On Monday 2 August at the University of Auckland Emeritus Professor of Philosophy Dr Raymond Bradley and Dr Matthew Flannagan (of this blog) debated the topic “Is God the Source of Morality? Is it rational to ground right and wrong in commands issued by God?” Philosopher Dr Glenn Peoples watched the debate via live Skype feed and has reviewed it as follows.
Dr Glenn Peoples Reviews the Debate
Published with permission
Few subjects in philosophy are more interesting to me than the meta-ethical question of moral makes any moral claims true. My particular area of interest is the question of whether or not moral facts can be grounded in a purely naturalistic view of reality. The topic of this debate therefore grabbed my interest as soon as it was announced – and this was in no small part due to the fact that one of the debate participants was my good friend Matthew Flannagan, who blogs at MandM. What follows is my summary and review of that debate. As someone with no duty whatsoever to not take a side in the debate, I’ll comment on the arguments as they unfold throughout the debate rather like one commentating a live boxing match. And now the opening bell rings.
Opening Statement: Dr Raymond Bradley
Ray began his opening statement announcing that he did not want to praise God, but to bury him. God is not worthy of praise, the audience was told, but only a straight-jacket and a grave. God is the self-confessed author of the world’s problems, and as such, Ray says, he has taken it upon himself to play the role of the prosecutor.
God, Ray, charges, can be indicted on four counts. A) Firstly, God is guilty of crimes against humanity, using disaster and disease to wipe out countless millions. The Bible presents God as responsible for plagues, famines and flood. B) Secondly, God is guilty of war crimes, commanding the slaughter of “hundreds of thousands” of people in the Old Testament. C) Thirdly, God has licensed “moral mayhem and murder,” requiring the execution of homosexuals, adulterers, blasphemers and hosts of other people. D) Lastly and worst of all, God is guilty of eternally torturing people in the flames of hell, all on account of them not holding the correct religious beliefs.
In light of this horrible threat of torture, Ray asks, is it any wonder that Christians have done such horrendous things to people over the centuries, burning heretics and killing babies in an effort to prevent them from going to hell? Who takes this moral primitivism seriously? The Taliban for one, says Ray. So too do Christian fundamentalists, like many in the Southern Baptist convention, who argue openly for a theocracy, calling for the deaths of tens of millions of their fellow citizens. And it’s not just extreme conservatives who are in this mess, Ray says. Even relatively liberal Anglicanism is still in a quandary about whether or not homosexuals are abominations who should be “killed in this world and tortured in the next.” But could it be, we are asked, that those who went on Crusades for God were not actually hearing God’s voice, but merely their own? Ray has no time for biblical claims that “God is love,” in light of what the Bible says about God’s actions. The golden rule of reciprocity is likewise too full of exceptions to be correct, and in any case, God intends to torture most of us. No moral reciprocity there!
Okay, this is the first occasion for a time out. The topic of this debate (the topic that both speakers agreed to in advance) was announced as whether or not God is the source of morality – whether or not it’s rational to ground right and wrong in the commands of God. But as Ray’s opening statement unfolded, I began to wonder if he actually had anything at all to say about that topic. We’ve learned how Ray understands various parts of the Bible, and we’ve learned that he takes exception to them, but biblical hermeneutics and Ray’s moral sentiments – while interesting in some contexts – aren’t really what people were expecting to hear about (or at least, at a debate with a topic like this one these certainly aren’t the things that I was expecting to hear about). What if, for example, all of the above were totally true (although we’ll come to that when Matt responds)? Whatever that would establish, there’s no obvious reason to suppose that this establishes that whatever the moral facts really are, they do not have their origin in God.
But then, Ray presents an argument. He explains that his argument is as follows: Christians accept a set of five propositions, but in fact the set is inconsistent, and as such they find themselves in a “logical straight-jacket.” Those five claims are:
1. What God proposes for our belief (including beliefs about what we ought to do) is what we ought to believe or do.
2. In his holy scripture, God proposes for our belief that he has caused, committed, condoned or laid down commands for us to obey every one of the four types of crimes of types A, B, C and D.
3. It is morally wrong to cause, commit, condone or command any of the crimes of types A, B, C, D.
4. God is omnipotent, omniscient and morally perfect.
5. A morally perfect being would not do anything that is morally wrong.
I’ve seen this kind of argument from Ray before. In fact some time ago I commented on it at my blog. Ray says that theists are committed to all five, and the result is a contradiction. Which of these can they afford to give up? They cannot give up 1) without giving up the thesis of this debate: That our moral duty is grounded in God’s will. They cannot give up 2) without giving up the authority of the Bible. They would have to say that either God didn’t know how to say what he meant, or else he did know, but didn’t actually mean what he said. They cannot give up 3) without becoming moral monsters. They cannot give up 4) without giving up the traditional theistic portrait of God altogether, and to give up 5) is to give up a truism: That a perfectly moral person is perfectly moral in all that he does.
Which of these, asks Ray, will Matt deny?
As Ray closed his talk, I was left feeling just a little cheated. I know what the debate over moral foundations is like. I research, write, blog, speak and publish on the issue. I’ve become familiar with the issues it delves into and the territory it needs to cover. In particular, the literature on divine command ethics (the specific ethical theory identified in the subject that both parties had agreed to debate) contains well known arguments on key features of the theory. But Ray didn’t appear to say a word about any of this. Indeed, as the debate unfolded it began to look like he was not familiar with the literature in the least – or at least if he was, he did not consider the more familiar philosophical territory to be at all relevant. Instead, we had a string of claims about the God of the Bible being a really nasty guy. Now, I can understand when the likes of Christopher Hitchens or Richard Dawkins haplessly wander into the domain of philosophy of religion and end up tub thumping about how God is a villain instead of actually doing any philosophy. But the whole reason that Ray was an ideal candidate for this debate was that he is a qualified philosopher. Where was the philosophical interaction with the claim that God is the source of morality?
Opening Statement: Dr Matthew Flannagan
Matt gave his opening talk next, and I think more or less everybody in attendance (and presumably Ray as well) would have noticed that the approach taken was markedly different from that of Ray. It may seem rather elementary, but first Matt explained what the subject of the debate was (namely, whether or not it is defensible to view God as the source of morality, and whether or not right and wrong could be grounded in God’s commands), he took a stance on the subject of the debate (namely an affirmative stance on both counts), and then he began to defend that stance. That, in short, was how his opening presentation differed from Ray’s.
Matt holds to a divine command theory of ethics, the view that moral rightness and wrongness are determined by the commands of God. There are a range of familiar objections to this view, and Matt turned to a few of those first. It is said that if morality is the result of God’s commands, then horrific things like torturing people for fun could become right just because God commanded them. But this is to suppose that God can command just anything, says Matt, and in fact the traditional concept of God, even as announced by Ray, involves God being “morally perfect,” and a morally perfect being would not commit such acts. For my part, I’m never quite happy when divine command theorists appeal to God’s moral perfection here, because if morality has as its source the commands of God, then God isn’t moral, meaning that it can’t be his moral perfection that constrains his commands (this is why it is, I think, better to think of God’s goodness preventing him from such issuing such commands). However, I think Matt next explains that this is not quite what he means to say as follows:
Some object to the above defence of divine command ethics. If we take the above line of reasoning, then just how meaningful is it to say that God is good? Surely the claim just boils down to saying that God obeys his own commands. But there is, says Matt, a grain of truth to this. We can talk about divine goodness without construing it in terms of moral perfection in the sense of doing one’s duty (this is what I was referring to earlier). Many theologians and philosophers construe God’s goodness in terms of his character: truthful, loving, merciful and so on. It may well be that God doesn’t have a duty to be loving or truthful, but that hardly shows that he isn’t loving or truthful.
With that, Matt moved on to Ray’s argument. Prior to the debate, Ray and Matt had “traded notes,” so that they would each know what the other was going to say, and be able to respond to that position in the debate. Matt replies to the “logical straight-jacket” argument summed up in five points as follows: First, even if all of Ray’s complaints about the biblical teaching were well founded, the argument wouldn’t even begin to address the subject of the debate, namely whether or not a divine command theory of ethics is tenable. There’s nothing about a divine command theory, for example, that commits somebody to inerrancy. A person might believe that moral duties are caused by divine commands, but known through all sorts of means like conscience and not necessarily from the Old Testament (they might, in theory, even gain that knowledge for other holy books). So Ray’s argument just doesn’t address the subject of the debate.
Secondly, says Matt, premise three of Ray’s argument is ambiguous. It could mean that it’s morally wrong for us (i.e. human beings) to engage in or will acts like A B C or D, or it could mean that it’s wrong for God to engage in them, as well as wrong for us. Ray claims that denying 3) amounts to becoming like Genghis Kahn or Hitler, but this is only so if we deny that it’s wrong for humans to do those things. We might say that it’s wrong for humans do do A B C or D, but still deny 3) because we think that it’s not wrong for God to do those things. What’s more, Ray, says Matt, is using circular reasoning here by just assuming that God has duties not to do A B C or D. But if God is the source of morality then he cannot have such duties, and this is the very subject in dispute. Ray is therefore assuming the very thing he needed to prove.
