Sam Harris, author of The Moral Landscape: How Science Can Determine Human Values (forthcoming) continues describing “the New Science of Morality” in Edge 325:

And yet, on the subject of morality, we seem to think that the possibility of differing opinions, the fact that someone can come forward and say that his morality has nothing to do with human flourishing — but depends upon following shariah law, for instance — the fact that such position can be articulated proves, in some sense, that there’s no such thing as moral truth. Morality, therefore, must be a human invention. The fact that it is possible to articulate a different position is considered a problem for the entire field. But this is a fallacy.

Perhaps. But how so?

We have an intuitive physics, but much of our intuitive physics is wrong with respect to the goal of understanding how matter and energy behave in this universe. I am saying that we also have an intuitive morality, and much of our intuitive morality may be wrong with respect to the goal of maximizing human flourishing — and with reference to the facts that govern the well-being of conscious creatures, generally.

Ok, so how does one know if “our intuitive morality may be wrong with respect to the goal of maximuzing human flouring”? After all, if the first standard was insufficient to provide us with the truth, how can we know that any new standard is any more reliable?

So I will argue, briefly, that the only sphere of legitimate moral concern is the well-being of conscious creatures. I’ll say a few words in defense of this assertion, but I think the idea that it has to be defended is the product of several fallacies and double standards that we’re not noticing. I don’t know that I will have time to expose all of them, but I’ll mention a few.

Thus far, I’ve introduced two things: the concept of consciousness and the concept of well-being. I am claiming that consciousness is the only context in which we can talk about morality and human values.

Well, it’s the only context in which we can talk about anything. Unconscious people don’t talk much! I think Harris may be mean something deeper, such as autonomous self-consciousness (like Descartes’ starting point) when he uses the general term “consciousness.”

Why is consciousness not an arbitrary starting point? Well, what’s the alternative? Just imagine someone coming forward claiming to have some other source of value that has nothing to do with the actual or potential experience of conscious beings. Whatever this is, it must be something that cannot affect the experience of anything in the universe, in this life or in any other.

Yes, Harris seems suckered into Descartes ergo to the max. Consciousness and self-consciousness in no way requires that the epistemological starting point for our entire thought and for the entire enterprise of human be our autonomous mind. When God breathed life into Adam, Adam was just as conscious (if not more conscious) and aware of God’s presence than his own, and the fact that he had five toes on each of his feet; Adam’s senses were drenched in revelation, and there was no sin to get in the way of interpreting it rightly. God-consciousness was in no way secondary to self-consciousness.

Here are a few observations from Van Til:

For Adam in paradise God-consciousness could not come in at the end of a syllogistic process of reasoning. God-consciousness was for him the presupposition of the significance of his reasoning on anything. (Van Til’s Apologetic, 222)

We are ourselves the proximate starting point for all our knowledge. In contrast to this, however, we should think of God as the ultimate starting point of our knowledge. (Introduction to Systematic Theology, 324)

In the second place we deal with the fallen or regeneration consciousness. It builds upon the nontheistic assumption. It in effect denies its creaturehood. It claims to be normal. It will not be receptive of God’s interpretation; it wants to create its own interpretation without reference to God. It will not reconstruct God’s interpretation. It will construct only its own interpretation. It seeks to be creatively constructive. It thus tries to do the impossible with the result that self-frustration is written over all its efforts. There is no unity and never will be unity in nontheistic thought; it has cut itself loose from God metaphysically… (The Defense of the Faith, 72)

Therefore, to be fully self-conscious is to be conscious of creatureliness. All other states of consciousness and self-awareness that does not involve this relationship with the Creator of the creature’s conscious mind indicates corruption by sin; it’s a hollow existence. It’s like a car without an engine, a “netbook” computer without an internet or ethernet card.

