The Bible made Impossible
Last week, I argued that the doctrine of Scripture was going to be the key theological debate of the next generation, and that three questions required particular thought and attention. The first of these was as follows:
Do we believe in the clarity of Scripture, and if so, what do we mean by it? If the disagreements within the evangelical community are anything to go by, the texts of Scripture appear to be far from clear on all sorts of issues that (you would think) are fairly important, and would certainly fall under the category of instruction, reproof, correction and training so that we may be equipped for every good work (2 Tim 3:17). How do we respond to that?
Perhaps the clearest expression of this problem, at least in the last ten years or so, can be found in Christian Smith’s recent book, The Bible Made Impossible: Why Biblicism is Not a Truly Evangelical Reading of Scripture. Smith, a recently converted Catholic and professor at the University of Notre Dame, argues that biblicism – “a theory about the Bible that emphasizes together its exclusive authority, infallibility, perspicuity, self-sufficiency, internal consistency, self-evident meaning, and universal applicability” – is bunk. But this is no Roman Catholic tirade against evangelical faith. What makes the book intriguing is that Smith is a former evangelical, and that a number of evangelical writers have endorsed the book as compelling, thought-provoking and demonstrably right.
What undermines biblicism, for Smith, is the presence of what he calls ‘pervasive interpretive pluralism’ (PIP) – in other words, the fact that people continually disagree about what the Bible means. If the Bible is internally consistent, clear and univocal, then there should not be widespread disagreement amongst Christians on baptism, hell, the end times, church government, charismatic gifts, warnings and assurance, predestination and so on. However,
… on important matters the Bible apparently is not clear, consistent, and univocal enough to enable the best-intentioned, most highly skilled, believing readers to come to agreement as to what it teaches. That is an empirical, historical, undeniable, and ever-present reality. It is, in fact, the single reality that has most shaped the organizational and cultural life of the Christian church, which now, particularly in the United States, exists in a state of massive fragmentation … So the question is this: if the Bible is given by a truthful and omnipotent God as an internally consistent and perspicuous text precisely for the purpose of revealing to humans correct beliefs, practices, and morals, then why is it that the presumably sincere Christians to whom it has been given cannot read it and come to common agreement about what it teaches? I know of no good, honest answer to that question. If the Bible is all that biblicism claims it to be, then Christians—especially those who share biblicist beliefs—ought to be able to come to a solid consensus about what it teaches, at least on most matters of importance. But they do not and apparently cannot. Quite the contrary: Christians, perhaps especially biblicist Christians, are “all over the map” on what the Bible teaches about most issues, topics, and questions. In this way, the actual functional outcome of the biblicist view of scripture belies biblicism’s theoretical claims about the Bible. Something is wrong in the biblicist picture that cannot be ignored. (pp. 25-26)
This is not the place for detailed engagement with Smith’s book. There has been illuminating dialogue about it at Jesus Creed, the Gospel Coalition and First Things, and there is no point in rehashing it all here. Briefly, although I find Smith’s argument fascinating, and he is obviously right about many things, it seems there are enough straw-men in his portrayal of ‘biblicism’ to make interacting with the book somewhat awkward; he switches from substantial points where many will disagree (such as the ‘undeniable reality’ that the Bible is ‘not clear, consistent and univocal enough’ for people to understand it) to trifling points where nobody will disagree (such as the invalidity of the mechanical dictation theory of Biblical inspiration, or the absurdity of believing that Scripture is fundamentally ‘about’ parenting, or dating, rather than Christ), and appears to lump together people who believe the former (almost every post-Reformation Christian, and quite a lot of pre-Reformation ones) with those who believe the latter (almost nobody). His definition of ‘biblicism’, also, includes points on which thinking evangelicals would strongly agree (Scripture’s authority, infallibility, and so on) alongside points which most would contest (‘self-evident meaning’, for example: why bother with teachers, then?)
So without defending all of what he criticises – much of which is also criticised by evangelical scholars of all stripes, as Kevin DeYoung, Peter Leithart and Bob Gundry point out – it is worth considering his main question carefully. “If the Bible is given by a truthful and omnipotent God as an internally consistent and perspicuous text precisely for the purpose of revealing to humans correct beliefs, practices, and morals, then why is it that the presumably sincere Christians to whom it has been given cannot read it and come to common agreement about what it teaches?”
