For the Christian, spiritual conversion is only the beginning of a lifetime process of sanctification, to approach a holy life in this life.  We must be humble and honest with ourselves, intermittently at best, to be able to recognize our sins and the accompanying habits that exhibit our faults. Prayer is a communication with God, and is surely a means to grace in the communion with God alone. Petition, however, seems to be more specific: a request for specific help from God. In the Scriptures, the authors occasionally use the words prayer and petition together in the same verse, which implies a distinction in meaning. For example, the prophet Daniel uses the words together here:

Daniel 9:17

Now, our God, hear the prayers and petitions of your servant. For your sake, O Lord, look with favor on your desolate sanctuary.

and Paul does so as well:

Philippians 4:6

Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.

And the author of Hebrews:

Hebrews 5:7

During the days of Jesus’ life on earth, he offered up prayers and petitions with loud cries and tears to the one who could save him from death, and he was heard because of his reverent submission.

A prayer as a communication with God may lack petition as in the case of a prayer of worship and praise. For example, Psalm 72 contains petitions for God’s blessing on the King, but the concluding verses of Psalm 72, verses 18-20, are words of praise which are not directed at God, but are acts of praise and worship manifesting the awareness of the greatness of God in the prayer induced consciousness of the presence of God:

Praise be to the LORD God, the God of Israel,
who alone does marvelous deeds.
Praise be to his glorious name forever;
may the whole earth be filled with his glory.
Amen and Amen.
This concludes the prayers of David son of Jesse.

Also, a prayer of thanksgiving does not petition for favor, but thanks God for his provision, and should follow answers to prayer.

Nevertheless, in practice, prayer and petition are more synonymous than not: whether by weakness or design, we pray for action from God — on our behalf for ourselves or for others, or for God’s will to “be done on earth as it is in heaven.”

William Barclay’s prayer in this case, the First Sunday after Epiphany, is fully a petition to God for our own needs, in particular, the wisdom to know what we ought to do and the power to do what we ought to do. In order to act as we should, we need to be saved from the faults and habits that obstruct our ability to discern the right path and to follow it.  In this prayer, Barclay includes a comprehensive laundry list of universal human faults that interfere with our ability to act rightly and with love of God and neighbor. Honest review of the list of faults is humbling, at least it is for me. This is a prayer for deliverance from domination by evil. As Jesus taught us to pray: “Deliver us from evil.” While the habits on their face seem natural, commonplace, the fact that we are commanded to pray for deliverance reveals the supernatural source of the commonplace banal faults of humankind:

O God, our Father, give us wisdom to know what we ought
to do.

So grant us wisdom clearly to know and power faithfully to
fulfil your commands; through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Amen.

——————–

Prior posts with William Barclay prayers:

Ash Wednesday Prayer for Christopher Hitchens

Prayer for the Church Invisible

Who Are the Hypocrites?

In 1996 in a studio on Kensington Church Street in London, Lucian Freud, 74 years old, and Isaiah Berlin, 86 years old, met again to make art.  Berlin sat for Freud more than a dozen times. Freud completed a charcoal drawing of Berlin’s head, but the oil portrait of Berlin sitting in an old armchair was never finished. Berlin’s biographer, Michael Ignatieff, describes Freud at work:

Isaiah sat in an old battered armchair while Freud sketched him first in pencil and then began to paint him in oils.  The time passed in gossip and then in silence, broken by the sound of charcoal on paper and paint on canvas.  As Freud worked, Isaiah passed in and out of sleep.  In the charcoal drawing, roughly eight by ten inches, Isaiah’s eyes are closed, his head back against the back of the armchair, his mouth shut, the curvature of his upper lip is perfectly caught, as is the shape of his bare forehead and his cheeks sunken and hollowed with age. In the oil painting, not much larger than a regular sheet of paper, Isaiah is shown leaning back with his head resting on the back of the battered armchair. Unlike the pencil sketch, his eyes are open. He is looking away to the left, full of melancholy, at something we cannot see.

(Ignatieff, Isaiah Berlin, a life, 1998: p. 296)

Berlin’s biography, Isaiah Berlin, a Life, was written by Michael Ignatieff, Canadian writer, Oxford and Cambridge academic, and former politician (the leader of the Liberal Party of Canada and Leader of the Official Opposition from 2008 until 2011). Berlin, a Russian-Jewish British immigrant, had an incredible life, a friend of international scholars, artists, poets, politicians, and aristocrats. During the 40s, Berlin was a confidante and intermediary between Zionist leaders Chaim Weitzman and David Ben Gurion during the movement which established the nation of Israel. Berlin died in 1997. I refer you to the biography for his life.

At the end of his life, poet Stephen Spender, a lifelong friend from Oxford who died in 1993, sent Berlin a poem by a ninth-century Chinese poet, “which was an elegy for their lifelong friendship”:

We are growing old together, you and I
Let us ask ourselves, what is age like?
The idle head, still uncombed at noon.
Propped on a staff, sometimes a walk abroad;
Or all day sitting with closed doors.
One dares not look in the mirror’s polished face;
One cannot read small-letter books.
Deeper and deeper, one’s love of old friends;
Fewer and fewer, one’s dealings with young men.
One thing only, the pleasure of idle talk,
Is great as ever, when you and I meet.

Isaiah Berlin, A Life p. 287-88.

Idle talk between old friends is certainly exempt from any moral consequence, a fleet passing pleasure of conflict free company and is “great as ever” — even by facebook and email.

Pastor John:

I was walking today listening to Matthew’s gospel on my iPod, and I thought of you. We attended your church for nearly seven years.  I still listen to your doctrines of grace series on my iPod once a year or so. About nine or ten years ago you spoke in your sermon about vacationing at the Sea Ranch in Northern California. In 2002 I read a short poem, “Afternoon Walk: Sea Ranch” in Poetry Magazine, and I meant to send it to you. I forgot. I remembered today, found it in my archives, and hope it is God’s timing. I lived in Carmel, CA in the late 80s and drove by the Sea Ranch several times driving up Highway 1, looking out over the ice plants at the sea as I drove by. The poem moved me and I only drove by the Sea Ranch. Here is the poem, and I have attached it as PDF in case you like it and want to share it.

AFTERNOON WALK: THE SEA RANCH

In memory of E.L.G.

Late light, uneven mole-gnawed meadow,
gullies, freshets, falls, whose start and speckle
Hopkins would have loved – and you – you too,
who loved the sheen and shade, the forest dapple
where grass meets cypress just beyond the house –
you’d praise the mushroom-sprout, the chilly glisten
as the hedgerow folds into the solstice
and suddenly the last crisp leaves unfasten . . .

This time of year, this place, light dims at the pace
of a long late afternoon walk, light seems to slow
and sorrow as the meadow turns its face
into your unlived season, the winter hollow
where only a steep sky, in quarter inches,
adjusts descending sun, ascending branches.

SANDRA M. GILBERT

Poetry
October/November 2002

The “Hopkins” reference is surely to Gerald Manley Hopkins and his memorable nature poems written in 1877, of which this is his most famous:

GOD’S GRANDEUR

The world is charged with the grandeur of God.
It will flame out, like shining from shook foil;
It gathers to a greatness, like the ooze of oil
Crushed. Why do men then now not reck his rod?
Generations have trod, have trod, have trod;
And all is seared with trade; Bleared, smeared with toil;
And wears man’s smudge and shares man’s smell: the soil
Is bare now, nor can foot feel, being shod.

And for all this, nature is never spent;
There lives the dearest freshness deep down things;
And though the last lights off the black West went
Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward, springs —
Because the Holy Ghost over the bent
World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings.

———————————-

The first poem in the email that I had forgotten to send him for 9 years describes the memory of walking through the Sea Ranch, a Northern California resort on the shore of the Pacific Ocean, with a deceased loved one, likely the poet’s spouse.

