The Tyranny of False Choices

Not long ago I overheard someone say, “Which do you think is the right view of the crucifixion? Substitutionary atonement or christus victor?”

I wasn’t party to the conversation, but I piped up anyway, “Why does it have to be either-or? Why can’t it be both-and? Why couldn’t Jesus have had multiple objectives to accomplish, and why can’t he have accomplished them all? Why can’t a myriad consequences proceed from that single act?”

Begging the question, to be certain. Yet: Which do you think is the right view of my going to the store yesterday? Hunger or boredom? Yes and yes. In going to the store I gave myself something to do, as a consequence of which I was no longer bored. I also assembled the materials to fix myself dinner, a necessary (but not sufficient) condition to overcoming my hunger, nourishing my body, adding enjoyment to my life, relishing God’s creation and providence.

A silly example? Perhaps. But even simple actions may have complex motivations and many levels of consequence. Imagine how complex the motivations and consequences might be for something as monumental as the crucifixion and resurrection of Christ!

Did Christ die to cover the sins of the elect? to break the power of sin and death? to pay the just penalty of the law? to bring many sons to glory? to earn a most excellent name? Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. All that and more.

Christ, no more or less than the Father, is a person, and as such his intentions, motives, and desires can be many and overlapping. Why must we choose among them? Why does it have to be either-or?

I blame Aristotle, or someone very much like him. When it was decided that a thing cannot be simultaneously one thing and its opposite, the western world was set on a particular path: If you find two truths to be contradictory in any way, you must choose among them.

Logic and reason are fine as far as they go. Damn useful, even. But logic will betray you at several spots.

For one thing, false premises lead inexorably to false conclusions. Reason is a ledger that once unbalanced remains unbalanced. The only way to avoid this trap is to ensure that all your premises are flawless, that all your assumptions are true. Good luck with that.

For another thing, “true” and “false” are discrete categories in a gradient world. (I will discuss this in more detail later under the rubric of postmodernism.)

Finally, experience routinely teaches us that “A is not A”. For just one example, take the “love/hate relationship.” Is it that sometimes you hate the thing, and other times you love it? That you vacillate between two discrete states? Rather, don’t you sometimes do both at the same time? It may not make sense, but it is nevertheless true. Does your experience therefore run counter to your assumptions about reason?

The Bible, as it happens, plays by different rules. It is not so much illogical as it is un-logical. Para-logical, perhaps. The methodologies of Reason are not so much violated by the biblical authors as ignored. Unknown, and beside the point in any event.

Take a simple example:

4 Do not answer a fool according to his folly, or you will be like him yourself. 5 Answer a fool according to his folly, or he will be wise in his own eyes.

— Proverbs 26:4-5 (NIV)

These verses are taken by some to be evidence of “contradictions” in the Bible: Not only is the Bible sometimes erroneous in its claims about the natural world, they say, it isn’t even coherent. Look, it teaches that “A is not-A” all the time!

But Proverbs 26:4-5 stands in a tradition of wisdom that is different from — you might even say incompatable with — Aristotelian logic. Holding two opposing truths, considering how they are and are not opposite, compatible, or mutually exclusive, is a kind of contemplation that is encouraged by the Bible in various places.

Christ is fully God and fully man. At the same time. God is one, but he is three. At the same time. Salvation is by faith, and faith is by works, but salvation is not by works, lest any should boast. At the same time. Ponder these imponderables and you are off the path of reason, but heading toward wisdom.

Compare Romans 4:2-3 and James 2:20-24. Abraham is either justified by his works or by his faith, two mutually exclusive possibilities. Each author explicitly affirms one possibility and rejects the other. Paul teaches it one way in Romans (Abraham justified by faith, not works) and James has it the opposite way in his letter (by works, which are faith). Not only are these two premises baldly contradictory, they use the same verse from the Torah as support! It won’t do to say that Paul is talking about one thing and James another. It won’t do to subsume Paul’s point under James’ or (as is more usually the case) James’ under Paul’s.

(That was Luther’s solution, famously wishing James’ “epistle of straw” had not been written.)

Rather, consider them both. Imagine they are both true, both manifestly the case: We are saved by faith alone, a free gift of grace from God, not based on our works. Nevertheless, we are saved by our works, which manifest our faith.

You can’t have it both ways, they say. Yes you can. If you claim to be a biblical theologist, you must. Any doctrine of salvation that does not account for both Paul and James (never mind Jesus!) is incomplete. Besides, even a “Pauline” doctrine of salvation must account for Paul having it both ways as well, as in Philippians 2:12-13:

12 Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, so now, not only as in my presence but much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, 13 for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure. (ESV)

Well, which is it? God’s sovereignty or man’s free-will? Both. Scripture has it both ways so we ought to as well: Save yourself through works because God works to save you. Does that make any sense? By Aristotelian standards of reasoning, perhaps not. But by the standards of wisdom put forward by the Bible, yes and yes. And yes again.

Just this: Next time you find yourself reaching for “either-or”, ask yourself if it couldn’t be “both-and” instead.

Jan 24, 2009 | Eli Evans | permalink | hermeneutics