Smith himself proposes that there are six possible answers to that question:
1. The readers are at fault. Some people are just wrong.
2. Confusion exists because we don’t have the original manuscripts.
3. The fall has corrupted humanity so that our minds cannot understand the Bible properly.
4. God, or Satan, or somebody, has deliberately blinded some Christians so they cannot understand.
5. Plurality reflects truth: it is in the varied, even contradictory, interpretations that the truth really lies.
6. Scripture is intended to be ambiguous on a bunch of issues.
The seventh option, of course, is that the premiss of the question is false: the Bible is not “an internally consistent and perspicuous text precisely for the purpose of revealing to humans correct beliefs, practices and morals.” Rather, in reality it expresses multivocality (speaking differently to different people) and polysemy (texts have underdetermined meaning). Our only hope – and here I oversimplify – is therefore to read it all as pointing to Christ, and to leave decisions on the multitude of issues on which it does not speak clearly to the church. This, it seems clear, is what Smith himself believes.
I am not so sure. In fact, there are biblical examples of all six of Smith’s explanations leading to theological confusion amongst believers, although numbers 2 and 5 are significantly less common than the others:
1. The readers of Scripture are at fault – ‘as yet they did not understand the Scripture’ (John 20:9). The implication here is that the scriptures are clear, and the disciples are dull (a theme which recurs frequently).
2. The lost autographs – do Christians have a guarantee that snake-handling and poison-drinking will never hurt them? (Mark 16:17-18). Among other things, it depends on whether Mark 16:9-20 was in the original text. Another good example is Gordon Fee’s text-critical argument that the passage urging women to be silent in the churches (1 Cor 14:33-35) was not original to Paul.
3. Damaged by the fall and sin – ‘O foolish ones, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken!’ (Luke 24:25). Lots of people in the New Testament church are described as ‘dull’, ‘foolish’, ‘sluggish’, and so on, and in many cases this affects their reading of the scriptures.
4. Blinded readers – the New Testament is filled with examples of believers who were deliberately deceived, whether by demons (1 Tim 4:1), false teachers (2 Pet 2:1ff), false apostles (2 Cor 11:1-15) or Satan himself (Acts 5:1-10).
5. Plurality reflects truth – on occasion, two directly contradictory statements are set next to each other, and the plurality expresses true wisdom in a way that the singularity would not (Prov 26:4-5).
6. Deliberate ambiguity – is it better to be married (Gen 1:26-28; 2:18-25) or single (1 Cor 7:25-38)? Should a wife have a paid job outside the home (Prov 31:10-31) or not (Titus 2:3-5)? Should a Christian drink wine (1 Tim 5:23) or abstain for the sake of others (1 Cor 8:13)? It depends on the individual, the circumstances, and the leading of the Holy Spirit. The Bible does not make definitive statements on these things.
Most importantly, when you look at the way Jesus handled theological disagreements, he doesn’t seem to have identified the clarity of Scripture as the problem. He didn’t seem to think that ‘pervasive interpretive pluralism’ meant the scriptures were lacking in consistency, or clarity. Quite the opposite: he was comfortable simply saying ‘it is written in the Scriptures’, and he and the apostles would no doubt say that although the Scriptures were clear, yet misunderstandings, confusion and disagreement could result from human beings’ ignorance (Matt 22:29), foolishness and slowness of heart (Luke 24:25), established human tradition being put above God’s word (Matt 7:9-13), immaturity and lack of discernment (Heb 5:11-14), carnality (1 Cor 3:1-3), hypocrisy (Gal 2:11-14), legalism (1 Tim 1:3-11), false teaching (Gal 5:7-12), and so on.
Eschatologically, we await the day when the partial passes away and we know Jesus, and all ‘knowledge’, fully. In the meantime, we know in part – but that does not imply God’s word is inconsistent or insufficient. Rather, it implies that until the eschaton, we are.
