Veni Quid Veniat

     God is perfectly sovereign, and man's will is free. At the risk of dangerously abbreviating a fascinating discussion, I'd like to prove both phrases in that sentence, and, more important, provide a commentary on why they are anything but contradictory.

     The first is easy. The Bible makes it perfectly clear that God is sovereign over all things. In Psalm 103:19 we are told that "the Lord has established His throne in the heavens; And His sovereignty rules over all." Again in Isaiah 46:10, "remember the former things of old; for I am God, and there is no other; I am God, and there is none like me, declaring the end from the beginning and from ancient times things not yet done, saying, ‘My counsel shall stand, and I will accomplish all my purpose,'" Yet again, Psalms 103:19, 115:3, and 135:6, among many other verses, speak to God's sovereignty. The final piece is Ephesians 1:11, which tells us that God "works all things after the counsel of His will." We are left in no doubt that God is indeed sovereign. In addition, we are told that we are created in the image of God. We are not given his power, so the implication is that we are given the ability to be free moral agents, responsible for our own action - that man has free will.

     How is it possible to reconcile the competing facts that man's will is free and that God is sovereign? The answer, I think, lies in properly understanding the nature of God. Too often, we approach God as if He were simply a human like us with a particular ability - for example, when we think of God's omnipotence we think of a human who can do anything, or when we think of His omniscience, we think of a human who knows everything. To a certain extent, this is inevitable. We will naturally compare an unknown to what we know. Generally speaking, this is an effective aid to our understanding, but it isn't perfect. When we start probing too hard into the nature of God - His sovereignty, for example - this approximation will always be imperfect. To correctly understand the coexistence of God's sovereignty and man's free will, we need to look closer at who God is.

     If any human were to be sovereign in the way God is, he would completely preempt free will. Humans can create systems over which they have a certain limited sovereignty, but only if certain conditions are met. The system must be deterministic (that is, for any given situation, given a unique input, there will be a unique output) closed (that is, free from outside influences), and it must be understood completely. Assuming a system meets all three of those requirements, a human could theoretically uniquely determine all events in the system by determining the starting conditions (making the system deterministic and closed allows the starting conditions to determine the course of events, and understanding the system completely allows the starting conditions to be manipulated to produce a given event). Unfortunately for "fortune-tellers" everywhere, the real world is nothing at all like this. At a very general level the purely physical world can be thought of as a deterministic system, but in actuality it is probabilistic. Even worse, humans aren't just probabilistic, they are free agents, and are not bound by external circumstances except in the most general sense. For this reason, if a human were sovereign, free will could not exist, and if free will exists, no human can be truly sovereign. This, in my opinion, is the source of much of the apparent conflict between free will and sovereignty.

     This is only true if a human were sovereign - the solution to the contradiction lies in how God differs from us. For us, the contradiction exists because the world is not deterministic. We cannot possibly know exactly what the output will be for every input, and so we have no way of knowing how to manipulate the starting conditions to produce a desired event, even if we had the ability. What if we were omniscient, though? If so, we would know exactly what would happen in any given set of circumstances, which is simply another way of saying that for any given input, we would know the output - not because the system was limited to one output for that input, but because of our hypothetical omniscience. One could argue about whether this means that the universe is actually deterministic to an omniscient being or whether the universe is merely similar to a deterministic system, but that's not particularly important at the moment: what matters is that the universe is perfectly predictable for an omniscient being, and thus can be determined through setting the starting conditions.

     We can go farther than that, though. Not only is it possible for an omniscient being to determine an unrestricted system by setting the starting conditions, since God is omniscient, He knew precisely what effect any variance in the starting conditions would have. Because of this fact, we can conclude that God decided what every event would be - had He wanted something else, He could have changed the starting conditions to produce a different outcome. Every molecule in the universe acts according to His plan.

     As an aside, it should not be assumed from this discussion that God only acts by setting the starting conditions. Certainly, that is the way He usually chooses to work His will, but he can also intervene supernaturally if He chooses to. For the purposes of this discussion, since God is the only source of external input, the fact that setting the starting conditions requires that He be sovereign implies that He is sovereign. The fundamental point is that an omniscient creator God logically must be sovereign.