But, acknowledging this most basic truth about human existence is not the only problem with Harris’s argument – assuming, of course, that he means “autonomous self-consciousness” under the general rubric of “consciousness.” He presents a straw man. He says “Why is consciousness not an arbitrary starting point? Well, what’s the alternative? Just imagine someone coming forward claiming to have some other source of value that has nothing to do with the actual or potential experience of conscious beings.”  It’s like he is saying, “Why should we fly Florida? Well, what’s the alternative? Just imagine someone coming forward offering you a new set of shoes so you can walk to Florida which is so slow that you’ll never get their in time for thanksgiving.”

Our response is obvious: what’s wrong with driving to Florida if flying is out of the picture? Nothing, of course. And, what’s wrong with Christian theism, which offers a “source of value” that gives justice to human experience, if autonomous self-consciousness might actually be arbitrary? Nothing…unless you have an anti-religion agenda. In short,  Harris is asserting his position against the backdrop of the absurd, hoping everyone will see the rationality of atheistic neurophilosophy. But it doesn’t work and his alternative is by no means the only or best alternative.

Harris then mocks any alternative source of value (Christianity, theism, etc.):

If you put this imagined source of value in a box [i.e. Christianity], I think what you would have in that box would be — by definition — the least interesting thing in the universe. It would be — again, by definition — something that cannot be cared about. Any other source of value will have some relationship to the experience of conscious beings. So I don’t think consciousness is an arbitrary starting point. When we’re talking about right and wrong, and good and evil, and about outcomes that matter, we are necessarily talking about actual or potential changes in conscious experience.

I think King David, in the attitude of Psalm 14 would respond to this by saying “how incredibly absurd.” We are supposed to believe that “right and wrong” and “outcomes that matter” (who determines what “matters”?) are nothing more than “actual or potential changes in conscious experience” according to this atheist neuroscientist. It has absolutely nothing to do with God’s law and purpose for creation. Nothing to do with objective norms established into the fabric of our universe. Nothing to do with conscience, corruption, or sin. Neurons pulsing in the cortex, that’s all morality comes down to in “the New Science of Morality.”

I would further add to that the concept of “well-being” captures everything we can care about in the moral sphere.

Hitler and Stalin cared about a lot of things in the moral sphere, all under the category of “well-being.” But, are we really to believe they were the right things? I’m not sure we’ll ever be told…

The challenge is to have a definition of well-being that is truly open-ended and can absorb everything we care about.

Indeed,  trying to define objective morals without an objective standard is a bit tricky!

This is why I tend not to call myself a “consequentialist” or a “utilitarian,” because traditionally, these positions have bounded the notion of consequences in such a way as to make them seem very brittle and exclusive of other concerns — producing a kind of body count calculus that only someone with Asperger’s could adopt.

Consider the Trolley Problem: If there just is, in fact, a difference between pushing a person onto the tracks and flipping a switch — perhaps in terms of the emotional consequences of performing these actions — well, then this difference has to be taken into account. Or consider Peter Singer’s Shallow Pond problem: We all know that it would take a very different kind of person to walk past a child drowning in a shallow pond, out of concern for getting one’s suit wet, than it takes to ignore an appeal from UNICEF. It says much more about you if you can walk past that pond. If we were all this sort of person, there would be terrible ramifications as far as the eye can see. It seems to me, therefore, that the challenge is to get clear about what the actual consequences of an action are, about what changes in human experience are possible, and about which changes matter.

In thinking about a universal framework for morality, I now think in terms of what I call a “moral landscape.” Perhaps there is a place in hell for anyone who would repurpose a cliché in this way, but the phrase, “the moral landscape” actually captures what I’m after: I’m envisioning a space of peaks and valleys, where the peaks correspond to the heights of flourishing possible for any conscious system, and the valleys correspond to the deepest depths of misery.

What Harris envisions is a land without God’s law, and in that land, there is no bottom to the deepest depths of misery.

As Christian neuro-theologians, let us meditate instead on Psalm 1, which demonstrates a consciousness centered on the law of God and its good, ethical consequences, and a consciousness that is not:

Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the wicked, nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of scoffers; but his delight is in the law of the LORD, and on his law he meditates day and night. He is like a tree planted by streams of water that yields its fruit in its season, and its leaf does not wither. In all that he does, he prospers. The wicked are not so, but are like chaff that the wind drives away. Therefore the wicked will not stand in the judgment, nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous; for the LORD knows the way of the righteous, but the way of the wicked will perish.