Just to clarify, though: I am not saying that my/our views are correct, while all others are a result of sin, ignorance or immaturity. Smith would no doubt balk at this idea, as I do. What I am saying is that all of us will (in the end) turn out to have held some views which are wrong, and that these will probably turn out to have resulted from some combination of sin, ignorance, immaturity or the various other shortcomings listed above. I, for example, have already believed, and taught, lots of things that I have since discovered were based on wrong or very unreliable evidence, ranging from the trivial (the rope around the high priest’s leg when he went into the Most Holy Place), to the potentially quite important (Gehenna was a rubbish dump in Jesus’ day, which explains the language he uses about it), as well as several interpretations of texts that I would never advance now (Hebrews 10:26-31 is threatening Christians with a loss of reward). It’s not just me: DA Carson cited a whole bunch of his own blunders in his book Exegetical Fallacies, and one friend of mine tells me that in Terry Virgo’s early days, he preached that when we worship God, “we literally make him bigger”, so I’m in good company. Following Tom Wright, then, I now tell people on training courses I run that some chunks of what I teach them will be false – it’s just that I don’t know which chunks they are, or I would change them.
It is not hard to see how errors might result from ignorance, or sin, or putting human traditions above scripture, and none of us are immune from those things. My interpretation of Genesis 1 could well arise from sin in my heart: the desire to be wise in my own eyes, and the eyes of others. My view of hell could be shaped by judgmentalism, or pride. I imagine many prosperity gospel preachers are affected by greed, and many who propose new interpretations of the Bible’s sexual ethics may be partly motivated by lust. Debates about things like baptism and church government are bound to have ‘the traditions of men’ as a contributing factor, as well as the superiority and arrogance that derive from not thinking you have any (let the reader understand). And obviously, wrong beliefs can be based on ignorance: of the scriptures, of the historical and literary background, of Greek and Hebrew, of the power of God, and so on. If there wasn’t any ignorance, and if every Christian could be certain that what they thought the text meant was what it actually means – and here I agree with Christian Smith – then there wouldn’t have been any need for teachers (Eph 4:11), scholarly experts in the scriptures (Acts 18:24), or theological debates (Acts 15:5-21). Yet there was, and there still is.
But that’s because there’s a problem with us, not because there’s a problem with Scripture.
This is part two of a series on The Biggest Theological Debate of the Next Twenty Years by Andrew Wilson.
Comments
By Rick on 07/09/2011 at 12:54
Good thoughts, but I would like to hear more about where there is consensus, such as in the early creeds.
By Luke on 07/09/2011 at 13:42
“until the eschaton, we are” Great line, thanks
By Dan Hayter on 07/09/2011 at 16:59
Great article! Out of curiosity, what has your interpretation of Hebrews 10.26-31 changed to, or do you not yet have an alternative (apart from what might seem to be the obvious but scary one)?
By John on 07/09/2011 at 23:00
Did you deliberately not give example of God blinding readers ?
By david hutton on 07/09/2011 at 23:22
Again you label a fellow believer (converted catholic) ....it lacks grace and has no place if we are determined to tackle the serious questions ......let the arguments speak for themselves and stop seeking to influence readers by labelling
By Al Shaw on 07/09/2011 at 23:35
What do you think of this quote from Augustine on the subject?
“Although I hear people say “Moses meant this” or “Moses meant that,” I think it more truly religious to say “Why should he not have both meanings in mind, if both are true? And if others see in the same words a third, or a fourth, or any number of true meanings ,why should we not believe that Moses saw them all? There is only one God, who caused Moses to write the Holy Scripture in the way best suited to the minds of great numbers of men who would all see truths in them, though not the same truths in the each case.”
For my part I declare resolutely and with all my heart that if I were called upon to write a book which was to be vested with the highest authority, I should prefer to write it in such a way that a reader could find re-echoed in my words whatever truths he was able to apprehend. I would rather write in this way than impose a single true meaning so explicitly that it would exclude all others.”
By Andrew Wilson on 08/09/2011 at 09:55
Thanks again for comments!
@Dan: I think Tom Schreiner is right.
@John: yes. I can’t see that happening to believers.
@David: telling people Smith is a converted Catholic is (a) relevant to the case he makes about ecclesial authority and (b) no secret (almost all reviewers, pro and con, mention this); it’s certainly not meant to distort his argument or be perjorative, and of course the rest of my post(s) engages entirely with the substance of what he’s said. People call me “evangelical” or “charismatic” all the time - it’s not sinister, just convenient!
@Al: this would be Smith’s sense 6, I think, although I wouldn’t go as far as the Bishop of Hippo.
By Al Shaw on 08/09/2011 at 10:40
@Andrew: you are open about stating that, “I now tell people on training courses I run that some chunks of what I teach them will be false – it’s just that I don’t know which chunks they are, or I would change them.”
