his grip on his relationship with God.  He had become a mighty, worldly king.  He had put together a huge army.  He had gotten his “tanks” from Egypt.  He had made an alliance with Egypt and many other surrounding nations.  He had married many, many times (700 at least) to seal these covenants / alliances.  He had become a show off, showing off not his knowledge and wisdom, which lasted a while just like Samson’s strength lasted a while.  He ended up worshipping disgusting and pagan gods.  He displeased the Lord so greatly that half his kingdom was lost.

Deuteronomy 17:18  And it shall be, when he sitteth upon the throne of his kingdom, that he shall write him a copy of this law in a book out of that which is before the priests the Levites:

Deu 17:19  And it shall be with him, and he shall read therein all the days of his life: that he may learn to fear the LORD his God, to keep all the words of this law and these statutes, to do them:

Deu 17:20  That his heart be not lifted up above his brethren, and that he turn not aside from the commandment, to the right hand, or to the left: to the end that he may prolong his days in his kingdom, he, and his children, in the midst of Israel.

Solomon and every king of Israel was supposed to write out a copy of the Law himself.  He was to have the Law of God (the Torah) read to him “all the days of his life.”  By listening to God’s Word he was to “learn to fear the Lord.”, not to be afraid of God, though maybe it would have helped.  He was to honor God and keep his Law.  He was to reverence God and yes, fear the righeous One of Israel.

However Solomon became proud.  He was proud of his army. He was proud of his political acumen, making “wise” alliances. He was proud of his wealth.  He was proud of his harem.  He was proud of “his” wisdom.  He forgot the source. He fell into idolatry.

The young king who started so well ended up breaking just about every command God had given him.  He despised God’s covenant and forgot his law.  He was a “great” Ancient Near Eastern king in so far as he had what they all had: wealth, a mighty army, a harem, “wise” alliances, a tolerant religious policy, fame... However, he had totally lost his way.

My professor for Pentateuch and earlier prophets said that the Chronicler had one goal: to show that all the kings of Israel and Judah fell short of what God required.  At the end of 2 Chronicles Cyrus says, “Let him who will go to rebuild the Temple, go up!”  The one who would rebuild the real Temple was the one who was also the Prophet, Priest, King and Sacrifice, Jesus, the only Son of God, the only true Messiah.

If anything Solomon shows us the danger of wealth and power.  Perhaps the better way is the wisdom that says

Proverbs 30:7-9 New International Version (NIV)

7 

“Two things I ask of you, Lord;

    do not refuse me before I die:

8 

Keep falsehood and lies far from me;

    give me neither poverty nor riches,

    but give me only my daily bread.

9 

Otherwise, I may have too much and disown you

    and say, ‘Who is the Lord?’

Or I may become poor and steal,

    and so dishonor the name of my God.

But these are from the sayings of Agur son of Jakeh, not Solomon.