Time and Regret: Why God is Outside Time

One debate in philosophical theology is over whether God is inside or outside of time.  (There are many debates “inside” that one, too, including over the nature of time.  I’ll just sidestep those for now on the grounds that you can’t solve every problem in a blog post.)  I want to present a sketch of an argument for the conclusion that God is outside of time.

Think of your own experience in time.  I think in particular of regret about its passage.  Now you might regret the passage of time because you made a bad decision, you are swept up in the consequences, and you wish you could go back in time and change it.  I suppose we all have that.  But note that if God is in time, that’s not a problem for God because God doesn’t make any regrettable decisions.  (Unless Open Theism is true and God doesn’t know the future.  But let’s pretend Open Theism is not true.  I’m inclined to think that most problems in philosophical theology get worse rather than better with Open Theism . . .)

OK, think for a moment about the past, about a memory that involves something wonderful that you cannot have back.  In my case, I think of my children when they were very young.  Years ago I lived in Kentucky, across the street from a dairy farm.  I would regularly carry my infant son over there to watch the cows.  For me that was a slice of heaven that I can never have back, because I don’t live there anymore and, most notably, because my son is too old to be carried like that.  I regret that.  Those days are gone, and there is absolutely nothing I can do about it.  When I ponder this I feel trapped, swept along.  I am a prisoner of time.

But if God is in time, isn’t God trapped in exactly the same way?  If God took joy in the childhood of my kids, God can’t get back to it any more than I can.  (Of course, God remembers it better than I do, but even perfect memory of an event is not the same as living it.)  Or think about the glory of the Resurrection:  a good day on God’s calendar, for sure, but also gone, irretrievably gone, sweeping farther into the past with every passing day.  And God, on this score, is just like me.  God has reason for regretting that what is past is gone.  God lacks control over the passage of time just like I do.

If this is a weakness in me – if I have regret in virtue of being trapped in time, a prisoner to it – then I suggest that the same is true of God, if God is in time.  But it would be unbecoming for God to experience regret in virtue of being trapped by anything.  That wouldn’t be appropriate for the greatest possible being!  I suggest, then, that these considerations about regret and the passage of time give us some reason to think that God is in fact outside time, that God is not bound in time but somehow transcends it.

Forgiveness and Repentance

In this post, senior philosophy major Daniel Thweatt makes the case that forgiveness does not require repentance.  A common view of forgiveness in the philosophical literature claims that in order for genuine forgiveness to occur, the offending party must recognize and repent of the offense; but Daniel argues that this is not so.

Daniel's topic brings to mind a song about forgiveness by Don Henley called "Heart of the Matter," and so, as a bonus, I include here a video of Henley performing that song live with the Eagles.  Daniel's essay follows below.


Background Note

I will be assuming the view of forgiveness that philosopher Jeffrie Murphy holds, where forgiveness is “the overcoming, on moral grounds, of what I will call the vindictive passions -- the passions of anger, resentment, and even hatred that are often occasioned when one has been deeply wronged by another.”

Forgiveness and Repentance: Some Thoughts

Murphy and Charles Griswold see a close connection between forgiveness and repentance. Murphy thinks it is reasonable to condition forgiveness on the wrongdoer’s repentance, while Griswold takes it that the notion of forgiveness is conceptually tied to repentance such that if there is no repentance (or at least the willingness to repent) by the wrongdoer, there is no forgiveness.

Murphy claims that making forgiveness depend on the wrongdoer’s repentance can guard against “sacrificing our self-respect or our respect for the moral order -- a respect that is often evinced in resentment and other vindictive passions.” According to him, “hastily forgiving” the wrongdoer may condone his or her action(s) and the degrading message conveyed by it. Withholding forgiveness until repentance can not only guard one against the harm of not showing self-respect, it can also give the wrongdoer an incentive for “moral rebirth.”  Likewise, Griswold warns that unconditional forgiveness may condone or encourage wrongdoing, as well as damage victims’ self-respect.

I disagree. First, it seem to me that there are counterexamples to this view. Consider, for example, the priest who preemptively forgives Jean Valjean in Les Misérables. His act seems to me to be both legitimate forgiveness and not any less morally praiseworthy than an act of forgiveness done in response to repentance. I can also think of instances in my own life where (I take it) I have genuinely and rightly forgiven people despite their not repenting.

