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I have been dialoging a bit with Skarlet on the subject of whether the claim that God permitting of evil to occur exculpates Him, whereas God’s foreordaining or determining of evil does not. Since I am criticizing the Arminian view, as expressed by most people I’ve talked with and by Skarlet in particular, I must point out that throughout this particular post I will be assuming the moral position of Arminianism is true, especially concerning the definition of love. This will save me from having to notate each statement. Thus, if I say, “God loves such-and-so person” I don’t have to add “under Arminianism.” Furthermore, this is an internal critique of Arminianism. I would not frame the subject in this manner if I were presenting Calvinism. All this should be obvious even before, but now I’ve made it explicit too.

Anyway, I believe the tension of the issue can most fully be expressed by the question: “Is it loving to permit an injustice to occur when you have the ability to stop it?” For the moment, I’m restricting this question to humans only, so I’m not concerned yet with whether it is loving for God to do so.

When Skarlet critiqued the Calvinist position, she offered up the illustration of an eight-year-old being attacked. I will therefore continue with that illustration, re-presenting some of what I already asked Skarlet before, but also adding some commentary and teasing out some of the logical implications as we go along. Let’s see if we can understand the entirety of the question first.

Suppose that there is an eight-year-old girl being attacked. Are you obligated to rescue her?

Obviously, there is not enough information immediately available to answer this question. The location of the parties involved, for one thing, is highly relevant. If the attack is occurring in Boston and you live in Bermuda, it is difficult to argue with a straight face that someone is obligated to go that far out of his way to stop such an attack.

More important to our discussion, the relative strength of the parties involved is also relevant. If you are in position where you could logically render aid, yet the eight-year-old girl is being attacked by several strong, athletic body-builders, or by someone wielding a weapon, while you in contrast are a mere 110 lbs and confined to a wheelchair, again it would be ludicrous to believe you are obligated to rescue the girl.

What about the other extreme then? Suppose it’s the 110 lb weakling who is attacking the eight-year-old girl, whereas you are an athlete in the prime of your life and you happened to have brought your AK47 to show off to your defensive linemen friends when the attack occurs five feet in front of you. At this point, is there an obligation to rescue the girl? It doesn’t seem that it is at all possible for the attacker to harm you, and instead it seems almost trivial that you would be able to subdue him instead, saving the girl from a horrible event. It appears that at most all that could happen to you is that you are inconvenienced for a moment.

If you stand five feet away and permit this attack to happen, are you not rightly condemned for your inaction? Does Scripture not say that we are to love our neighbor as ourselves? And if that is the case, is it loving for you to allow the eight-year-old girl to be attacked when you could have so easily stopped it? Perhaps the attacker might believe it is loving! But certainly not the victim.

So it appears that the moral imperative to act is dependent upon some sliding factors, and most of those factors seem to concentrate on the risk involved. It seems to boil down to the fact that we do not require someone to self-sacrifice in order to save another person, but we also do not let them off the hook when it is no self-sacrifice and they refuse to act. That is, if the risk of injury to life or limb is high enough, there is no moral impetus to act to save someone in need; but if there is little or no risk then one must act.

But we can clearly extrapolate this back to God. God is omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent. His omnipresence means that when the eight-year-old girl is being attacked by the attacker, He is in a location where He could intervene. His omniscience means that He knows even before it happens that the attack is going to happen, and furthermore He knows what He could do to prevent it or to neutralize it once it begins. And finally, his omnipotence means He has the power to ensure that the girl is saved with absolutely no risk to Himself. If all these things are true, then how does God not have a moral requirement to save the girl?

Even that example doesn’t truly show the scope to which God is involved though. For one thing, neither the girl nor the attacker would exist had God not created them. For that matter, the ability for the attacker to get to the girl would not have existed without God having created the world either. Furthermore, as Christians we believe that God’s power is what continues to keep everything that exists existing. Which means that nothing exists unless God is actively using His own power, willing it to exist. So as the attacker is attacking the eight-year-old girl, God is at that very moment continuing to sustain the existence of the attacker.

Furthermore, we know that the wages of sin is death, so life is not owed to anyone. As a result, God would not be unjust in killing the attacker, even before the attacker attacked the eight-year-old girl. So even if God did not want to use His power to remove the attacker in a different manner (such as physically forcing him away), He could still simply strike the attacker dead at any moment and the attack would cease. God would have violated no sense of justice in doing so. The attacker is not owed life, nor even existence.

More importantly: how can anyone argue that God in the Arminian sense loves the eight-year-old girl here? It seems to me that at best all you’ve got is a completely dispassionate God who couldn’t care less about her, if not a God who actively hates her. It seems to me that all an Arminian can do is say, “God says He loves her.” But at this point, shouldn’t actions speak louder than words?

So let me make this blunt for Skarlet. Skarlet, suppose that you are the eight-year-old girl. Suppose that you are in the process of being attacked, and I am standing just a few feet away. I fully know what is happening to you. I could stop it from happening without any risk at all to myself, yet I sit by and let the attack go on. Then, after all of that, suppose I had the gall to go up to you and say, “I love you.” What would you do?

Or let’s make it even more analogous. Suppose that the attacker is a creature that I designed in a lab. I used quantum mechanics to ensure the creature makes non-determined choices. In the process of designing the creature, it became apparent that I need to constantly feed it electrical current from a generator that I have to carry with me. Now suppose that that creature is roaming the country with me in tow (continuing to feed it electrical current from my generator) and it attacks you. At this point, all I need to do to stop the attack is simply turn off the generator I’m carrying. Yet I do not do so, nor do I try in any other way to stop the attack. You cannot argue that I caused the attack to happen, since it occurred as the result of a chain of non-determined quantum states; and yet would I not rightly be arrested and jailed for all of this? And would you not spit in my face if I told you that I did all this out of love for you and everyone else in the world?

Clearly “permission” does not exculpate humans when they are in as analogous a position to God as we can think of. What actually is different about God that enables “permission” to exculpate Him? Furthermore, what is it about that actual detail—whatever it is—that would exculpate God via permission and yet would not simultaneously exculpate God for determining what happened instead of permitting it?

Now Skarlet has offered one possible defense here, which is to quote C.S. Lewis from The Problem of Pain. Lewis’s argument is predicated on the assumption that the possibility of pain arises naturally as a risk whenever free will occurs. He concludes:

So it is with the life of souls in a world: ?xed laws, consequences unfolding by causal necessity, the whole natural order, are at once limits within which their common life is con?ned and also the sole condition under which any such life is possible. Try to exclude the possibility of suffering which the order of nature and the existence of free wills involve, and you ?nd that you have excluded life itself.

Yet Lewis seemingly forgets that in Heaven there will be no pain or suffering at all. How is this possible if “the possibility of suffering” is a direct result of “the order of nature and the existence of free wills”? The only answer can be that in Heaven we will have no free will. And yet if we will have no free will in Heaven, why do Arminians contend we must have free will on Earth? But an even greater problem, if not having those means you’ve “excluded life itself” then Lewis must mean that there will be no life after death in the first place! Surely not an orthodox view to hold.

Additionally, even most Libertarians grant that freedom does not require us to have the ability to make every possible choice. After all, God cannot make an evil choice yet is considered free. So that means that pain is not a necessary risk in granting creatures free will, for the free will need only be between options that are good or better, and not even allow evil to be an option. Indeed, that is how some Libertarians argue to say we keep free will in Heaven. Yet if it works in Heaven, why can’t God implement it on Earth? If it is moral in Heaven, where we will spend our eternity, how could it not be moral on Earth?

UPDATE. I had already edited this some time ago on Triablogue, but forgot to update it here too. Since there was some offense taken at the original illustration, I have edited it slightly from the original form.

Arminians often attempt to insulate God from moral complaints against His sovereignty by falling back to the “permissive” argument. For example, in dealing with the problem of evil, they assert that God does not deterministically cause any evil to occur, but instead He merely allows it to happen, and because he permits it instead of ordaining it, He is somehow no longer culpable. On Triablogue, we’ve often discussed this issue and why it isn’t defensible on philosophical grounds for an Arminian to claim that permission could exempt God from culpability. In the process, we’ve also made many exegetical arguments for our position as well. I do not wish to rehash old ground anew, but instead to add yet one more Scriptural proof that permission alone is insufficient to exempt someone from culpability. And that Scriptural proof is found in the Law of Moses.

Exodus 21:28 states:

When an ox gores a man or a woman to death, the ox shall be stoned, and its flesh shall not be eaten, but the owner of the ox shall not be liable.