Matt’s third response is to address premise 2) in Ray’s argument, and here, if I may say so, is where the debate got rather sidetracked – not because Matt responded to Ray’s arguments at this point (it’s fairly inevitable that one wishes to respond to the other debater’s points), but because, as a whole, arguments about this premise came to dominate the entire discussion that followed. Here Matt argues that actually God did not do or command the things that many people allege that the Bible depicts him as doing or commanding. I summarise considerably here:
When it comes to the conquest and supposed genocide in the Old Testament, critics often note the harsh sounding instructions to wipe out everything that breathes in the Canaanite communities, but then fail to notice that the same books of the Bible later talk about the Canaanites still living where they lived before. There’s a widely recognised phenomenon in Ancient Near Eastern writing of extreme hyperbole, much like we use today when we talk about “annihilating” the opposition in a sporting match. The language refers to utter defeat, rather than the actual killing of every living creature. As an aside of my own, this line of argument is not new among fairly conservative Christians. In fact, even before there was any such thing as the “New Atheist” movement, Martin Luther in the 16th century discussed the fact that there are obvious exaggerations for rhetorical effect in Old Testament battle accounts.
Next, Matt argues that in fact while the death sentence is mentioned for fifteen offences in the Old Testament, it was usually anticipated that actual execution would not take place, but some sort of payment would suffice instead, the death penalty being mentioned only to underscore just how serious the offending was. In fact, for murder the Torah pointed out that a ransom (a payment in lieu of execution) was impossible and that execution must take place, which implies that in other cases a ransom was considered quits acceptable. The legal reference to execution was thus a hyperbole or a worst case scenario in most cases.
Lastly, Matt commented on Ray’s claim that God will torture people forever just for holding the wrong beliefs. Firstly, says Matt, the texts that speak about hell or eternal punishment actually do not, in context, speak of literal endless torment at all. The Book of Revelation is apocalyptic literature, full of symbolic language from the Old Testament, language that originally referred to destruction of wicked empires. Similarly, language of weeping and gnashing of teeth or unquenchable fire, in the Old Testament context from which they are borrowed, refers to destruction and not endless suffering. What is more, the texts in question indicate that people will be punished for their actions, and not just for holding false beliefs.
Attempting to drag the debate kicking and screaming back onto the intended subject, Matt sums up by recapping: Ray, even if right, hasn’t offered an argument against God being the source of morality. Some of the premises of his key argument either equivocate or involve circular reasoning, and his interpretation of Scripture can be faulted for failing to take important features like genre and context into account.
End of round one. I think the impression created at this point was fairly unmistakable. Ray has presumed, it appeared, that he could simply embarrass God (or in God’s absence, those who believe in God) by seeking to make the biblical God look like a monster, while not turning to the philosophical issue in question: the source of morality. By presenting such a shocking picture, he seems to have supposed, people wouldn’t care about whether or not it’s acceptable to construe morality in terms of obedience to divine commands. Don’t think about that, just look at how awful the Old Testament is! By contrast, Matt singled out and offered defence of a stance on the subject in question. The problem is that he didn’t do it a lot – and the reason for that is that in responding to Ray’s argument, he was forced to talk about issues other than the subject of the debate. For what it’s worth, I also think the specific angle taken on defending a stance on the debate topic came across to many as a little on the technical side. The subject of the debate was introduced in Matt’s talk was a defence of his position against the possibility of horrendous commands and the claim that divine command ethics results in a vacuous view of ethics. The trouble is, given the nature of Ray’s approach, these objections never even arose, and as a result it seemed a little technical and out of place. I would have been inclined to start with a more general thesis about the relationship between God and morality, and then – without anticipating rebuttals that might not even follow, offer some fairly general arguments for that thesis. However, it proved to be the first and last interaction with the more philosophical aspects of the subject in the debate.
Rebuttals
Next came the rebuttal round where each speaker made use of a right of reply. Ray went first.
Rebuttal: Raymond Bradley
Ray’s first objection was to the suggestion that God does not have moral duties. Nobody, he said, is above the law. I cannot be the only one present who found this to be completely gratuitous. The entire debate was supposed to be about whether or not God’s commands are the source of morality. If they are, then it follows that God has no moral duties. How can Ray appeal to this belief in order to rebut the affirmative position? Why, I thought at the time, do his logical senses not scream out at him “stop! You’re using the most circular argument in the world!” Commenting further on the claim that God doesn’t have moral duties, Ray next claims that this is moral relativism, an abandonment of moral objectivity: These are rules that apply to some people (i.e. all humans) and not to God. Moral objectivity requires that all moral rules apply to all persons no matter who they are. Again, I blinked, thinking – as a philosopher (a former head of a philosophy department, no less), how could he think that this is so? Moral objectivity has never meant that everyone has the same duties (for example, I have an objective moral obligation to provide for my children, but it doesn’t follow that Ray has that obligation to provide for my children). All it means is that it’s a fact that those people have the duties they have, regardless of what anyone else thinks about it. I could only imagine that his fellow philosophers in the audience were wincing as they listened.
Ray followed this up by saying that it’s no good defining God as good. We can define anything any way we like, that doesn’t make those definitions true. But of course defining things a certain way does not indicate that those things exist or that they are correctly defined that way, and nor had anyone suggested otherwise. Matt’s point had been a very different one, namely that if God is good in the way that theologians have portrayed him, then divine command ethics is not subject to the objection that God might just command horrific things, which would then become morally right.
Philosophically speaking, the rebuttals that Ray offered were not just poor, they were bewilderingly poor. Next came the rebuttals aimed at Matt’s biblical arguments (which had originally been responses to Ray’s own biblical arguments).
Yes, Ray says, it may be that the same books of the Bible that speak of the annihilation of the Canaanites also later speaks of them living in the land. However, this doesn’t justify the claim that the reference to complete destruction is a hyperbole. Instead, we should read both parts absolutely literally, and therefore see that what we have is a contradiction. But (in my view), one might have thought that had the contradiction been this obvious the author might have noticed, but Ray assures us that in fact this is how we should read the text. What does he say about the evidence from Ancient Near Easter literature indicating that such hyperbole was common and therefore unsurprising? Interestingly, he says nothing at all.
Staying with the Old Testament, Ray replies to Matt’s comments about the death sentence being substituted with a lesser penalty like a monetary fine. Ray’s challenge is: If those cases permitted something other than execution, then what would Matt propose? A “lesser execution”? As a listener I was somewhat confused by this challenge, given that Matt’s argument was that the lesser penalty was not execution but a fine. I assumed that Ray might simply have misheard Matt on the issue. But Ray has a question here for Matt: Which penalties should be carried out, and how do we know what they refer to?
But apart from the conquest and the death penalty, Ray added, there are other examples of atrocities in the Old Testament that Matt had not commented on. What, for example, of the biblical flood? Will Matt say that this too is merely a metaphor or a hyperbole?
Can it just be explained away?
Rebuttal: Matthew Flannagan:
Matt’s first rebuttal was to note that Ray rejects part of Matt’s argument because, Ray says, God must have moral duties, and cannot be thought to have none. But the debate is about whether or not God is the source of moral duties, so Ray has to be begging the question (i.e. using circular reasoning) to argue this way. He cannot just assume the thing that he is meant to be trying to prove.
Matt next commented on the claim that if God isn’t subject to moral duties but we are, then we must embrace moral relativism. But, he says, this is only true if we think that objective facts are independent of what everybody thinks. But Matt construes objective facts as being true independent of what human beings think. They aren’t true independent of what God thinks, and therefore he is not committed to relativism. Now, this is not the way I would have gone with the argument. I don’t know how persuasive it is to say that something can be objectively true and yet still false from God’s point of view (e.g. the fact that “it’s wrong to steal”). For my part, I think the way to respond to Ray would be to say that this view is not relativism because it doesn’t present facts as only holding for some people but not others. Divine command ethics is the thesis that our duties are determined by what God commands us to do. So if God commands Moses to climb Mt Sinai, then in fact he had the duty to do so. This is not moral relativism just because the command does not require everybody to climb Mt Sinai. It became an objective fact, when the command was issued, that Moses was morally required to climb Mt Sinai, and this was a fact independently of what anyone though of that fact, even God. It just happens that since God believes only true things, God is never mistaken about moral duties. It is therefore perfectly compatible with moral objectivism to say that while we have some moral duties, God has none. We need not sacrifice the thought that objective facts are true independently of what anyone (even God) thinks. Now, I happen to suspect that Matt agrees with this, but it’s a very different response from the one he offered here, and I don’t agree with the response that was offered. I felt it was only fair to point this out so that people realise that I’m perfectly prepared to state where I think people on “my side” get it wrong, it just happens that Matt did so very little, and Ray, I think, did little else.
What then of Ray’s challenge about the capital offences in the Old Testament? Ray had challenged Matt to explain how we know which ones had to be carried out and which did not. How can we tell? Matt’s reply was simple: Read it, and pay attention to what you find in the context. You don’t have to guess.
Ray had complained at the suggestion that we find hyperbole and metaphor in the Old Testament. But does this fact really make the Bible so hard to understand? Ray’s own comments have been littered with such things, including his favourite metaphor of putting God into a straight jacket. And yet, in spite of Ray’s frequent use of such figures of speech, he expects that we will have no trouble understanding his point. Likewise, the mere fact that the Bible uses metaphor should not imply that it can’t be understood.
Lastly, Matt commented on Ray’s last comment about the biblical flood. Ray had challenge Matt to say that that wasn’t literal. “So Ray’s is a creationist!” Matt quipped, to the amusement of many present. Matt explained that while it might be convenient to portray all Christians as simple literalists, in fact many evangelicals do not think of the flood story as literal history.
Closing Statements
Now the time came for each speaker to sum up their position.