Edge 325 (August 31st, 2010) essentially brought to the table a more sophisticated version of the relativistic view of morality promoted by Silverman at the debate this past Monday. The well-known atheist Sam Harris recently attempted to capture “the New Science of Morality.”

We can look at the world, witnessing all of the diverse behaviors, rules, cultural artifacts, and morally salient emotions like empathy and disgust, and we can study how these things play out in human communities, both in our time and throughout history. We can examine all these phenomena in as nonjudgmental a way as possible and seek to understand them. We can understand them in evolutionary terms, and we can understand them in psychological and neurobiological terms, as they arise in the present. And we can call the resulting data and the entire effort a “science of morality”. This would be a purely descriptive science of the sort that I hear Jonathan Haidt advocating. (Harris)

Of course, who determines what is “nonjudgmental”? Isn’t there already a bit of bias in the fact that only three disciplines of knowledge and science (the word, remember, means “to know”) are supposed to be our foundation for a theory of morality? Is the science of theology automatically excluded because it doesn’t meet up to empirical standards?

For most scientists, this project seems to exhaust all that legitimate points of contact between science and morality — that is, between science and judgments of good and evil and right and wrong. But I think there are two other projects that we could concern ourselves with, which are arguably more important.

The second project would be to actually get clearer about what we mean, and s hould mean, by the term “morality,” Understanding how it relates to human well-being altogether, and to actually use this new discipline to think more intelligently about how to maximize human well-being. Of course, philosophers may think that this begs some of the important questions, and I’ll get back to that. But I think this is a distinct project, and it’s not purely descriptive. It’s a normative project. The question is, how can we think about moral truth in the context of science?

Why maximize “human well-being”? How is that defined? Are we not to strive for a more evolved species regardless of how “well” we think it does to ourselves? After all, the whole point of sterilization and extermination of human lives in Germany during WWII was the “maximize human-well being.” So, indeed, there is a touch of question-begging. The real question is: how can we meaningfully think about moral truths outside of an objective standard of morality?

The third project is a project of persuasion: How can we persuade all of the people who are committed to silly and harmful things in the name of “morality” to change their commitments, to have different goals in life, and to lead better lives? I think that this third project is actually the most important project facing humanity at this point in time. It subsumes everything else we could care about — from arresting climate change, to stopping nuclear proliferation, to curing cancer, to saving the whales. Any effort that requires that we collectively get our priorities straight and marshal massive commitments of time and resources would fall within the scope of this project. To build a viable global civilization we must begin to converge on the same economic, political, and environmental goals.

This is a large project, indeed. It was the project assumed by the atheist in several portions of the recent White vs. Silverman debate. Silverman said “the destruction of the family is evil [for me]” while asserting that the holocaust was right for Germany. He came to a debate arguing for positively for the question “Is the New Testament evil?” when after being examined could only say that no one can understand the New Testament in its original context. If truth about morality is relative, then truth about morality has no basis for persuasion beyond “we think this is nice.”

Christianity, however, offers absolute claims about what is right and wrong. God’s law is presented as fact, revealed as reality, and knowable to all – for God’s law is written in the hearts of men, men who are made in God’s image and likeness. That’s why Christians have genuine persuasive power (“this is wrong because the Creator who owns everything says so”) and atheists (“I prefer” or “groups of people prefer”) do not. The most important project facing humanity at this time isn’t saving whales and cooling our planet, it’s proclaiming the truth of everything vital contained in His Word. Man is sinful, God is holy. Moreover, let us not forget that Hitler and Stalin were convinced they “got their priorities straight,” and if morality is subject to change according to time and culture, then there is no basis to think the New Science of Morality will turn in a less horrific direction sooner or later.

Obviously the project of moral persuasion is very difficult — but it strikes me as especially difficult if you can’t figure out in what sense anyone could ever be right and wrong about questions of morality or about questions of human values. Understanding right and wrong in universal terms is Project Two, and that’s what I’m focused on.