Second, and in continuation of this thought, there seems to me to be a variety of morally justifying grounds for forgiveness that do not require repentance.  Consider these examples:  God might command unconditional forgiveness; forgiveness might help realize various goods in the wake of wrongdoing (such as peace and the avoidance of cycles of revenge); forgiveness without repentance may be necessary for the thriving, or perhaps even the possibility, of valuable close relationships; and unconditional forgiveness could motivate moral reform in the wrongdoer (as it apparently did with Jean Valjean). I do not take this list to be exhaustive, but offer it as a selection of examples.

Moreover, it is not obvious to me that unconditional forgiveness sacrifices one’s self-respect or respect for the moral order. It seems entirely possible to conceive of oneself as having inherent value and conceive of the wrong done to one as really wrong despite unconditionally forgiving. The beliefs that “I have inherent value” and “What person X did to me was wrong” and even “I am entitled to resentment/anger towards person X for wronging me” seem compatible with the belief that “I forgive person X (for reason Y)”. Moreover, belief in one’s inherent value and respect for the moral order can be expressed in ways other than appropriate vindictiveness, such as deep sadness over what was done (which I take to be consistent with forgiveness) or verbal repudiation (unless this is an act of revenge).

In addition, Murphy himself outlines how a Christian worldview can furnish one with a conceptual framework that can guard against a loss of self-respect and respect for the moral order while unconditionally forgiving.  Consider two points he makes.  First, on the Christian view God will see to it that the moral calculus of the universe is not ultimately out of balance. This, he says, can help one to “relax a bit the clinch-fisted anger and resentment with which [one tries] to sustain [one’s] self-respect and hold [one’s] world together all alone.” Second, on the Christian view we are all loved by God and all created with inherent value as God’s image-bearers. A firm commitment to these claims can shore up one’s self-respect regardless of what is done to one.

It is also not obvious that unconditional forgiveness risks condoning or encouraging wrongs. After all, the claim that “You did something wrong and inexcusable to me” seems necessarily implicit in the assertion that “I forgive you.”  If the wrong were excusable, then it would be excused, not forgiven. As Murphy points out, excusing, unlike forgiveness, is a response to non-culpable wrongdoing.  Forgiveness, on the other hand, responds to culpable wrongdoing.  So, to communicate to someone that they have been forgiven is necessarily to communicate to that person that they did something wrong and are culpable for it.  So forgiving doesn’t condone or encourage wrongs.

Moreover, there are ways to discourage wrongdoing while at the same time unconditionally forgiving the perpetrators.  One might do so by way of verbal repudiation, or by setting an example of virtuous character.  One might also discourage wrongdoing by refusing reconciliation under certain conditions, such as when responding to a perpetually adulterous spouse, perhaps.  The act of forgiveness itself in these situations may nonetheless so move the unrepentant wrongdoer as to encourage or bring about moral reform.

All that being said, if unconditional forgiveness does risk condoning or encouraging wrongs, it is not necessarily to be faulted on that account. The pursuit or attainment of some goods often comes at the expense of other goods. For example, to choose to become a surgeon may mean forfeiting becoming a pastor. Similarly, spending more time with family can entail spending less time with friends.  If unconditionally forgiving in some circumstances likewise entails risking being seen as condoning or encouraging wrongs, I think it can be worth taking that risk.

I conclude that we can have forgiveness without repentance.  Such forgiveness can be justified for all sorts of reasons; it need not have the costs attributed to it by Murphy and Griswold; and even if it does, the benefits could outweigh those costs.    

Why Animals Have Rights

Last week, Blake Hereth of Drake University came to Bethel and defended veganism.  Blake is a long-time vegetarian, but he recently graduated to veganism, so that he neither eats animals nor uses any animal-related products.  The reason is that, in his view, animals have rights.  An abridged version of his argument for this conclusion follows.

But first, a picture of me and Blake standing by a poster in the stairwell...

And now Blake.  P.S.  Citations have been removed from this paper.  If you want to see them, let me know.

Why Animals Have Rights

Animals have rights, and for the same reason we do: because they’re proper members of the social contract, members to whom we have direct (as opposed to indirect) duties.

John Rawls, in A Theory of Justice, argued that the true principles of justice (and, by extension, the true principles of morality) are the ones that fully rational beings would agree to behind a veil of ignorance.