Closing Statement: Raymond Bradley
In summing up his position, Ray did not mention the issue of whether or not God is the source of morality. It was a bewildering phenomenon. He had discarded that issue altogether, and now summed up by referring to a string of barely connected issues as follows:
It’s all very well, Ray says, to say that that biblical texts aren’t to be read literally. But can you give a sensible non literal explanation of those texts? How can you non-literally understand references to stoning people to death? Of course, some people take the whole Bible metaphorically. But the problem is that God is supposed to be all-knowing, and as such he should know that people are going to interpret him literally, as many have.
But now, let’s get away from accusations of taking the biblical passages out of context. Let’s just leave those behind, Ray says (how convenient!), and instead talk about the (brand new) issue of exclusivity. The Bible says (in the book of Acts) that there is “no other name” through which people can be saved (namely, the name of Jesus), further implying that God really does reject people because of their beliefs. Christian apologist William Lane Craig defends this biblical claim at length in an article on the subject. And yet in spite of this, Christians themselves are divided into thirty-eight thousand different denominations, and over the centuries the existence of these different groups has led to “bloodshed and mayhem.” Sure, why not. Instead of talking about whether or not Ray’s arguments have been based on misunderstandings, let’s instead talk about the fact that there are heaps of different Christian sects who have conflicted with each other. It’s just staggering that this kind of thing seems to Ray to be so important and relevant that it should dominate the closing, instead of summing up how he has argued that God is not the source of morality. The fact is, Ray has done no such thing. It’s not that he tried but failed to do so. He simply never broached the subject in the first place!
Next, Ray asks whether or not God actually killed a world of people in the flood. “Did that event occur”? There are millions of Christians who believe that the Universe was created 6000-10,000 years ago. Millions believe in Noah’s flood occurring about 2300 years ago. And with that observation, Ray’s summing up came to a close, in front of what must surely have been a sea of utterly confused faces.
Closing Statements: Matthew Flannagan
The final summing up belong to Matt. He started by noting that he had already given an account of what biblical passages referring to execution might mean if they are hyperbolic (where he spoke about the possibility of a ransom).
Secondly, it’s no good for Ray to continue complaining about metaphors when, as Matt has already noted, Ray’s own presentations make use of metaphors.
Thirdly, Matt commented on the new point raised in Ray’s closing statement (bearing in mind that raising new points in a closing statement is not typically permitted in a moderated debate, precisely because it leaves no opportunity for a response). In fact, contrary to Ray’s claim, William Lane Craig did not dodge the potential problem of exclusivity. Matt notes, drawing on the very article that Ray referred to, that to be saved in someone’s name does not mean to be saved by having explicit beliefs about that person, it means to be saved on the authority of that person, and in fact Craig’s article claimed that some could indeed be saved without such explicit beliefs, so Ray has simply misrepresented him.
As for there being many different Christian perspectives, while this may be true, Matt notes that there are also many different secular perspectives, but this hardly shows that any secular outlook must be false. Also, while it may be true that Christian sects over the years have done awful things (Ray referred to the Crusades), it’s also true that plenty of Christians were opposed to those things, which suggests that the examples of Christian thought in action that Ray uses are rather selective.
Lastly, Matt noted that Ray claims to have once been a fundamentalist, but to have left it behind. In reality, he hasn’t. He continues to assume that the most literalistic and conservative interpretation of biblical passages must be the correct ones, and that by attacking those views, he is attacking Christianity as a whole, and that in doing so he thinks that he has somehow managed to undermine the view that God is the source of morality, when in fact he has done no such thing.
Thus ended the debate.
Questions and Answers
I’ve made it fairly clear what I thought of how things went. Ray simply did not come prepared. For a person chosen for the debate specifically because of his background in philosophy, he disappointed by largely ignoring the philosophical issues altogether. When he did wade into the territory of moral philosophy (most notably when accusing Matt of moral relativism), he proved, in my view, to be very wide of the mark. But by far the most frustrating aspect of Ray’s presentation was that he simply didn’t want to talk about the debate topic that people had come along to hear about. For him, his argument was that the God of the Bible is horrid, no more, no less.
What about Matt then? To be honest, given Ray’s much longer history of debating on issues of religion, plenty of people (including me) were interested in this debate, more than for any other reason, to see how Matt would handle himself (and his opponent). But here too there was one major frustration: We never really got to see how Matt can defend his stance on God as the source of morality in debate. He was able to open with some reference to that subject, with what I though was possibly a slightly obscure defence for an opening statement. Perhaps he could have done a lot more, but the problem is, obviously your responses to your opponent’s arguments are going to be tailored to the arguments that your opponent uses, and in this debate Ray just didn’t use any arguments that required a philosophical defence of divine command ethics. Just as with a review of a book or a movie, I should probably tell you whether or not I liked the debate, and the reality is, it was something of a fizzer. It was one sided, and one of the speakers simply decided that instead of debating the proposition in question, he was going to talk about something else entirely. It wasn’t what people had come to see.
What the audience thought of the debate can in part be gleamed from the questions and answers. I won’t attempt to reproduce those in full, but there were several general themes:
First was the theme of metaphorical, hyperbolic and literal readings of the Bible. Matt was asked, if the Bible is really all metaphorical, what does it have over other works of literature that are also metaphorical. Later, Bill Cooke from the New Zealand Association of Rationalist Humanists suggested that perhaps Matt was just using appeals to metaphor, context or genre to avoid texts that he doesn’t like. He would never accept, for example, that the Ten Commandments (part of the same book of law that refers to stoning people) was just metaphor or shouldn’t be taken literally, so why they other parts? After all, Jesus said in Matthew 5 that he didn’t come to do away with the law.
The the former question, Matt explained that you shouldn’t just decide to take the whole Bible literally or metaphorically. For any given passage, you have to check the context. Who wrote it? What genre does it appear in? For example, when Ray says that God is in a straight-jacket, because of who said it we know that it’s not literal, since Ray doesn’t actually believe in God. We know of other very similar types of creation story in the ancient world that weren’t meant to belong to the genre of simple history. Likewise when it comes to the Gospels we have plenty of very similar types of writing in ancient Greek biographies that were meant to be read as history.
In regard to Bill Cooke’s question, the response was similar. Firstly, Matt pointed out that he had given reasons in each case for taking a specific text as a hyperbole or metaphor. Those same rules apply for these texts that Cooke mentioned as well. The Ten Commandments are presented like other pieces of writing from that period in history as the prologue to a book of law, so examining the genre guides the way that we treat the passage. As for Jesus’ words about the law, Matt said that he was speaking to a Jewish audience and not a Gentile one, so his words only applied in that context. In the book of Acts (in chapter 15), the issue of the Gentile relationship to the law was spelled out. As a listener with a keen interest in the particular issue of the applicability and role of Old Testament law in a New Testament context I really would like more to have been said than just this. I think that left as brief as this a rather misleading impression could have been given that in the Christian faith we see moral obligation as depending on whether or not one is a Jew or Gentile (which I know is not what Matt thinks). In fact, Acts 15 has applicability to all people, be they Jewish or Gentile, but realistically, a question and answer session just doesn’t allow for a lot of depth.
The second comment from the audience was, in my view, the best, as it summed up what most people must surely have been thinking. It went roughly like this: “You’ve been talking about whether or not God is moral, but not about whether or not God is the source of morality.” The comment was met with applause from most in attendance. This was exactly what had been wrong with the debate. It had gotten bogged down on one issue: Ray thinks the God of the Bible is nasty and immoral. Never mind the subject of the debate, this was what the discussion ended up focussing on.
Ray replied by saying that he did argue that God wasn’t the source of morality, but he didn’t refer to any of those arguments, which I frankly think is because there hadn’t been any such arguments. However, he now added that a moral code is just empty unless it gives primacy to empathy and compassion, and there’s an evolutionary account of how those things came about. Matt replied by saying that he had tried to talk about God as the source of morality, but in order to reply to Ray’s other arguments he had to deviate from that subject (a comment that drew a sound from the audience that appeared to mean something like “oooh, burn”). What’s more, he added, an evolutionary account might tell us how we came to hold moral beliefs, but that’s not an account of what makes those beliefs true, so whether it’s true or not, it doesn’t tell us about the source of morality.
This last point was also related to another question put to Matt (the questioners seemed, overall to favour Matt – perhaps an attempt to stump the new guy). The question was: Sure there is a variety of secular viewpoints, but given the large number of Christian sects, doesn’t morality come, not from God, but from our own interpretation of various texts? But this question, as Matt noted, made a similar assumption to the previous one: that if people get their moral beliefs in a number of different ways (i.e. by reading different texts and interpreting them various ways), this is an account of where morality actually has its basis. But this confuses metaphysics (i.e. questions of fact about what’s real) with epistemology (i.e. questions of how we find out what’s real). What’s more, in spite of the fact that there’s a diversity of Christian viewpoints as well as secular viewpoints, there is probably more disagreement among secular outlooks. Could the secular philosophers get together and come up with, say, ecumenical creeds like Christians have?
Ray’s comments on this question were a little stunning, and I think they basically revealed his approach to the Bible to involve exactly the kind of fundamentalism that Matt attributed to him during the debate. He said here that the real question is whether or not God is the author of morality (a fact he forgot for most of the debate). Well, God would be the author of morality if he actually told us, in the Bible, what was moral and what wasn’t. The Bible is supposed to be inerrant. And yet, if Matt is correct, then people actually have to study it to find out what it means! The need to look at issues of context and genre and so on. But that’s the essence of subjectivity, not objectivity. We shouldn’t have to do that, the Bible should just tell us what’s right and wrong.