A few days later I was at Starbucks and noticed a younger man reading a book by R. C. Sproul, a favorite Christian theologian and writer.  He was also writing in a notebook.  I struck up a conversation, telling him how much I admired R. C. Sproul, and that Sproul’s book Chosen by God was one of my favorite books – a clear and concise discussion of predestination and Calvinism.  He said it was also one of his.  We were both Calvinists.  [As I see it, John Calvin adopts the doctrine of election and predestination first articulated by the Apostle Paul in his letters, and then by  St. Augustine.  Calvin relies on Scripture and Augustine, and states the doctrine so well, that his name was attached to the Biblical doctrine.  Martin Luther also accepted the Augustinian view of predestination and election].

The young man said he was a pastor of a church nearby, that he had come to Calvinism gradually, having been educated at an Arminian seminary, and was now a Presbyterian pastor, in the same denomination as Sproul.   Calvinists believe that God alone saves people — He chooses His elect before the foundation of the world, his grace is irresistible and once a person is saved, he will persevere.  Arminians believe that God, and man through the grace of God, and his free will, chooses God, that therefore God elects believers who choose Him, His grace is not irresistible, man can resist, and that once saved, a believer can fall away and lose his salvation.

I told him that I had come to agree with Calvinism over time in the late 90s, and that I became firm in that doctrine from the teaching of Pastor John, to whom I wrote the email above.  He said he was a good friend of Pastor John.  Then, he told me that Pastor John’s wife had died a week ago.  I had not heard about her death.

I was shocked to hear this.  I had just sent Pastor John a poem about walking at the Sea Ranch with a deceased loved one within a week after his wife had died, a dear loved one with whom he had surely walked at the Sea Ranch.  I hope that God wanted Pastor John to have that poem now, and that it was a blessing to him in his grief, and something he could refer to in the years ahead to recall fond memories.   If it was as I hope, then surely it was God’s timing for me to remember to send it to him after 9 years!

O God, you will keep in perfect peace those whose minds are fixed on you: for in repentance and rest shall we be saved; in quietness and trust shall be our strength.

Isaiah 26:3 and 30:15 (Adapted)

This devotional passage, which combines two verses from Isaiah, is adapted from the noon reading in the daily devotionals in the Anglican/Episcopal Book of Common Prayer (“BCP”). I prefer and have replaced “returning” in the BCP reading with “repentance” in the passage as the Hebrew is translated in the New International Version 1984.

I have the BCP daily devotionals as a personal document on my kindle for my use. Today I noticed the wisdom of placing this passage in the noon devotional. Mid-day is when we are half way through the stress of the work day and a pause for prayer for peace is just right. Noon can be a time of spiritual darkness – worry, anxiety, confusion, or just longing for the end of the work day or the work week as we contemplate a lonely sandwich, or skip lunch because there is no time.

In the mid-1980s, I remember waiting for a bus in Los Angeles while my spirit and mind were highly distressed about my life. Likely I was running out of money and wondering where I would find a job. I was carrying a pocket New Testament and I remembered Paul’s wonderful remedy for worry and stress:

Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable — if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things.

Philippians 4:6-8 (New International Version 1984)

Paul tells us not to worry, and that through prayer for peace, we will have it. And with “thanksgiving” to give thanks, and to remind us of our dependence on God, and how He supplies our needs, including our emotional needs. Further he admonishes us to think on good things as a means to continuing peace. I remember reading that passage as a prayer waiting for the bus, and because it worked. It was the first time I had applied the passage in real time and I remember it vividly. The noon passage from the BCP is a very short prayer and petition for peace, hence the wisdom of including it at noon for devotions.

Paul’s admonishment is a practical application of Jesus’s words from the Sermon on the Mount:

“Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life?

“And why do you worry about clothes? See how the lilies of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them.

But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.

Matthew 6:25-34 (New International Version 1984)

This past February 2011, some college classmates of mine from the 60s were having a good time arguing the physics of hell on our class email discussion listserv. Is Hell endothermic or exothermic? While some argued hell was endothermic, absorbing heat, as the only Christian in the discussion, I argued from Scripture, and what I recalled from physics, that hell was exothermic, oxidizing all that was thrown into the consuming fire, and giving off heat. Arguing that hell-fire was consuming, I was reminded of the annihilationist interpretation, and wrote about it to my classmates, who I suspect had never heard of that concept. “Annihilationism is the view that eternal life is the gift of God, and that those who do not receive this gift will not live forever.”

I began to study this — beginning with the controversial writing of John Stott. I first discovered in 1996 that there was another view besides “Traditionalism,” the doctrine that the lost suffer eternal conscious torment in hell, when I read an interview with John Stott, the saintly British Evangelical theologian/evangelist /writer, who died this year.  The Christianity Today obituary calls Stott “an architect of twentieth century evangelicalism [who] shaped the faith of a generation.” Reading the interview in 1996 I was surprised to read that Stott had been sharply criticized for writing in support of “annihiliationism” as finding support in Scripture.   In February, I started my study reading Stott’s controversial statements in a long out-of-print book he wrote with David Edwards, Essentials – A liberal-evangelical dialogue, published in England in 1988, and a year later in the U.S. as Evangelical Essentials – A Liberal Evangelical Dialogue. David Edwards, the liberal, had credit as the author “with” John Stott. The American version changed the title to Evangelical Essentials, even though Edwards positions were not Evangelical, and John Stott responded to the liberal view with the Evangelical view. The name change must have been made for marketing purposes because of the larger Evangelical market in the U.S. I obtained a used copy of the 1988 British version, and read the controversial section written by John Stott on “Judgement and Hell” in response to Edwards liberal universalist view that all mankind is eventually saved by God. John Stott’s argument against universalism, but in favor of Scriptural support for annihilationism is found in an excerpt from Essentials by clicking here, John Stott discusses Hell I commend this passage to the reader as a courageous and powerful Scriptural case for annihiliation as the fate of the lost over the traditional dogma of eternal torment. The significance of this argument in the face of tradition is highlighted by Stott’s words of response to Edwards on pages 314-15:

You rightly say that I have never declared publicly whether I think hell, in addition to being real, terrible and eternal, will involve the experience of everlasting suffering. I am sorry that you use in reference to God the emotive expression ‘the Eternal Torturer’, because it implies a sadistic infliction of pain, and all Christian people would emphatically reject that. But will the final destiny of the impenitent be eternal conscious torment, ‘for ever and ever’, or will it be a total annihilation of their being? The former has to be described as traditional orthodoxy, for most of the church fathers, the medieval theologians and the Reformers held it. And probably most Evangelical leaders hold it today. Do I hold it, however? Well, emotionally, I find the concept intolerable and do not understand how people can live with it without either cauterising their feelings or cracking under the strain. But our emotions are a fluctuating, unreliable guide to truth and must not be exalted to the place of supreme authority in determining it. As a committed Evangelical, my question must be -and is not what does my heart tell me, but what does God’s word say? And in order to answer this question, we need to survey the biblical material afresh and to open our minds (not just our hearts) to the possibility that Scripture points in the direction of annihilation, and that ‘eternal conscious torment’ is a tradition which has to yield to the supreme authority of Scripture.

He then follows up with nearly 15 pages of Biblical exegesis, i.e., the critical interpretation of the passages relevant to fate of those who do not believe, those who are not given eternal life with God in Heaven.  After the excellent and consciously controversial argument, Stott confesses his discomfort with challenging orthodoxy:

I am hesitant to have written these things, partly because I have a great respect for longstanding tradition which claims to be a true interpretation of Scripture, and do not lightly set it aside, and partly because the unity of the world-wide Evangelical constituency has always meant much to me. But the issue is too important to suppress, and I am grateful to you for challenging me to declare my present mind. I do not dogmatise about the position to which I have come. I hold it tentatively. But I do plead for frank dialogue among Evangelicals on the basis of Scripture. I also believe that the ultimate annihilation of the wicked should at least be accepted as a legitimate, biblically founded alternative to their eternal conscious torment.

I will briefly describe the fundamental Annihilationist view as I understand it.   The Biblical support for the Annihilationist view begins in Genesis, Chapter 3.

And the LORD God said, “The man has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil. He must not be allowed to reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat, and live forever.” So the LORD God banished him from the Garden of Eden to work the ground from which he had been taken.