Now an ox is an animal, and as such it as a rudimentary will. It is not an inanimate object, in other words, and it will often do things that the owner does not wish for it to do. Anyone who has ever owned livestock—or even pets, for that matter—knows of the frustration of wanting an animal to do something and the animal not doing it.

What is clear from this verse is that the owner of the ox is not held responsible for the actions of the ox. Presumably, this would be due to the fact that the ox’s will is not the owner’s will, and that is why the owner is not liable. The owner did not wish for the ox to kill anyone, the owner did not plan for this, therefore the owner is not culpable.

Thus far, it looks like this would be evidence for the position that if God permits something evil to occur He is not culpable for that. However, the very next verse reads:

But if the ox has been accustomed to gore in the past, and its owner has been warned but has not kept it in, and it kills a man or a woman, the ox shall be stoned, and its owner also shall be put to death.

And here we see that the escape to “permission” cannot remove culpability from God. For we see that it is still the case that the owner of the ox does not will that the ox gore anyone, and we still see that the owner does not plan this event to happen, yet nevertheless the owner is held responsible with the same penalty imposed as if he had murdered the man himself. Why is the owner culpable? Because he did not take measures needed to reign in an ox “accustomed to gore.” He is negligent for not stopping that which he knew was dangerous, and therefore he receives the same penalty as if he had personally acted instead of the ox.

It seems to me that this verse neutralizes not only all Arminian arguments designed to exculpate God, but it even neutralizes Open Theist arguments. For the Arminian is now in the unenviable position of acknowledging that God has exhaustive foreknowledge and knows not only which ox will gore which person, but also which person will murder another. And if the owner of an ox is culpable when he knows full well that he has a dangerous ox, then God surely must likewise be culpable if He knows full well that a created being He put on Earth is a danger to others. Likewise, the Open Theist is not let off the hook because even if God did not know at first the human beings were going to commit evil, once they did and He did not take measures to restrain that evil, then this verse would show God is just as guilty as if He Himself did the evil. So clearly, the argument that “permission” exculpates is invalidated by the Law itself.

Now for the record, and because I know that some will misread what I write here, I am not saying that it really is the case that God is culpable for evil and that Arminians will just need to learn to deal with it like we icky determinists do. Rather, I am only saying that one cannot escape to “permission” to get God “off the hook” given the typical starting point of morality that most Arminians (and not only Arminians, mind you) have. Since I am a Divine Command Theorist, then my own position doesn’t start where there’s does. Indeed, I don’t have to use “permission” to get God “off the hook” because God is never on the hook to begin with under DCT.

In my opinion (which therefore makes it infallible truth, seeing as how Jesus said “Thou art Peter and upon this rock” etc.), the most consistently funny television show of all time was Whose Line Is It Anyway? By which I mean the American version, because the British version wasn’t as funny, although it still had its moments of greatness too. Whose Line was all about improv. There was no script, just a bunch of comedians who acted out sketches on the barest of suggestions.

One of the better sketches was called “Newsflash” and consisted of two members pretending to be newscasters while a third (usually Colin Mochrie) was put in front of a green screen. He didn’t know what was being displayed on the green screen behind him, but had to pretend that he did. By the end of the sketch, based on clues given him, he had to guess what it had actually been showing.

Here’s one of my favorite examples:

Now that you’re back from following the linked videos and getting your fill of Whose Line clips, I’ll appear to randomly change the subject…

When most of us try to visualize time, we tend to think of it from the perspective in which we perceive it. That’s to be expected, of course, but if we think about it in detail, we find flaws with our typical concepts. For example, we tend to believe that what we are experiencing as “now” is now for everyone, everywhere. That it’s some kind of “universal now.”

But this treats time as an objective reality. However, modern physics (and many philosophies) reject the objective nature of time. Time is relative to the observer in physics—there is no constant “speed” of time, and there is no objective “now” for any two observers. Indeed, one observer may view two events as simultaneous while another observer views those same two events as one preceding the other. Both views are equally valid, if you take their relative motion into account.

In the end, time is intricately linked to space. Einstein’s method of treating time as a fourth dimension worked well in math, and typically physics still keeps time as an extra dimension. Even in M-theory, where there are eleven physical dimensions, time is seen as an extra dimension too (so it’s common for someone holding to M-theory to say “There are eleven dimensions plus time”). String theory typically states there are ten dimensions plus time, and so on. Additionally, in theistic views, time is usually seen as having been created by God along with the rest of the universe. Therefore, time is intimately linked with space under theistic views too.

It’s easy for us to visualize space (or at least objects in space) as an abstract quantity. We can imagine any object, say, a desk. It exists in space, and the dimensions of the desk define the dimensions of the space the desk exists within. It is far more difficult to picture time in here as well, but we can imagine a desk as it progresses through time. The desk starts new, then gets scratches, coffee spills on it, kids draw on it, until such point as the wood begins to rot and eventually the desk crumbles away.

While it is easy for us to visualize the special aspect of the desk, we can’t visualize the entire time-line of the desk as a whole in spacetime, as that would require us to view something in at least four dimensions. But while it is difficult for us to view it, it is not at all difficult to write mathematical equations about it and understand how the variables interact with each other.

Since we view only the special aspects, we usually think of various objects as special snapshots within time. We mentally compare a start point with an end point, but we cannot see the time dimension itself. I would like to suggest that in order to view the entirety of the object, one must also take into account the timeline of the object, viewing the whole in spacetime rather than just in space. I would suggest that that is how God views the universe. Obviously we cannot do it, but we can come up with analogies to help us better understand certain concepts.

One of the better analogies has come to us from the movie industry. This is the epitome of a series of snapshots in time, usually at the rate of 24 frames per second (for movies) or 30 per second (for TV). What’s interesting is if you film at, say 48 frames per second, and play back at 24 frames per second, time will appear to take twice as long for the actors involved. Or, if you film at 12 frames per second and play it at 24 frames per second, time will appear to take half as long. Varying the speed at which action is filmed varies the appearance of time, and gives us such things as the “slow-motion” shot. Alternatively, you can alter the speed at which the film is played back (such as when you press fast-forward while playing a movie) instead of when the film is shot.

So suppose you watch a scene of a movie and you set your DVD player to play it in slow motion. The events unfold and seem to take much longer than they normally would; but, from the perspective of the characters in the video, time does not take any longer than normal. That’s because, from the character’s perspective, everything has slowed in relation to each other. Put it this way: if it takes 24 frames for the character to reach a certain point, it will always take 24 frames regardless if you play it at 12 frames per second or 48 frames per second. Changing the frame rate in playback doesn’t affect the number of frames used for the action.

Let us extend the analogy. Suppose that there are four scenes in a movie: A, B, C, and D. Suppose that for the characters, the events unfold chronologically. A happens before B, B before C, and C before D. What would happen if you took D and spliced it between A and B? You would have A, D, B, C (this would be similar to old theaters when the rolls of film got mixed up). The characters at point D know things that occurred in B and C, but D is played before B or C are played. From the point of view of the characters involved, B and C both preceded D even if D is played back before B and C. That is, as far as the characters in the movie are concerned, they have a specific history that is related to the story itself that has nothing to do with how the film is played back. You could actually randomize the entire movie so that there are no two consecutive frames. Pick any frame at random, and the characters in it will have knowledge of the history of whatever went before them, and will know nothing of the future that is ahead of them, within the context of that frame.

This means that, again as far as the characters are concerned, you could completely randomize time and they would not know it. Someone who watches the movie would know, but not the characters in it. Techniques like this (although not as extreme) have been used by many non-linear movies. Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction is an example of such a non-linear story, where the things that occur chronologically at the end of the story are shown in the middle of the movie, etc. As far as the characters are concerned, there is no “jumping” in time—but the audience can see it.

Let’s take that analogy and apply it to reality itself: as long as we have a concept of history, time itself could actually be completely randomized and we would not know it. That is, the “now” that we have could have been preceded by a “now” in the middle of next week, but we wouldn’t know it because we have only the experience of our history in mind at our “now.” While it is certainly unlikely that this is the case, what it shows is once again that our experiences in time do not have any bearing on the way that time actually unfolds from the perspective of an outside observer, such as God. God could have arranged time like a movie director, in that as He “views” the movie of the universe, He might see the Flood occur after the Resurrection. For that matter, time could be flowing backwards.

Of course, such assumes a closed future. That is, it views all objects in their entirety in both space and time. If God views the Flood after He views the Resurrection (on His heavenly DVD player), then the characters at the Flood could not do other than they did do. For God has already seen the Resurrection, which occurred after the Flood in chronological time, and required the actions of the Flood to have already been in the history of the universe at that point, even if it hadn’t yet been viewed.

