Difference between revisions of "User talk:Matthewfaulconer/Testimony related to difficult scriptures"

Revision as of 20:34, 4 July 2006

A Thought

Matthew, a thought perhaps of some help. You feel by the Spirit that it would be wicked to kill the child you hold in your arms. Absolutely! But Saul was not commanded to kill your child, nor are you. The question, perhaps, might better be asked thus: what did those soldiers feel in the moment? What does this have to do with Abraham and Isaac? Do we turn to Kierkegaard here? At least this much, though: there is no contradiction in messages from the Spirit to you. You have not been commanded to kill anyone, and you have been commanded to believe these scriptures. In dealing with the question in the OT, it seems rather to be a question of what they must have experienced. If the text does not dwell on this question, then there may not have been a difficulty, and we might want to explore the cultural presuppositions of such a people. Or we might turn to a text that does dwell on a similar question: Abraham and Isaac?

I may be misunderstanding your point. I said in my post that I do not believe God commanded to kill all these children like this. Are you saying you disagree? If so, there are probably some interesting things we could say about this but I don't know that there is much we could say that would really address that disagreement. Just as, if I tell someone I believe the Book or Mormon is true and they say they don't. There are lots of things we could talk about around that topic that might be interesting but I think little of it is stuff that will really address our difference of opinion. --Matthew Faulconer 04:27, 30 Jun 2006 (UTC) (PS I am 99% sure I posted a response earlier but I do not see it now. Very odd.)

Or I am misunderstanding yours? If I understood your post, you are saying that you feel by the Spirit that your child is innocent and should never be harmed, and then you generalize from that feeling to conclude (and now, rationally, I think) that the same would be true of all children. My point is to say that the Spirit has not told you that those soldiers were not to kill those children, but that it has only told you not to harm your own child. The Spirit has, however, told you that the scriptures are true, and so you are presented with two messages from the Spirit that do not contradict, though one message contradicts a conclusion you draw from the other message. The messages themselves, however, do not run up against each other, as far as I can tell.

Now, whether or not I believe God commanded these men to kill these children.... I suppose I should first say that I didn't state any opinion on that in my first comment. I couldn't state my thoughts on the question without a careful exegesis of the text. There may be reason to believe that there were cultural aspects at work here, that our sensibilities are shocked because of our own cultural situation, etc. I don't know without having studied it carefully. In fact, my point was to dislodge the apparent contradiction you feel from that particular text, precisely because--at a simple glance--it does not look to me like there is any reason to doubt that there was such a commandment given, but that we simply are so far removed from the situation--textually if in no other way--to regard it the way you have. Rather, I would suggest we take up a scriptural situation like Abraham/Isaac, where the text bears sustained study of this dilemma.

I don't know if that's clear, really. I hope. Some thoughts, at least. I confess I'm not sure where there is at all a "difference of opinion" here. I didn't recognize one in the first place. I still don't. --Joe Spencer 15:24, 30 Jun 2006 (UTC)

Joe, I don't think I understand this line:

we simply are so far removed from the situation--textually if in no other way--to regard it the way you have.

My next question involves this sentence:

I would suggest we take up a scriptural situation like Abraham/Isaac, where the text bears sustained study of this dilemma.

It seems like one thing we agree is that this text doesn't deal with a dilemma about whether to kill the children. Instead this is about some people who were told to kill everything, didn't obey (they saved the king and some goats) but didn't save the innocent. It is precisely because the text doesn't dwell on this question of whether or not to kill the innocent which suggests that studying the story of Abraham's command to sacrifice Isaac isn't going to somehow rid us of the question which I had--whether God would command Israel to kill all the Amorites even "the infant and suckling."