As far as arguments go, this was surely the bottom of the intellectual barrel for the night. How could Ray not see that this destroys every ethical theory. It destroys utilitarianism, because figuring out which course of action maximises utility isn’t always clear or obvious, and often involves careful thought. It destroys virtue ethics, since figuring out what a maximally virtuous person would do is not always obvious, and involves careful thought. It destroys natural law theories, and it destroys, interestingly (given Ray’s earlier comments), evolutionary accounts of ethics. What’s more, Ray is practically demanding that everyone who is a Christian be a simplistic, dumbed down fundamentalist when it comes to reading the Bible. Ignore subtlety, context, history, literary form, and more or less any interpretative tool that requires anything beyond a lower high school reading age, just accept the most literalistic and careless interpretation you can find. True, if more Christians were actually like this then it might make them easier targets for Ray’s style of tirade against God, but that is hardly a good reason to go down that path! Matt was absolutely right: Ray hasn’t even gotten close to leaving fundamentalism behind.
Several more questions followed. First, an audience member read from Numbers chapter 15, which actually relates the account of a person who was found working on the Sabbath. The Israelites were not sure what to do, so they inquired of God, who told them to stone the man to death, which they then did. The question was put to Matt: How can you say this didn’t literally happen?
Matt’s response was threefold: First, the people had to inquire of God, which suggests that perhaps the law wasn’t crystal clear on the penalty required. Second, and related to this, this sounds like the first such recorded offence, so – as in other law codes – there would be a need to use this offence to really set an example and underscore the seriousness of the offending. Thirdly, it might not have actually taken place. Maybe it was a piece of Midrash, a fictional account written for the purpose of explaining the seriousness of this law. Now, sympathetic though I am to taking clues from other examples of Jewish legal writing, I get the feeling I’m not the only one who might start to think that there are only so many times a new text can be explained in terms of “perhaps it just didn’t happen but it was written as though it did.” I think this would have started to wear thin on some in attendance. In the case of Numbers 15 and the case of a man executed for working on the Sabbath, I don’t even think this defence is required. My own view is that a Midrash of that sort, even though I have no reason to think that this is what we have in Numbers 15, would only be written if the writer really believed that the offence described is such that it would actually warrant the punishment described. Maybe a more persuasive line of response would have been something like: “Well, I never said the death penalty was never applied. All I noted is the fact that we need not suppose that it happened left right and centre as Ray supposes, since we know that a ransom was available in many cases. Obviously it would not be available in direct contradiction to God’s command on a given occasion, which is what is depicted in Numbers 15.” Rather than a serving as defence of biblical accounts, too many attempts to reach for the “it never really happened” card are likely to have the opposite effect form the intended one.
Next, Ray was asked why – if his interpretation of the Bible is the correct one – how come those most noted over the centuries for doing acts of love and kindness have been Christians, but those most notorious for the worst atrocities of all time like Stalin, Mao Tse Tung or Pol Pot were atheists?
Ray first said that Hitler and Stalin had both at some point attended seminary, but then (perhaps realising that this had nothing to do with the question), said that Christians do this because they are selective in reading the Bible. They ignore the bits they don’t like. Christians just “don’t read the Bible.”
Matt here noted that when Christians over the years have done bad things, Ray claims that this is highly significant and supports his argument, but when the good things done by Christians is noted, Ray somehow thinks this doesn’t establish anything. This is clearly a double standard.
The last question (actually, two questions from the same person) was for Ray: Firstly, if morality is based on our sentiment (e.g. empathy), doesn’t that make it subjective and not objective at all? And secondly, if there really is a hell, then wasn’t it actually loving, rather than cruel, for Jesus to preach about it, so that people would avoid it?
Ray said that he would address the second question first, but then proceeded to answer neither the second nor the first question at all (not even badly). Instead, he decided to take this opportunity to say that he didn’t even believe that there had been an historical Jesus of Nazareth at all, just because no non-Christian historian at the time referred to him. Only one ancient non-Christian work spoke of him (a work by Josephus), and that reference is a forgery, added later by Christians.
I have to confess that I have no idea where this reply came from. It certainly had nothing to do with the two questions put to him. In reply, matt noted that Tacitus and Seutonius also refer to Jesus. He also pointed out that the disputed text in Jospehus is not generally regarded as an entirely fabricated reference to Jesus. Instead, it is a genuine reference to Jesus that was tampered with and enlarged by a later writer. Plus, there are two separate references to Jesus in Josephus’ work, and only one of them was the target of alteration. Now, of course, this was not a debate on the historicity of Jesus, but had it been one, a number of other examples could also have been used as I have discussed elsewhere (see my series on whether Jesus ever existed here, here and here.) In short, Ray places himself in a fairly radical minority when he goes as far as to deny the very historical existence of Jesus of Nazareth. Combined with his self confessedly shallow approach to biblical interpretation, this only reinforces my observation that he really ought to have made an effort to get involved in the debate about whether or not God is the source of morality, instead of straying into fields that he shows no evidence of being qualified to comment on. An opportunity for a genuinely riveting debate was, unfortunately, wasted.
If you were at the debate, have listened to the podcast or read the written papers, do you agree with how Glenn called it?
RELATED POSTS:
Video: Bradley v Flannagan “Is God the Source of Morality?
The Podcast: Bradley v Flannagan
Joint Communique: Bradley v Flannagan Debate
Raymond Bradley’s Opening Statement: Bradley v Flannagan Debate
Matthew Flannagan’s Opening Statement: Bradley v Flannagan Debate
Bradley’s Reply to Matt: Bradley v Flannagan Debate
Flannagan’s Reply to Ray: Bradley v Flannagan Debate
Tags: Debates · Glenn Peoples · Matthew Flannagan · Raymond Bradley44 Comments
A common objection to belief in the God of the Bible is that a good, kind, and loving deity would never command the wholesale slaughter of nations. In the tradition of his popular Is God a Moral Monster?, Paul Copan teams up with Matthew Flannagan to tackle some of the most confusing and uncomfortable passages of Scripture. Together they help the Christian and nonbeliever alike understand the biblical, theological, philosophical, and ethical implications of Old Testament warfare passages.
You’re correct about my first criticism, although I evidently find it more important you do, Matt. Sure, it’s about terminology and how we use it, but if the debate is about whether or not God is the “source of morality,” then I think it’s right to use the word moral in the way I’ve suggested (namely, that it doesn’t apply to God). But we do, obviously, agree. I do know, however, that sceptics frequently pick up on Christians’ reference to God as “moral” and then see a conflict with this and the way that we talk about God as brining morality about. I think I even noticed overtones of it in this debate with Ray’s talk of God being “morally perfect.”
I do think there’s a bit more to my second criticism than you do, however. Ray’s (mistaken) claim was that if we have the duty to do something but God doesn’t, then that’s relativism, not moral objectivism. Now, I didnt merely propose an alternative response and presume that this shows a fault in yours. I actually sugged a fault with your reponse and then proposed one that avoids the problem that I think yours encountered. Your response was that it’s still moral objectivism as long as by “objective” you mean true for all human beings, even if it’s not true for God. This is why I said that it’s hard to think of some moral claim (like “it is wrong to kill”) being objectively true, and yet not true for God. Objectively truth is far more naturally and easily (in my view) construed as true regardless of who the observer is. What I proposed instead was a defence of your model of ethics as still objectivist without having to make a defense that to many people will seem a bit strange. Now you might not find your way of describing objectivity strange at all, and if not, then you won’t think an alternative response is necessary.
As for whether debate fizzed or not – I suppose that will depend on what one was hoping to hear. If it fizzed, it certainly wasn’t because because of the quality of what you had to say!
Well yes – responding to arguments made in the debate, even though they are off the moot, is usually a good idea . But (and Ray is the one at fault here), making initial arguments on the moot is an even better idea. 😉
Glenn’s overview of the debate is accurate and I think pretty fair. I agree with much of what he says, including many of his criticisms of Ray’s comments. Here I will respond only to his criticisms of me, which I think are fairly minor.
Glenn’s first criticism seems pedantic, he does not like my appeal to “moral perfection” in defending a divine command theory because “if morality has as its source the commands of God, then God isn’t moral.” Instead, Glenn thinks I should have said “God’s goodness” prevents him from issuing abhorrent commands.
This seems to me a terminological issue, as I said in my opening statement, by moral perfection I mean the possession of certain character traits and not conformity with what is right and wrong. Glenn seems to use the word morality for the latter and use the word goodness for the former. I see no real disagreement here.
Glenn also asked why I brought these issues up. The answer is that these are fairly obvious objections and I felt I needed to make it clear that I was not saying God could command anything no matter how abhorrent before I responded to Ray’s argument. I was going to rely on a divine command theory to address his premise [3] and I saw a potential for misunderstanding if I did not clear this up from the outset.
Glenn’s second criticism is difficult to ascertain. He says he would have responded differently to Ray’s argument about objectivity and then offers an argument he would have used that he thinks (correctly) I would agree with. I am not sure how this is a criticism. There can be more than one way to respond to an argument and the fact that one way is correct does not mean that all others are incorrect. Glenn at one point states “I don’t know how persuasive it is to say that something can be objectively true and yet still false from God’s point of view” but I never said that something could be objectively true and false from God’s point of view. My point was that it is impossible for something to be false and for God to believe it true – this follows from the definition of omniscience. Hence, nothing can be true independently of what God thinks, even heliocentricism, which was Ray’s paradigm of an objective truth.
Glenn’s third criticism is my response to the question about Deuteronomy 15. While I do not agree with many of his criticisms, I was not happy with my response to this question and agree entirely that Glenn’s response is better. I would only add that the context suggests this was a particular case of defiant law breaking. One problem with debates is that you have to respond immediately, off the cuff and you do not always have time to address things like context.