It is important to note that this truth has absolutely nothing to do with what the people existing in time observe. Again, time could be completely randomized and they would not sense it. This is a function of an outside observer having seen that portion of the spacetime existence of an object, not a function of the character who is in time itself.

In the end, this means that if someone can view a complete object in spacetime, then the future is closed for that object. Whatever will happen is what will happen and it is unavoidable because it has been seen. More importantly, it means that if we exist as objects seen fully in spacetime by someone outside of spacetime, that means that the future is fully, 100% determined for us too! This means that an outside observer could “play” history over and over, just like we do a video, and the same exact results will obtain because the object that exists at any particular point in time (from its perspective) exists in the future and the past as that same object. If it were to change, then it would mean that randomizing time would be observable to people within time.

And this brings me back to Whose Line (bet you thought I forgot). Because of the movie analogy, it is tempting for someone to argue that this determinism is due to a feature of characters following a script. Whose Line has no script, yet the same principals apply. Take a frame from the above video, say one that occurs 30 second into the clip. Colin at that point doesn’t know what is on the green screen. You could splice in a frame from 3:40 in. Colin now knows what was on the green screen. It doesn’t matter what order you play those frames in, nor if you play it forwards or backwards. As far as Colin is concerned within the context of the film clip, how you view it does not alter time for him. You can alter the outside perception of time—play it in slow motion or speed it up—but it will not affect his perception of what went on. When you view the clip, the events are fully determined. The ending will be what it will be as you watch it; it cannot be other than what it is.

Additionally, this does NOT require infallible knowledge on the part of the observer. For instance, if you watch the above clip, it requires a certain history to be true for the characters who have been filmed. This means that if you watch them “now,” it necessitates their history so that they get to that point, yet you are not infallible. And this means that if the last “frame of time” has been viewed by any outside observer, the entire scope of spacetime has been determined, because it must be what it is to get to that last frame.

Ultimately, this means that even if God knows our “future” imperfectly—if He simply knows any of it—determinism obtains up to that point. Whatever God knows from our future requires a certain history for the world to get to that future. If God has seen scene D in the movie, then scenes A, B, and C are determined even if we are only in scene A “now.”

The only way to avoid this is to assert that there is no actual future; there is only the present and an eternally unfolding “now.” But this would require an “objective now” that even God must follow. God cannot have seen the ending, because if He has then all the preceding events are determined even if He didn’t want them to be.

I’ve been mulling over something. I noticed that in discussions involving responsibility and culpability, there is often a hidden variable smuggled into the definition of terms. It’s a variable that, when you think about it, doesn’t seem to be relevant to the discussion; yet it is one which nearly every philosopher discussing the subject has, at the very least implicitly (and quite often explicitly), in his or her definition. That variable is time.

Consider for a moment a typical generalized libertarian definition of responsibility. “A person is responsible if at time (t) a person could have done other than he did do.” Here we have an explicit reference to time. Yet it can also be hidden in the shorter version: “A person is responsible if he could have done otherwise.” The assumption of “could have done” is that time is relevant to determining responsibility. (Note: to be fair, the “could have done otherwise” is really dealing more specifically with the idea of “freedom” rather than “responsibility,” but this is usually crammed together in the idea that “one cannot be responsible unless one is free” so I will be treating this concept as being part of “responsibility” throughout.)

This is immediately awkward when we view God. God is outside of time. He is eternal and transcends time. Indeed, time itself was created by God. If responsibility implies a time aspect, then it seems to me that by definition God can be responsible for nothing that has been created. For “God is responsible for creation because at time (t) God could have done otherwise” is nonsensical—there is no time (t) before God created time.

Yet it seems completely absurd to say that God is not responsible for creating the universe. It seems that only if responsibility refers instead of the concept of cause that God is responsible for creating the universe, because He caused the universe. Yet causality requires no reference to time, it only requires logical precedence. In other words, a logical effect cannot logically precede its cause, which (when it comes to the physical world) will typically mean the logical effect cannot temporally precede its cause too; however, there are certain relative space-time frameworks where a cause and its effect are temporally simultaneous (Einstein’s example of a moving train with a signal being observed simultaneous to some other event for the observers on the train, but not simultaneous for those outside the train, being an example of such a relative framework).

Or think of it this way. Suppose C is a cause and E is an effect such that E cannot occur unless C has caused E. C is therefore responsible for E (in the causative sense), no matter what; yet C is only responsible for E if C could have done otherwise in the libertarian sense, and that requires a temporal distinction between C and E.

E cannot occur apart from C regardless of any temporal aspect though. E necessitates a logically prior C regardless of the length of time between C’s occurring and E coming about. We can even think about E temporally preceding C (such could even already occur with antimatter, which is mathematically described as normal matter going backwards through time). Regardless of that, one can always say C and E can be simultaneous.

So it seems to me that any definition of responsibility that requires a temporal aspect must be a completely different “animal” than any definition of responsibility that deals only with a logically causal chain. Perhaps the libertarian will say that this shows the difference between moral responsibility and causative responsibility. I think this means merely that which definition you chose will automatically beg the question.

Regardless, it appears to me that under libertarian principals, God’s responsibility for creating the universe cannot have any moral connotations. That is, He was not commendable for His creation, nor can He be condemned for it. In other words, this would automatically defuse the concept that God is the author of evil in any moral sense of the word “author.”

On the other hand, if one were to claim that God is still morally responsible for creation (as I would argue—after all, we commend Him for what He has done), then it seems to me that one cannot keep a view of responsibility that necessitates a temporal aspect within its definition.

Thoughts?

I have recently been involved in an email discussion with an Arminian on the issue of God’s hatred of Esau in Malachi 1:2-3. One of the key issues to resolve is just what the word “hate” meant to the Hebrew people. This is especially relevant in light of the fact that my Arminian correspondent quoted from a pastor who argued that hate was not the opposite of love, but rather apathy was the opposite of love, and further a claim was made that God could both love and hate the same individual at the same time.

Malachi 1:2-3 states:

“I have loved you,” says the LORD. But you say, “How have you loved us?” “Is not Esau Jacob’s brother?” declares the LORD. “Yet I have loved Jacob but Esau I have hated. I have laid waste his hill country and left his heritage to jackals of the desert.”

In my e-mail exchange, I made the point that God is setting up “love” and “hate” as direct polar opposites in this passage. He loves Jacob, yet He hates Esau. And it is the very existence of that hate the proves His love for Jacob, in this passage. In other words, God says: “I have loved you.” The people then ask God to prove it, by questioning: “How have you loved us?” and God’s proof is, essentially, “I loved Jacob and I hated Esau. Look what I did to Esau. I didn’t do that to you. Therefore, that’s proof I love you.”

What I take away from this is that, since God is using what He did to Esau and saying, “Because I didn’t do that to you, that’s proof I love you” then it seems to almost necessitate the opposite, “Because I did do that to Esau, that’s proof I do not love him.” In other words, God is saying: “You do not lay waste to a person’s hill country and leave his heritage to the jackals of the desert if you love that person.”

That was my main argument. Now I want to further buttress it by showing how the Hebrew word sane’ (hate) in verse 3 is used throughout the Old Testament. I believe that it will clearly show that love and hate are opposites, and further that “hate” is a much stronger word than Arminians are comfortable acknowledging of God.

If you look at the resource I have compiled, you’ll see all the verses where the word sane’ appears in Scripture. In every instance, save one, if the word “love” also appears in the verse, the Hebrew word for “love” is ’ahab (the exception is Hosea 9:15, which uses the obviously related word ’ahabah). Thus, whenever we see “love” and “hate” in the same verse (in the list), it is a comparison between ’ahab and sane’.

And what do we see? We see that the two terms are in contradistinction to each other. They are polar opposites. One of the most obvious examples is found in 2 Samuel 19:6. After David’s son, Absalom, revolted and was killed by David’s general, Joab, David wept bitterly at the death of his son. Joab was angered, and chastised David by saying: “You have today covered with shame the faces of all your servants, who have this day saved your life and the lives of your sons and your daughters and the lives of your wives and your concubines, because you love those who hate you and hate those who love you. For you have made it clear today that commanders and servants are nothing to you, for today I know that if Absalom were alive and all of us were dead today, then you would be pleased.”

This passage links the opposites. Love is the opposite of hate. This is why Joab was so mad that David would “love those who hate [him] and hate those who love [him].” (Note that we are not concerned with whether or not David’s behavior was accurately described by Joab, nor are we concerned with whether or not either of them was acting justly. Rather, what matters is what the words mean. And it is clear in this context that love and hate were considered opposites.