There are impediments to thinking about Project Two: the main one being that most right-thinking, well-educated, and well-intentioned people — certainly most scientists and public intellectuals, and I would guess, most journalists — have been convinced that something in the last 200 years of intellectual progress has made it impossible to actually speak about “moral truth.” Not because human experience is so difficult to study or the brain too complex, but because there is thought to be no intellectual basis from which to say that anyone is ever right or wrong about questions of good and evil.

My aim is to undermine this assumption, which is now the received opinion in science and philosophy. I think it is based on several fallacies and double standards and, frankly, on some bad philosophy. The first thing I should point out is that, apart from being untrue, this view has consequences.

In 1947, when the United Nations was attempting to formulate a universal declaration of human rights, the American Anthropological Association stepped forward and said, it can’t be done. This would be to merely foist one provincial notion of human rights on the rest of humanity. Any notion of human rights is the product of culture, and declaring a universal conception of human rights is an intellectually illegitimate thing to do. This was the best our social sciences could do with the crematory of Auschwitz still smoking.

But, of course, it has long been obvious that we need to converge, as a global civilization, in our beliefs about how we should treat one another. For this, we need some universal conception of right and wrong. So in addition to just not being true, I think skepticism about moral truth actually has consequences that we really should worry about.

Atheist Sam Harris has nailed it. “We need some universal conception of right and wrong.” Amen. “skepticism about moral truth actually has consequences that we really should worry about.” Amen! And he goes on…

Definitions matter. And in science we are always in the business of framing conversations and making definitions. There is nothing about this process that condemns us to epistemological relativism or that nullifies truth claims. We define “physics” as, loosely speaking, our best effort to understand the behavior of matter and energy in the universe. The discipline is defined with respect to the goal of understanding how matter behaves.

Of course, anyone is free to define “physics” in some other way. A Creationist physicist could come into the room and say, “Well, that’s not my definition of physics. My physics is designed to match the Book of Genesis.” But we are free to respond to such a person by saying, “You know, you really don’t belong at this conference. That’s not ‘physics’ as we are interested in it. You’re using the word differently. You’re not playing our language game.” Such a gesture of exclusion is both legitimate and necessary. The fact that the discourse of physics is not sufficient to silence such a person, the fact that he cannot be brought into our conversation about physics, does not undermine physics as a domain of objective truth.

Of course, Harris in no way demonstrates how physics according to any definition provides “objective truth,” nor does he provide an objective basis from which we can objectively say what “we are interested in.” Is that all that the New Science of Morality comes down to – what I’m interested in? I’d rather have the physicist at a conference who is at least transparent about his presuppositions and the source of his epistemological authority.

More coming…

Don’t tell Dr. White this, but I totally forgot that the Is the New Testament Evil? debate was going on tonight. (It’s amazing how fast the summer evolves into fall! Lame excuse, I know.) But by God’s grace I had the time and happened to be online to listen to it live when I popped my head into channel a couple hours ago. I’m glad that I did.

I write this just as the Q & A is beginning, and I truly believe this is one of (if not) the most useful Christian vs. atheist debate ever on record – even amongst presuppositional Christian vs. atheist debates (and I’ve listened to my share of atheist debates, I assure you). Why so?

Firstly, because of the number of issues and common fallacies regarding Christianity that were brought up. Silverman set himself up for about every refutation imaginable whether regarding the dignity of man (image of God vs. animal), objective morality and cultural relativism (why one is “right” and another is not; holocaust, etc.), sinners and saints (why are some saved and others not: God’s sovereign grace), the origin of Scripture (it “evolved from Egyptian texts”?), the self-attesting nature of Scripture (the epistemological nature of an ultimate authority), original sin and human perfection/corruption, the problem of evil in relation to foreknowledge and God’s decree, “babies in hell,” hermeneutics, the nature of the family, etc.

And (secondly) each of these topics were masterfully addressed by James White. Indeed, what really gives the debate a mark of excellence was the apologist representing orthodox Christianity. As I listened to each portion, I couldn’t think of more accurate, precise, and God-honoring responses than those of Dr. White. Praise God that He is effectively and powerfully working in apologetics ministries in the 21st century!