Genesis 3:22-23 (New International Version 1984)

Whether you understand this passage and the Genesis creation story as literal history, or as a true myth provided by God as revelation of the fallen nature of humankind, or consider the Bible to be just an ancient text, in this passage God banishes mankind from the Garden of Eden expressly so that we cannot live forever. Sin entered the world accompanied by death.

For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Romans 6:23 (New International Version 1984)

Everyone knows that Christian doctrine teaches that the lost sinner goes to hell to suffer conscious torment forever and ever.   As John Stott commented, this is the traditional orthodoxy for both Catholic and Protestant.  It is embedded in our Western Christian culture. Everyone is familiar with Dante’s travels through the levels of hell in his Inferno.  Cartoons frequently feature devils and naked souls commenting on the eternal accommodations.  So, who needs to quote scripture to support the awful doctrine?

There has been an ongoing argument for centuries about the eternal fate of the lost, the damned, the wicked. The majority view since around 200-300 A.D., the “Traditionalist” view, is that the Bible teaches that the lost spend eternity in conscious torment in a place called hell. The minority view is that the lost do not have immortality, but their fate is annihilation, a final second death, perhaps after a period of punishment after death. Those who hold this view are referred to as “Annihilationists” or sometimes, “Conditionalists,” who specify that life is conditional, that the soul is not immortal, as the Genesis quote above supports, and immortality is only promised to those who place their trust in Jesus Christ, as Jesus promises those who believe in Him.

John Locke, the great 18th Century British Enlightenment philosopher and political theorist, questioned whether the Bible teaches “endless torment, in hell-fire.” In 1695, in The Reasonableness of Christianity As Delivered in the Scriptures, on page 6, referring to the fall of Adam and Eve in the Garden passage of Genesis quoted above where God banishes them so that they will not live forever, Locke wrote:

Death then entered, and showed his face, which before was shut out, and not known. So St. Paul, Rom. v. 19, “By one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin,” i.e. a state of death and mortality : and, 1 Cor. xv. 22, “In Adam all die;” i.e. by reason of his transgression, all men are mortal, and come to die.
This is so clear in these cited places, and so much the current of the New Testament, that nobody can deny, but that the doctrine of the gospel is, that death came on all men by Adam’s sin; only they differ about the signification of the word death: for some will have it to be a state of guilt, wherein not only he, but all his posterity was so involved, that every one descended of him deserved endless torment, in hell-fire. I shall say nothing more here, how far, in the apprehensions of men, this consists with the justice and goodness of God, having mentioned it above: but it seems a strange way of understanding a law, which requires the plainest and directest words, that by death should be meant eternal life in misery. Could any one be supposed, by a law, that says, “For felony thou shalt die;” not that he should lose his life; but be kept alive in perpetual, exquisite torments? And would any one think himself fairly dealt with, that was so used?

You can spend decades as a church-going Evangelical Christian in America and never hear from the pulpit or anywhere in the church that there are Scriptures that support annihilation as the fate of the lost instead of conscious eternal torment.

Although “eternal punishment” appears in Scripture, in Matthew’s gospel which I will discuss shortly, the term “eternal torment” does not appear in Scripture. Instead, Scripture most frequently refers to the fate of the damned as “death,” “destruction,” and “perishing,” but never eternal torment or torture. The doctrine of eternal conscious torment rests on a few ambiguous Scriptures that defy the clear teaching that only those who are saved receive the promise of eternal life. The Scriptures consistently promise death and destruction to the lost, not eternal life in torment in hell.  Jesus said:

“When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, he will sit on his throne in heavenly glory. All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate the people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. He will put the sheep on his right and the goats on his left.
“Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.’
“Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?’
“The King will reply, ‘I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.’
“Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, 43 I was a stranger and you did not invite me in, I needed clothes and you did not clothe me, I was sick and in prison and you did not look after me.’
“They also will answer, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or needing clothes or sick or in prison, and did not help you?’
“He will reply, ‘I tell you the truth, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.’
“Then they will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life.”

Matthew 25:31-46 (New International Version 1984)

For years when I read that parable, I substituted in my mind the concept of “eternal torment” in hell as I was taught by the church and Western culture for the express term “eternal punishment.” I never considered that the punishment might be death: final and eternal capital punishment. I never considered that the opposite of “life” is “death”, that the promise of life was to the saved, and the lost were not promised life, and that you would have to receive eternal life if you were going to suffer consciously for eternity in hell. Today, I do consider these things.

I have been a Christian for 40 years this past Spring 2011. For most of that time I believed that the lost, those who did not have salvation in Christ, were eternally damned to suffer conscious torment in Hell.  When I read the terms “death, “destruction,” and “perishing,” I apparently subconsciously substituted “conscious eternal torment in Hell.”  But according to Jesus, God saves us from “perishing”, not from “eternal torment,” and perish has always meant “death” to me:

For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.

John 3:16 (King James Version)

I have read this promise thousands of times over the years, thought of it every time an NFL team tried an extra point or a field goal and someone in the crowd behind the goal waved a John 3:16 sign, but until February this year, 2011, I never considered the exclusiveness of the promise of eternal life, to those who believe, and the negative implication, that those who do not believe have eternal death instead.

In another familiar passage, Jesus discussed eternal destiny in a different way:

Enter ye in at the strait gate: for wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat: Because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it.

Over the years I must have subconsciously substituted “broad is the way that leads to eternal torment”, instead of “broad is the way that leads to destruction” because “destruction” is not synonymous with eternal life in torment and I never questioned whether what Jesus says here conflicts in anyway with the traditional view of hell.

The Apostle Paul also warns of destruction:

Do not be deceived: God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he sows. The one who sows to please his sinful nature, from that nature will reap destruction; the one who sows to please the Spirit, from the Spirit will reap eternal life.

Galatians 6:7-8 (New International Version 1984)

In another passage, Jesus warns,

“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.

Matthew 10:28 (New International Version 1984)

The Annihiliationist Christian believes that the lost are punished with death.  After death in this life, whether there is a time of punishment thereafter or not, the final fate is death, annihiliation, and not eternal conscious life in torment in Hell separated from God. Annihilation is final, eternal, eternal destruction, eternal punishment, eternal separation from God, but not eternal life in Hell. I did a cursory investigation of the concept in 1996 when I first read about annihilation as an alternative fate for those who do not believe, but did not make a judgment about it, did not think much about it, effectively becoming agnostic about it like Stott claimed to be. I assumed there must be something hidden from human view about the magnitude of rebellion in the fallen soul, something unconscious, I supposed. I did not dwell on it, and rarely have I been able to think seriously about what it could be like to exist without hope in eternal torment, until my recent study this year of what the Scriptures have to say about the eternal destiny of the lost.

In 1982, a Evangelical seminary graduate, Edward Fudge, published an exhaustive 466 page study of the doctrine of eternal punishment, arguing against the traditional dogma of eternal conscious torment in hell, The Fire that Consumes. I read Fudge’s book after reading Stott’s argument. I was surprised to find that F.F. Bruce, a prominent mainstream Evangelical historian/scholar, wrote the Foreward, commending Fudge’s work, claiming himself to be agnostic like C.S. Lewis on the question of eternal torment versus annihilation. I had never heard of Fudge, but I had several of Bruce’s historical works, including a New Testament History and a history of the canon of Scripture.