     We've essentially arrived at the conclusion that those who argue for God's sovereignty support, but remember how we got there: we assumed free will in a probabilistic universe. We didn't arrive at God's sovereignty by limiting man in any way - God is still sovereign, but our will is free, at least to the extent that our nature and God's power (recall Pharaoh, whose heart God hardened) allows. This should not be taken as a license to lethargy or wrongdoing. Because our wills are free, we are still responsible for our actions. God doesn't preempt your will, rather, He uses it to work His ends. Both God's sovereignty and man's free will are important elements of the Christian worldview, and - far from being contradictory - they are perfectly compatible as long as we recognize who God is.

     It is sometimes puzzling which topics become controversial among Christians. In some areas, it is easy to see how two earnest Christians could disagree, with both sincerely believing their position to be the Biblically correct. Such disagreements are possible even on relatively major areas of doctrine and practice, although not in matters required for salvation. Other areas, however, are less ambiguous, and some are so clear it is mind-boggling that any earnest Christian could be confused. Nevertheless, debate sometimes arises on such points, and it is worth addressing the conversation, if for nothing less than as an intellectual exercise in advancing logically in the face of unadulterated nonsense.
     Particularly at issue today is the assertion that "true" Christians do not call homosexual behavior sin. This view has been put forward from a variety of sources, but most recently by Wilson Cruz, head of GLAAD, in response to comments from 'Duck Dynasty' star Phil Robertson's that homosexual behavior was sin. Cruz's response is the most recent and notable example, but it is hardly isolated. Homosexual groups seem particularly concerned with establishing that homosexual behavior and Christianity are compatible. Their efforts impart a certain amount of irony to the situation, however: God took special care to establish that they are positively not compatible. There are gray areas in Christianity, but this is not one of them.

     We'll start in the Old Testament. Many would like to simply disregard every teaching of the Old Testament, but here they are in error. The same God gave both the Old and New Testaments - times may have changed, and applications may have changed, but God's principles are unchanging. The challenge is to discern the universal principle and separate it from the specific application. In many cases, this is difficult. Fortunately, that is not the case here. The Old Testament verses which address the matter make it quite clear that they are establishing a universal principles. The first can be found in Leviticus 18:22:

You shall not lie with a male as with a female; it is an abomination.

And again, in Leviticus 20:13, where God establishes the civil penalty for such behavior for the nation of Israel:

If there is a man who lies with a male as those who lie with a woman, both of them have committed a detestable act; they shall surely be put to death. Their bloodguiltiness is upon them.

To be perfectly honest, we could probably stop there. The Author is using "lie with" as a euphemism for sexual relations, and doesn't just forbid them, He calls them an abomination. Few behaviors in the Bible are met with  such strong condemnation - murder, for example, while straightly forbidden, isn't even called an abomination. Those who believe that the Bible does not condemn homosexual behavior really have little to say in response to this verse. The most common response is to point out that the Old Testament also prohibits many other things, which we now do. This is true, but not particularly relevant. When God forbade, for example, eating pork, it was clear that He did so not because of something about eating pork (although it was probably wiser to refrain from pork, given the state of sanitation at the time), but in order to make His people separate. He made no statement about the intrinsic nature of eating pork. In contrast, Leviticus 18:22 and 20:13 make a very strong statement about the intrinsic nature of homosexual behavior. If we set aside the specific applications of the law, as the New Testament implies, but retain the principles, we are still left with the universal principle that homosexual behavior is an abomination.
     If the reader remains unconvinced that the Mosaic Law reveals unchanging principles, he need only look at the topic of the next verse. Theoretical discussions about the divide between specific applications and unchanging principles aside, we are left with the very practical consideration that the Mosaic Law is the only part of the Bible that says anything about bestiality. If we are to pretend the Mosaic Law reveals nothing about what is right or wrong, we must allow that bestiality is perfectly acceptable. This example shows quite effectively that God is revealing more than instructions for the historical nation of Israel, He is revealing unchanging truths. All scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness.