There’s much to be said, but here are a few specific summaries of the atheist break-down. Silverman:

1. really got hung up on the God’s fore-ordination and predestination topic (took up most of his first and second cross exam period), and it accomplished very little for this position (remember the title of this debate!)

2. shot himself in the foot with regard to hermeneutics in the slavery-ethics debate (he denied that Paul can be understood in its original context, but yet, said that Cicero can be understood), which took up most of White’s first cross-exam period…

3. and Silverman also shot himself in the foot with admitting several times “there is no objective morality. Truth is relative…to time and place,” since this eliminates all meaningful attempts to define “evil” in the debate question. Amazingly, Silverman continually told the audience to “live your life well” and that they are “good people,” all while admitting that “well” and “good” can’t even be objectively defined! And again, Silverman said “it’s evil to destroy families” while at the same time admitting that, for Germany, the holocaust was “right.” It was an ethical, epistemological mess.

All in all, the debate went well and I encourage everyone to download the recording when it comes out on Aomin.org; it was made very clear that it is silly, absurd, beyond rationality, for the creature to deny the goodness of God and the goodness of his Scriptures.

Got an interesting email the other week:

With the current issue of marriage being pushed into the fore front of social and political debate, I find myself struggling with what the Christian position should be with regard to how the State/Government should be involved in this. It seems like the social issue of homosexual marriage is clouding the legal issue in which the case should be ruled. When looking at the opinion put forth by Judge Walker, there is not a shred of legal reasoning, but rather, a treatise on homosexual social philosophy. Based on the absense of Judge Walker’s abdication of legal reasoning in the case, it could/should be overturned based on that alone.

With that being said, what is the reformed perspective on the construction of Government and the manner in which it governs over social issues? Should the State/Government be involved in defining marriage or should that be left to the church? A democratic vote to define marriage is completely and totally constitutional, but what if Judge Walker had overturned Prop 8 based on a ruling which said that the State should not define marriage but leave that to the churches? Is such a ruling had taken place, should the Church rejoice or should they cry foul?

Thanks for your time and I look forward to your response.

Respectfully,

LW

My response:

I don’t have alot of time for a well thought-out response, but I’ll give you what comes to mind.

There is no “reformed” perspective on this issue, there are “reformed perspectives.” There are Lutherans, Kuyperians, and a variety of Calvinists who are more socially liberal and some who are libertarian. Kuyperians are mixed over this issue. For example, Julia Stronks gave a provocative lecture on the subject at the Calvinism for the 21st Century Conference, essentially arguing that the mechanism (I forget the name of it, its some kind of “test” to see if a law is legit) in US law that protects most of our religious freedoms is what also supports gay marriage, so to try and shoot down gay marriage on the basis of something other than this law (ie “God says its wrong”) would eventually lead to the undermining of several other “freedoms” (religious, ethical, etc.) that we hold dear.
Others obviously see a massive separation between church and state (“spheres” for Kuyperians, “kingdoms” or what have you for Lutherans and other reformed folk) so that the state should have nothing to do with marriage or its definition; thus, it shouldn’t even recognize heterosexual marriage as an institution because to do so is not even its role.
One could go on, but my opinion can be in the following affirmations:

1. I don’t think its the government’s job to regulate, define, or recognize the institution of marriage.
2. But, since our government in the US does this, and recognizes marriage as an institution, there is probably nothing wrong with voting that it recognize and support only heterosexual marriage.
3. However, this leaves Christians in a strange position because it suggests that it is the government’s job to do such recognition and to define right and wrong in this arena – and if there is nothing wrong with legislating morality on this particular issue, we ought to be consistent and apply all biblical law (ie the stoning of active homosexuals). Indeed, ideally, the government would recognize not merely marriage, but all of God’s law.