To give another example, Proverbs 9:8 says: “Do not reprove a scoffer, or he will hate you; reprove a wise man, and he will love you.” This passage shows a double parallel. There is the parallel between the “scoffer” and the “wise man” and there is a parallel between their reactions. Just as a “scoffer” is the opposite of a “wise man”, so too is “hate” the opposite of “love.”

Proverbs is full of similar contrasts. To take just one more, Proverbs 13:24 says “Whoever spares the rod hates his son, but he who loves him is diligent to discipline him.” Again, the love/hate polarity is displayed.

To give one final example, in Ecclesiastes 3 we are treated to a long list of opposites. The passage states:

There is a time for everything,
and a season for every activity under heaven:
a time to be born and a time to die,
a time to plant and a time to uproot,
a time to kill and a time to heal,
a time to tear down and a time to build,
a time to weep and a time to laugh,
a time to mourn and a time to dance,
a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them,
a time to embrace and a time to refrain,
a time to search and a time to give up,
a time to keep and a time to throw away,
a time to tear and a time to mend,
a time to be silent and a time to speak,
a time to love and a time to hate,
a time for war and a time for peace.

In so much as “born” is the opposite of “die”, “plant” is the opposite of “uproot”, “kill” is the opposite of “heal”, “tear down” is the opposite of “build”, “weep” is the opposite of “laugh”, “mourn” is the opposite of “dance,” “scatter” is the opposite of “gather”, “embrace” is the opposite of “refraining from embracing”, “searching” is the opposite of “giving up”, “keep” is the opposite of “throw away”, “tear” is the opposite of “mend”, “silence” is the opposite of “speak”, and “war” is the opposite of “peace”; so too is “love” the opposite of “hate.”

The second aspect of the word sane’ includes the concept of “enemy.” In fact, there are a couple of passages where the word is translated exactly that way (as either “enemy” or “foe”). A couple of those passages are:

Exodus 1:10 “Come, let us deal shrewedly with them, lest they multiply, and, if war breaks out, they join our enemies [sane’] and fight against us and escape from the land.”

Deuteronomy 30:7 “And the LORD your God will put all these curses on your foes [sane’] and enemies who persecute you.”

Proverbs 25:21 “If your enemy [sane’] is hungry, give him bread to eat, and if he is thirsty, give him water to drink…”

Additionally, in Scripture “hate” is itself often linked with “enemy” even when a different word for “enemy” is used. Some examples are:

Leviticus 26:17a “I will set my face against you, and you shall be struck down before your enemies. Those who hate you shall rule over you…”

Psalm 21:8 “Your hand will find out all your enemies; your right hand will find out those who hate you.”

Psalm 44:7 “You have saved us from our foes and have put to shame those who hate us.”

Psalm 68:1 “God shall arise, his enemies shall be scattered; and those who hate him shall flee before him!”

Psalm 139:22 “I hate them with complete hatred; I count them my enemies.”

The Psalms are especially interesting in that they often use parallelisms, stating the same thing in different ways. Hence, in Psalm 68:1 (above), we have “his enemies shall be scattered” in parallel with “those who hate him shall flee.” Similar concepts repeated in different ways. The same is also stated in Number 10:35, where Moses says :”Arise, O LORD, and let your enemies be scattered, and let those who hate you flee before you.” One final example from Psalm 21:8 (above) should suffice: “Your hand will find out all your enemies” is coupled with “Your right hand will find out those who hate you.”

So to hate someone is to be their enemy. When we return to Malachi 1:2-3, it is important to note that God is the actor. He is the subject. Jacob and Esau are the objects. So when it says, “Esau I have hated” then, if the term “hate” is linked to being an enemy, then this passage is saying that God is Esau’s enemy; it is not saying that Esau is God’s enemy, although we know from other passages that that is also true.

Finally, let us look at further action that goes along with hatred. That is, many verses deal with hatred and include more concepts of what goes along with hate. So we see in Genesis 26:27, “Isaac said to them, ‘Why have you come to me, seeing that you hate me and have sent me away from you?’” So to hate is to drive someone away. See also Judges 11:7 and Isaiah 66:5

In Genesis 37:4, Joseph’s brothers saw their father loved Joseph more than them, and “they hated him and could not speak peacefully to him.” So hatred means one cannot speak peaceably.

In Deuteronomy 12:31 we see “every abominable thing that the LORD hates they have done for their gods”, showing that to hate something is to consider it an abomination. See also Proverbs 6:16 (“There are six things that the LORD hates, seven that are an abomination to him”) and Jeremiah 44:4.

Psalm 41:7 says “All who hate me whisper together about me; they imagine the worst for me.” So to hate someone is to plot the worst outcome for that person.

Amos 5:21 says, “I hate, I despise your feasts” showing that to despise something is to hate it. See also Isaiah 1:14.

Amos 6:8 says, “I abhor the pride of Jacob and hate his strongholds” linking hatred and abhorrence.

So putting these together, we see that hatred encompasses driving someone away, not speaking peaceably to them, considering them an abomination, despising them, considering them abhorrent, and wishing the worst for them. And it is this word, that contains these shades of meaning, that God uses of Esau.

So we’ve seen that the Old Testament clearly used “hate” as an opposite of “love”, and we’ve seen that to hate someone is to be their enemy, and further we’ve seen that “hate” holds all of the negative connotations one would expect. And we’ve further seen that God uses this very word to describe His attitude toward Esau.

A search of one of the Hebrew words for “hate”, sane’ (Strong’s number H8130):

Genesis 24:60
And they blessed Rebekah and said to her,

“Our sister, may you become
thousands of ten thousands,
and may your offspring possess
the gate of those who hate him!”

Genesis 26:27
Isaac said to them, “Why have you come to me, seeing that you hate me and have sent me away from you?”

Genesis 29:31
When the LORD saw that Leah was hated, he opened her womb, but Rachel was barren.

Genesis 29:33
She conceived again and bore a son, and said, “Because the LORD has heard that I am hated, he has given me this son also.” And she called his name Simeon.

Genesis 37:4
But when his brothers saw that their father loved him more than all his brothers, they hated him and could not speak peacefully to him.

Genesis 37:5
Now Joseph had a dream, and when he told it to his brothers they hated him even more.

Genesis 37:8
His brothers said to him, “Are you indeed to reign over us? Or are you indeed to rule over us?” So they hated him even more for his dreams and for his words.

Exodus 1:10
Come, let us deal shrewdly with them, lest they multiply, and, if war breaks out, they join our enemies and fight against us and escape from the land.”

Exodus 18:21
Moreover, look for able men from all the people, men who fear God, who are trustworthy and hate a bribe, and place such men over the people as chiefs of thousands, of hundreds, of fifties, and of tens.

Exodus 20:5
You shall not bow down to them or serve them, for I the LORD your God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and the fourth generation of those who hate me

Exodus 23:5
If you see the donkey of one who hates you lying down under its burden, you shall refrain from leaving him with it; you shall rescue it with him.

Leviticus 19:17
“You shall not hate your brother in your heart, but you shall reason frankly with your neighbor, lest you incur sin because of him.

Leviticus 26:17
I will set my face against you, and you shall be struck down before your enemies. Those who hate you shall rule over you, and you shall flee when none pursues you.

Numbers 10:35
And whenever the ark set out, Moses said, “Arise, O LORD, and let your enemies be scattered, and let those who hate you flee before you.”

Deuteronomy 4:42
that the manslayer might flee there, anyone who kills his neighbor unintentionally, without being at enmity with him in time past; he may flee to one of these cities and save his life:

Deuteronomy 5:9
You shall not bow down to them or serve them; for I the LORD your God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me,

Deuteronomy 7:10
and repays to their face those who hate him, by destroying them. He will not be slack with one who hates him. He will repay him to his face.

Deuteronomy 7:15
And the LORD will take away from you all sickness, and none of the evil diseases of Egypt, which you knew, will he inflict on you, but he will lay them on all who hate you.

Deuteronomy 12:31
You shall not worship the LORD your God in that way, for every abominable thing that the LORD hates they have done for their gods, for they even burn their sons and their daughters in the fire to their gods.

Deuteronomy 16:22
And you shall not set up a pillar, which the LORD your God hates.

Deuteronomy 19:4
“This is the provision for the manslayer, who by fleeing there may save his life. If anyone kills his neighbor unintentionally without having hated him in the past?

Deuteronomy 19:6
lest the avenger of blood in hot anger pursue the manslayer and overtake him, because the way is long, and strike him fatally, though the man did not deserve to die, since he had not hated his neighbor in the past.