Glenn also objects to the brevity in addressing the issue of the Mosiac law. Again a Q&A has to be brief and I was not giving an exposition on the role of the law, I was addressing the specific question of Bill Cooke as to why, seeing Jesus denied he was abolishing the law, Gentile Christians do not follow it entirely. The reason is that the whole Mosaic law never purported to be binding on Gentiles but on Jews and Jesus’ audience was Jewish.
Where I part ways with Glenn most substantially is his claim that the debate was “a fizzer” and “a wasted opportunity.” Glenn’s reason is that much of the issues raised by Ray and responded to by me did not address the moot.
Three things need to be said here.
First, the moot itself. I was never happy with the moot “Is God the Source of Morality” as it suggested that a positive case for this claim would be presented for this thesis and I doubted the difference in presuppositions between Ray and I and the time frame would permit a sensible discussion. For this reason I had negotiated the rider “is it defensible to ground right and wrong in God’s commands” this limited and narrowed the question to whether a divine command theory was defensible, that is, was it a coherent view that could be adequately defended against the objections raised against it – and I did address this point. Moreover, most of my responses were attempts to show arguments against this position failed. The problem arose that although both Ray understood that we would be discussing this, it was less clear to those promoting the debate and some promotional material was missing the rider which explained the title.
Second, I agree that Ray’s “logical straight-jacket argument” did not address the moot. This was the first critical comment I made of his argument in my opening statement. Perhaps I should have called for the debate to come back to the moot a little more in my rebuttals and summing up (I had originally planned to) the reason I did not, however, is that in his second statement Ray did attempt to address the question with his argument about objectivity. I erred, however, in not making the relationship between Ray’s arguments and my original three points clearer.
Third, despite the moot not being addressed as much as it could have, I think the discussion we had was important and most certainly not a waste of time. This is because Ray’s argument is a very common one raised against theistic ethics. Ray’s argument is hinted at by Walter Armstrong’s and Louise Antony’s recent articles on God and Morality. Tooley hinted at an argument of this sort in his debate with Plantinga and something like Ray’s argument was recently used by Evan Fales and Edmund Curley. Moreover, it is extremely common in popular atheist literature to see passages from scripture plucked out of context, genre ignored, Scriptures usually from the king James Version, references to Crusades and other atrocities are thrown in for good mix and it is then announced that the Bible teaches some horrific thing – any attempt to dispute it is dismissed as ‘fudging’ or ‘being dishonest.’
Christian apologists like William Lane Craig frequently respond by pointing out correctly that the argument is strictly speaking irrelevant to the issue at question, this is logically correct, the problem is that it leaves the appearence of their having not answered the biblical claims, and often has the effect of making such claims remain rhetorically effective. So I took the opportunity to address these claims head on. I pointed out the caricatures in history and in biblical exegesis such claims rely upon and also I pointed out the unfounded hermenuetics often employed. I think it is important these responses were made and I do not think it is a waste of time to make them. It is true that strictly speaking they are irrelevant to whether a divine command theory is defensible but many people mistakenly think they are relevant. Further, these kinds of comments help to fuel a fear that people who ground morality in God’s commands are genocidal fanatics who want to kill innocent people by the thousands in the name of God but and again this is something worth challenging.
As I understood the role of this argument in the debate, it arose because you said (and I agree) that moral rules do not apply to God. This meant, or so it seemed in dialogue with Bradley, that while it was true for us that certain things were wrong, it’s not true for God. And this really does come across as a strange way to think of objectivity, when for most of us (or maybe it’s just me), objectivity smacks of something being true for everyone. That’s why I think this is better re-cast as the claim that it’s objectively true for everyone – God and man – that humans are not permitted to do X.
Moreover, I think that even if the observer is omniscient, an objectively true fact is true regardless of what that observer thinks. Now, being omniscient of course that observer’s belief will coincide with reality so he will believe the proposition in question. But that doesn’t establish a relationship of depenence. The proposition’s truth is still independent of the fact that the omniscient person knows it. (Now of course, I also think there is a relation of dependence between God’s commands and human duty, but all I was doing here is trying to state why objectivity is better though of as something that makes no distinction between God and man).
It may simply be that philosophers (like me, in this case!) always prefer their way of stating things as absolutely obviously clearer and more helpful to the world.
Go bro! Cyborgs Rule, Veritas ex machina.
More seriously I’d have to support the idea that effectively answering some of the more commonly used false arguments was a worthwhile move. Possibly off the moot but Ray was well off anyway and not engaging would have made the debate non sensical and boring.
I should hasten to add: I’m not saying, Matt, that you accept the view on objectivity and truth that I inferred from the comments at the debate (I noted that actually you probably agreed with the version that I suggested – and you do). I just commented because I thought the comment you made there didn’t all that effectively convey the view that you actually hold.
You cant have the whole review go in your favour!
Glenn, I did not define “objective” as “true for all human beings, even if it’s not true for God.” I defined it as the idea something is objectively true if its truth does not depend on what humans think. I don’t recall suggesting it was possible for something to be objectively true and not believed by God.
Moreover, I am not convinced that objectivity can be “construed as true regardless of who the observer is.” Suppose, for example, the observer is essentially omniscient and believes all true beliefs and no false ones. Then it seems that nothing could be true independent of what this observer believed. The only way this could occur would be if something was true and the observer thought otherwise but that is by definition impossible.
Moreover, if the observer is an omniscient creator and sustainer then everything will be true only if God both acts to create and sustain the fact in question and he has done so.
Glenn, Ray’s argument was:
“just as the truth of the heliocentric hypothesis–that the earth goes round the sun rather than vice versa–doesn’t depend upon what any one (even God) says, or the place and time at which they said it, so moral truths aren’t relative to persons, places, or time. Hence, moral truths can’t be dependent–as Matt is claiming–on the whims of a supernatural God.”
Now my point was the the heliocentric universe depends on God’s will for its truth and it is impossible for it to be false and for an an omniscient being to believe it is true. Hence, in this sense it is not true independent of God.
Now, it seems to me that you are suggesting this is not the relevant sense of independence here. You seem to be suggesting that while it is true the truth of the heliocentric universe is dependent on God’s will and it cannot be true if God does not believe in it. The truth of God’s belief, that the universe is heliocentric, is ontologically dependent on this being the case.
Now I agree in that sense of independence, the truth of a proposition does not depend on Gods believing it. The problem is that this cannot be the sense of “independence” Ray was using because morality is independent of God in this sense. God’s belief that rape is wrong depends on it being the case that it is wrong. Of course rape is wrong because God commands it but in the same way the heliocentric universe is true because God sustains and created it. After he creates it he knows it is true, just as, after God commands X he knows X is right.
Well Ray made a number of comments here and he made the rather haphazardly. Yes, he used this as an argument that “moral truths can’t be dependent–as Matt is claiming–on the whims of a supernatural God.” And there I agree that it’s perfectly approrpiate to say that a state of affairs can be caused, but caused independently of the human will and still be objectively true.
But he also used the “relativism” argument against the claim that God is “above the law,” and it is here that I was suggesting that my line of response was the appropriate one to use. If I recall you referred to objectivity in this context as being independently of what humans “think” as opposed to what God thinks. The issue in this claims is actually the objectivity of the truth of certain (moral) beliefs, not the grounding of moral truths. And for that reason it’s best to speak of objective truth as the quality of being true regardless of what anyone thinks. Now again, I know that you and I actually do see eye to eye on objective truth, but as a review I didn’t comment on what I know you really do think (well OK I did mention that too), but only how things came across on the night.
Incidentally, are you looking to set up more debates along the lines of this one?
Glenn if Matt can land a job that keeps us in Auckland (because otherwise we are moving overseas next year) I’d like to see one debate a year, one or two panel discussions a semester and maybe a few guest lectures per semester happening as Thinking Matters Auckland events – working with whatever groups on the University campus (we are now only doing events in other locations if groups there express interest).
I’m only interested in using high calibre people so you would make that list. Pitch me an idea.
(Matt has two job possibilities on the burner that would keep us in Auckland so right now I am working on the assumption we will be here unless and until that changes.)
Glenn wrote But he also used the “relativism” argument against the claim that God is “above the law,” …If I recall you referred to objectivity in this context as being independently of what humans “think” as opposed to what God thinks.
Ok here I probably used loose language, relativism is often construed as the view that right and wrong are constituted by the conventions or willings of human individuals or societies. In this sense right and wrong depend on what people think.
Nice review Glenno!
I know one is supposed, according to some sort of academic ettiquette, to be respectful and perhaps even flattering, towards one’s opponent, and Matt certainly was that in his closing comments about the kind of opponent Ray had been (those comments are not mentioned in the review). Some may find some of my comments about Ray to be a little too contemptuous. I haven’t sought to be contemptuous for its own sake, I have only tried to be honest. But given the nature of his presentation, and given that it is relatively standard fare for him to use these lines of argument, I just cannot understand why he has accumulated the reputation that he has as a person who brings serious philosophical scrutiny to bear on this issue.
It looks to me like Ray has merely spent too much time in the company of unqualified people who zealously endorse his conclusions, and so patronise him with the myth that his arguments are spectacular, when in fact they are sophmoric.
I reckon that you are spot on there!
This review reads like Glenn wishes it was him debating Ray and not Matt.
Matt’s performance was better than any kiwi theologian I can recall ever seeing or hearing debate an atheist. The debate was “genuinely rivetting” from my armchair.
Hi Matt, Glenn, Madeleine,
I have read thru Glenn’s summary. I have not listened or watched the full debate, so these comments are based only upon 2nd hand information.