Apparently, there was a great outcry in reaction to Stott’s public articulation of the controversial view, especially coming from such a well-respected orthodox Evangelical Christian, who wrote the bestselling foundational Basic Christianity, a Christian classic among his other standard Christian works. I found a Evangelical response to John Stott (and Fudge) by J.I. Packer, a prominent and highly respected British Evangelical Anglican theologian and scholar. In his response, Packer respectfully argued the Traditionalist view, but pointed out that the controversy should not cause Christians to break fellowship, easier said than done. Stott was branded a heretic by the most rabid dogmatist Traditionalists (try googling “John Stott” “heretic”). Edward Fudge went to law school and became a Texas class action trial lawyer. After reading Fudge’s excellent book, one must speculate that God blessed Fudge with a career change after suffering the persecution of speaking the truth as his conscience required. J. I. Packer described the violent Traditionalist reaction to the credible annihilationist challenge of Stott, Fudge and others, writing:

Annihilationist ideas have been canvassed among evangelicals for more than a century, but they never became part of the mainstream of evangelical faith, nor have they been widely discussed in the evangelical camp until recently. In 1987 Clark Pinnock authored a punchy two-page article titled “Fire, Then Nothing,” but this, though widely read, did not spark debate, any more than the 500-page exposition of the same view, The Fire That Consumes (1982) by the gifted Churches of Christ layman Edward William Fudge, had done. In 1988, however, two brief pieces of advocacy came from Anglican evangelical veterans: eight pages by John Stott in Essentials, and ten by the late Philip Edgecumbe Hughes in The True Image. These put the cat among the pigeons.

At Evangelical Essentials, a conference of 350 leaders held at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, Deerfield, Illinois, in 1989, I read a paper portentously titled “Evangelicals and the Way of Salvation: New Challenges to the Gospel: Universalism and Justification by Faith.” In that paper I offered a line of thought countering the view of these two respected friends. It turned out that the conference was split down the middle over the annihilation question. The Christianity Today report said:

Strong disagreements did surface over the position of annihilationism, a view that holds that unsaved souls will cease to exist after death . . . the conference was almost evenly divided as to how to deal with the issue in the affirmations statement, and no renunciation of the position was included in the draft document.

After this, at the request of John White, then president of National Association of Evangelicals, the late John Gerstner wrote a response to Stott, Hughes and Fudge under the title Repent or Perish (1990); and in 1992 the papers read at the fourth Edinburgh Conference on Christian Dogmatics came into print as Universalism and the Doctrine of Hell. Included were John W. Wenham, “The Case for Conditional Immortality,” and Kendall S. Harmon, “The Case Against Conditionalism: A Response to Edward William Fudge.”

Nor was this all. Semipopular books reaffirming the reality and endlessness of hell began to flow: Ajith Fernando, Crucial Questions About Hell (1991); Eryl Davies, An Angry God? (1991); Larry Dixon, The Other Side of the Good News (1992); William Crockett, John Walvoord, Zachary Hayes and Clark Pinnock, Four Views on Hell (1992);16 David Pawson, The Road to Hell (1992); John Blanchard, Whatever Happened to Hell? (1993); David George Moore, The Battle for Hell: A Survey and Evaluation of Evangelicals’ Growing Attraction to the Doctrine of Annihilationism (1995); Robert A. Peterson, Hell on Trial: The Case for Eternal Punishment (1995). All these books argue more or less elaborately against annihilationism. The debate continues.

(footnotes ommitted, emphasis added)

I was a Christian in the 1980s, but I missed the controversy, and was surprised to read this past Spring that the 350 Evangelical leaders who met to discuss this in 1989, as Packer describes, were “split down the middle over the annihilation question.” To this day, in 40 years I have never met an Evangelical Christian who claimed belief in annihilation over eternal torment, or who admitted to this.  There are some cults, like Jehovah’s Witnesses, that deny eternal torment, but no mainstream Evangelical groups, although I have read that the Anglicans tolerate the doctrine.  Both John Stott and C. S. Lewis were Anglicans. It is improper for a Traditionalist to try associate Evangelicals who embrace annihilationism with heresy unorthodoxy, Glenn Peoples has written:

. . . any traditionalist who tries to smear annihilationists by associating us with Jehovah’s Witnesses has opened the door to a barrage of similar attacks on his own position. Mormons and Muslims, for example, believe in eternal torment. Does that make it false?

I have attended large megachurches, and I would suppose that there were those who were educated on this issue who subscribed to the annihilationist view, but kept their belief to themselves to avoid being branded a heretic. For example, my wife was impressed with John Stott’s argument in Essentials and shared a copy of the excerpt linked above with her friend. Her friend was shocked, and believing my wife and I had succumbed to heresy, she ceased communications with my wife because of “the elephant in the room” as she referred to this theological issue.  And she and my wife had been close friends for 15 years, or so my wife thought. Apparently, my wife’s friend bases her salvation on her prior fear of eternal torment, and delivery from that fate. I believe that a Christian should base his salvation on the truth of the gospel, and the promise of eternal life, not delivery from death, but this may be a semantic point, because foundationally, I believe that God saved me by his mercy and grace and nothing I may have thought or believed about the moment I believed has any truth or merit, other than thankfulness to God for saving me.  I have not found that scaring people with fire and brimstone is an effective way to explain the love of God and his plan for salvation.

I have not read all the works written in reaction to the annihilationist arguments of Fudge, Stott and others cited by Packer. I have read Glenn Peoples work. “Who is Glenn Peoples?”, you may ask. Glenn Peoples is a bright articulate New Zealander who has a graduate degree in theology, as well as a Ph.D in philosophy. I first heard him debating on the British Evangelical Christian talk and debate program, “Unbelievable” hosted by Oxford University educated Justin Brierly. I was impressed by People’s intellect and articulate defense of his position. Peoples has published a lengthy scholarly explanation in a draft for a podcast, Why I Am an Annihilationist on his blog, where he states plainly and simply that “Annihilationism is the view that eternal life is the gift of God, and that those who do not receive this gift will not live forever.” He has written “An Open Letter to My Traditionalist Friends” where he shows with many examples from the most respected Traditionalist responses to the Annihilationist view, including some of those cited by Packer above, how the Traditionalist arguments are not well-stated or convincing. He introduces his letter

Dear friends

Not just friends, but brothers and sisters. Some of you might think that I am feigning my treatment of you as both friends and even family. I’m not sure how to persuade you that I’m genuine, but I am. I’m writing this open letter because I don’t know you all personally (in fact I don’t know any of you personally), and I also think other people might benefit from seeing what I have to say.

Who are you? In the long and protracted debate over the biblical teaching on judgement and final punishment, you’ve gained the label “traditionalists.” You say that the Bible teaches that God will punish the lost with eternal torment. There’s a range of different terms that many of you use, but that’s a reasonable summary. Some of you use those terms, while others prefer what you take as less crude language like “eternal separation from God.” But you believe that it will last forever, it will be a conscious experience, and it will be horrific. In particular, I write this for those of you who are apologists for this belief. The people I have in mind have contributed to a veritable torrent of books, articles, public talks and sermons on the subject, assuring the church and the public that the Bible teaches eternal torment.

I don’t believe you’re correct. I am persuaded that the Bible teaches annihilationism. You don’t like that fact. Many of you are on record telling people that annihilationism is false and unbiblical, that it is clearly so, that it undermines the Gospel, that it misrepresents God, that it underestimates sin, that it is a concession to postmodernity and so on. Many of you swarm theological organisations, gatherings, websites and so on, reassuring your peers and your readers that you hold the solid, clearly biblical position, and that annihilationists quite clearly lack biblical support for their view, and many of you encourage theological organisations and colleges that would literally exclude me from working or even studying there because I am persuaded as I am.

Other readers who perhaps do not wade into theological controversy and who might not be familiar with this issue will likely find this letter rather dreary and irrelevant. They can simply ignore it, I suppose. But I am writing to you. What’s more, I have nothing personally to gain in writing this. Your colleges will continue to be unlikely to hire me because of my beliefs on this issue (and writing this will certainly not help this situation), and mainstream colleges will be uninterested in the fact that I have an interest in the subject at all. I will not increase my number of friends, but may potentially increase the number of people hostile to me. But I’m writing to you anyway.

As you know – and some of you express dismay over it – if this theological disagreement were a war, you would be losing. Christians are turning away from your point of view. In spite of the fact that you have spilled more ink than anyone else in this disagreement, evangelical Christians are, more and more, adopting different views on hell from yours. In particular, the doctrine of annihilationism now has more evangelical adherents than it has, I believe, ever had before. I’m writing this letter to tell you why I think this is happening.