Deuteronomy 19:11
“But if anyone hates his neighbor and lies in wait for him and attacks him and strikes him fatally so that he dies, and he flees into one of these cities,

Deuteronomy 21:15-17
“If a man has two wives, the one loved and the other unloved, and both the loved and the unloved have borne him children, and if the firstborn son belongs to the unloved, then on the day when he assigns his possessions as an inheritance to his sons, he may not treat the son of the loved as the firstborn in preference to the son of the unloved, who is the firstborn, but he shall acknowledge the firstborn, the son of the unloved, by giving him a double portion of all that he has, for he is the firstfruits of his strength. The right of the firstborn is his.

Deuteronomy 22:13
“If any man takes a wife and goes in to her and then hates her

Deuteronomy 22:16
And the father of the young woman shall say to the elders, ‘I gave my daughter to this man to marry, and he hates her;

Deuteronomy 24:3
and the latter man hates her and writes her a certificate of divorce and puts it in her hand and sends her out of his house, or if the latter man dies, who took her to be his wife,

Deuteronomy 30:7
And the LORD your God will put all these curses on your foes and enemies who persecuted you.

Deuteronomy 32:41
if I sharpen my flashing sword
and my hand takes hold on judgment,
I will take vengeance on my adversaries
and will repay those who hate me.

Deuteronomy 33:11
Bless, O LORD, his substance,
and accept the work of his hands;
crush the loins of his adversaries,
of those who hate him, that they rise not again.”

Joshua 20:5
And if the avenger of blood pursues him, they shall not give up the manslayer into his hand, because he struck his neighbor unknowingly, and did not hate him in the past.

Judges 11:7
But Jephthah said to the elders of Gilead, “Did you not hate me and drive me out of my father’s house? Why have you come to me now when you are in distress?”

Judges 14:16
And Samson’s wife wept over him and said, “You only hate me; you do not love me. You have put a riddle to my people, and you have not told me what it is.” And he said to her, “Behold, I have not told my father nor my mother, and shall I tell you?”

Judges 15:2
And her father said, “I really thought that you utterly hated her, so I gave her to your companion. Is not her younger sister more beautiful than she? Please take her instead.”

2 Samuel 5:8
And David said on that day, “Whoever would strike the Jebusites, let him get up the water shaft to attack ‘the lame and the blind,’ who are hated by David’s soul.” Therefore it is said, “The blind and the lame shall not come into the house.”

2 Samuel 13:15
Then Amnon hated her with very great hatred, so that the hatred with which he hated her was greater than the love with which he had loved her. And Amnon said to her, “Get up! Go!”

2 Samuel 13:22
But Absalom spoke to Amnon neither good nor bad, for Absalom hated Amnon, because he had violated his sister Tamar.

2 Samuel 19:6
because you love those who hate you and hate those who love you. For you have made it clear today that commanders and servants are nothing to you, for today I know that if Absalom were alive and all of us were dead today, then you would be pleased.

2 Samuel 22:18
He rescued me from my strong enemy,
from those who hated me,
for they were too mighty for me.

2 Samuel 22:41
You made my enemies turn their backs to me,
those who hated me, and I destroyed them.

Kings 22:8
And the king of Israel said to Jehoshaphat, “There is yet one man by whom we may inquire of the LORD, Micaiah the son of Imlah, but I hate him, for he never prophesies good concerning me, but evil.” And Jehoshaphat said, “Let not the king say so.”

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

2 Chronicles 18:7
And the king of Israel said to Jehoshaphat, “There is yet one man by whom we may inquire of the LORD, Micaiah the son of Imlah; but I hate him, for he never prophesies good concerning me, but always evil.” And Jehoshaphat said, “Let not the king say so.”

2 Chronicles 19:2
But Jehu the son of Hanani the seer went out to meet him and said to King Jehoshaphat, “Should you help the wicked and love those who hate the LORD? Because of this, wrath has gone out against you from the LORD.

Esther 9:1
Now in the twelfth month, which is the month of Adar, on the thirteenth day of the same, when the king’s command and edict were about to be carried out, on the very day when the enemies of the Jews hoped to gain the mastery over them, the reverse occurred: the Jews gained mastery over those who hated them.

Esther 9:16
Now the rest of the Jews who were in the king’s provinces also gathered to defend their lives, and got relief from their enemies and killed 75,000 of those who hated them, but they laid no hands on the plunder.

Job 8:22
Those who hate you will be clothed with shame,
and the tent of the wicked will be no more.”

Job 31:29
“If I have rejoiced at the ruin of him who hated me,
or exulted when evil overtook him

Job 34:17
Shall one who hates justice govern?
Will you condemn him who is righteous and mighty,

Psalm 5:5
The boastful shall not stand before your eyes;
you hate all evildoers.

Psalm 9:13
Be gracious to me, O LORD!
See my affliction from those who hate me,
O you who lift me up from the gates of death,

Psalm 11:5
The LORD tests the righteous,
but his soul hates the wicked and the one who loves violence.

Psalm 18:17
He rescued me from my strong enemy
and from those who hated me,
for they were too mighty for me.

Psalm 18:40
You made my enemies turn their backs to me,
and those who hated me I destroyed.

Psalm 21:8
Your hand will find out all your enemies;
your right hand will find out those who hate you.

Psalm 25:19
Consider how many are my foes,
and with what violent hatred they hate me.

Psalm 26:5
I hate the assembly of evildoers,
and I will not sit with the wicked.

Psalm 31:6
I hate those who pay regard to worthless idols,
but I trust in the LORD.

Psalm 34:21
Affliction will slay the wicked,
and those who hate the righteous will be condemned.

Psalm 35:19
Let not those rejoice over me
who are wrongfully my foes,
and let not those wink the eye
who hate me without cause.

Psalm 36:2
For he flatters himself in his own eyes
that his iniquity cannot be found out and hated.

Psalm 38:19
But my foes are vigorous, they are mighty,
and many are those who hate me wrongfully.

Psalm 41:7
All who hate me whisper together about me;
they imagine the worst for me.

Psalm 44:7
But you have saved us from our foes
and have put to shame those who hate us.

Psalm 44:10
You have made us turn back from the foe,
and those who hate us have gotten spoil.

Psalm 45:7
you have loved righteousness and hated wickedness.
Therefore God, your God, has anointed you
with the oil of gladness beyond your companions;

Psalm 50:17
For you hate discipline,
and you cast my words behind you.

Psalm 55:12
For it is not an enemy who taunts me?
then I could bear it;
it is not an adversary who deals insolently with me?
then I could hide from him.

Psalm 68:1
God shall arise, his enemies shall be scattered;
and those who hate him shall flee before him!

Psalm 69:4
More in number than the hairs of my head
are those who hate me without cause;
mighty are those who would destroy me,
those who attack me with lies.
What I did not steal
must I now restore?

Psalm 69:14
Deliver me
from sinking in the mire;
let me be delivered from my enemies
and from the deep waters.

Psalm 81:15
Those who hate the LORD would cringe toward him,
and their fate would last forever.

Psalm 83:2
For behold, your enemies make an uproar;
those who hate you have raised their heads.

Psalm 86:17
Show me a sign of your favor,
that those who hate me may see and be put to shame
because you, LORD, have helped me and comforted me.

Psalm 89:23
I will crush his foes before him
and strike down those who hate him.

Psalm 97:10
O you who love the LORD, hate evil!
He preserves the lives of his saints;
He delivers them from the hand of the wicked.

Psalm 101:3
I will not set before my eyes
anything that is worthless.
I hate the work of those who fall away;
it shall not cling to me.

Psalm 105:25
He turned their hearts to hate his people,
to deal craftily with his servants.

Psalm 106:10
So he saved them from the hand of the foe
and redeemed them from the power of the enemy.

Psalm 106:41
he gave them into the hand of the nations,
so that those who hated them ruled over them.

Psalm 118:7
The LORD is on my side as my helper;
I shall look in triumph on those who hate me.

Psalm 119:104
Through your precepts I get understanding;
therefore I hate every false way.

Psalm 119:113
I hate the double-minded,
but I love your law.

Psalm 119:128
Therefore I consider all your precepts to be right;
I hate every false way.

Psalm 119:163
I hate and abhor falsehood,
but I love your law.

Psalm 120:6
Too long have I had my dwelling
among those who hate peace.

Psalm 129:5
May all who hate Zion
be put to shame and turned backward!

Psalm 139:21-22
Do I not hate those who hate you, O LORD?
And do I not loathe those who rise up against you?
I hate them with complete hatred;
I count them my enemies.

Proverbs 1:22
“How long, O simple ones, will you love being simple? How long will scoffers delight in their scoffing
and fools hate knowledge?