What is a veil of ignorance? In brief, it’s what it sounds like: it’s being in a state where you don’t know who or how you’ll be in the world. You don’t know if you’ll be male or female, bisexual or heterosexual, rich or poor, South American or European.

Being in this state matters because it removes the possibility of bias. Thus, when you choose what principles everyone will live by, you choose ones that favor not only who and how you will in fact turn out to be, but who and how you might turn out to be. Because you might turn out to be anyone, the principles you would choose would protect everyone equally.

Who can be a direct party to the social contract? The answer is: anyone who stands to gain or lose anything from the terms of that contract.

Who has something to lose or gain from the terms of the contract? Certainly, anyone from the perspective of whose life it would be better or worse to live as a result of employing the terms of that contract.

Suppose someone defended the sexist view that females aren’t members of the social contract. Against this, we could plausibly argue that because adopting such a view would entail a lack of (direct) obligations to females, which might drastically alter the quality of their lives from their point of view, they could reasonably reject such treatment. Additionally, each of us, if we were perfectly rational, would reject such treatment for ourselves if we believed that we might turn out to be females. Given these considerations, females are of course members of the social contract.

The same is true of many non-human animals. If, behind the veil of ignorance, we ask ourselves, “What if I turn out to be a dog? How would I agree to be treated?” we will discover that the terms of the social contract can affect the lives of animals. We will discover that there are better and worse animal lives from the animal’s point of view, just as there are better and worse lives from the point of view of human animals.

Being a member of the social contract has its perks. For one, it gives you rights. Here’s an example of how that works. Suppose someone beats you bloody for no good reason. This is an action that you could reasonably reject, assuming you had the opportunity for a prior say in the matter. (That’s what the veil of ignorance is for: having a hypothetically prior say.) Because you could reasonably reject being beaten bloody for no good reason, it’s wrong to do that to you. The only permissible acts are the ones that no one could reasonably reject. As T.M. Scanlon puts the matter,

When I ask myself what reason the fact that an action would be wrong provides me with a reason not to do it, my answer is that such an action would be one that I could not justify to others on grounds I could expect them to accept. ... In particular, an act is wrong if and only if any principle that permitted it would be one that could reasonably be rejected by people with the motivation just described (or, equivalently, if and only if it would be disallowed by any principle that such people could not reasonably accept).

The mere fact that non-human animals are direct members of the social contract tells us very little about what rights they have. So, what rights do non-human animals have?

One such right is the right not to be killed (recreationally or otherwise) for food. After all, it’s difficult to imagine how someone couldn’t reasonably reject being killed for food. Certainly I could reasonably reject such treatment, but then it’s also true that I would reject this behind a veil of ignorance, not knowing who I might become. If I were a dog, being killed and eaten would make my life worse from my perspective; it’s therefore a harm to me, and I can reasonably reject harm. Thus, I can reasonably reject this treatment whether I imagine myself as a rat or a pig or a dog or a boy.

This takes us further, all the way to ethical vegetarianism and even ethical veganism. Behind the veil of ignorance, we can reasonably reject principles such as these: “Others should be permitted to take from us, by force, our property”; “others should be permitted to imprison us without our consent for the sole purpose of harvesting valuable items from our bodies”; “others should be permitted to obtain, keep, and enjoy products which were obtained from us immorally.”

As examples, consider that we could reasonably reject being forced to surrender our kidneys, or being imprisoned without our consent merely to harvest our blood. We could also reasonably reject having our organs or blood used by others if they were obtained from us immorally.

The same is true of non-human animals: they could reasonably reject being forced to surrender their flesh, or being imprisoned without their consent merely to have their eggs or milk harvested. They could also reasonably reject having their meat, milk, or eggs used by others if they were obtained immorally. Thus, we ought to be vegans (at least in the majority of cases).

In Defense of Purgatory

Today's post is courtesy of Scott Wheeler, philosophy major, Bethel University Class of 2007.  Scott is the guy on the right in the picture below.  (The guy on the left is Dr. Alvin Plantinga.  This picture captures one of the finer moments in Scott's life.)  He is writing in defense of purgatory. 

Over the last couple years I've come to terms with the fact that doctrinally I'm not as Evangelical as I previously suspected.  This has caused me to start thinking more seriously about doctrines that are atypical within Evangelicalism. To this end, I recently came to a startling revelation: some great Christian thinkers take the doctrine of Purgatory seriously, so perhaps I should too.