Finally, I am confused by several statements you make that to me only follow if one believes that I (and presumably all) are commanded to believe that every word in the scriptures is true. Certainly if we are going to invoke the fallibility of scriptures for anything, what nobler reason could we find than this? --Matthew Faulconer 14:38, 3 Jul 2006 (UTC)

Matthew, I think we're talking more to each other now, at any rate. The underlying issue is, as you point out, how we take the scriptures broadly. I don't for an instance feel that we "are commanded to believe that every word in the scriptures is true." However, I do think that taking any scripture as blatantly false (whatever that would mean) should only be done with a great deal of caution. It seems like a great deal of presumption on our part to declare that the authors of any scriptural text were not inspired. But ultimately, taking the scriptures as either true or false is probably a misunderstanding of them anyway, is it not? The whole plan of salvation is a question of call and response, of a call from God that comes to us to invite us into His presence, and of our response to that call, our coming into His presence and then accomplishing whatever work He commissions us to do (grace, then works). If that is the whole plan of salvation, then where do scriptures fit in? Scriptures are, I think, the personal records of those who have experienced this two-fold pattern of grace and works. Every scriptural text is a sort of endowment script, a narrative that follows the call into God's presence and the process through which that call was answered. No scriptural text is binding in that sense. The scriptures are a series of texts that help us to know the call/response structure of our relation with God, and that give us examples of what it all means. Perhaps more than anything, the scriptures present us with the interconnectedness of the many calls and responses (for example, what our call/response has to do with the call/response of Abraham, etc.). What seems to be most important in a text like the one you are considering is whether or not these people answered the call with the appropriate response. Apparently they did not. But the question as to whether or not one ought to kill the innocent is not raised--that is ultimately an "ethical" question, a non-scriptural question, perhaps even an extra-evangelical question (beyond the purview of the gospel). Ethics is always philosophy, begins with philosophy and ends, perhaps, with the scriptures. I suppose, then, what I've been trying to say (yikes, is this too blunt?) is that reading the passage in question as a question of whether the innocents should have been killed is to take up first the philosophies of men, and then to mingle them with scripture. The text calls us to do things the other way. What does the text say and what does it suggest? Now, let's think that, and let's adjust our philosophies to what the text seems to say. Something like this, anyway. --Joe Spencer 15:34, 3 Jul 2006 (UTC)

A couple quick random and not-too-profound thoughts:

• Regarding Joe's mention of "philosophies of men," I recently jumped in to an interesting T&S thread regarding this (note also the WBC quote I posted a few comments later, and some subsequent discussion). I've been meaning to add some commentary regarding this here but haven't gotten around to it....
• I think there's an argument to be made (albeit, an argument I think which is very flawed and horrid in many ways) that parallels the historical blacks and the priesthood rationales (related to our unfinished Abr 1:26 discussion): In stark economic terms, the problem Matthew is raising could be stated that the presumed benefit of killing the women and children would be so Israel would have less temptation to become idolotrous (at least this seems to be the theme developed in the violent chapters in the book of Joshua, which the SS lessons conveniently skipped). The cost of course is the lives of these women and children. So to address Matthew's concerns it seems you could either emphasize the benefit or somehow deemphasize the costs (there doesn't seem to be much wriggle room for third option of finding a textual ambiguity or loophole like in Judg 11:36, at least not without resortin to some sort of errors-in-the-text argument). One way to deemphasize the costs of the lives of these women and children would be to speculate as to poor premortal premortal choices they may've made. (Again, I'm not advocating this view, more just preempting this argument I can imagine someone making!)

--RobertC 16:00, 3 Jul 2006 (UTC)

Joe,

I feel like we are on the verge of going in circles. We may not be able to make much more progress on this topic that is fruitful. In any case, thanks for taking the time to read through my thoughts and spending some time responding to them. I honestly appreciate that. I disagree with you whole-heartedly but I appreciate the chance to explain better what I meant by responding to your questions.

I do think that taking any scripture as blatantly false (whatever that would mean) should only be done with a great deal of caution.

We agree here.

But ultimately, taking the scriptures as either true or false is probably a misunderstanding of them anyway, is it not?