Why do you need this commentary? It’s because of this: I believe that you are partly responsible for this shift. Now ultimately I think the teaching of Scripture and a changing attitude to tradition is responsible for this shift, but you have certainly contributed. I suppose if you had simply remained silent, the change would be happening anyway, but you would be mistaken to think that you are stemming the tide. You’re not. Please hear me out. I am going to say some things that you will not like. I am not setting out to offend you, but that may happen. Some Christian scholars do not react to criticism very well at all. When some of my criticisms of one of your author’s arguments was published a few years ago, he accused me of making personal attacks on him. To this day I do not know what he was referring to. When I, a couple of days ago, told one of you that his book really didn’t contain any new arguments for eternal torment that had not been addressed before, he told me, “I take exception” to being told this. I don’t know how else I could have stated the facts. I don’t think reactions like this are appropriate. If you have chosen to enter an ongoing discussion and to criticise the beliefs of others, then you need to make yourself teachable, and you need to be willing to listen to the criticisms that other people present you with. Or at least, you need to not take personal umbrage when they do it.

I’m going to explain why your published arguments have not helped your case, in the sense that they have not caused a swing back to traditionalism – and why they are unlikely to do so in future. These are not pleasant things to be saying, but they are true. I am going to tell you that your endless stream of apologetics on behalf of your doctrine of eternal torment is very poorly argued, fallacious, tiresome, ineffective and even just lazy sometimes. That will appear very blunt. Those sound like insults to some people. But if they are true, then you are not helped by not being told these things. You need to hear them. There has to be a context in which you are willing to hear people tell you these things if they believe they’re true.

There is a sense in which I am also expressing personal frustration with you. That’s not necessarily an inappropriate thing to do. However, I will attempt to be truthful and clear without letting that frustration get in the way of the fact that I do regard you as, all things being considered, being on the same “team” as me. We have a lot more in common than not as fellow believers in Christ.

With these things said, let me get to what I take to be the facts.

Peoples then goes through the flaws he finds in the arguments of Traditionalists, citing examples of poor scholarship and faulty argument.  For example, he writes:

. . .

2 Your exegesis sometimes engages in special pleading

I have already said (and will say more) about specific points of exegesis in other sections, so let me be brief here. Sometimes – especially at really crucial points in your argument for traditionalism or against annihilationism – you engage in special pleading. This is where you appear to need a word or words, or a biblical motif, to work fundamentally differently from the way it normally works, in a context where your case needs it to work differently.

For example, annihilationists have pointed to verses like Matthew 10:28 where Jesus says that God will destroy the lost in Gehenna, “body and soul.” Many of you have asked us to believe that apollumi here does not carry the strong sense of killing or destruction, but rather “ruin” or “loss.” Perhaps you think that Jesus meant that God will lose a person’s body and soul in hell, but “ruin” is more likely what you have in mind. However, it is relevant to note that when the word is used as a verb form everywhere else in the Synoptic
Gospels to describe the actions of one person or agent, it does mean kill or destroy in the strong sense that annihilationists see in Matt 10:28. For example, Herod wanted to actually kill the baby Jesus (Matthew 2:3), a demon tried to throw a boy into water or fire to kill him (Mark 9:22), the owner of a vineyard actually killed the workers in his vineyard (Mark 12:9) and so on. Every single instance where these factors are present (used as a verb, present in the Synoptics, used to describe the actions of one person or agent against another), the meaning is the same. To ask us to make one exception for the sake of your case against annihilationism then is rather obvious special pleading.
A similar thing occurs in the book of Revelation. When you are not thinking about how to defend your doctrine of hell and attack annihilationism, you recognise a range of things that are relevant here. For example, you recognise that when death is thrown into the lake of fire, it means that death will be no more. Of course the action isn’t literal, but that’s what this action signifies. You recognise that the “beast” referred to is not a literal creature, but rather a kingdom, a corporate entity, and that this image is drawn from the book of Daniel, where we also see the beast being destroyed as a symbol of worldly kingdoms being destroyed and God’s kingdom being established. But suddenly when it comes to defending the doctrine of the eternal torments of the damned in hell, the symbolic nature of much of the language in the book of Revelation disappears. Now all of a sudden, but only when defending your doctrine of hell, you interpret the lake of fire, apparently, as a literal place where people burn (or else a symbol of something just like that, minus the burning, where people suffer in some other way). It stands out that for people who are not known for their bizarre literalism in general when it comes to the book of Revelation, you suddenly become literalists when the doctrine of hell is in question.

Surely this too is special pleading. I grant that it is not as obvious a case as the previous one, but it is special pleading nonetheless, as it involves a sudden change of rules when it suits your position.
. . .
4 Your exegesis sometimes appears to intentionally exclude important evidence from the very
texts it is meant to be explaining.

We understand that there are some texts that become “favourites” when looking at what the Bible says about specific issues. That’s normal. Some texts do speak more clearly about some issues than others. One of the favourites among those who think the Bible clearly teaches eternal torment, and clearly teaches against annihilationism, is Isaiah 66:24b. This part-verse reads: “…. for their worm shall not die, their fire shall not be quenched, and they shall be an abhorrence to all flesh.” Many of you regard this text as especially important because Jesus is recorded as quoting this verse in Mark 9:48 when referring to the fate of the lost. A number of you claim that this passage in Isaiah teaches the doctrine of eternal torment of people who are consciously enduring the anguish of hell.

Not long ago on the Stand to Reason radio show Christopher Morgan spoke with host Greg Koukl. One of Morgan’s comments was that Isaiah 66:24 “talks about where the worm doesn’t die and the fire is not quenched and the permanence of the suffering of the wicked.” The first thing to say is that this third element is simply incorrect. Yes Isaiah speaks about the worm and the fire as Morgan correctly observes, but it says nothing in addition to this about suffering. But in addition to adding in claims that the text never makes, there’s a deeper problem with Morgan’s exegesis, and he is certainly not alone. Many of you have done this, whether you are quoting from Isaiah 66 or from Mark 9, which quotes Isaiah 66 verbatim. The problem is that many of you have snipped out the last few words of Isaiah 66:24 and quoted them all by themselves, when in fact the whole verse, if it had been quoted, would have painted a different picture. The entire verse reads:

“And they shall go out and look on the dead bodies of the men who have rebelled against me. For their worm
shall not die, their fire shall not be quenched, and they shall be an abhorrence to all flesh.”

What a different scene from the one typically painted by traditionalists when they quote only 24b. When we step back just a little to see the whole verse, we realise that contrary to what Morgan (like many of you) says, there is no reference to people consciously suffering. These are dead bodies. And when we step back one more level and read the paragraphs that come immediately before this, any excuse that you might have had for misunderstanding this evaporates:

For behold, the Lord will come in fire, and his chariots like the whirlwind, to render his anger in fury, and his rebuke with flames of fire.  For by fire will the Lord enter into judgement, and by his sword, with all flesh; and those slain by the Lord shall be many.  Those who sanctify and purify themselves to go into the gardens, following one in the midst, eating pig’s flesh and the abomination and mice, shall come to an end together, declares the Lord.

For I know their works and their thoughts, and the time is coming to gather all nations and tongues. And they shall come and shall see my glory, and I will set a sign among them.  And from them I will send survivors to the nations, to Tarshish, Pul, and Lud, who draw the bow, to Tubal and Javan, to the coastlands far away, that have not heard my fame or seen my glory. And they shall declare my glory among the nations. And they shall bring all your brothers from all the nations as an offering to the Lord, on horses and in chariots and in litters and on mules and on dromedaries, to my holy mountain Jerusalem, says the Lord, just as the Israelites bring their grain offering in a clean vessel to the house of the Lord.And some of them also I will take for priests and for Levites, says the Lord.

For as the new heavens and the new earth that I make shall remain before me, says the Lord, so shall your offspring and your name remain.
From new moon to new moon, and from Sabbath to Sabbath, all flesh shall come to worship before me, declares the Lord.

And they shall go out and look on the dead bodies of the men who have rebelled against me. For their worm shall not die, their fire shall not be quenched, and they shall be an abhorrence to all flesh.

