Does Divine Mystery Lead to Moral Paralysis? The Agency of the Spirit and the Skeptical Theist Response to the Problem of Evil (Part 7)

The question to return to, then, is this: Does the knowledge that this framework provides about our moral agency in the Spirit undercut the skeptical theist’s claims to divine mystery that block the noseeum inference (the inference from “we can’t see reasons…” to “there are no reasons…”) found in the evidential argument from evil? I don’t see how it does. For while we understand the Spirit’s role in perfecting creation and our being empowered to co-labor with the Spirit in this mission, this still does not answer the question of why evils happen in the first place. Yet this particular appeal to divine mystery does not leave us morally paralyzed either. For while the Pentecostal skeptical theist will endorse a form of LST and claim that our inability to spot God’s reasons for allowing particular instances of evil is not evidence that no such reasons exist, these considerations do not tell the whole story. The Pentecostal skeptical theist can consistently assert both that there are some divine purposes and intentions beyond our grasp, and that we have been given knowledge of the purposes of divine agency which commission our moral obligations.

For example, let us reflect back on the case of Charles and the child abduction. If Charles is a Pentecostal skeptical theist, he will reason that there may or may not be divine purposes in allowing this particular evil to occur. Charles will, however, have two further considerations that give him an all-things-considered reason to act. First, he is also to consult his general knowledge of values and easily see that the abduction of the child is an evil that should be prevented if he can do so without great risk to himself. His moral agency is not undercut because of a lack of axiological knowledge. Secondly, our protagonist will also recall that he has been called and empowered by the Holy Spirit to join in the mission of alleviating suffering. Further, he recognizes that the Spirit will guide him into all (moral) truth. This gives him a general reason to interfere with the abduction.

While it is still true that there may be divine purposes involved for permitting the child’s abduction, Charles can be confident that preventing the prima facie evil is a part of his moral obligation. This is the case because the possibility of a divine purpose in the midst of an evil act is not sufficient to overthrow the human agent’s general reasons for acting. The Pentecostal skeptical theist is not, therefore, absolutely certain that preventing the abduction is the all-things-considered best action. It always remains possible for God to have a reason for allowing this particular evil. Nevertheless, he can be confident that his interfering the kidnapping is the right action on the grounds that he is participating with the Holy Spirit’s mission to restore a suffering creation.

Therefore, the accusations of moral paralysis that are leveled against this kind of moderated, Pentecostal skeptical theism are not successful. However, they do appear to be decisive against the broad, Bergmannian style of skeptical theism, which seems to forget Paul’s dictum in Romans 12:21: “Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.”

Does Divine Mystery Lead to Moral Paralysis? The Agency of the Spirit and the Skeptical Theist Response to the Problem of Evil (Part 6)

Last time I noted that the skeptical theist needs an alternative model that appropriately identifies the locus of her skepticism. This model will make the following claims:

(1) Some, but not all, of God’s purposes are beyond our cognitive capacities.

(2) God has revealed to us the purposes of divine agency, which are relevant to our moral obligations.

(3) Therefore, we have revealed to us divine purposes relevant to our moral agency while divine purposes are not fully understood.

What is it, then, that we affirm about divine agency that is helpful here? First, we affirm that both human and divine agency involve the power to bring about certain states of affairs intentionally. Agents of any kind act in purposive ways so as to achieve an end. This definition ensures that we can indeed predicate the same sense of agency to both God and humans. Secondly, we must affirm, however, that there are significant differences in how God and humans are able to bring about states of affairs. The difference that is relevant here which I would like to highlight is that for the Christian tradition, God is a Trinitarian agent. That is to say, there are three divine agents who act in various ways and with distinct roles in the Godhead. It is often noted that the Father is closely associated with creation, the Son with redemption, and the Holy Spirit with perfection. Indeed, Gunton notes that “the Spirit’s work is considered to be eschatological: as perfecting that which was created in the beginning.”[1] Relevant to our discussion is that the Holy Spirit is affirmed in the Christian tradition as that divine agent whose mission it is to perfect creation, to rid the earth of suffering and evil. Thus an oft-neglected element in Christian discussions of the problem of evil is the pneumatological element. If we want to look for the God who acts with regard to evil today, we should look no further than to the agency of the Holy Spirit.

The upshot of our interest with the agency of the Spirit is that rather than acting solo, the Spirit mediates his agency through human agents. Luke 4:14 sees the Spirit empowering Jesus for mission and service, and Acts 1:8 describes to the disciples the impending day of Pentecost, at which they will be given power through the Spirit. It is this focus on the Spirit’s enabling our own human agency that is characteristic of Pentecostal theology, as Kärkkäinen affirms, “Pentecostal/Charismatic approaches emphasize empowerment through the Spirit for witnessing and service.”[2] The problem of evil should therefore take a distinct turn for Pentecostals.