I want to give an argument I've been thinking about that makes me think it fairly likely that Purgatory exists.  I'm still just experimenting with the doctrine, so I won't be too shocked if it turns out I'm wrong.  I'll give it my best shot anyway.

Here are some controversial beliefs assumed in my argument that I won't attempt to defend:

Christian orthodoxy, some sort of mind/body dualism, inclusivism, progressive sanctification, theosis.  There are probably some others as well, but these are the ones that come to mind for now.

I'm taking my understanding of Purgatory from the Catechism of the Catholic Church:

 

1030 "All who die in God's grace and friendship, but still imperfectly purified, are indeed assured of their eternal salvation; but after death they undergo purification, so as to achieve the holiness necessary to enter the joy of heaven."

1031 “The Church gives the name Purgatory to this final purification of the elect, which is entirely different from the punishment of the damned."

I want to try to reason through why I believe Purgatory may be exactly the kind of place we would expect an omni-benevolent God to create.

If God is omni-benevolent, He would provide a possibility for the salvation of the unchurched. Otherwise, He creates certain people (a great many people, in fact) without any possibility of avoiding damnation, then holds them accountable for it. I doubt this can be reconciled with a loving creator. The great theologian Karl Rahner spoke of “anonymous Christians.” This term refers to non-professing-Christians who are saved by the grace of Christ. This is to say that many who have never heard the gospel, have only heard a distorted version of it, lack the mental capacity to grasp it, etc. may nevertheless be saved by in some way appropriating God's grace.

Under the assumption that anonymous Christians exist, here is my argument.

As a first premise, I'll simply state what we know about anonymous Christians: they will have had no opportunity to undergo any real process of sanctification in their earthly lives. After all, how can one undergo a process of becoming more Christlike or of conforming her will to Christ's if she has neither heard of Christ nor been introduced to His teachings? So my first premise is just that anonymous Christians will end this earthly life without having undergone sanctification.

Second premise: some degree of sanctification is required to be in communion with God. “Communion with God” can be a pretty loaded term. When I use this term I'm thinking about remaining in the presence of God post-judgment. This belief is firmly entrenched in the history of Christian thought, and is a part of any version of the ordo salutis. I don't have room for exegesis here, so if anyone wants to dispute this interpretation of the verses that follow she is welcome to do so. Here's a little rundown of texts that I think support this claim: Lev. 11:44, Rom. 6:22, 2 Cor. 3:18, 1 Thess. 5:23, Heb. 12:14, and Rev. 3:15-20.

The argument thus far is this:

1.  Anonymous Christians will end this earthly life without having undergone sanctification.

2.  Sanctification is required to be in communion with God.

Now let's add one more:

3.  Anonymous Christians will eventually be in communion with God. I take this to be obvious. The definition of an “anonymous Christian” is just someone who is not a “Christian” by creed, but who is, in fact, saved. If one is saved, she will eventually be in communion with God.

So:

4.  Anonymous Christians will end this life without having undergone that which is  required to be in communion with God. (1,2)

5.  Those who will eventually be in communion with God will end this life without having undergone that which is required to be in communion with God. (3,4)

The conclusion must be that that which is required for communion with God (sanctification) will happen at some point other than this earthly life. Continued sanctification, especially in the Eastern Orthodox tradition, is the primary purpose of Purgatory. It also meets the qualification of not being part of this earthly life. I think, then, that if one shares my intuitions about anonymous Christians/inclusivism and the benevolence of God, she should very seriously consider the doctrine of Purgatory to be a live option in her theology.

Though my argument above is specific to inclusivists like me, please don't make the mistake of thinking Purgatory is only an option for inclusivists. It isn't. The example that comes to mind is the thief on the cross with Jesus. Surely the thief will have no time to undergo sanctification prior to his death. Should we say he will never undergo sanctification and will thereby skip an important step in the ordo?  Perhaps purgation is a simple theological solution even for exclusivists who want to retain strong notions of the necessity of sanctification for communion with God.

Animal Rights Lecture Tuesday, October 24, at 4 p.m. in AC246

You are all welcome to attend a lecture Tuesday afternoon by Blake Hereth of Drake University.  Blake will be speaking about animal rights.  As the poster says, it's at 4 p.m. in AC 246.