Any hope that you might have had of saying that perhaps the last line was ambiguous is gone. When you quote verse 24b, why do you not tell your audience about 24a, which tells us that the verse speaks of dead bodies? Why do you not tell your readers that the whole passage depicts a great onslaught of God directed at his enemies, when he comes and slays them with the sword, leaving them lying dead on the ground for all to see? Why do you leave out such important information? Why do you instead tell people that this is about the sufferings of the damned in the flames of hell?

What’s interesting is that biblical scholars who write commentaries on these texts and who are not attempting to score a theological point in their favour do not miss out these facts. Douglas Hare is a normal example:

It is clear in the Isaiah passage that the apostates whose worm and fire are unending are “dead bodies.” There is no suggestion that these evil persons will suffer eternally; their carcasses will remain indefinitely as a reminder of their rebellion against God.

Glenn People’s letter to Traditionalists is obviously worth quoting at length.  Although Edward Fudge’s work, The Fire that Consumes, is required reading, People’s Why I am an Annihilationist is a good start, compactly comprehensive, 43 pages in pdf. After sufficient reading, People’s open letter describes in scholarly fashion, the difficulty having civil argument with Traditionalists.

I cannot do the quality of work that these scholars can do, and I highly recommend the resources I have cited and included links to above.  Researching the history reveals that the immortal soul is a concept borrowed from the Greeks when the early church fathers, like Clement of Alexandria and Justin Martyr  began synthesizing Christian doctrine with Greek thought, quoting Plato with praise.  Somehow it became incorporated into Christian doctrine such that the gift of eternal life to the saved is matched by the curse of eternal life to the damned, spent in some kind of burning hell.  After 1800 years, it is difficult to stand up to the doctrine, but I have always been a Berean since I was saved reading the Bible in 1971, as described in my Spiritual Memoir tabbed above.  The Bereans who lived in Berea, where else, (a small city in Greece north of Mount Olympus) heard Paul preach the Gospel on one of his missionary journeys.

Now the Bereans were of more noble character than the Thessalonians, for they received the message with great eagerness and examined the Scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true.

Acts 17:11 (New International Version 1984)

When I look at the Scriptures I cannot find anywhere that would support God giving those who are not saved, but lost for eternity, eternal life in order to suffer conscious torment.  I see the lost are destroyed, perish, or punished with death, like we humans punish our most serious crimes, with death.  There is a death that is eternal, a final second death after this death.  That seems to be the fate of the lost as I read Scripture.

That God would destroy for eternity those He does not save is keeping with his nature.  God is not a torturer.  He is a God of love.  Though the lost condemn themselves, as John’s Gospel says, they forego eternal life, receiving death and destruction instead.

Nevertheless, the proponents of Traditionalism vigorously cling to the eternal torment of those who are condemned.  R. C. Sproul is a gifted Christian teacher and writer.  His book Chosen By God is for me the clearest and most convincing exposition of the Doctrine of Grace and Predestination, much more accessible reading today than John Calvin.

R. C. Sproul’s teacher and mentor at Pittsburgh Seminary was the late John Gerstner.  Gerstner was cited by Packer above as one of the staunch defenders of the doctrine of eternal torment in Hell.  Sproul told a story about Gerstner as follows:

One student asked Dr. Gerstner, “How can I be happy in heaven if I’m aware that one of my loved ones is in hell?” Dr. Gerstner responded: “Don’t you know that when you are in heaven you will be so sanctified that you could look at your own mother in hell and rejoice in the display of the justice of God.” And Sproul burst out laughing, informing Dr. Gerstner that his statement was absolutely ridiculous.

Sproul was a student then, and maybe now he doesn’t think it is so ridiculous since he is a Traditionalist today.  But it hurts me to think that to be Holy and Sanctified would cause me to lose all natural affection for my mother and rejoice at her suffering in Hell. The Gerstner response assumes eternal torment, then conforms his vision of sanctification accordingly.   I’m pretty sure my mother  is in Heaven, but nevertheless there are others I have loved and who have died, perhaps without the Lord  . . .   After reading God’s Word for 40 years, that does not sound like God to me.  If a 13 year old boy who likes to play violent pagan themed video games and whose parents are heathens who never took him to church dies in a car crash without knowing Christ, is it just to torment him in eternal fire for 13 million years, let alone infinity?  That does not sound like something my God would do.  I do not believe I can posit God changing me to rejoice in the suffering of children in torment for eternity, for example.

How can this judgment be proportional to the sinfulness, regardless of how cold-hearted the 13 year old adolescent boy whose brain was not mature, might have been? How can a God who is love torment this child for eternity? After 40 years of reading the Bible, this does not seem to me to conform to the nature of the loving God that I know. The Godly principle of proportionality in judgment and punishment is revealed in the Mosaic law:

But if there is serious injury, you are to take life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burn for burn, wound for wound, bruise for bruise.

Exodus 21:23-25 (New International Version 1984)

Jesus himself modified this principle for mankind in his sermon on the mount:

You have heard that it was said, ‘Eye for eye, and tooth for tooth.’  But I tell you, Do not resist an evil person. If someone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also.

Jesus implies that God will punish the evil person, so we should not take personal vengeance proportionately or at all.  But He is not abrogating the proportionality principle of justice.   Jesus promises death and destruction to those who are perishing.  Capital punishment is reasonable and just, according to the Scripture.  There is no Scriptural authority that would support eternal torture as a reasonable and just punishment for fallen humans with their short lives on earth.   As the Psalmist says:

“You have made my days a mere handbreadth;  the span of my years is as nothing before you.   Each man’s life is but a breath.”

Psalm 39:5 (New International Version 1984)

We get our sense of justice from the Lord.  He made us in his image, and we have the mind of Christ.

A keyword search of the New International Version 1984 for “immortal” brings up 7 verses.  Among them are these:

In the way of righteousness there is life; along that path is immortality  Proverbs 12:28 

 To those who by persistence in doing good seek glory, honor and immortality, he will give eternal life. Romans 2:7 

So do not be ashamed to testify about our Lord, or ashamed of me his prisoner. But join with me in suffering for the gospel, by the power of God, who has saved us and called us to a holy life—not because of anything we have done but because of his own purpose and grace. This grace was given us in Christ Jesus before the beginning of time,  but it has now been revealed through the appearing of our Savior, Christ Jesus, who has destroyed death and has brought life and immortality to light through the gospel. 2 Timothy 1:8-10

Immorality, Eternal life, is the gift of salvation.  Death is the sentence for not believing in Jesus who was sent by the Father to redeem His people. As the Apostle Paul wrote in Romans:

But who are you, O man, to talk back to God? “Shall what is formed say to him who formed it, ‘Why did you make me like this?’” Does not the potter have the right to make out of the same lump of clay some pottery for noble purposes and some for common use?

What if God, choosing to show his wrath and make his power known, bore with great patience the objects of his wrath—prepared for destruction?

Romans 9:20-22 (New International Version 1984)

And again, Jesus’s admonishment:

“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.

Matthew 10:28 (New International Version 1984)

I cannot say that I know this to be Biblical truth, but I am persuaded that it is supported by the Scripture, and great men of God, like John Stott and C. S. Lewis have found it to be so substantially supported in Scripture that they could no longer claim that eternal torment is the fate of the lost, rather publicly claiming to be tentative or agnostic on the destiny of the lost.  No matter how convincing the argument may be for annihilationism, the courage required to stand up publicly against 18 centuries of tradition is likely more than most can muster.

This Post is also located at the on Tab above “Hell?”

“So when you give to the needy, do not announce it with trumpets, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and on the streets, to be honored by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward in full. But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your giving may be in secret. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.”

Matthew 6:2-4 (New International Version 1984)

In this passage, Jesus instructs us to have a pure unselfish motive when we give to the poor. We are not to give charity publicly in order to receive the praise of men, and satisfy our pride. Instead, we are to give freely and secretly, and so freely and so unconsciously, that even our left hand does not know what the right hand is doing. It seems that Jesus is purposely warning us that our own consciousness of our charity is corrupting and stains our good work. He tells us that God, who sees the good work and the motives of the heart, will reward us. However, Jesus does not want us to act out of selfish desire for a reward. Otherwise, the admonition to keep the act secret, even from our conscious self, were it possible, such that the cells in our body outside the right hand that gives the alms are not aware of the charitable gift, would be empty. It is difficult to imagine giving without some selfish thought entering our mind and motivation.