     Lengthy as that was, we've only just started. Clear as the Old Testament is, the New Testament is even clearer. Romans 1:26-27, for example, is quite direct:

For this reason God gave them over to degrading passions; for their women exchanged the natural function for that which is unnatural, and in the same way also the men abandoned the natural function of the woman and burned in their desire toward one another, men with men committing indecent acts and receiving in their own persons the due penalty of their error.

We could also stop there (but as you might have guessed by now, we won't). This passage also includes women, lest the previous passage was unclear on that point. Beyond that, however, it states that homosexuality is a punishment from God for "suppressing the truth in unrighteousness" (v. 18). Because they ignored the truth of God that is evident within them, God gave them over to "degrading passions" (v. 26).
     Now, those who claim that Christianity and homosexuality are compatible do have a response to this. The passage, they claim, refers to those with heterosexual urges who suppress those to engage in homosexuality. The real message of the passage is thus that we should not deny our own nature. This, although perhaps appealing to those who would like to reconcile Christianity with homosexuality, is not particularly cogent. It's primary flaw lies in the fact that it is completely without support from the text. It isn't just that the support is disputable, it isn't there. Nothing in the text suggests that the people he's talking about are heterosexual - read in context, he's talking about those who do not believe, and nothing narrows that scope. Indeed, they engage in homosexuality because they give themselves over to the lusts of their own hearts and their own degrading passions - one hardly sees a contradiction between their desires and their actions here. The passage incontrovertibly states that, because those who do not believe have denied what was evident, God has given them over to utter depravity, no longer protecting them from their own base urges.

     We have, so far, that homosexuality is an abomination, and that God allows it as a punishment. It doesn't stop there, though. In 1 Timothy 1:8-11 we find a condemnation of homosexual behavior almost as clear as the previous two mentioned.

But we know that the Law is good, if one uses it lawfully, realizing the fact that law is not made for a righteous person, but for those who are lawless and rebellious, for the ungodly and sinners, for the unholy and profane, for those who kill their fathers or mothers, for murderers and immoral men and homosexuals and kidnappers [which is also translated "slave traders"] and liars and perjurers, and whatever else is contrary to sound teaching, according to the glorious gospel of the blessed God, with which I have been entrusted.

 Here we see that homosexual behavior is included in a list of things which are "contrary to sound teaching, according to the glorious gospel of the blessed God." While the passage seems quite clear, some have attempted to challenge the translation. Arsenokoitai, the word translated "homosexual," is ambiguous, according to these people, but certainly shouldn't be translated "homosexual" - perhaps "exploitative pedophiles" or "male prostitutes" would be more in order. In general, it is dangerous to claim that every translator made a mistake. At first blush, it smacks of arrogance and ignorance and necessarily posits a far-reaching conspiracy, incredible idiocy, or a remarkable coincidence, but to avoid any ambiguity the claim should be examined.
     The heart of the argument is that Paul coined the word arsenokoitai himself, and thus its meaning is unclear. While it is debatable how convincing this line of argument would be - arsenokoitai is simply a combination of arseno, the word for "man" used in the Septuagint, the Greek translation of the Old Testament Paul would have been using, and koitai, the word for "lie with" used in the Septuagint - it isn't even true. According to Moulton and Milligan (1997), the word was first used by poets during the Imperial Period (the period of Roman civilization following the demise of the Roman Republic). Paul didn't invent the word himself, but on top of that, its meaning is quite clear: it was used by Greek authors to refer to all homosexual behavior (Kirk 1978). Liberal scholars contend that Greek doesn't include a word for homosexuality; however, it does, and Paul used it. Further, even those liberal scholars admit that Greek does contain words for the other activities described - had Paul intended one of those, he could simply have used one of those words. There is no doubt that this passage is referring to homosexuals, and that it makes clear that homosexual behavior is sin.