Here is my question: it seems to me that Matt spent a reasonable amount of time claiming that what the Bible says is not really what it says. I know we must to read things in context, and not everything is literal and so on. But at what point do you draw the line? What specifically is there in the Bible to suggest there was no global flood? Or no stoning? Or no major slaughter of the Caananites? Or no literal eternal hell?
I get the impression (perhaps wrongly) that there is an underlying level of embarrassment about many Biblical texts, rather than an acceptance of them, leading to a deeper understanding of the nature of God.
I am far less qualified than you guys to address this subject, so perhaps my thinking is a little naive. But why does God’s command to wipe out a group need to be defended anyway, since He is the Creator and has the right to give and take life as He pleases.
Rob of course God can do whatever he wants the question is did he?
How do we match up God being good with the claim that he can do whatever he wants – even heinously evil twisted depraved things. To say someone is good is to say he has a particular nature and will act consistently with this. We have to be true to the text, we have take the time to examine the genre, the culture, the inconsistencies if we take one method reading v the lack of inconsistencies if we take the other method – this is not selective, this is how we read all books.
If I pick up a book and interpret it one way and that way results in inconsistent, bizarre or absurd meaning then I think, hang on what am I missing, I re-read, I pay closer attention, I might ask someone else who has studied the work closer for guidance, I then try another approach I get something consistent that makes sense to me and is honestly consistent with the text – not omitting bits or reading things into it then I accept that method. We’ve got to stop treating and approaching the Bible differently to how we approach other texts. When I read in the Harry Potter stories that Harry travelled to Hogwarts School of Wizardry by catching a train at a Kings Cross Station do I assume there really is a school of wizardry called hogwarts because there really is a Kings Cross Train station? How do I know which places in what I am reading are real and which ones are not? How do I know if I am reading fiction or not? The same tells and methods for working this out when I read Harry Potter apply with any other text.
There are plenty of things that Paul Copan, Wolterstorrf, Plantinga, Craig, Matt, et al who write in this area accept that God teaches that are very unpopular in our culture but there is no escaping that this is what God teaches and God teaches it then it must be good.
Rob, you can either read the canaanites passages as the Canaanites were all completely and utterly wiped out, then oh, wait, there are heaps and heaps of them – right, they have been completely and utterly wiped out again – total annihilation – oh no hang on, there’s heaps of Canaanites again… I mean where do they keep coming from if they have all, each and every one gone? How do we reconcile this sort of thing in the text. Maybe we’ve misinterpreted or missed something or maybe the writers of the Bible just talk rubbish.
Paul Copan, Wolterstorrf, Plantinga, Craig, Matt, et al are simply suggesting we’ve missed something and are offering plausible, alternate approaches.
Hi Rob you ask some good questions. Let me rattle off some of my thoughts.
1. you ask “I know we must to read things in context, and not everything is literal and so on. But at what point do you draw the line?” Two things here, one is that I did in my talk interpret some texts literally, I interpreted Numbers 35 which assumes that capital punishment could be substiuted with a fine literally, I would say the same about Exodus 21. I also interpreted 2 Thessalonians literally, (advocates of a traditional view of hell have to interpret the word destruction non literally in a huge number of texts to justify their position). What I contested was that the book of Revelation and various Parables should be understood this way. I think this is fairly sensible. Why would one take Revelations account of 7 headed beasts, a dragon in a lack of fire with a lamb watching as literal? Or why interpret the many different metaphors for judgement in the parables literally especially seeing taken this way they contradict each other.
Second, my answer is you determine whether to do so by careful reading, looking at the context, understanding the Genre and so on. I tend to think that: if in context its more absurd that the author intended a literal reading than some non literal one, then the non literal reading is preferable.
2. You ask “What specifically is there in the Bible to suggest there was no global flood?” this issue is not whether the text literally says there was a global flood it does, and I did not deny that. The issue is what is the Genre of the text which says this? The story of the boy who cried wolf literally says a wolf killed a boy but seeing its a fable it would be a mistake to interpret the text as affirming this as a historical claim. While I don’t think Genesis is a fable the point illustrates that the question is not merely one of literal vs figurative its about Genre. When people who lived in the ANE in 17000 BC wrote narratives like this were they writing history as we use the term today?
3 “ Or no stoning?” Here the question was how did legal texts like this actually function. I argued that they expressed legal principles dramatically withe extreme example and in practise capital sanctions were usually substituted for a fine. I gave have three reasons for this (a) In Ancient Near Eastern practise, a person who commited a serious crime would legally have forfeited there life but in practise this could be “ransomed” for a monetary fine. This is how many scholars of ancient near eastern texts state they actually functioned in the real world. (b) An examination of how other legal codes of the same Genre functioned suggests they did function to express principles with extreme examples. (c) many ANE legal texts make little sense unless you assume the practise I referred to (c) The text itself actually assumes such a practise (Exodus 21: and Numbers 35) (d) moreover unless one assume this various texts actually contradict each other. The Torah says people who commit adultery should be executed. Deuteronomy has laws about divorce for adultery and remarriage and Proverbs 6 says the aggreviated party can accept a fine and seems to presuppose a lesser penalty. The torah states that a person who makes a false accusation in a case must suffer the same penalty as the victim would if they had been convicted. Yet in Deut 22 a man who falsely accuses a women of a capital offence has to pay restitution. It seems in light of these factors far more plausible to say that my interpretation is correct than a stricter literal one others prefer.
I would be interested in how people who think I am mistaken and who are committed to the authority of scripture would provide a more plausible reading in light of (a) (b) (c) and (d) above.
4. Or no literal eternal hell? I did not deny hell was eternal. As to it being literal. I suggested some references to hell were not literal descriptions. I don’t think the book of revelation is a literal description of the afterlife, nor do I think that Jesus’s references in parables are intended to be descriptions of the after life either. In fact the word “hell” itself is a metaphor there is a place in Israel called hell its a valley outside of Jerusalem Jesus pretty evidently was not literally referring to this place. What I did contest was Ray’s claim that the bible teaches God will be torture people forever merely for having the wrong beliefs. I don’t know of any passage or text which “clearly states” that this will occur.
5. I get the impression (perhaps wrongly) that there is an underlying level of embarrassment about many Biblical texts, rather than an acceptance of them, I get frustrated by this charge, in each case I offered arguments from things such as text and Genre as to why I came to the conclusions I did, when people ignore arguments and instead attribute motives they are committing the ad hominem fallacy. Bill Cooke and others for example claimed I was simply dismissing those parts of the bible I don’t like. had I actually argued I don’t like X therefore X is not true, that might have been a valid charge. But i didn’t.
6. But why does God’s command to wipe out a group need to be defended anyway, since He is the Creator and has the right to give and take life as He pleases. I am not entirely satisfied with this response. First, why does creating something give one a right to kill it. Suppose I created humans in a test tube would that mean I could kill them. Second, I agree that God is under no obligation to not kill people I actually argued God had no obligations in the debate. The issue however is different. Christians want to say that God is good, that he is just, that he is loving and so on, these words have a meaning and can’t be attributed to a being that does just anything. To say someone is just or loving means there are certain things one does and does not do. I think a good being for example could not command people to kill everyone else whenever one liked for any reason at all, nor could such a being command people to torture others for fun. One can’t coherently say a being is good and he commands these things.
Third, and this follows from the previous one, while I agree the picture of a good being laying down a general prohibition against killing and then granting exceptions in rare cases for overidding reasons is coherent. The texts in Deuteronomy tell us what Gods reasons were and while they are I think adequate to justify driving the Canaanites out. I doubt they justify Genocide or killing every man women and child.
Fourth, and this is what people seem to miss, there are other questions with these passages which a plausible interpretation needs to address. (i) the archaeological record shows us the picture of total conquest is cannot be true.(ii) taken literally the texts contradict what is said elsewhere, Joshua goes on to state the Canaanites were not literally wiped out. Judges says the cities they destroyed everyone in were full of Canaanites. The Amalekites whom Saul exterminated are alive in great numbers a few chapters latter. Similarly with the Midianites who are exterminated in Numbers 31 and alive in massive numbers in Judges 7. The numbers of soldiers killed in these accounts is in excess of what is known to be the case in a population this size and cannot be reconciled with other texts and so on. If this text is the word of God as I think it is we need an understanding that answers all these questions plausibly. If people insist on a literal reading of these texts as historical descriptions, and they want to maintain the authority of scripture I’d like to know how they address these issues in a manner more plausibly than a non literal one does.
I would agree with the proposition that God can engage with his creation as he sees fit. However as Matt says, there are qualities that we attribute to a morally perfect being that precludes him acting in a capricious, unjust fashion.
Canaan at the time of the entry of Israel (about 1400BC) had become morally depraved, and Israel were God’s tool of punishment, just as the Babylonians would be for Israel many years later.
Did Ray really say that the Flood took placw 2300 years ago? 2300BC would be closer to the mark.
“Or no literal eternal hell?”
My answer on this one is simple: The Bible literally and clearly teaches something that contradicts the traditional doctrine of eternal torment. Those who say otherwise, in my view, are the ones who are not letting the writers of the Bible speak for themselves.
My two cents on the “I get the feeling you’re embarrassed by what the Bible says” line of argument.
First, the fact that a person offers arguments for another interpretation of the Bible does not mean that they aren’t embarrassed. If a text embarrassed me, I too would probably try to come up with arguments for a new interpretation of it, but – and this is the point (and I’m sure Matt agrees), so what if Matt or anyone else IS embarrassed? The fact that he’s motivated by embarrassement does not rebut the arguments that he gives.
So not only is it unfair to assume that he’s motivated by embarrassment, it’s quite irrelevant if he is!