In the beginning of Thomas Hobbes‘ 1651 masterpiece, Leviathan, or the Matter, Forme, and Power of a Common Wealth, Ecclesiasticall and Civil, [as it says on the back of the Cambridge edition, arguably the greatest piece of political philosophy written in the English language], Hobbes works through his theory of the psychology and actions of the individual, a theoretical precursor to a theory of moral legitimacy of the political state which he calls the Leviathan. In discussing the relations of man and his relationship to people and things, and specifically the transfer of the right to possession of things, property (or money), he defines the free gift as follows:

Free-gift When the transferring of Right, is not mutuall; but one of the parties transferreth, in hope to gain thereby friendship, or service from another, or from his friends; or in hope to gain the reputation of Charity, or Magnanimity; or to deliver his mind from the pain of compassion; or in hope of reward in heaven; This is not Contract, but GIFT, FREEGIFT, GRACE: which words signifie one and the same thing.

As Hobbes defines the free gift, there is no mutual exchange — the transfer of right to property or money appears gratuitous, the giver giving without receiving anything material in return. He lists reasons why the giver gives, assuming that we necessarily act with a reason, though our reasons may be various. In each of his reasons, however, there is the hope of personal gain from the gift at root, i.e., gain in the friendship or service of others, gain in reputation as a charitable person, avoidance of the pain of compassion for suffering, and lastly, personal gain in the promised reward from God.

These reasons or motives that Hobbes attributes to a free gift reveal Hobbes’ belief that we always act out of selfish desire, even when we give alms. Even if we are not getting something that gives us pleasure in this life, like friendship, good reputation, or freedom from suffering guilt, at a minimum we act in exchange for the hope of a future reward from God in the afterlife.

However, even though Hobbes was writing as a professed Christian in a 17th century Christian Europe, it seems un-Christian to give in order to get, even if it is a heavenly reward. Jesus would not have warned us not to let the left hand know that the right hand just gave a beggar a twenty dollar bill. He would have said to give in order to get the heavenly reward. Jesus knew that fallen creatures like us cannot easily do anything without some selfish motive, if it is even possible.

Hobbes was being realistic, then. He could not think of a reason for giving a gift without some selfish motive, so the tag “free” only refers to the lack of material exchange for the right, but not that our act of giving is actually a free gift. We expect something immaterial and emotionally pleasurable in return. Thus, for Hobbes, a “free” gift is free to the recipient, but not freely given by giver, who acts for selfish gain, whether immediate or in the hereafter.

Likely, it is impossible to give with a pure unselfish motive, even anonymously, or with a pure attitude of unconditional love. How can we keep our mind from considering the pleasure, or the reward, even if we believe in God and the world expects us to act in holiness, and not as the hypocrites?

We can have a primary good motive though. Jonathan Edwards, the 18th Century American theologian and preacher, wrote that our will is determined by our strongest motive or desire at the moment, such that our acts are the result of our competing desires.

Hobbes did not consider that we may have competing or complementary desires and motives. He also did not include the desire itself to help another in need as a reason for a free gift. He assumed personal gain as the general reason motivating all voluntary action. Acting out of love is not necessarily pleasurable, as in the case of “tough love” interventions or withdrawals of support for loved ones who are suffering from addiction. But even in that case, there is a hope for the recovery of the loved one, and freedom for a time, whether brief, from despair for their life.

We strive to act from unconditional love, but few of us have the ability to act even out of love without considering the impact of the proposed act on our selves. Can I afford it? Do I have the time? Will he become dependent? Will he get the wrong idea? These thoughts despoil the purity of charitable acts.

In my own life, despite my Christian beliefs, I struggle to give freely. I have often found that whenever a charitable proposal enters my mind, there is a counter-argument for not giving presented to my consciousness. There is nothing I can do about it.

Thus, it seems that the more I can keep myself out of the deliberation and charitable conduct, the more I satisfy the Biblical standard of purity of motive. I believe that the act of charity is the work of the Holy Spirit, whether we believe or not. For a Christian believer, however, in order to allow the Spirit to inspire us to do our good works, we need the grace of God. As Paul the Apostle wrote:

For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith — and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God — not by works, so that no one can boast. For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.

Ephesians 2:8-10 (New International Version)

If I act in blind obedience to God’s command to honor the request from the beggar on the street (or the inclination to respond to any charitable request), careful not to think about it or try to discern whether the beggar is deserving, I can approach a purity of motive, even though there is a natural discomfort to obey left in my nature that tries to gain my attention.

In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus said:

Give to everyone who asks you, and if anyone takes what belongs to you, do not demand it back.

Luke 6:30 (New International Version 1984)

Taken literally and without the counsel of requirements of stewardship for what God provides, there would seem to be no limit to giving. To follow such a stringent command, we have to act in obedience and trust that God will only bring those into your path that you have the means to help.

In summary, I believe the best habits to develop are to pray for circumstances and desires that are God’s will for giving to others, and when we give charitably, to act out of obedience first and primarily, with an attitude of love for God and man, and dismiss as best we can, the thoughts of gain and good feelings that we cannot help but endure most of the time. Otherwise, the gift is never freely given, always done with selfish gain in mind, as Thomas Hobbes believed to be the case.

DISCLAIMER: Nothing hereinabove is intended to be or should be construed as a condemnation of quiet humble participation in public and civic charity and philanthropy. No trumpets sound when we write checks to large charities, and certainly no trumpets sound at the IRS if and when our charitable deduction is reviewed or entered into a database. Taking a charitable deduction for tax purposes is good stewardship, and is a legal incentive to help the needy.

In the Christian Bible, St. James admonished the first century Christians to make their actions consistent with their faith, their beliefs:

What good is it, my brothers, if a man claims to have faith but has no deeds? Can such faith save him? Suppose a brother or sister is without clothes and daily food. If one of you says to him, “Go, I wish you well; keep warm and well fed,” but does nothing about his physical needs, what good is it? In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead.

But someone will say, “You have faith; I have deeds.”

Show me your faith without deeds, and I will show you my faith by what I do. 19 You believe that there is one God. Good! Even the demons believe that—and shudder.

You foolish man, do you want evidence that faith without deeds is useless? Was not our ancestor Abraham considered righteous for what he did when he offered his son Isaac on the altar? You see that his faith and his actions were working together, and his faith was made complete by what he did. And the scripture was fulfilled that says, “Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness,” and he was called God’s friend. You see that a person is justified by what he does and not by faith alone.

In the same way, was not even Rahab the prostitute considered righteous for what she did when she gave lodging to the spies and sent them off in a different direction? As the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without deeds is dead.

James 2:14-26 (New International Version 1984)

Though this passage is sometimes mistakenly cited as evidence that salvation is earned by performing good works, St. Paul makes it clear that good works are ordained by God and follow from salvation:

For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—not by works, so that no one can boast. For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.

Ephesians 2:8-10 (New International Version 1984)

It is a mystery how good works can be pre-ordained, and yet the Christian is admonished by James to do good works. But clearly, if we profess to be a man or woman of God, and our works do not conform to our words, as is unfortunately frequently the case, the world repeats the excuse not to seek God of the Christian because the Church is full of hypocrites, as if human failure was an excuse not to investigate the truth of the Gospel. Salvation does not immediately sanctify the sinner, and Christians will always fail to live up to the perfect standard of holiness that God asks us to strive towards.

If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.

1 John 1:8-9 (New International Version 1984)

Jesus admonished the hypocrite who criticizes his brother without first examining himself and his own sins:

“Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? How can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when all the time there is a plank in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.