     We've looked at three passages, and we've seen that homosexuality is an abomination, a punishment from God, and a violation of the Gospel on par with murder and slave trading. We aren't done yet, though. Perhaps the most well-known passage condemning homosexuality is 1 Corinthians 6:9-11

Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived; neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor homosexuals, nor thieves, nor the covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers, will inherit the kingdom of God.

Once again, homosexual behavior is included among a list of sinful behaviors which mark those who are not Christians. Here, two words are used to refer to homosexuality: malakos, translated "effeminate," and the now familiar arsenokoitai, translated "homosexuals." Like arsenokoitai, malakos is used to refer to all homosexual behavior in Greek literature (although in this case the two words appear to be used to reference two different possible roles in homosexual behavior). Obviously, like the passage in 1 Timothy, the passage is referring to homosexuality. Not only is homosexual behavior sin, it is sin which will never mark the life of a believer.

     One could go on. Verses from Jude and Judges appear to condemn homosexual behavior, and Jesus made it clear that marriage was to be between a man and a woman to the exclusion of all others, while the rest of the Bible establishes that intercourse is to be reserved for married couples. It would be unnecessary to go on, though. We've already seen five passages condemning homosexuality (for reference, the Bible contains six passages directly condemning murder). God is neither silent nor ambiguous when it comes to homosexual behavior. The Bible leaves no doubt that homosexual behavior is not just sin, but particularly heinous sin. Those who would reconcile the Bible with homosexual behavior have set out to do the impossible. One can choose homosexuality or Christianity, but not both.
     We should not have been surprised by efforts to claim that homosexuality is not sin. Recall that 1 Corinthians 6:9 warns us not to be deceived. God is omniscient; He knows precisely which phrases He needed to include and which He did not. What can we conclude but that an effort will be made to deceive us? It is our duty, then, to hold particularly close to the truth on the topic. We've been told what's coming, and we've been told where to hold the line. Do not be deceived.





Kirk, J. (1978). The homosexual crisis in the mainline church. Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson.

     As Christianity and its influence have declined in western culture, it has become necessary to replace the system of ethics it provided with something else. Because of their necessarily subjective nature, these lack the power of Christian ethics - they take the form of preferences, although they are couched as sets of principles - yet it is on these that a secular humanist is forced to base his behavior. One of the more successful of these attempts - in large part because it was, as originally formulated, not yet entirely divorced from Christian ethics - is Kantianism.
   
     Before continuing, it should be noted that this is a critique of Kantian ethics as commonly applied today, not a critique of Immanuel Kant himself or his ideas. The former would be unwise, as Kant had many very good ideas (although imperfect, his ideas on God are, for example, more complete and more reasonable than many of his contemporaries); the later would take the discussion beyond the scope of the author's knowledge and the intended length of the post. Kant's actual system of ethics was in the main internally consistent. It garnered its power from Kant's belief in the existence of God, an authority to whom the individual is responsible for his precise application (or lack thereof) of the categorical imperative to his behavior. It is only the modern philosophers, who divorce Kant's ethics from Kant's God, who render the system useless as a guide to ethical behavior.

     The basic principle of Kantian ethics is the idea of the categorical imperative. Simply put, the categorical imperative is the idea that humans have an absolute duty to act in such a way that every other human in similar circumstances could act in the same way without ill effect. For example, one could not take as a maxim "kill those who I dislike," since if the entire human race did so we would very soon become extinct. Of course, several obvious problems arise with this concept, but most of these can be addressed by the existence of a God, which, although not explicitly stated as a foundation for Kant's metaphysics of morality, certainly played a role. For example, one might naturally inquire which outcomes we should consider desirable, and in answer to that Kant would most likely point to "intuitions," what might also  be called - but not by Kant - the remnants of God's work on our hearts, as the guide to desirable outcomes. Although this strays far too close to the badly flawed concept that those things which feel right are right (the Bible tells us that there is a way which seems right unto a man, but the ends thereof are the ways of death), it is at least internally consistent.