It is not simply that we question why God allows evil to happen in the world, but it is that we have already affirmed that we are part of the solution. As the Holy Spirit has mediated his agency through the church, we have been empowered to partner with the Spirit’s work of perfecting and restoring creation. In their recent work, Mission in the Spirit, Julie and Wonsuk Ma emphasize that while Pentecostals have historically focused their mission on evangelism and healing, a broader and more comprehensive concept of mission is needed: “If Pentecostals develop the theological capability to apply their prized heritage of healing to the broken families, relationships, divided churches and societies, racial conflicts and moral decay, the impact of Pentecostal mission will be unimaginable.”[3] Thus, a robust Pentecostal theology with an emphasis on mission in the Spirit will have far-reaching consequences on our moral agency. Pentecostals will want to say that they have not only been enabled to preach the gospel to the poor, to proclaim release to the captives, to set free those who are oppressed, but that they have been mandated to do this work. Further, Pentecostals will affirm with John 16:13 that the Holy Spirit is the divine agent who leads us into all truth. Because moral truth is here included, this means that the Pentecostal will rely on the Holy Spirit for guidance in the arena of moral action.  This formulation of Pentecostal theology provides a rich framework for moral agency and obligation.

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[1] Colin Gunton, The Christian Faith (Oxford: Blackwell, 2002), 185.

[2] Velli-Matti Kärkkäinen, Pneumatology (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2002), 92.

[3] Julie C. Ma and Wonsuk Ma, Mission in the Spirit: Towards a Charismatic/Pentecostal Missiology (Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock, 2010), 25.

Does Divine Mystery Lead to Moral Paralysis? The Agency of the Spirit and the Skeptical Theist Response to the Problem of Evil (Part 5)

The intuitive appeal of skeptical theism for the Christian lies in the claim that we must have due humility in the face of our understanding of God and evil. Indeed this seems to be the point of the Job narrative in the Old Testament, that as finite human beings, it is simply not given to us to know why God allows evil to occur. Thus, retaining a strong sense of divine mystery has been an important feature of the Christian tradition, one that I think the skeptical theist position tries to articulate. The problem enters when the skeptical theist allows her skepticism to become too pervasive, when divine mystery is emphasized above positive knowledge of God. As Colin Gunton notes in reference to negative theology, “What might appear to be a proper human modesty before the divine can turn into the supreme blasphemy of denying revelation.”[1] The skeptical theist position as described above does fit in the stream of the via negativa in relying on human ignorance to do the heavy lifting when it comes to theological language. The potential danger, then, of skeptical theism is that it promotes a picture of God apart from the picture that He has painted of himself for us in divine revelation, in Scripture. While it is clear that retaining a sense of divine mystery is a healthful aspect of the Christian’s beliefs, that sense of cognitive limitation should not also remove Scripture from giving knowledge of God. Therefore, from a theological, as well as from a philosophical, perspective, complete skepticism is not desirable or warranted. 

Critics of skeptical theism often pose this dilemma:[2] on the one hand, if we confess our cognitive limitations in the realm of values or in the realm of discerning God’s purposes, we end up morally paralyzed. On the other hand, if we begin to provide reasons for thinking we understand goods, evils, and God’s purposes concerning them, we have taken the path of theodicy, we must reject divine mystery, and can no longer call ourselves skeptical theists. But what reason is there for thinking that the skeptical theist must be committed to this dichotomy? While this dichotomy may hold for the skeptical theist who accepts ST 1-3 or a bare LST, I take it that these positions are not essential for skeptical theism. The defining feature of the skeptical theist is that she rejects the noseeum inference. She believes that our inability to spot (all) the reasons God may have for allowing evil isn’t evidence that there are no such reasons. This position is perfectly compatible, however, with the skeptical theist being able to spot some reasons. The skeptical theist doesn’t need to claim that God’s purposes are wholly inaccessible to us, but merely that we lack a complete and comprehensive knowledge of those purposes. At the same time, our cognitive limitations must not interfere with our ability to act in any given moral situation.

The skeptical theist, then, needs an alternative model that appropriately identifies the locus of her skepticism. Rather than understanding our cognitive limitations in terms of general considerations about value (as in ST 1-3) or a blanket skepticism of divine intentions (as in LST), I suggest we fuse LST, the skepticism about our knowledge of divine purposes, with what we know about divine agency. This model will make the following claims:

(1) Some, but not all, of God’s purposes are beyond our cognitive capacities.

(2) God has revealed to us the purposes of divine agency, which are relevant to our moral obligations.

(3) Therefore, we have revealed to us divine purposes relevant to our moral agency while divine purposes are not fully understood.

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[1] Colin Gunton, Act and Being (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2002), 36.