On another note: If the denial that God ordered genocide is motivated by embarrassment at the idea because of a distaste for genocide, then what is the affirmation that God ordered genocide motivated by? Bloodlust? Love of genocide? See – that whole dissection of motives is a REALLY bad idea when you’re the one arguing in favour of a genocidal deity.
Hey Jason,
Yes, indeed God can act as he pleases, but any actions will never be contrary to his perfect goodness. It seems reasonable therefore to presume, given Christian presuppositions, that the Caananite incident was based upon a divine command rooted in God’s perfection.
I personally see no problem with this…
My answer on this one is simple: The Bible literally and clearly teaches something that contradicts the traditional doctrine of eternal torment.
Go on then Glenn, enlighten me… 🙂
Rob, just read your Bible 😉
Rob, Glenn is of the view that heathens like me will simply be annihilated rather than fried for eternity. I find that thought quite comforting.
Well TAM – that can’t be an offensive view since it is what you believe, I assume, is your destiny anyway….
“Rob just read your Bible?
Come now Glenn, that answer is not up to your usual standard. It was a genuine question, and you did say:
“My answer on this one is simple: The Bible literally and clearly teaches something that contradicts the traditional doctrine of eternal torment.”
If it is that simple, then why not explain it to me…
Why not list a few proof texts for me… or have you posted them elsewhere?
Rob, I actually did a three part podcast series on the subject of eternal punishment. Part one is here and it contains a link to parts two and three.
Jason, You write Canaan at the time of the entry of Israel (about 1400BC) had become morally depraved, and Israel were God’s tool of punishment, just as the Babylonians would be for Israel many years later. assuming your dating of the exodus, I think there are a couple of issues here. The first is that while moral depravity might provide compelling grounds for evicting and driving the Canaanites from the promised land, its hard to see how this would justify killing every single Canaanite including all the women children and animals. The second is that Babylon did not kill every Isrealite man women and child rather they drove Isreal out and took the into exile.
Rob, I actually argued for Glenn’s position in my opening statement you can look up the references I cited to see if my claim about how the imagery is used is correct. But just a few explict texts are
Matt 10: 28”Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather, be afraid of the One who can destroy both soul and body in hell.”
here the text clearly suggests people are destroyed in hell. and destroy is in context the same as kill.
John 3:16 “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son,[f]that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.”
Note the contrast is between those who perish ( which means die) and those who have eternal life.
Matt 13:40 “As the weeds are pulled up and burned in the fire, so it will be at the end of the age. 41The Son of Man will send out his angels, and they will weed out of his kingdom everything that causes sin and all who do evil. 42They will throw them into the fiery furnace, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. “
The image of weeds burning in fire is clearly one of destruction not concious torture.
Mark 9: 47 “And if your eye causes you to sin, pluck it out. It is better for you to enter the kingdom of God with one eye than to have two eyes and be thrown into hell, 48where ” ‘their worm does not die,
and the fire is not quenched.'[e]”
Note Jesus here in refering to hell in v 48 cites Isaiah 66 “24 “And they will go out and look upon the dead bodies of those who rebelled against me; their worm will not die, nor will their fire be quenched, and they will be loathsome to all mankind.” the reference is clearly to the cremation of dead bodies and hence refers to destruction not concious torture.
Then there is 1 Thessalionans 1:8-10 “This will happen when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven in blazing fire with his powerful angels. 8He will punish those who do not know God and do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus.9They will be punished with everlasting destruction and shut out from the presence of the Lord and from the majesty of his power”
The text states eternal destruction is the fate of the wicked not torture.
Romans 6 21-23 “What benefit did you reap at that time from the things you are now ashamed of? Those things result in death! 22But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves to God, the benefit you reap leads to holiness, and the result is eternal life. 23For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in[b] Christ Jesus our Lord.”
Here death is seen as the ultimate end of sin and eternal life is contrasted with death.
This is just a few, most of these passages are actually well known to Christians unfortunately they read the word “eternally alive being tormented” into words like destroy, death etc. You could also look at all the passages I cited in my post http://www.mandm.org.nz/2008/06/william-lane-craig-raymond-bradley-and-the-problem-of-hell-part-two.html
Note in most of these cases its a matter of taking the text literally. It literally says perish, destroy, destruction, death, not torture. There is only one instance where the word torment is used of the fate of the wicked and that is in the highly symbolic book of revelation, and the imagery used is all drawn from old testament passages refering to destruction, moreover revelation itself states that the lake of fire is the second death and uses the image of smoking rising and torment only a few chapters latter to refer to the destruction of Babylon.
I have huge respect for orthodoxy and don’t depart from it lightly however in this instance I am convinced Glenn is correct. Its hard to see how the above scriptures can be read in a manner consistent with the picture of eternal torment.
Matt – it is after pointing such things out that I wait for those who formerly defended a “literal” reading of Scripture to do an about face and accuse me of being too literal.
Thanks guys.
I would be reluctant to do an about face and take your interpretation as correct, simply due to the fact that “orthodoxy” has been around a very long time and was constructed by minds greater than yours and mine.
Of course, that does not to say that orthodoxy is infallible.
Having said that, thanks 4 the scripture references. I shall chew them over and have a good look at this when I get a decent quantity of spare time.
The modern church’s anti-intellectualism has shifted orthodoxy. Matt is calling the church back to it is all.
Matt, I agree up to a point. Joshua makes a similar point.
And Joshua said unto the children of Israel, Come hither, and hear the words of the LORD your God. And Joshua said, Hereby ye shall know that the living God is among you, and that he will without fail drive out (yarash, drive out, dispossess) from before you the Canaanites, and the Hittites, and the Hivites, and the Perizzites, and the Girgashites, and the Amorites, and the Jebusites.
I would say that those who were willing to leave the land were let go unmolested. Those that stayed and fought against Israel were attacked and driven out. We know from the testimony of Rahab that the people of the land were pretty scared of Israel’s reputation. Packing and leaving was always an option. The people of Gibeon didn’t seem to have any illusions about what would happen to those who stayed and negotiated for an honourable peace (by deception) and lived under tribute.
A similar thing happened with Babylon. Those that fought against God’s scourge were destroyed, and their survivors taken out of their land to Babylon. Those who accepted the change of situation were allowed to stay and maintain their land under tribute.
I would also say a big difference is God’s promise to Abraham. Chesterton pointed out that of all the peoples of the earth, only Israel is immortal. Any other nation can fail and disappear (and all of those who fought against Israel at that time have done so) but if Israel were to do so then one of God’s promises would have failed.
On the subject of eternal destruction versus hell, the problem as I see it is that it is unjust to argue that all the unrepentant get the same punishment. Take a hypothetical two people, one Jack the Ripper, the other someone whose crimes are of a more common nature, lying, minor theft, that sort of thing.
With the doctrine of total destruction, both receive the same punishment. Whilst it could be argued that the state of rebellion against a holy God merits the same punishment regardless of their individual activities, we then reach the position which could justify the total literal destruction of the Canaanites on moral grounds. After all, if we execute a murderer for breaking God’s law, why not execute a thief who also breaks God’s law?
If we accept a “fair” standard, that those deserving of many stripes will receive many, while those that deserve few will receive few, then a graduation of punishment can be made to fit the crime.
I agree that the pictures of hell as a lake of fire, or a place where neither the flame nor worm cease is non-literal. Within the culture of the day shame, not pain, was regarded as the higher punishment (they were an agonistic culture) crucifixion was abhorred not because of the pain but because it was a symbol of complete degradation. Based on that premise I would argue (as JP Holding does) that hell is a place of shame. Those whose actions merit little punishment receive little shame, those who merit much punishment receive much shame.
@Rob
With all due respect to Matt and Glenn, i’m with Rob on this one.
1st any discussion of heaven and hell involves spiritual realities that are beyond our experience or our language hence the use of simile, metaphor, figuirative speech, parables to try and explain them to us. Does this mean that neither actually exist.?
2nd the bible continually contrasts life and death as opposites but they both have two meanings. Physical life and death which is pretty straight forward, and spiritual life and death which is less so.
Spiritual life and death refer to our connectedness and relationship with God ie to be spiritually alive is to be connected to God and in communion with Him. To be spiritually dead is to be cut off from God and out of communion, it doesnt mean to be non-existant. No one would suggest that non -Christians are non-existant although by definition they are currently spiritually dead .
3rd, while acknowledgeing the use of words like “destruction” and “death” these tend to be used with the adjective “eternal” or subsequent desription “for ever and ever”. The contrast is between eternal life [with God] and eternal death [ without God], not between eternal life and “gone”
Also I would suggest that God respects our choice to accept or reject Him, Hell is the consequence of rejection and God seeks to warn us of this. Annihilation neither respects our choice to be separate from God, nor is it much of a consequence, no one subject to it would be aware of it. Further it doesnt appear to be particularly “just”.
4th there are verses suggesting eternal existance for the unsaved Dan 12:2, Luke 16:19-31 [ nb the luke reference is often thought of as a parable but doesnt have most of the normal indicators of being a parable]
5th the bible appears to suggest degrees of reward for the obedient and degrees of punishment for the wicked, this is inconsistant with annihilation.
To me scripture appears to support a literal and eternal hell [spiritual rather than physical], but all descriptions of it are of necessity figurative and metaphorical rather than definitive.
I too am working my way thru Glenn’s podcast so i will stop here for the moment.
Jeremy
1. I agree that many pictures of judgement involve metaphors I also agree this does not mean they do not exist. To my knowledge neither Glenn or I said otherwise. We simply dispute the metaphors mean eternal torment.