     Although Kant's philosophy holds together as a coherent whole, when later philosophers attempt to rip his ethics out of the framework in which it was housed and use it as a replacement for Biblical ethics, they do so at the expense of the cogency and even the coherency of Kant's ethical system. Not only is an objective standard required to determine which outcomes are actually desirable, some objective standard must also exist to establish that we ought to care which outcomes are desirable. If I can get away with it, why shouldn't I? Not everyone could do it, but then again, I'm not everyone, am I? Even if the Kantian ethicist could answer those questions satisfactorily - and if he does he will almost certainly have to resort to Kantianism's rival, Utilitarianism - he is still faced with the fact that, as Benjamin Franklin put it, "so convenient a thing it is to be a reasonable creature, since it enables one to find or make a reason for everything one has a mind to do." Given enough time, one could always find some peculiarity in one's situation which renders it distinct from others in its class, and allows one the opportunity to do some otherwise dastardly deed without compunction. This is not, in fact, so different from what most people do to justify bad behavior without any code of ethics to guide them. In order to apply the categorical imperative properly, one must first have a firm enough sense of honesty and decency to apply it without regard to the immediate well-being of oneself and others.

     Therein lies Kantian ethics' problem: it is not in itself a complete code of ethics. It is rather a sort of "meta-ethics," which may appear as a viable supplement to, but not a replacement for, morality. Kantian ethics are in reality nothing more than a supplement to Biblical morality. Attempting to replace Biblical morality with Kantian ethics is not only a perversion of what Kant intended, it won't even produce the viable code of ethics modern secular humanists seek. Kantian ethics requires a prior ethical standard in order for it to be applied, and that prior standard cannot be explained using Kantian ethics, since it is of necessity the foundation of Kantian ethics. A little thought should be enough to establish that this is not a peculiar flaw of Kantian ethics. All man-made ethical systems will have the exact same flaw for the exact same reason: there must be some reason not to ignore them completely or stretch their application to allow any action one desires. Only God, who holds a prior claim, has the authority to state that one thought or action is right and another wrong simply because He says so. He needs no preexisting standard; He is the preexisting standard. Without God a coherent morality is impossible, and Kantianism, appealing as it may be, is no exception.

     Before we go on, it is important to recognize what theonomy is not. Upon hearing the word, most people immediately think of a government by the church; upon hearing a description they often envision a return to Mosaic Law. Neither conception of theonomy is quite accurate. In the first case, God established three principal authorities - family, church, and state - and those authorities were intended to remain separate. Although Israel, because its system of government was directly ordained by God and laws specific to its situation were given by God, could reasonably afford to combine the two, we, who are working based on principles, not direct, specific revelation, should not attempt to do so. Theonomy, rather than being a combination of church and state, is the practical recognition of the fact that both church and state answer to the same authority. By the same token, the second objection - that theonomy is the reestablishment of the Old Testament system - is also incorrect. Theonomists generally seek to apply the principles of the Old Testament Law, not the specific applications, and those principles would be applied as a model for civil government, not as a means of salvation. Those differences alone make theonomy nothing like the old Mosaic system, although, hopefully, it would be based on the same foundation.

     "Speculations, man, I have none. I have certainties. I thank God that I don't rest my dying head upon speculations for "I know whom I have believed and am persuaded that he is able to keep that which I've committed unto him against that day."       

     It has been said, so many times, in fact, that it has become almost cliché, that ideas have consequences or, to put it another way, that wrong thought leads to wrong action. In many cases an incorrect line of reasoning immediately leads to obviously incorrect action, however, in some instances an error can go relatively unnoticed, either because the one holding to the idea puts it into practice only erratically or because the belief, although incorrect, produces a correct result in most cases. These errors are, in fact, the most dangerous, since they are rarely seen yet can still lead to incorrect actions.

     One particular such error lies in the common thought the Christians ought to do the right thing because doing so creates good results. It would seem to be apparently logical to base one's judgment of what the right action is on whether or not the results it produces are desirable. Some may already recognize the insidious error found in this line of reasoning, but it is certainly not readily apparent to most people. The fact is, the statement that a Christian should base his judgment of an action on the results the action produces is the farthest thing from the truth. One could hardly conceive of a more dangerous error for a Christian to hold to. It usually causes the one holding it to arrive at the correct course of action – God's ways are indeed good ways, so in most cases the right action will produce a desirable outcome – but it is most emphatically not a sound basis for any Christian to take action.