Do you make such statements when preaching in a public church setting? If not, why not?
By Rory on 08/09/2011 at 10:58
Yet again, excellent post.
In what sense do we then biblically determine “closed handed” and “open handed” issues? I would see longwinded discussions about evolution on an alpha table as a waste of precious time. We are likely to see both C.S. Lewis & John Piper in heaven - so would say my position as someone who believes in evolution, say it doesn’t really matter (as long as there is no capital E) and progress onward to discuss death. At death I would be nowhere near as open handed. I understand why due to the gravity of theologic significance, but I do not understand how we determine that biblically….
By david hutton on 08/09/2011 at 12:42
justification of labelling is weak…it’s convenient .....stop muddy the waters Andrew and keep the debate focused on the issue
By Colin Perkins on 08/09/2011 at 20:15
I haven’t read Christian Smith’s book although I may having learnt about it through this blog. The issue of the authority of Scripture, and most importantly HOW Scripture is authoritative, has occupied me a lot over the last few years. I’ve come from an evangelical (NFI, indeed) background but find myself not so much struggling against that background as wondering whether it’s far too limiting. At the moment I’d see myself as still having an evangelical ‘core’ but wondering whether the boundaries of ‘sound theology’ are far wider than I’d previously thought. Much of this expansion has centred around my questions of not whether, but how, Scripture might be authoritative. I’ve mentioned Rene Girard before and really would appreciate your thoughts on his work if you’re familiar with him. I particularly like how his work makes the work of the Cross central to a practical ethical approach, and a practical ethical approach central to our response to the Cross. You get the impression that a ‘pure’ evangelical theology of the Cross could focus on evangelism whilst making a wider ethical vision peripheral. You can also get the impression that a more liberal theology could make a wider ethical vision central whilst disconnecting it from the Cross, eventually making the Cross redundant. Girard, by contrast, makes the Cross central to his ethical vision and the application of that vision central to our response to the Cross.
Additionally, his approach gives us an interesting solution to some of the real problems we’re presented with in the Bible. For instance, the examples in the Old Testament where God commands his people to kill others. If we limit ourselves to the ‘evangelical’ and ‘liberal’ interpretations, we either have to acknowledge God’s involvement in violence, or we have to say that the Bible is just a human document and not God’s authoritative Word. Girard, however, most certainly views the Bible as the authoritative Word of God, but believes that God teaches us through these passages about the human tendency to justify violence through religious means, to use the righteous punishment of evildoers as a self-justifying mask for the violent exclusion of the ‘other’, and to perpetrate the myth that the victims of our violent hatred deserved their fate because of their evildoing. Hence, the Bible is authoritative, it is the Word of God - but in a very different way that evangelicals claim. This approach reaches its zenith in Girard’s approach to the Passion narratives, where he argues that Jesus deliberately submitted himself to the violent scapegoating of the crowd, in order to expose that scapegoating in order to undermine it. In the Gospels, the expulsion of victims is presented from the perspective of the victims - or more accurately, the victim, Jesus, with the Passion narratives going out of their way to make clear that, unlike the claims that are always made about those crowds exclude and victimise, he was innocent of all charges.
I find this approach incredibly interesting. More importantly, I find that it links to the key issues of ‘real life’ far more than traditional evangelical theology or ethics. I used to work with gangs in Birmingham and I work with sex offenders now, Girard’s approach to Biblical ethics gives me a framework for understanding those two acute areas of human violence, identity, victimisation and exclusion in ways that I just cannot find in evangelical theology. Similarly, the recent riots were almost totally understandable from within Girard’s theories, whereas I fear that evangelical approaches would give us little more than more calls for evangelism, a few references to strong fathers, and Cameron’s reference to ‘moral breakdown’.
I’d really like to hear from you about Girard, or if you’re not familiar with him I’d really like to point you in his direction, given the topic you’re writing on. Actually, for an introduction, I’d recommend a book by someone influenced by him - ‘Violence Unveiled’ by Gil Baillie.
By Andrew Wilson on 09/09/2011 at 08:08
@Al: I probably have a few times, but don’t regularly. One difference is that my courses take place behind closed doors and contain 18-21 year olds who might in some cases be at risk of believing everything I said (!), whereas Sundays are public, shared with other elders, broadcast online, and open to anyone who might come in. That makes them intrinsically more accountable settings, I think.