No. The sentence "the scriptures are true" is a perfectly good sentence, has meaning, is itself true, and doesn't suggest a misunderstanding of the scriptures.

What seems to be most important in a text like the one you are considering is whether or not these people answered the call with the appropriate response.

I don't see any reason to believe in a single most important question for this scripture. I think the question you ask presupposes that they were asked to kill all the children. That is what my question questions. And I think my question is important. It is important in understanding our relationship to God, his relationship to his chosen people and more widely his relationship to all his children. I have further evidence that it is an important question. I have sat through a Sunday school lesson hearing people defend the idea that God would tell the Israelites to kill these innocent children and heard their poor answers. If for no other reason, it is an important question because some answer it so badly. (Robert's, as he warns, is another example of a bad way to answer this question.)

But the question as to whether or not one ought to kill the innocent is not raised...

Just as a side note: that wasn't my question. My question was why God would command this, or, did he really command this, but not whether we should follow the commands of God.

reading the passage in question as a question of whether the innocents should have been killed is to take up first the philosophies of men, and then to mingle them with scripture.

Assuming you are talking about my question (did God really command Israel to kill the innocent children) then it seems you are saying that simply asking whether something in the scriptures is false is to mingle the philosophies of men with the scriptures. Is that right? If so, is it also mingling the philosophies of men with the scriptures to ask whether something in the scriptures is true?

--Matthew Faulconer 03:19, 4 Jul 2006 (UTC) Robert, thanks for the link to the post on mingling the philosophies of men with scriptures. --Matthew Faulconer 03:19, 4 Jul 2006 (UTC)

Matthew, I've been wrestling all day with how to answer this post. I think the best way to begin is by taking up this question: "it seems you are saying that simply asking whether somethign in the scriptures is false is to mingle the philosophies of men with the scriptures. Is that right? If so, is it also mingling the philosophies of men with the scriptures to ask whether something in the scriptures is true?"

The answer to both questions, I think, is "yes." I think introducing the false/true distinction into the scriptures is to mingle them with the philosophies of men. The scriptures do not, it seems to me the more I read them carefully, bear in them the concept of truth/falsity as we understand it. The Hebrew word "truth" certainly does not correspond to anything like our word "truth." What I think our devotion to the scriptures amounts to (or what I think it should amount to) is this: we are to take the texts as they present themselves. If they do not raise the question of truth/falsity, then if we do, it is our own addition to them. I don't believe that the writers of the Old Testament were thinking in terms of historicity or truth/falsity when they wrote these accounts. They were thinking in a wholly different logic, a whole other logos (even Logos?).

What I think this amounts to, oddly, is the following. If we transcend the issue of truth/falsity, then a given scriptural text can be both true and false at the same time. It may be that there never was a historical event like the command to kill these innocents, while even at the same time, the text is absolutely true to itself. However, at the same time, since we have at the very moment we can say this transcended the question, the text is neither true nor false, and neither of the above statements makes any sense. I don't believe, ultimately, that the scriptures are a question of history or historicity in the common sense of these terms (that actual events are accurately recorded).

The difficulty of saying all of this is that it can very easily be misunderstood or misconstrued. That is why I think your father wrote such a lengthy article on this very subject (see his "Scripture as Incarnation" in Historicity and Latter-day Saint Scripture). In the end, at least this much is clear: to be faithful to the text is to take the text as it presents itself, and that seems, so to speak, to require one to "play along," whether or not a text is "true" in any objective sense.

Even with a day's thought, I don't know that this was clear enough. This much seems clear to me, personally (and now I set thinking--philosophy, I suppose--aside): the scriptures are God's word (Word?), and the Spirit is an infallible guide. What a wonderful tension they so often pull us into! Sometimes I think it is precisely the joy of that tension that thrills my soul in this gospel. An odd thing. But a work worth every moment! --Joe Spencer 00:34, 5 Jul 2006 (UTC)