[2] See Sehon, “The Problem of Evil: Skeptical Theism Leads to Moral Paralysis,” 72; and Mike Almeida and Graham Oppy, “Reply to Trakakis and Nagasawa,” 7.

Does Divine Mystery Lead to Moral Paralysis? The Agency of the Spirit and the Skeptical Theist Response to the Problem of Evil (Part 4)

Second Response

The next route which may be taken by the skeptical theist is to moderate her skepticism by claiming that she does have adequate knowledge in the realm of human moral agency, but that those considerations are not adequate in the realm of divine moral agency. So she may put forward a Limited Skeptical Thesis (LST):

           LST:  We have no good reason for thinking that the goods, evils, and entailment relations between them that are applicable to human agents are representative of the goods, evils, and entailment relations between them that are applicable to divine agents. 

Trakakis and Nagasawa seem to have something like this in mind when they claim, “the skeptical theist need only hold that it is God’s purposes or intentions that often elude us. That is to say, our knowledge or understanding of God-justifying goods falls miserably short, even though our grasp of goods in general is quite adequate.”[1] The advantage of this position is that it seems to fall in line with a more common sense theistic picture of God and humanity. While human agents have moral capacities and awareness, God’s reasons and purposes are often inscrutable. Nevertheless, there lies a problem for the proponent of LST as well. Almeida and Oppy reply with the following reductio argument that emphasizes our duty not to interfere with God’s purposes:

1. We (human beings) are always (at least) morally permitted not to interfere with the purposes of God.

2. For all we can tell, there are divine purposes in allowing certain evils.

            3. (Therefore) For all we know, we are morally permitted not to interfere with those evils.[2]

While the skeptical theist may want to claim that she can be confident that God’s purposes don’t conflict with her moral obligations, as Sehon points out, “If God’s reasons are entirely unknown, then it is hard to fathom how the theist could possibly know that those reasons are not relevant to my situation.”[3] Thus it appears that the skeptical theist who endorses a bare form of LST still does not elude a problematic moral skepticism.

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[1] Nick Trakakis and Yujin Nagasawa, “Skeptical Theism and Moral Skepticism,” Ars Disputandi 4 (2004): 23.

[2] Mike Almeida and Graham Oppy, “Reply to Trakakis and Nagasawa,” Ars Disputand 5 (2005).

[3] Scott Sehon, “The Problem of Evil: Skeptical Theism Leads to Moral Paralysis,” 73.

Does Divine Mystery Lead to Moral Paralysis? The Agency of the Spirit and the Skeptical Theist Response to the Problem of Evil (Part 3)

At this point, two responses have been given in defense of the skeptical theist position, which, as I will argue, are not successful when they are joined with ST 1-3. The first is the argument that it is God’s commands, rather than our competence in the sphere of value assessments, that gives us the ability to act morally. The second is the argument that the skepticism entailed by ST 1-3 should be limited to divine agents rather than human agents.

First Response 

Bergmann and Rea respond by claiming that the skeptical theist need not worry about this objection, for she doesn’t hold ST 1-3 in a vacuum. As a theist, she believes that we have other ways of apprehending our moral obligations than by having a thorough command of goods, evils, and the relations between them. Bergmann and Rea state, “theists very typically believe that God has commanded his creatures to behave in certain ways; and they also very typically believe that God’s commands provide all-things-considered reasons to act.”[1] Thus Bergmann and Rea argue that we do have enough knowledge in the realm of value to recognize what God’s commands are and to follow them. The theist’s full understanding of moral obligations doesn’t come from our contemplation of the realm of values, but what God has revealed to us.

           

This kind of reply, however, does not tell us where God’s commands are to be found and how we might be able to evaluate them. What are we to make of conflicting reports of God’s commands (say, between the Christian Bible and the Koran), or dubious commands that are given, for instance, in the Old Testament? In this manner, Scott Sehon objects that “on the Bergmann and Rea response, we are to do what God tells us to do, rather than reasoning things out on our own; so, we can’t employ our common sense moral reasoning when interpreting what it is that God is telling us. So it will become very difficult to interpret around recalcitrant scriptural passages (e.g., those condoning slavery).”[2] While the common theistic approach to interpreting and interpreting difficult scriptural passages is to appeal to moral reasoning and divine intentions, it doesn’t appear that these are options for the skeptical theist who has endorsed ST 1-3. For if we cannot draw ultimate conclusions about goods, evils, and their relations, we cannot judge which commands apply to us and which ones do not. Stephen Maitzen points out the dilemma which once again confronts the skeptical theist: “Our knowing enough to identify, interpret, and apply God’s commands ought to increase our confidence in drawing the very ‘noseeum’ inferences that skeptical theism is deliberately designed to block.”[3] Thus for the skeptical theist who is committed to ST 1-3, the appeal to divine commands is not sufficient to overturn a pervading moral skepticism.