So, I am sympathetic to libertarians who say that the government shouldn’t define marriage in any sense (the covenant of marriage is before God more than before men, so to speak). And I am sympathetic to conservatives who say that we should vote to ban gay marriage and define marriage in our constitution as male and female only. And I am sympathetic to theonomists who believe all biblical law ought to be the law of the land (since it is never our place as creatures to pick and choose what laws and realities the general public should and shouldn’t recognize). And I am sympathetic to Stronks and those Kuyperians who say if we’re going to try and ban gay marriage, we have to do it without shooting ourselves in the foot.
All Christians believe gay marriage and homosexuality in general is wrong. But question is how to approach it, which as you can see, is no easy matter. I tend towards either the libertarian or theonomist view simply because they are the most consistent, but I have much to learn yet on this issue.

hope this helps somewhat,
jamin

Came across some prophetic words by Kuyper (rectorial address of 1899) this morning, words that also fly in the face of all who are involved with the BioLogos Forum:

We can hardly be sufficiently serious in warning all who worship Christ as their realized Ideal to be on guard against every wanton relation with evolution. It is impossible to bridge the gap between the dogma of the Trinity and the pseudo-dogma of evolution. The Christian religion and the theory of evolution are two mutually exclusive systems. They are antipodes that can neither be reconciled nor compared. In broad circles the negative Higher Criticism of the Bible [Schriftcritiek] had already undermined belief in confessional certitudes, but the modernistic theologians at least remained idealists who respected the authority of Jesus’ Word. Pantheism, which soon crept into their thought, did indeed break down the transcendent battlements of the temple, but nevertheless it still continued to try to link up with the mystical immanence of the Christian faith. But the theory of evolution is no respecter of anything sacred. Even as the Israelite had to search for every crumb of leaven and discard it before the Passover, even so the theory of evolution examines every Christian atom, in order to replace it with the very opposite. The dogma of evolution not only penetrates to the deepest core of things but even delves beneath the deepest principles of life, to spy out with an Argus eye whether or not there might have remained some imprint of that deepest principle at the bottom of things, so that even this slightest impression may be rendered unrecognizable. If the theory of evolution is true, then all that mankind has thus far imagined, thought and pondered, and believed, is a lie. Then the Tree of Knowledge, on whose fruits we have lived thus far, must be eradicated root and branch. Then the most absolute nihilism must be applied to the world-and-life view current till now.

Until now mankind has then been dreaming; not until now is it beginning to awaken. Also, if the theory of evolution, however untrue in its monistic and mechanistic zeal, should triumph, then the days of freedom of conscience, of tolerance and forbearance are numbered, and there will be a return, as in Nero’s days, to a unsparing, violent persecution of all that is called Christian. After all, the dogma of evolution not only excuses the violent eradication of the weak, but makes it, as a matter of principle, a duty of the strong. From our viewpoint, therefore, both the ignoring of evolution and the wanton acceptance of it are naive and shortsighted. And preachers, as well as authors, who wrongly imagine themselves as gaining scientific approval by mixing a dose of evolution with their Christian profession both in preaching and writing, indict themselves most strongly, in the view of the expert, of unpardonable naiveté or characterless cowardice.

Long story, but I’m home for a week working on the farm. So I listened to several lectures while cutting down a field of hay in the new windrower.

Other than the free OT lectures by Belcher on iTunesU, I felt greatly blessed by the sermon series on Romans by Chuck Swindoll. He preached true to the title of “Straight Talk about Predestination” regarding Romans 9. I also listened to a 2007 talk by one of the Cambridge Big Five, Kevin Vanhoozer. I know a lot of people are sometimes puzzled about his “theodramatic hermeneutics,” but I find it both sound and useful (see the last book on the RealApologetics Recommended Reading on Hermeneutics). His discussion stresses the importance of doctrine in the church, both in its monergistic substance and its being actualized. I have my small quibbles with each of these figures and a few assertions, but they were still too good not to recommend.

Plans for a debate and other speaking engagements are being finalized. Stay tuned…

Some of us Christians have the tendency to teach doctrine and theology like fast-food. We respond to the market; people don’t have time for something too deep and tasty, so we squirt a little ketchup on the bun, do a quick-wrap, and pass it forward before moving on to another skeptic, critic, or friend. Difficulties in or questions of the Bible are given bite-sized, microwaved, ultra-processed answers. Sigh. I can’t count the number of times I’ve fallen for this imposter of real apologetics. And, of course, the real tragedy is that in the process of doing a favor (to avoid “hair-splitting”) for the person seeking the truth, we sometimes distort the truth.