Proverbs 1:29
Because they hated knowledge
and did not choose the fear of the LORD,

Proverbs 5:12
and you say, “How I hated discipline,
and my heart despised reproof!

Proverbs 6:16
There are six things that the LORD hates,
seven that are an abomination to him:

Proverbs 8:13
The fear of the LORD is hatred of evil. Pride and arrogance and the way of evil
And perverted speech I hate.

Proverbs 8:36
but he who fails to find me injures himself;
all who hate me love death.”

Proverbs 9:8
Do not reprove a scoffer, or he will hate you;
reprove a wise man, and he will love you.

Proverbs 11:15
Whoever puts up security for a stranger will surely suffer harm,
but he who hates striking hands in pledge is secure.

Proverbs 12:1
Whoever loves discipline loves knowledge,
but he who hates reproof is stupid.

Proverbs 13:5
The righteous hates falsehood,
but the wicked brings shame and disgrace.

Proverbs 13:24
Whoever spares the rod hates his son,
but he who loves him is diligent to discipline him.

Proverbs 14:17
A man of quick temper acts foolishly,
and a man of evil devices is hated.

Proverbs 14:20
The poor is disliked even by his neighbor,
but the rich has many friends.

Proverbs 15:10
There is severe discipline for him who forsakes the way;
whoever hates reproof will die.

Proverbs 15:27
Whoever is greedy for unjust gain troubles his own household,
but he who hates bribes will live.

Proverbs 19:7
All a poor man’s brothers hate him;
how much more do his friends go far from him!
He pursues them with words, but does not have them.

Proverbs 25:17
Let your foot be seldom in your neighbor’s house,
lest he have his fill of you and hate you.

Proverbs 25:21
If your enemy is hungry, give him bread to eat,
and if he is thirsty, give him water to drink,

Proverbs 26:24
Whoever hates disguises himself with his lips
and harbors deceit in his heart;

Proverbs 26:28
A lying tongue hates its victims,
and a flattering mouth works ruin.

Proverbs 27:6
Faithful are the wounds of a friend;
profuse are the kisses of an enemy.

Proverbs 28:16
A ruler who lacks understanding is a cruel oppressor,
but he who hates unjust gain will prolong his days.

Proverbs 29:10
Bloodthirsty men hate one who is blameless
and seek the life of the upright.

Proverbs 29:24
The partner of a thief hates his own life;
he hears the curse, but discloses nothing.

Proverbs 30:23
an unloved woman when she gets a husband,
and a maidservant when she displaces her mistress.

Ecclesiastes 2:17-18
So I hated life, because what is done under the sun was grievous to me, for all is vanity and a striving after wind. I hated all my toil in which I toil under the sun, seeing that I must leave it to the man who will come after me,

Ecclesiastes 3:8
a time to love, and a time to hate; a time for war, and a time for peace.

Isaiah 1:14
Your new moons and your appointed feasts
my soul hates;
they have become a burden to me;
I am weary of bearing them.

Isaiah 60:15
Whereas you have been forsaken and hated,
with no one passing through,
I will make you majestic forever,
a joy from age to age.

Isaiah 61:8
For I the LORD love justice;
I hate robbery and wrong;
I will faithfully give them their recompense,
and I will make an everlasting covenant with them.

Isaiah 66:5
Hear the word of the LORD,
you who tremble at his word:
“Your brothers who hate you
and cast you out for my name’s sake
have said, ‘Let the LORD be glorified,
that we may see your joy’;
but it is they who shall be put to shame.

Jeremiah 12:8
My heritage has become to me
like a lion in the forest;
she has lifted up her voice against me;
therefore I hate her.

Jeremiah 44:4
Yet I persistently sent to you all my servants the prophets, saying, ‘Oh, do not do this abomination that I hate!’

Ezekiel 16:27
Behold, therefore, I stretched out my hand against you and diminished your allotted portion and delivered you to the greed of your enemies, the daughters of the Philistines, who were ashamed of your lewd behavior.

Ezekiel 16:37
therefore, behold, I will gather all your lovers with whom you took pleasure, all those you loved and all those you hated. I will gather them against you from every side and will uncover your nakedness to them, that they may see all your nakedness.

Ezekiel 23:28
“For thus says the Lord GOD: Behold, I will deliver you into the hands of those whom you hate, into the hands of those from whom you turned in disgust,

Ezekiel 35:6
therefore, as I live, declares the Lord GOD, I will prepare you for blood, and blood shall pursue you; because you did not hate bloodshed, therefore blood shall pursue you.

Hosea 9:15
Every evil of theirs is in Gilgal;
there I began to hate them.
Because of the wickedness of their deeds
I will drive them out of my house.
I will love them no more;
all their princes are rebels.

Amos 5:10
They hate him who reproves in the gate,
and they abhor him who speaks the truth.

Amos 5:15
Hate evil, and love good,
and establish justice in the gate;
it may be that the LORD, the God of hosts,
will be gracious to the remnant of Joseph.

Amos 5:21
“I hate, I despise your feasts,
and I take no delight in your solemn assemblies.

Amos 6:8
The Lord GOD has sworn by himself, declares the LORD, the God of hosts:

“I abhor the pride of Jacob
and hate his strongholds,
and I will deliver up the city and all that is in it.”

Micah 3:2
you who hate the good and love the evil,
who tear the skin from off my people
and their flesh from off their bones,

Zechariah 8:17
do not devise evil in your hearts against one another, and love no false oath, for all these things I hate, declares the LORD.”

Malachi 1:3
but Esau I have hated. I have laid waste his hill country and left his heritage to jackals of the desert.”

Malachi 2:16
“For the man who does not love his wife but divorces her, says the LORD, the God of Israel, covers his garment with violence, says the LORD of hosts. So guard yourselves in your spirit, and do not be faithless.”

[This passage was differently stated in the KJV.]

Malachi 2:16 (King James Version)
For the LORD, the God of Israel, saith that he hateth putting away: for one covereth violence with his garment, saith the LORD of hosts: therefore take heed to your spirit, that ye deal not treacherously.

Many of our Arminian friends make the claim that Calvinism is not found in the Bible, but it instead eisegeted in by the Calvinist. I would humbly ask a question of any Arminian who believes this:

From whence did the belief of Calvinism originate?

That is, suppose for argument that you are correct and that the Bible does not teach Calvinism. Why, then, would anyone who reads Scripture come to a Calvinist understanding of those passages? If Arminianism is true, then why would any man read Scripture and believe Calvinism to be true? What worldly system proffers a view like Calvinism such that a Calvinist believes this false philosophy and imputes it into the text of Scripture? What is that false philosophy? Name it and trace the path between it and the Reformed view. Or barring any actual existent philosophy, name the error of thought that would render a man incapable of reading Arminianism in Scripture and instead coming to the opposite conclusion.

Because the Calvinist can answer this question in reverse. For even Arminians ought to be able to see that if you assume Calvinism is true (for the sake of argument), then we know that man is depraved and wishes to think more importantly of himself than is his due. This will immediately tend to make a person believe he has more power in determining his salvation than he actually does. Hence, if Calvinism is true, Arminians are to be expected.

But how does that work for the Arminian? Even if man is depraved, God supposedly gives grace that makes it possible for all to believe—at least all who hear the Gospel. Why, then, in the presence of this grace, would any man believe Calvinism instead of Arminianism? What are the steps there, Arminian brothers? How does this follow? Have you thought it out at all? Does this not interest you in the least?

In many recent blog exchanges, I’ve engaged Victor Reppert on the question of Calvinism and the problem of evil. During these exchanges, I have pointed out several times that Reppert never bothers to define what “good” or “evil” is, and I’ve also pointed out that there’s really no purpose in discussing “the problem of evil” if one does not define “evil” in the first place.

I would have thought that this would be sort of obvious, especially for Reppert who is a professional philosopher. Apparently, however, Reppert feels no need to actually define his terms—making it very easy for him to engage in sloppy thinking without even realizing it. After all, part of the reason we define terms is so we can spot ambiguity. If you work with an undefined “evil” then it can morph depending on how you feel, such that an opening paragraph and a closing paragraph in a philosophical argument use completely different meanings of the term “evil” and yet seek to come to a logical conclusion. Not defining the terms is, obviously, poor argumentation.

Since Reppert posted another article about Calvinism and the problem of evil without defining his terms, I pointed out once again that he had not bothered to define his terms. In this case we might give him some leeway since he merely reposted an older blog post; however, given the fact that I have asked for his definition several times, I think such leeway is ultimately unjustified. Since his lack of defining terms has been shown many times, he ought to define his terms before posting another thing on the problem of evil from any perspective.