@David: let’s agree to disagree! Thanks for your comments, though.
By Andrew Wilson on 09/09/2011 at 10:34
@Colin: I have to admit I haven’t. For me, however, a key question based on what you’ve sketched (and the question needs to be asked of more Barthian approaches as well) is: how did Jesus, the Word of God in human form, view the Old Testament scriptures? Studying the way Jesus engages with the OT in the gospels indicates that he has a somewhat different take on it to (the way you describe) that of Girard; I doubt if Jesus would affirm (say) that God did not command the destruction of the Amalekites, even though it was written in the scriptures. (On that theme, though, this post might be relevant: http://whatyouthinkmatters.org/blog/article/a-god-of-violence) But .I agree with you about cruciform ethics, and love Richard Hays on that. Thanks for your comments!
By Colin Perkins on 09/09/2011 at 12:20
Thanks Andrew.
Here’s a very brief summary of Girard’s thought that I wrote a while ago:
Girard proposes that pre-cultural humanity existed in a state of chaotic, destructive, “all-against…-all’ violence, fueled by the fact that human desire is ‘mimetic’ - that is, imitated, so that one person reaches for something because they see another reach for it, which in turn escalates the desire of the first person, and so on. (Think of children in a room full of toys - a child is disinterested in a toy until another child picks it up, at which point it’s the only toy in the room the first child wants). Because everyone is reaching for the same thing(s), everyone gets in everyone else’s way - resulting in competition, which leads to conflict. What stops this chaotic violence from destroying everyone is not peace but ordered violence - when the community moves from ‘all-against-all’ to ‘all-against-one’. The ‘one’ against whom the community unites may literally be a single person or could be a group, but either way he/she/they is different - the ‘other’ whom no-one else will defend, against whose differences the rest of the community form their identity. Having scapegoated and expelled (or killed) the victim(s), the community is united, and order is restored. Girard proposes this as the basis of primitive religion, which is why sacrifice (the re-enactment of the founding murder, to maintain the resultant unity) is so common in primitive societies.
Girard therefore understands that both the mimetic contagion that leads to chaotic violence, and the unifying scapegoating that leads to order, are ‘satanic’ in the broad sense of that term (remembering that Satan is the accuser in the Bible). Human culture, he argues, is thus built upon the order resulting from the violent scapegoating of victims who were sacrificed at the height of a mimetic contagion. (Going back to ritual sacrifice, this is why that is often preceded by a ritualistic frenzy…re-enacting the contagion). Religious rules are understood as proscribing the very things that are most likely to inflame mimetic desire (hence the focus on proscribing certain sexual practices, for instance).
The Bible, Girard argues, and the Gospel narratives in particular, give us the very same outline of human culture, but this time told from the perspective of the victim, who is proclaimed as innocent. So, right at the start, Cain kills Abel…the founding murder. But, unlike other founding-murder myths such as Romulus and Remus, this is portrayed as a murder of an innocent victim, not a victory at all. The story of Joseph is portrayed from the persepective of the excluded (Joseph) and not the excluders (his brothers), and the Gospel narratives make clear that Jesus in innocent (“I find no fault in him”), and demonstrate the unanimity that results when a crowd excludes a victim (“Crucify him!”). The Resurrection, Girard argues, is God’s resounding declaration that Jesus was, indeed, innocent, and the undermining of the victimisation process upon which all human culture is built.
Girard then argues that this is why, after 2000 years, it is the part of the world longest effected by Christianity (the West) in which democracy, human rights, charitable work and the protection of the individual from the state have most flourished, because it is in this part of the world that the undermining of the scapegoating-basis of human culture, carried out by the gradual, ‘mustard-seed’ work of the Cross, has happened.
By Al Shaw on 09/09/2011 at 20:06
@Andrew: what do you say to the claim that an emphasis on the “clarity” of scripture in the for you dscribe it is essentially a “modern” concern, and that we should not be surprised at it being emphasised at a time in European history when dominant intellectual paradigms were transitioning from a medieval to a modern worldview? And that, within that framework, a growing emphasis on exacitude (in science, astronomy, travel etc.) which would lead to greater mechanisation, helped to create an intellectual emphasis on exacitude of language which may not have been present in a pre-modern culture?
By matthew hosier on 10/09/2011 at 12:05
Loving these posts Andrew!