To the problem of evil and suffering, “well, hey man, it’s all just gonna glorify God. Don’t worry. God reaches a higher good through the use of evil. If you don’t like it, take it up with Him.” Moving on. To the problem of God’s sovereignty and man’s responsibility, “we’re not robots and God is always in control. It’s mysterious, so, we can’t learn any more than that.” Next. And to God’s attributes and verses like “The Lord relented”  and “God changed His mind” (Ex. 32:14), we simply say “it’s anthropomorphism; God is just taking on human characteristics (i.e. God “stretched out his hand”) but really isn’t like that in reality. God is not literally changing his mind.” Piece of cake. Theology and apologetics is easy.

We short-change the whole truth, the raw and multi-angled approach so inherent to God’s Word. We don’t realize that while we can make true statements, it doesn’t mean those listening will grasp the concept through such condensed packages. Sometimes the truth, to be truly understood, must be unprocessed, unwrapped, and expanded. Indeed, there’s a reason the Scriptures contain virtually every genre imaginable and not a mere outline of systematic propositions or a series of short stories with the same repetitious theme: truth is true, yes, but truth is rich, inexhaustible, deep. A three course meal is so much more healthy and enjoyable than a can of Red-Bull that contains the same amount of “energy.” Sadly, many in our generation don’t even know what that kind of meal is like; we are being raised eating instant-theology. In fact, we don’t even know how to cook; we’ve never been taught exegesis or the basics of church history and theological and apologetic method.

Yet, God gives hope. While many Christian authors and thinkers are hopelessly trying to gain approval from the world by promising huge gains with no work required, K. Scott Oliphint indirectly encourages Christians to keep their theological appetite high in “Most Moved Mediator” (Themelios 30/1) just by way of brief correction:

A brief word of warning is in order, to myself, and to others who want to set forth and defend the orthodox view of God and his relation to the world. Among defenders of the orthodox view, there seems to be to be some confusion over the concept of “anthropomorphic.” It is thought that, for example, when Scripture speaks of God changing his mind that we are to read that anthropomorphically, but that when Scripture says that God is not a man that he should change his mind, we are to read that “literally.”

It could perhaps be more helpful if we were to begin to see that all of God’s revelation to us is anthropomorphic. Or, to use the more classic terminology, all of God’s revelation to us is ectypal. It is, then, essentially accommodated revelation; it is revelation accommodated to our mode of being and our mode of understanding.

Because all of God’s revelation is ectypal, however, does not mean that every truth given to us in Scripture automatically and immediately refers to God as accommodated. To paraphrase Kant, though all of our knowledge begins with God’s accommodation, it does not follow that all our knowledge arises out of accommodation. Our knowledge of God presupposes his accommodating himself to us, but the very knowledge that he gives us can and does refer at times to that which is non-accommodated, that is, to God apart from, “outside of,” or “before” creation.

It may be best, therefore, at least in these discussions, to drop the locutions of “literal” and “anthropomorphic” when referring to God and our knowledge of him, as if some of what we know of God has a direct reference point, and other things that we know are simply metaphorical. When Scripture says that God changes his mind, or that he is moved or angered by our behavior, we should see that as literal. It refers us to God and to his dealings with us. It is as “literal” as God being the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. But we should also see that the God who literally changes his mind, is the accommodated God, the “Yarad-cum-Emmanuel” God who, while remaining the “I AM,” nevertheless stoops to our level to interact, Person-to-person, with us. His change of mind does not affect his essential character, any more than Christ dying on the cross precluded him from being fully God. He remains fully and completely God, a God who is not like man that he should change his mind to accomplish his sovereign purposes. What else should we expect, when we realize the implications of what it means that God took on human nature for the sake of his people in order, as God, to accomplish their salvation?