Reppert decided to respond to my request that he define his terms. He decided to first attack my definition of “good” before attempting what he claims is a definition. Unfortunately, rather than actually interact with my entire argument, presented for instance when I examined the Euthyphro Dilemma or my post on the definition of evil, Reppert decided to use quotes from one comment made on this post.

Sadly, Reppert didn’t seem to read his own post, for his first question in response to what I had written was:

At the risk of becoming tiresome, I would have to ask what definition of God we are working with here?

The post I responded to was entitled: “Is there a moral obligation to worship a Calvinistic God? Or any other God for that matter?” Apparently, Reppert didn’t think that maybe I was responding to his first question.

But it’s actually even worse than that, for in that post in response to my previous comments Reppert had already said:

Of course the divine command theory has the problem of identifying God. The standard philosophical definition of God is a being who is worthy of worship in virtue of being omnipotent, omniscient, and perfectly good. But if “good” means “commanded by God” and “God” means a being who is, among other things, perfectly good, it looks like you’ve got vicious circularity here.

I note in passing that this paragraph is basically the entirety of Reppert’s current response to me too.

If Reppert had bothered to actually read my arguments that I had linked in my comments before the one Reppert pulled out to respond to now, he would have seen that I already addressed the issue of identifying who God is. In my Euthyphro post, I said:

Now one could argue, as the Moral Philosophy site did, that that means that God could command slavery, genocide, holocausts or any number of such things. However, God could not have done so, for then God would have a different nature then the one He has. A different God could have commanded those things and been morally good in doing so; this God (Who happens to be the real God) cannot do so.

Apparently Reppert thinks that when Christians talk about God, they might mean Moloch or Vishnu.

In any case, the God of the Divine Command Theory is pretty obvious to spot. He’s the God who gives the commands. I would have thought that to be self-evident.

Reppert then moves on to the only thing that resembles a definition (and sadly, he does think it is a definition). He writes:

In my view moral obligation is created by the fact that God creates us with an intended purpose which is identical to our good, in that we as humans flourish if we fulfill that purpose.

But this simply fails as a definition of good. This definition would not enable one to examine whether God Himself is good, for good apparently is fulfillment of the purpose for which God created us. Since God did not create Himself, nor did He have a creator, then under such a definition God cannot be good.

Secondly, such a definition of “good” is not equivalent to moral goodness. It is good of me to eat food when I am hungry, but it’s hardly righteous of me to do so. If this is what Reppert implies by the moral obligation portion, then this definition remains unsatisfactory, for it is certain that God designed people needing food, yet who would consider eating breakfast to be morally good? If, on the other hand, Reppert only intends to define only what moral obligation is here, then he’s got the cart before the horse for he is using the term “good” without defining it once again.

Thirdly, and quite damaging to Reppert, in order for us to use “good” in the above, we would have to know for what purpose God designed us. How would we know what that is…without God’s commands? But wouldn’t that make Reppert a closet Divine Command Theorist?

Fourth, and most damaging to Reppert, if God designed someone to be a vessel of wrath, then by the above definition Reppert has said such an intended purpose “is identical to our good,” in which case there is absolutely no reason at all for Reppert to disagree with double-predestination on the grounds that it’s evil. Even by his own (weak) definition above, fulfilling the purpose God intends for us is the definition of good. So when a reprobate fulfills his purpose and burns in hell, that’s good by Reppert’s above definition.

Note that at this point Reppert will be required to insert a qualifier. That qualifier will be: “No, it must be a good intention.” At which point it will be demonstrated that the “fulfilling one’s purpose” definition above does NOT define “good” at all because it already presupposes some other definition of good in “fulfilling one’s good purpose.”

Reppert continues:

Further, God acts in a way that is consistent with the pursuit of that good for all his creatures.

I shudder to think that Reppert seriously is asserting that if God does not act in a way that is beneficial toward man then God is committing evil (see next blockquote too). This is so obviously anti-Christian that I would think it absurd for a professing Christian like Reppert to think that God failing to live up to our goodness is what constitutes evil, rather than us failing to live up to His goodness. But sadly Reppert doesn’t give me confidence that he sees this problem, so I mention it here.

Continuing:

Our good is to glorify God and enjoy him forever, evil is what gets in the way of that.

But again, under such a view, good or evil is meaningless of God. At best, Reppert can only use this to try to establish relative good and evil amongst mankind, but he can never examine the problem of evil for none of his “definitions” of good and evil extend to anything that God can do.

Reppert says:

On Calvinist theory there is a large gap between what makes God’s character good, and what makes us good, a gap that cannot be explained in terms of a difference in God’s wisdom or knowledge.

Well, yes there is a gap because men are sinners and God is not, and therefore what “makes us good” is Christ’s righteousness imputed to us and our unrighteousness imputed to Him, which God does not need to be good.

But more specific to our current discussion, God is the standard of goodness; we are not. Yes, that makes a wide gap. But so what?

Reppert continues:

A native may believe that men in white coats bearing long needles are mean to little kids because he lacks knowledge that the men in the white coats possess, but the standard of goodness for natives and for missionary doctors is the same.

That is because both are human. Apparently, Reppert would put God under the Law, which was implemented as a tutor to bring us to Christ, as if God needed to be brought to Christ.

Reppert continues:

Piper seems concerned to respond to the charge that God’s interest in his glory makes him selfish, since selfishness is a vice amongst humans.

There’s a difference between the one who claims something as his own having not earned it and the one who claims something as his own after having earned it. As a liberal, Reppert will never grasp this. But to help others, the next time Reppert says, “I wrote C. S. Lewis’s Dangerous Idea: In Defense of the Argument from Reason” I will point out that that’s a pretty selfish thing to say. Who cares if Reppert deserves the title of “the author of the book C. S. Lewis’s Dangerous Idea: In Defense of the Argument from Reason“? It would be selfish to attribute it to him and not also to me.

Reppert said:

If I were to read on someone’s tombstone “He pursued his own glory single-mindedly throughout his life” I don’t think I would think I was looking at the grave of someone I wish I had known. Glory hogs in basketball don’t help the team win.

But once again Reppert reduces God to a mere man. He never considers that the reason God can be selfish for His glory is because God deserves glory for who He is, and because we are not God we do not have the same right to pursue our own glory.

But even worse, this trivializes what God does for us in the pursuit of His glory. He demonstrates greater love than we ever could by sending His Son to die for us while we are yet sinners; He shows mercy, justice, wrath, and love; He sends rain to the just and unjust alike. And Reppert is upset that God would do this for us with His own glorification—the very thing He most deserves—in mind?

Reppert says:

It seems to me that when you say God gives commands based on his nature, it is pretty clear that we don’t have obligations to reflect all aspects of God’s moral nature in our own conduct.

How could we? It’s pretty clear that no matter how much you love someone, you will never die a substitutionary death for them, imputing their unrighteousness to yourself while imputing your righteousness to them, so that you take upon yourself the sins of another so that they might live. Maybe that’s why God didn’t command it of us, but He did ask it of His Son.

Reppert continued:

We might be rightly wrathful when someone we love is raped, but we aren’t supposed to be looking for or artifically creating opportunities for us to exercise our attribute of being wrathful at evil…

Why look for artificial opportunities when natural occurrences abound? Secondly, so what? Again, we have already established that God’s nature is not ours and that He can do things that we cannot. Why insist that God must be a man rather than God?

Reppert said:

So while divine commands are supposed to be based on the divine nature, the kind of people we are commanded to be fails to fully reflect the character of God, and there are actions on the part of God which are deemed right which, if parallel actions are performed by humans, they would contravene the commands of God.

But this last clause is true no matter what position you take. God does do things that He has commanded us not to do. And the first clause is only a problem if God has commanded us to fully reflect His character. He has not done so. He has given us the commands which we are to follow, and we do not have any right to add to them. For an easy example, God doesn’t command us to take vengeance—He claims that as His own right. Engaging in vengeance surely is an aspect of character, isn’t it?

Arminians have often claimed that if God did not allow people the freedom to sin, then we would be in a forced relationship with Him and would be little more than robots. Thus the Freewill Defense is used to get God “off the hook” for the evil that exists. Namely, God must allow evil to occur in order for Him to have the chance to have a real relationship with His creation. Let us assume this is true for the sake of argument.

Jesus said: “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart” (Matthew 5:27-28). Additionally, it can be argued that while 9 of the 10 commandments deal with external behavior, the 10th commandment (“You shall not covet…”) internalizes all of the previous commandments as well, such that sin is not simply acts that are committed but also includes evil thoughts.