Let me add to Al’s quotes from the Confessions:
“It is not for nothing that by your will so many pages of scripture are opaque and obscure. Theses forests are not without deer which recover their strength in them and restore themselves by walking and feeding, by resting and ruminating. O Lord, bring me to perfection and reveal to me the meaning of these pages.”
Can’t beat a bit of Augustine!
By Matthew Hosier on 10/09/2011 at 17:46
Another quote from the Confessions:
“It is not for nothing that by your will so many pages of scripture are opaque and obscure. These forests are not without deer which recover their strength in them and restore themselves by walking and feeding, by resting and ruminating. O Lord, bring me to perfection and reveal to me the meaning of these pages.”
By Christian Smith on 16/09/2011 at 14:24
Don’t miss my reply to Gundry in the next print issue of B&C.
By Andrew Wilson on 16/09/2011 at 19:13
Thanks Christian - I look forward to it!
By Sam on 22/10/2011 at 23:34
I’m still working this through, but maybe Scripture is ambiguous on some matters, adult & child baptism or church structures for example, because God doesn’t really mind, he is more interested in us obeying Jesus’ command to love Him and each other. But we are still obsessed with being right with God, and doing the right thing, and take a long time to really appreciate that he really has forgiven us and accepted us as we are and wants us to work that out and witness to it in every generation as the world’s culture changes around us. And that is why some of us old-fashioned evangelicals harp on about the Cross so much, to the distaste of Tom Wright & co, as we see more and more how central and wonderful it is.
By John Jones on 31/12/2011 at 02:36
some helpful points andrew, thanks,
humility must be part of gods purposes in it, and our complete dependence upon Him.
Think over what I say, for the Lord will give you understanding in everything. 2 tim 2;7
Colin, greetings from birmingham, hope you are well. interesting guy this girard, not heard of him before, you mention that one “problem” is that god would command the slaughter of men, women and children in the OT. however isnt the problem christ came to solve is that god did not kill everyone on earth for their sin? so god was seen as unrighteous.
all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, 24 and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, 25 whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God’s righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins. 26 It was to show his righteousness at the present time, Romans 3
I would say that much error comes when the horizontal issues takes the dominant focus rather than reconcilliation with god through christ being the purpose of the word
You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that bear witness about me, john 5;39
I dont know girard at all but he seems particularly man centred from the quotes you gave. and if you start a journey from the wrong place, the directions are unlikely to take you to the destination! seems that some of his examinations of human nature and behaviours are being useful to your work though. I may be completely wrong but what i get from what you have written.
cheers, john
By ColinPerkins on 31/12/2011 at 17:14
Hi John, yes we’re well, hope you all are too. Girard very deliberately starts his thinking from an anthropological rather than theological point, and is careful not to claim that he ever formulates a complete theology, referring instead to his work as an ‘anthropology of the cross’. He would not, therefore, suggest that a complete theology of the cross or of salvation could be gained from his theory, although some who have followed him have tried to do so. There is little mention, for instance, of ‘forgiveness’ or ‘grace’ in his work. However, starting his thinking from an anthropological viewpoint does not necessarily, in my view, make his work ‘man-centred’ in the pejorative sense of that term. He has simply looked at the cross from a different vantage point and, in doing so, seen things that few others have seen, although my experience has been that reading the Bible through a Girardian lense makes you wonder how you ever missed what was there all along. How Girard’s view fits with other theologies is a matter for debate; certainly some looking for a way of understanding the cross that doesn’t make God complicit in violence have sought to exchange traditional for Girardian theology wholesale. I’m not sure I would go that far, but his work has made me realise that we should look at the Bible through lenses other than the ones we’re most familiar with.
With regards to your point about what I said, firstly I’d point out that what I actually said was the problem of God commanding his people to kill unbelievers in the Bible; I wasn’t widening it out to a complete comment on God’s judgement of sin. I think that does provide us with a problem; just think how we’d react today, for instance, if someone claimed that God had told them to slaughter unbelievers. Secondly, I would just point out your comment that God’s righteousness is called into question because he hadn’t commanded the death of sinners. I understand the argument from Romans, but just listen to what’s being said for a second; God is unrighteous because he doesn’t kill people. Those who are particularly attracted to Girard’s thinking would, I am sure, point out that ‘not killing people’ would be evidence, not of God’s unrighteousness, but of his righteousness. Just a thought!!