Josiah Concept Ministries

Deus Caritas Est (25 Dec 2005)

Spe Salvi (30 Nov 2007)

I’m acting as secretary for the Vatican. See, I hate to read long articles while sitting at my computer screen. So I try to print them out if I can. The Vatican’s website didn’t have a very printable version of the Pope’s encyclicals, so I decided to make a Microsoft Word copy of the documents. For the benefit of my readers, I am making them available for download.

I knew that we’d see backlash from the atheist community when the Pope not only slammed atheism in the encyclical (see also here and here), and he blamed it for the worst tragedies of the 20th century. Kelly from the Rational Response Squad has offered a typical atheist reply. She plays all of the usual cards: the Inquisition card, the Crusades card, and the This-Doesn’t-Prove-God-Either-Way-So-Neener-Neener card.

Kelly does make a very good point. Historically, religious violence accounts for the vast majority of tragedies. She also states that violence committed by atheists was not committed for an atheistic agenda, but as a way to eliminate religious idealogues in order to strengthen the control of the government over the people.

I don’t consider that much of a defense, but I should note that I would never defend the Inquisitions or the Crusades. It is reasonable, therefore, to assume that Kelly isn’t defending the actions of these dictators; rather, she is asserting that their atheism had nothing to do with their actions. I think that we can agree that neither the violence of communism nor the violence of Catholicism was in anyone’s best interest–except for those whose power was increased by those moves. All examples are dark marks on the history of both the atheistic school of thought and the theistic school of thought.

But does that mean that the theistic worldview is somehow flawed because of the violence that it perpetuated? Or was the violence a corruption of the good that flows from a Christian lifestyle? If we examine two Bible verses, Galatians 5:22-23 and Romans 12:9-21, we can get a better feel for how the Christian is supposed to behave. We can then see if the Crusades or the Inquisitions were warranted or if they were simply men trying to do the work God promised He would do.

First, let’s go back to the story of Abraham. God promised children to Abraham, and then waited years to deliver on that promise. Abraham took matters into his own hands, and had a child by Sarah’s nurse, Hagar. God chastised Abraham, promising that His word would come to pass and Abraham would have a child by Sarah, his wife. Ishmael, Hagar’s son, was not the fulfillment of God’s initial promise, but rather was the well-intentioned effort of Abraham to bring about what God had promised to do.

So we can agree that there is a Biblical basis for men trying to do the work of God, and we can agree that God fulfills His promises in the end, as He did for Abraham. Sarah did become pregnant and bore Isaac. The results may be delayed beyond our human patience, but God does deliver on His promise, in His time.

So what of God’s promises were the Inquisitions and the Crusades trying to fulfill? The promise that every knee shall bow and every tongue confess that Jesus is Lord, found in Isaiah 45:23. God has promised to do that, and He will do it. The men of the Crusades and the Inquisitions, attempting to give birth to the child of promise, instead introduced another Ishmael into the world, forever scarring the good name of Christ in the process.

How is a Christian supposed to behave, and does it square with how the Inquisitions and the Crusades were carried out? Well, many atheists argue that the Christians involved with those tragedies behaved in line with the Bible, which (according to one atheist site) commands us to kill unbelievers. I’ve addressed that charge before.

Now let’s look at the two passages of the Bible mentioned above, Galatians 5:22-23 and Romans 12:9-21. The Spirit indwells believers at our profession of faith, and guides us in our Christian walk (Rom 8:9-11), and that Spirit produces in us the fruits of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control (Gal 5:22-23). Those who live according to the flesh set their minds upon things of the flesh (Rom 8:5). The things of the flesh mean death (Rom 8:6)–the wages we earn for our sin (Rom 6:23) Paul gives us a list of the things of the flesh: “sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these” (Gal 5:19-21).

So, was the first list (love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control) practiced by the Crusades or the Inquisition? I think not. I’m sure that Kelly can agree with me here. Religious violence, though not included specifically on the second list, is a much better fit with those things.

Read Romans 12:9-21. Pay particular attention to what the apostle instructs in verse 18: “Live at peace with everyone.” Kind of an echo of “Love your neighbor as yourself,” isn’t it? Did the Crusades or the Inquisitions live at peace with everyone? Again, Kelly should have no trouble agreeing with me that they did not.

This means that the Crusades and the Inquisitions did not proceed from God, but rather were the same as the Pope’s communism example. In Kelly’s own words,

It was not driven by an atheistic [in this case, theistic] agenda per se, but rather a power struggle with the religious ideologues who would seek to thwart their dominance over the people.

Like Abraham, sinful man was trying to fulfill a promise made by God to His people. It is God who will bring that promise to fruition. God will bring Isaac–the child of promise–forth. Man can only bring Ishmael forth through his efforts. Remember that Ishmael was shunned by God; he had no part in God’s covenant. Only Isaac had a covenant relationship to God.

I’m not defending the Crusades any more than I believe Kelly was defending the tragedies wrought by communism. What I’m doing is demonstrating that this level of brutality does not square with the Bible’s teaching of the marks of the true Christian. I hope to expand on the fruits of the Spirit idea and the Romans 12:9-21 marks of a true Christian soon, perhaps even turn it into a book.

Kelly counters the Pope’s assertion that atheism is devoid of hope by arguing that the religious viewpoint is far more fatalistic:

The pessimism that he [Phil Zuckerman, The Cambridge Companion to Atheism] sees in the world is more likely to have been caused by the precepts and edicts of the religion into which a society has been indoctrinated. If I believed that this life, this planet and its inhabitants were all a part of some kind of cosmic game in which the rules and outcome were already determined, I would be pessimistic as well. For them, all of this is a waiting room for your “real” existence in eternity—whether or not it will be in paradise or perdition. Ultimately, it’s not even up to you or me to make that determination. The Catholic Church has always stood by the doctrine that the status of your salvation is unknown even to you. Does anybody else see how that might cause psychological distress? You’re chosen, or one of the elect–one to whom god has revealed himself–or you’re not.

Well, this is certainly not at all what the religious believe, therefore her conclusion that follows is invalid as it is based on a faulty premise. I wouldn’t expect Kelly to see any hope in that viewpoint. Fortunately, that viewpoint isn’t correct.

We are not part of a cosmic game, as Kelly puts it. The ultimate purpose of our life is God’s own glorification. Maybe that’s a game to Kelly. But think on this for a moment. In the incredible vastness of this universe, God cares about what happens to us on this insignificant planet. Whether we are bound for glory or bound for perdition, somehow the activities upon this blue speck of dust in the great universe bring ultimate glory to the Creator of Everything. That I get to play such an important role is just mind-numbing.

The rules and outcome are not predetermined. Kelly is mistaking foreknowing with foreordaining. This is a deeply philosophical issue with no less than God’s ultimate identity as real and true deity at stake. It therefore deserves more treatment than a few simple lines on a blog. But, the best summary of it is: “Because God knows I will wear blue socks today, it does not follow that I must wear blue socks today.” God knows the future perfectly, but that does not mean that He wrote it like a movie script. It only means that He can see and experience it.

Kelly is confusing Catholicism with Calvinism. True, the Catholic Church has always stood by the doctrine that you can’t know your place in eternity. But the Bible teaches that you can know your place with certainty. Calvinism holds that God chose an elect people apart from their works from the foundation of the earth, and that this people is who God saved by the atoning death of Christ. It is therefore not because we love Him that we are saved, it is because He loved us first (1 Jn 4:10).

Ultimately, Kelly seems to have read much of the Bible but understood very little. She knows the letter of the law, which only leads to death. The Spirit leads to life (2 Cor 3:6).