     In fact, this “results-based” morality is the product of a secular humanist philosophy, not Christianity. Given no other standard to judge behavior humanist philosophers have devised a number of devices for judging the ethics of an action, all of them based on the results an action achieves. For example, one of the more well-known examples of a non-Christian code of ethics, utilitarianism, argues that the individual should seek to do the greatest possible good for the greatest possible number of people. In other words, the individual should seek the best possible result, where the goodness or badness of the result is defined based on the net “good” (which can only be defined as pleasure without some other standard to define good) the action produces. Other codes of ethics may define what result is desirable differently, but the basic principle is the same: we take action in order to achieve a desirable result and for no other reason.

     The discussion in the above paragraph should begin to give the reader an idea of at least one of the salient flaws of results-based morality. By basing its judgment of the rightness or wrongness of an action on the results achieved, it ignores the fact that the full results of an action cannot be entirely known even after the action has been taken. Christianity, which assumes absolute right and wrong, at the very least strongly suggests that it is possible to know whether an action is right or wrong before the action is taken, and certainly, failing that, afterward. However, if we base our determination of right and wrong on the results of the action we must inevitably conclude that it is impossible to know whether an action is right or wrong before the action is made, and only possible to guess afterward. This fact alone should strongly suggest that Christianity and results-based morality are incompatible.

     If this was not enough, results-based morality also misplaces the burden of responsibility for effecting change in the world. Any Christian should recognize that not only does predicting and effecting positive change in the future exceed our ability, it exceeds our responsibility as well. God is more than capable of achieving any results he desires, whatever our action, while our inability to predict future results inevitably requires an inability to consistently achieve our desired results. We are like children, assigned a task by our elder, not because he requires our assistance for the task but out of kindness towards us. Our “goodness” is therefore not judged by the success of our bumbling, amateurish actions – had that been the point the adult could have done it himself far better – but by the fact that we tried to follow the directions given to us. Similarly, we take action not to align world events with God's will – he is more than capable of doing that without our aid – but to align ourselves with God's will. What happens is incidental to the single most important point of any action: how closely it conforms with God's standard of holiness.

     With this in mind Christians must emphatically reject attempts to judge the morality of an action based on subjective determinations of whether the result achieved was “good” or “bad.” Such a determination assumes more responsibility and more ability than humans have or were ever intended to have. Instead, we must embrace the belief that the morality of every action is decided solely by how closely that action conforms with God's standard. In many cases actions that conform to God's standard will produce what we view as “good” results, but that is never why an action is right, merely a sign that it may be. Accepting a correct view of morality requires not only that Christians understand such a correct view of morality, but also that they apply it. We must check ourselves when we find ourselves explaining that we are taking an action because it results in certain desirable things and instead teach ourselves to link each action to specific Biblical principles that support it. By doing otherwise we risk allowing an apparently trivial yet still dangerous error to compromise our modes of thinking and acting, potentially causing us to take wrong action, something that should be anathema to the careful Christian.

     Science: the word itself conjures up a plethora of images ranging from wild-eyed geniuses in lab coats scribbling esoteric ramblings in disorderly notebooks to the wild, rough world of field disciplines such as geology and biology. Science has brought incredible benefits to the world and has become firmly entrenched as the unquestioned best source of truth about the material world. At the same time, perhaps even as a result of this success, the world today has developed a particularly absurd view of science. It is held with an almost religious fervor by many to be the only method of determining truth. The vast majority of scientists, and even, I would guess, a very large percentage of the population, holds to this view, either explicitly or implicitly. While this view seems quite reasonable—science, after all, is the process of applying reason to learn about the world—it holds a fatal flaw. Science, by its very nature, can only address the physical realm. It cannot provide answers about either the existence or nature of the metaphysical realm. It cannot address any question that does not have as its answer some natural process, and those who cling to science alone for truth must simply posit, without any form of proof, that no such question can exist in the real world.