Matthew 7:3-5, same passage Luke 6:41-42 (New International Version 1984)

We should, therefore, be first concerned with our own tendencies and moments of hypocrisy. How do we do this? How do we overcome a natural aversion to self-criticism and occasions of self-deceit or purposeful ignorance of our faults?

The Christian solution would be to pray for deliverance from hypocrisy, and for wisdom to discern our hypocrisy. I was inspired to write this post after reading a prayer composed by British theologian, William Barclay, aimed at such deliverance and wisdom. I was surprised when reading it for the first time, that I had never considered prayer for my own hypocrisy, which I recognized as a universal human characteristic, but never considered my own need to pray for my own watchfulness and discernment. A great prayer:

o God, help us at all times to make our deeds fit our words.
and to make our conduct match our profession; and grant
that we may never say one thing with our lips and another
with our lives.

Grant that we may not praise service and practise
selfishness.

Grant that for us sympathy may never only be a
thing of the emotions, but that it may always issue in
action to help. Grant that, when we feel sorry for
someone, we may not be satisfied until we have done
something to help.

Grant that we may not praise love and practise bitterness.

Grant that we may not sing of the beauty of loving
one another, and yet refuse to forgive one another.
Grant that we may not dream of a time of brotherly
Love, and yet be unable to live at peace with our
neighbour.

Grant that we may not praise honesty and practise
falsehood.

Grant that we may not be guilty of the hypocrisy
which says one thing with its lips and means another
in its heart, and which is one thing to a person’s face
and another behind his back. Grant that we may not
pay lip service to the truth, and yet be willing to
evade, suppress, or twist the truth, when we think
that it suits us to do so.

Grant that we may not praise generosity and practise
meanness.

Keep us from the hypocrisy of singing hymns about
giving everything to you, and then grudging every
penny we give and every hour we devote to the service
of your people and your Church.

Keep us, 0 God, from bringing discredit by our life and our
actions, our words and our behaviour on the faith which we
profess, the Church to which we belong, and the Master
whom we ought to serve; through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Amen.

William Barclay, Prayers for the Christian Year 1965

I cannot condemn honest exposure of hypocrisy in the public sphere. However, before we do, we should be humble and take a look inwardly first. I confess I have consistently failed to do this in the past, and greatly need the blessings of God requested in Barclay’s prayer.

As I noted in my prior post, I have been working my way through William Barclay’s 1965 book, Prayers for the Christian Year which follows the traditional church liturgical calendar and provides a prayer for each Sunday of the church year. I like Barclay’s work, his commentaries on the New Testament that I have read over the past 40 years, even though he reveals in his New Testament commentaries a lack of belief in the New Testament accounts of Jesus’s and the apostles miracles, other than bodily resurrection of Christ and the rest of us, by giving natural explanations for Jesus’s miracles, e.g., the feeding of the 5,000 was accomplished by the multitude present deciding to share the food that they had brought with them but had selfishly refused to acknowledge to the disciples before they reported to Jesus that the people were hungry and didn’t have food. I have always marveled that the Holy Spirit could bless Barclay with such insight and clarity in his comments on the Scripture while he could not simply believe that the Lord was not limited by 20th Century understandings of the laws of nature that seem to require God’s adherence, even though there could be no laws of nature or science, unless God decreed them. As one contemporary apparently atheist philosopher, Nancy Cartwright, put it in a philosophical paper, laws of nature logically require a law giver, or God. The only alternative as she saw it was the Aristotelian concept of capacities, in other words, there are no laws of nature, only bodies and substances with capacities to act in a certain way, attract each other, repel each other, etc. Her argument begs the question of the source of the capacities, which Cartwright acknowledged by stating she was not going to speculate on the source of the capacities in objects and substances. The logic of the natural philosopher fails or breaks down if the conclusion is the existence of God.

Here is William Barclay’s prayer for the Church on the Fifth Sunday after Epiphany, which was seven weeks ago:

O God, our Father, bless your Church,

Give her such a passion for the souls of men, that she
will never be content until all men shall know your
love in Jesus Christ.

Give her such a passion for social justice that she will
ever be the conscience of the nation, and that she
will engage upon a continuous crusade for everything
that will benefit the bodies as well as the souls
of men. Give her the conviction that each day is the
Lord’s Day, and so grant that she may be involved
in every day’s work and not only in one day’s worship.

Give her the adventurous spirit which refuses to be
shackled to the past and which finds in tradition, not
a deadweight, but an inspiration.

Make her adventurous in thought that she may rethink
and restate the eternal gospel in terms that
men can understand.

Make her adventurous in action, so that she may not
shrink from that which is new, and so that she may
not rest content in a comfortable inertia.

Make her a fellowship in which all social and racial
distinctions have ceased to exist.

Give her that true sympathy and tolerance which recognize
that there are as many ways to the stars as there
are men to climb them.

Give her at last that unity in which all barriers are
broken down, in which all men can worship together
again, and in which the body of Christ will be truly one.

Grant that the Church may be a place where boys and girls
find Jesus as their friend; where young men and maidens
glimpse the vision splendid; where those in the midtime find
a rod and a staff for the dust and the heat of the day; where
those far down the vale of years find light at eventide; where
the sorrowing find comfort and the weary rest; where the
doubting find certainty and the tempted strength; where the
lonely find fellowship and the sinner forgiveness for his sins.

Hear this our prayer, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

I have written about Hitchens, and his remarks about the virtue of Alexander Solzhenitsyn before here on this blog.

Who could argue that Hitchens does not show great courage facing death with his esophageal cancer. In the interview, when asked whether he could be open to the existence of God, he responded with surprising humility considering his public defiance, stating that he is always open-minded, and that he did not have sufficient evidence to acknowledge the existence of God, but that he “liked surprises,” no doubt referring to miracles, as my friend referred to the remark in his email.  Presumably, his epistemological objection, lack of evidence, cannot stand in the way of grace and the supernatural revelation of God without which no one can have sufficient evidence for His existence.

Yesterday was Ash Wednesday, signalling the beginning of Lent and a time of repentance for sin for the Christian, fasting and abstinence for the Roman Catholic, in anticipation of Easter and the commemoration of the resurrection of Jesus Christ. The resurrection is the event without which there is no Christianity. As the Apostle Paul wrote:

If there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised. And if Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless and so is your faith. More than that, we are then found to be false witnesses about God, for we have testified about God that he raised Christ from the dead. But he did not raise him if in fact the dead are not raised. For if the dead are not raised, then Christ has not been raised either. And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins. Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ are lost. If only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are of all people most to be pitied.

1 Corinthians 15:13-19 (NIV)

Without the resurrection, Paul concludes that hedonism becomes a reasonable alternative:

If the dead are not raised,

“Let us eat and drink,
for tomorrow we die.”

1 Corinthians 15:32(b)

I have been working my way through William Barclay’s 1965 Prayers for the Christian Year. Wednesday’s entry for Ash Wednesday was a prayer of contrition and for God’s grace to recognize our sins and receive a spirit of repentance and godly sorrow. Although the prayer is written as a prayer for “us”, by substituting “Christopher Hitchens” for “us,” we have a very suitable and timely prayer for Christopher Hitchens, one of God’s creatures who was greatly blessed with great intellect and talent and the personal discipline to work hard to develop his talent, but whose personal strength and pride has blinded him to the source of his success.   He needs prayer as death closes in on him.

Save especially at this time, Christopher Hitchens, O God,

From the blindness,
which is not even aware that it is sinning;

From the pride,
which cannot admit that it is wrong;

From the self-will,
which can see nothing but its own way;

From the self-righteousness,
which can see no flaw within itself;

From the callousness,
which has sinned so often that it has ceased to care;

From the defiance,
which is not even sorry for its sins;

From the evasion,
which always puts the blame on someone or something else;

From the heart so hardened,
that it cannot repent.

Give him at all times,
—- Eyes which are open to his faults;
—- A conscience which is sensitive and quick to warn;
—- A heart that cannot sin in peace,
but is moved to regret and remorse.

So Grant that being truly penitent he may be truly forgiven, so that he may find your love is great enough to cover all of his sin; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Christopher Hitchens Died December 15, 2011