This means that sin need not be acted out in order to be sin.

This causes an immediate problem for the Arminian’s Freewill Defense. Namely, evil occurs even without the actualization of that evil. Thus, when a murderer decides to kill someone, he has already sinned. If a rapist decides to attack a woman, he has already sinned.

But if sin already exists, then God has no need to allow the actual behavior to occur in order to keep people from being robots. Simply put, God could cause the knife the murder holds to dematerialize, or He could cause the rapist to become neutered. This would stop the behavior from occurring, but would not in any way violate the will of the one who would have engaged in such a behavior. The evildoer would have still wanted to do evil and sin would still have occurred, but there would be no other human victims involved. The sin would remain solely between the sinner and God.

Add to the fact that if we see someone trying to murder or rape another person, we are morally obligated to intervene to the best of our abilities to save the victim (and note, when we do intervene successfully, the guilt of the person who attacked the victim is not mitigated), then it becomes obvious that the Freewill Defense is sorely lacking. There must be some other reason for God to decree/permit/allow evil actions to occur.

[Note: A Helmet, we know you'll just say "it's not the greater good defense" without giving anything else, and since I could practically write your comments already, although with better grammar than you use, you don't need to respond here.]

Since the Arminian blogosphere’s argument du jour happens to be “Calvinism makes God the author of evil” I thought I would come at it at a slightly different angle then the one that Steve has already taken. The problem with throwing around a phrase like “author of evil” is that it’s kind of important that two words (“author” and “evil”) get defined, yet Arminians seem to think such a step is too burdensome to enact. Steve has recently focused a great deal on what “author” means, so I want to look at the other term. This also ties in to my recent posts on Divine Command Theory, and I must point out in passing that for some strange reason we never see Arminians attempt to ground morality in a like manner to how I have argued for it in DCT.

With that said, what do we mean by evil when we ask if God is the author of evil?

Well, evil could mean simply those things as natural disasters—hurricanes, famines, floods, etc. Indeed, these are often called “natural evils” for that very reason. But most Christians would have no problem saying that God is the “author” of natural evils given the myriad examples of God causing/sending/creating disasters. A few specifics from Scripture will suffice to validate this point:

“For in seven days I will send rain on the earth forty days and forty nights, and every living thing that I have made I will blot out from the face of the ground” (Genesis 7:4).

“And I will heap disasters upon them; I will spend my arrows on them; they shall be wasted with hunger, and devoured by plague and poisonous pestilence; I will send the teeth of beasts against them, with the venom of things that crawl in the dust” (Deuteronomy 32:23-24).

“Then they will say, ‘Because they abandoned the LORD their God who brought their fathers out of the land of Egypt and laid hold on other gods and worshiped them and served them. Therefore the LORD has brought all this disaster on them’” (1 Kings 9:9).

“I form light and create darkness, I make well-being and create calamity, I am the LORD, who does all these things” (Isaiah 45:7).

Because of how plentiful such descriptions are in Scripture, most people who contend that God is not the author of evil ought not mean evil in the sense of natural disasters (although given the state of inconsistency that plagues a certain branch of theology, I am hesitant to be dogmatic). Instead, they should mean it in the sense of immorality, unrighteousness, sinfulness.

When we are talking about moral evils—sins—then we have to have some kind of moral framework in place. That is, we have to have a proper frame of reference to determine whether something is good or evil in the first place before the question “Is God the author of evil?” is even meaningful.

Now as I’ve argued before, since I am a Divine Command Theorist, God is the standard of good. There is nothing else that God can point to other than Himself to say “This is what the definition of good is.” As such, anything God does will be, by definition, good. That means that it is ruled out by definition that God could ever do anything evil Himself.

But saying that God is good isn’t the whole picture, for that does not tell us how we ought to behave in order for us to be good too. Thankfully, there is something that tells us what the standard of behavior we ought to uphold are: God’s commands (i.e., laws).

Now of God’s commands, the apostle Paul writes:

What then shall we say? That the law is sin? By no means! Yet if it had not been for the law, I would not have known sin. For I would not have known what it is to covet if the law had not said, “You shall not covet.” But sin, seizing an opportunity through the commandment, produced in me all kinds of covetousness. For apart from the law, sin lies dead. I was once alive apart from the law, but when the commandment came, sin came alive and I died. The very commandment that promised life proved to be death to me. For sin, seizing an opportunity through the commandment, deceived me and through it killed me. So the law is holy, and the commandment is holy and righteous and good (Romans 7:7-12).

Now there is a lot to this passage that addresses the issue we are looking at. First, Paul states that “if it had not been for the law, I would not have known sin.” Indeed, he insists “apart from the law, sin lies dead.” Therefore there is no sin if there is not first a commandment from God. That means that if we are to look at evil as a function of immorality instead of natural evil, then evil can only exists because a commandment first exists. Consequently, Paul says “I would not have known what it is to covet if the law had not said, ‘You shall not covet.’”

The logical conclusion of this must therefore be that it is impossible for any immorality to come about if God does not issue any commands. Yet despite this, Paul maintains “the commandment is holy and righteous and good.” We can ask rhetorically: How can it be anything but good? God is, after all, the definition of good, and His commands must be good too even if evil cannot come about unless they exist. This doesn’t mean the commands are sufficient for evil to occur, but it does mean that the commands are necessary for evil to occur.

Let us then examine the scope of the commandments. It is one thing to say that men are under the commands of God; but is God bound by those same commands? I merely point back to the above natural evils that God authors and ask, “If you did that would you be doing evil?” If you flooded the Earth and killed all but 8 people, would such genocide by considered good or evil? If you sent famines and plagues on people, would you be good or evil? Obviously you would be considered evil, yet God is not evil for doing so.

That’s because God is not under His commands but rather He issues those commands. This is why James says: “There is only one lawgiver and judge, he who is able to save and to destroy. But who are you to judge your neighbor?” (James 4:12). God has the right to judge while you do not. That is why along a similar vein Paul writes: “Who are you to pass judgment on the servant of another? It is before his own master that he stands or falls” (Romans 14:4). We who have been created by God do not have the same rights as He who created us. God does not have to obey the commands that He gives us, and therefore even if we think we have seen a conflict between what we are not allowed to do and what God is allowed to do, that is not grounds for us to say that God has committed evil.

Finally, God can also use instruments of evil without Himself being evil. We read, for instance: “Now therefore behold, the LORD has put a lying spirit in the mouth of all these your prophets; the LORD has declared disaster for you” (1 Kings 22:23). We see that God is the one who “put a lying spirit in the mouth of all these…prophets.” We read Jeremiah’s words: “Then I said, ‘Ah, Lord GOD, surely you have utterly deceived this people and Jerusalem, saying, “It shall be well with you,” whereas the sword has reached their very life’” (Jeremiah 4:10). And if it weren’t enough for Jeremiah to say God deceived fallen Israel, he also says: “O LORD, you deceived me, and I was deceived” (Jeremiah 20:7).

While this last passage is part of a lament of Jeremiah, it is nevertheless evidence that Jeremiah didn’t have any problem with the concept of God deceiving people for His own reasons. Yet Hebrews 6:18 says that it is impossible for God to lie. How would it be possible for God to deceive someone without lying? One way would be by putting “a lying spirit in the mouth of [false] prophets.” For in that case, God is not the one who lies (the lying spirit lies), but God does put the lying spirit in the position where it will be believed. We see this again when Paul asserts “Therefore God sends them a strong delusion, so that they may believe what is false” (2 Thessalonians 2:11). The thrust of the passage cannot be ignored: God is the one who sends the delusion so that sinners believe what is false even though God Himself does not lie.

In other words, when God uses evil instruments that does not mean ipso facto that God Himself is evil. If God uses evil people with their penchant to lie in order to deceive other evil people that does not mean God is evil. And just as God can use a liar to establish His purposes without being evil, so too can He use other types of sinners for the same reason.

So let us take stock of where we are. Is God the author of evil? Well, He is obviously the author of natural evils, and He gave the commands without which there could be no evil at all. So yes, He is the author of evil (when the term is properly defined). The reason why so many hesitate to accept this is because they believe it would make God evil, but I have shown that despite God being the author of evil (again, as properly defined) He is not evil, for 1) God is good by definition; 2) God’s commands are for us and not for Him; and 3) we have Biblical examples when God used evil instruments that increased sin without being evil Himself.

Given this, it is improper for Arminians to claim that “God is the author of evil” is a defect of Calvinism. They must show how God’s authoring of evil actually makes God evil, and that requires them to A) ground morality somewhere and, B) deal with the Scripture I have presented above showing God using evil to increase sin without being culpable.