2. With regard to spiritual death, nothing in the context suggests death is being qualified with spiritual in this way. Quote the contrary for example the Matthew passage states “ Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather, be afraid of the One who can destroy both soul and body in hell.” Here the context is physical death, do not fear him who can kill the body but him who can kill both. Moreover the reference I cited in Mark to “the worm that does not die and their fire is not quenched” refers to the cremation of dead bodies, and so is fairly evidently a picture of physical destruction. The fire that burns up weeds is also a picture of physical destruction, I have never known weeds when thrown into fire to continue to exist and be tortured.
3. Eternal death does not mean life without God nor does eternal life mean life with God. It means destruction for ever or life forever. Moreover your claim that Annihilation neither respects our choice to be separate from God, nor is it much of a consequence, no one subject to it would be aware of it. is mistaken, a person cannot exist without God, the logical implication of rejecting the sustainer of all creation is destruction. As to the justice of this, its hard to see how annihilation can be unjust and eternal conscious torture can be just. Moreover your claim that annihilation is not much of a punishment nor as no one subject to it would be aware of it also seems false, people who are subject to the death penalty suffer a punishment they are not aware of (death) yet it clearly is a fairly weighty punishment. Tell a person on death row that he really is facing something trivial because he wont be aware of being dead, and see if he thinks your correct
4. Dan 12:2 says nothing about eternal existence for the unsaved what it states is “Multitudes who sleep in the dust of the earth will awake: some to everlasting life, others to shame and everlasting contempt” note what is aid to be eternal is the contempt the wicked are held in not, their existence. Moreover, the text says that those who are subject to contempt are the others who do not get everlasting life. Moreover, the context here is clearly physical life it has just said those who sleep in the dust (i.e the dead) will awake. I am not sure what the normal markers for a parable that are lacking in Lk 16:19-31 are, especially seeing Lk 16:1-13 is a parable on a similar topic and it starts the same way and the parable of the lost son Lk 15:1-32 which comes immediately before that is also introduced the same way. \
5. Degrees of punishment is compatible with annihilation, all one needs is to note that prior to annihilation some other punishment is inflicted. Moreover, I suspect a view which holds that punishment is of infinite duration will end up making all punishment the same, infinite.
Jeremy, are you really sure you aren’t using a bit ofa double standard?
For example, the Bible clearly teaches the destruction fo the lost using a range of metaphors. But does the use of those metaphors mean that the destruction doesn’t exist, or won’t happen? See, the thing is, Matt and I are not the ones trying to push away or downplay passages of Scripture here. It seems to me that if you believe the doctrine of eternal torment, then you must dismiss, overlook, or somehow reinterpret a whole range of biblical passages.
And sure, it’s true that the Bible metaphorically talks about use as being “dead” in sin, but I see no evidence at all that when the Bible repeatedly refers to the destruction of the lost, to them perishing, being blotted out, being burned up etc, that it’s actually a spiritual metaphor. Do you?
What’s more, the job of the interpreter is not to try to peer into a word in every single context where it appears to get access to it’s full possible range of semantics. Otherwise, I could take a verse like “God so loved the world,” and say “Ah, now sometimes that word for love appears int he context of a marriage,a nd that invovles sex, therefore God wants to have sex with the world!” No, we’ve got to use the context of any given verse to guide our interpretation of it. We’ve got to compare like with like. For example, Matthew 10:28 reads as though God will destroy the body and soul in hell (gehenna). The Greek word used here for “destroy” is apollumi. Now, comparing this with other similar examples, we find out that every single other time that word is used in the Synoptic Gospels to describe the actions of one person or agent against another, it actually refers to a literal act of killing or destruction. Given this, it is not legitimate to speculate base d on all the logical possibilities that exist for this word in different contexts. We’ve got to use the actual context in which the saying appears, and compare it with relevantly similar examples.
Daniel 12:2 says absolutely nothing about the eternal existence of the unsaved. The only thing “everlasting” mentioned there in relation tot he lost is “contempt,” and that’s not the contempt that the lost have, it’s contempt that God has, or perhaps the people of God.
It seems to me that when you talk about holding a “literal” view, the word “literal” doesn’t mean a lot. Can we all say that we hold a literal view, because we think that the truth is literally the same as our view? Eternal torment is certainly not the literal teaching of the Bible, after all, as even you seem to admit. Suddenly everything is metaphorical.
@ Matt
I think most of your answers reinforce my point about heaven and hell being spiritual realities rather than earthly realities and hence the best the language can do is to give an idea or picture of what they are really like.
Concerning death, the Genesis account of the fall includes “you must not eat from the tree….for when you eat of it you will surely die”, clearly this did not happen . Adam is recorded living for another 7-800 years.
What did happen immediately was spiritual death, ie Adams sin cut him off from God, so much so that he thought he could hide from God in a bush!!!
“the wages of sin is death but the free gift of God is eternal life…” This is why we need to be “born again” or “made alive in Christ”, to be in communion with God. As previously mention significant portions of the worlds population are spiritually dead but not non existant.
Sorry i’m going to have to quit now, and i’ve just seen Madeliene’s comment that this may be lost–hope not.
First of all , thanks for the replies Glen and Matt.
“And sure, it’s true that the Bible metaphorically talks about use as being “dead” in sin, but I see no evidence at all that when the Bible repeatedly refers to the destruction of the lost, to them perishing, being blotted out, being burned up etc, that it’s actually a spiritual metaphor. Do you?”
The answer to is of course emphatically “kind of”.
To quote myself [and yes i know its in rather por taste to do so]
” any discussion of heaven and hell involves spiritual realities that are beyond our experience or our language hence the use of simile, metaphor, figuirative speech, parables to try and explain them to us.”
As best I can tell, the bible teaches that heaven and hell exist but all the language available to us is inadequate to the task of directly describing non phsyical spiritual reality.
So yes i do believe in eternal torment of the wicked, but even this has problems. “Eternity” is not forever and ever, endless time. Eternity is what God inhabits, time is one of Gods creations not something that He is subject to nor something our eternal spirit is subject to.
And “torment”, i cant find that necessarily means “torture”, you cant really apply thumb screws or hot irons to a spirit. And of course there is no such thing as “unquenchable fire” or “worms that dont die” in this physical reality. Why insist that the “death” and “destruction” must have purely physical meaning?
I suspect [and this is my opinion, cant quote scripture] that regret, grief and despair will provide all the “torment” necessary for the wicked in eternity, that these will burn like an unquenchable spiritual fire.
Luke 16:19-31 Jesus paints a picture of the afterlife [before his death and ressurection]. Now it may only be a picture and hence [as are all the words] limited in its scope but i would be reluctant to claim it was factually inaccurate; consequently i use it as part of the context in which i look at all the other verses quoted. The picture suggests persistance of both the wicked and the good after physical death, torment of the wicked and comfort of the good. I trust this explains my point of view and why i understand scripture as i do.
Thanks to Madeleine for finding and reposting my lost comment.
No problem 🙂 I just wish I could have found all of them, I think we lost two permanently as I am sure I saw them on the site but they were not in the email box.
Interestingly. Jeremy, the majority of commentators – even those who believe in some sort of endless torment in the afterlife – do not think that the story in Luke 16 was meant as a teaching on what the afterlife is like.
There’s good reason for that. There is very good evidence that Jesus was using an existing story of the time and that he was not using it to teach about the nature of the afterlife at all. Instead he was changing the role that the existing characters played in that story in order to illustrate how the scribes and Pharisees’ ideas about who found favour with God was backwards – and he also threw in a reference to his own future resurrection. It’s a bit like hearing someone using a story to teach – like the story of the tortoise and the hare – and then mistakenly thinking that because of this, it follows that tortoises and hares have human thoughts and organise races with each other. Nobody would do that.
I also find it highly isntructive that the passages that seem to teach annihilationism are (usually) the fairly straightforward, literal didactic texts, whereas the ones that people reach for (unsuccessfully, I think) in order to find reference to eternal torment feature in apocalyptic visions and parables. That should tell us something. Although I think the traditional use of those passages is simply mistaken, it’s still important to remind those who use that method that the best way to approach the issue is to come to an understanding of the relatively straightforward texts first, and then more cautiously approach the more complex ones.
Glenn wrote I also find it highly isntructive that the passages that seem to teach annihilationism are (usually) the fairly straightforward, literal didactic texts, whereas the ones that people reach for (unsuccessfully, I think) in order to find reference to eternal torment feature in apocalyptic visions and parables.
I thought this two, I meant to say it in the debate but in the quick cut and thrust got dropped. Ray mentioned a whole host of passages in Matthew which referred to fire, hell, gnashing of teeth etc. It struck me however he was limiting himself to only those references in thinks like Parables and Apocalyptic literature. One could just as easily rattle off a series of texts from epistles and didactic texts. The real question is why interpret parables and revelation literally and Thessalonians and Romans “metaphorically”. Surely the other way around is the obviously more sensible approach.
I agree that the Luke passage was not setting out to be teaching on the afterlife, just making the point that it was an illustration that Christ used.
I struggle considerably with the idea that Christ would use illustrations he knew to be false, this does not mean He wouldnt use stories but even these if not actual events are recognisable as as possibilties rather than impossiblities ie things that could happen. So while this passage may not teach about the afterlife specifically it still provides context.
This also informs how i look at the Torah, Christ accepted it as accurate. This doesnt mean context, genre, literary convention should be ignored, in fact i have found the exposition of these things on this site immensely helpful, it does mean though that i accept the Torah accounts as true and accurate. Our interpretations and understanding of them are another matter.
Shalom