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[1] Michael Bergmann and Michael Rea, “In Defense of Skeptical Theism: A Reply to Almeida and Oppy,” Australasian Journal of Philosophy 83 (2005): 244.

[2] Scott Sehon, “The Problem of Evil: Skeptical Theism Leads to Moral Paralysis,” International Journal for Philosophy of Religion 67 (2010): 77.

[3] Stephen Maitzen, “Skeptical Theism and God’s Commands,” Sophia 47 (2007): 41.

Okay, back at it...

I am now attempting to end my obligatory blogging hiatus, having regained some semblance of constancy after the busyness of the end of the semester, family in town, and moving across town.

Look forward to the conclusions to my paper on the skeptical theist response to the problem of evil, Ricoeur on forgiveness, and some reflections on Charles Taylor's Sources of the Self.

Jüngel on Trinitarian Prayer

German theologian Eberhard Jüngel is professor of systematic theology and philosophy of religion at the University of Tübingen and is one of the most admired living theologians. Although not very well known in the US, he has achieved something like "cult-status" in the theological blogosphere.

I want to look at a brief article that he published in the journal Word & World in 1998 titled "Trinitarian Prayers for Christian Worship." In this article Jüngel gives a brief plea for filling in the "experiential deficiency" in the church today of the doctrine of the Trinity through praying in a trinitarian structure. He follows this by submitting 19 trinitarian prayers that he has used when asked to contribute to his congregation's liturgy.

Reflections on the doctrine of the Trinity have picked up theological steam in the past 30 years, with theologians and philosophers of religion publishing a flood of books and articles on various facets of the Trinity: feminist perspectives, postmodern perspectives, social and political perspectives...you get the picture. But for all this Trinity-talk among the theologians, are church members experiencing any kind of change or edification in their thinking in the Trinity?

Perhaps not. While we want to embrace the fact that we worship a Triune God, we may secretly share Immanuel Kant's famous complaint that the Trinity is practically irrelevant to our lives.

Jüngel's proposal to counter this tendency is to focus on a core practice in Christian worship: prayer. His claim is that "Trinitarian prayers call Christians to experience the life of the triune God." It so often happens that our prayers are offered to a monolithic conception of God, and this hinders our capability to experience the fullness of the Trinity. Jüngel emphasizes that "this God does not exist in splendid isolation, but is One who exists from eternity as a Being in community, indeed, who exists as a community of mutual otherness."

We are urged, then, to give a trinitarian structure to our prayers that does justice to this definition of the Godhead. The idea is that we are to address this trinitarian community of mutual otherness

in such a way that the respective particularity of each person of the Trinity is called to mind. This particularity is remembered so that those who are reminded of it begin to share in the life of the trinitarian God. And with that, Christians begin to experience the mystery of the divine Trinity - an experience which, then, has great practical value.

I heartily agree with Jüngel's thoughts here, that when we pray, we should do so in a way that allows us to recognize and experience the triune life of God.

The Eastern Orthodox Church, of course, has long emphasized the practical value of the Trinity in church life and in worship. Indeed, it is claimed within this stream of Christianity that the Trinity is the foundation for our own personhood. Bishop Kallistos Ware's writings have illuminated this facet of the Trinity in my own thinking. And so, with this in mind, Jüngel concludes his reflections with this stirring reminder: "For if the human is the image of God, then the human, too, is meant to turn the otherness that distinguishes among people toward community that does not level out such otherness."

One minor point of curiosity (and possible contention) that I have with Jüngel's article is in the way that he fleshes out, so to speak, his definition of the triune God and our faith in Him:

Faith in God the Father is faith in God as the origin of life; faith in God the Son is faith in the God who, for our benefit, died our death. But faith in God the Holy Spirit is faith in the God who, in himself, endures this contrast between life and death and who resolves the contrast to the benefit of life. 

 Maybe it's just me, but there seems to be something suspiciously Hegelian going on here. I am with Jüngel when he affirms faith in the Father as the origin of life. I am with him when he affirms the Son who dies in our place. But when it comes to the role of the Holy Spirit, is it really the case that we can say that He is the "Divine Synthesizer" who mediates the thesis of life in the Father and the antithesis of death in the Son? Is this the role that we affirm of the Holy Spirit? Is this our faith in Him, that He "resolves the contrast"?

Maybe there's nothing too objectionable in this. But I would be more inclined identify faith in the Holy Spirit more as faith in the One who restores and perfects creation through love.

Maybe Jüngel's phrasing can be considered equivalent to this idea. But I am a little supicious of the Hegelian language, which even seems to de-personalize the role of the Spirit, making it look less like personal agency and more like an impersonal principle of mediation.

Despite my hesitation here, I gladly embrace and endorse his proposals to correct the experiential deficiency of the doctrine of the Trinity through trinitarian prayers.