It had been a while since I’d read Romans 9, but an email correspondence that I keep with a Christian caused me to read it last night. When I was a Christian, this chapter had always been difficult for me, but that’s because I was trying to fit it within my own theology. Last night, I was struck by several things I had forgotten and thought it would be worth sharing.
For not all who are descended from Israel belong to Israel, and not all are children of Abraham because they are his offspring, but “Through Isaac shall your offspring be named.” This means that it is not the children of the flesh who are the children of God, but the children of the promise are counted as offspring. For this is what the promise said: “About this time next year I will return, and Sarah shall have a son.” And not only so, but also when Rebekah had conceived children by one man, our forefather Isaac, though they were not yet born and had done nothing either good or bad—in order that God’s purpose of election might continue, not because of works but because of him who calls — she was told, “The older will serve the younger.” As it is written, “Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated.”
— verses 6-13
Here, Paul makes a distinction between those who belong to Israel by birth, and those who are children of Abraham by faith. In other words, just because someone is Jewish does not mean he/she is really God’s child. He then points out that even before Jacob and Esau were old enough to know right from wrong, God rejected Esau in favor of Jacob. That seems a little arbitrary, doesn’t it?
What shall we say then? Is there injustice on God’s part? By no means! For he says to Moses, “I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion.” So then it depends not on human will or exertion, but on God, who has mercy. For the Scripture says to Pharaoh, “For this very purpose I have raised you up, that I might show my power in you, and that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth.” So then he has mercy on whomever he wills, and he hardens whomever he wills.
— verses 14-18
So is God being unjust in choosing one infant over another? Not according to Paul. Why? Because God can do what he wants.
What kind of answer is that? If Paul’s argument were true, then there would be no such thing as right and wrong. God is always right, regardless of his behavior, because whatever he does is right by default. That flies in the face of what most Christians believe today, yet that’s Paul’s position. And he anticipates an argument about it:
You will say to me then, “Why does he still find fault? For who can resist his will?” But who are you, oh man, to answer back to God? Will what is molded say to its molder, “Why have you made me like this?” Has the potter no right over the clay, to make out of the same lump one vessel for honorable use and another for dishonorable use? What if God, desiring to show his wrath and to make known his power, has endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction, in order to make known the riches of his glory for vessels of mercy, which he has prepared beforehand for glory — even us whom he has called, not from the Jews only but also from the Gentiles?
— verses 19-24
Paul’s only defense is that we can’t question God. But we’re not questioning God, Paul, we’re questioning you and the authors of the Old Testament.
And don’t miss what Paul says here. He’s saying that God creates some people to show mercy toward, and he creates others that he can use to demonstrate his power. He’s a god with an inferiority complex. Such a god does not actually care for his creation; he uses them as pawns for his own glory. And who is this god trying to impress? Obviously not humans, if he thinks so little of us. And he’s supposedly the only deity, so who’s he putting on the show for?
And what about Paul’s argument regarding the potter and the clay? On one hand, there’s a decent point there. It’s kind of like “don’t look a gift horse in the mouth.” If someone gives you something, don’t be overly critical of it. So if God gave us life, who are we to question him on the quality of it? The problem is Paul is saying more than that. He’s saying if God created you and finds you inadequate, you can’t put that back on God — you can’t complain “why did you make me this way?” But Paul’s wrong about that. If God’s not happy with how humanity turned out, that’s not our fault, it’s his. It would be like a child putting a model together incorrectly and then becoming angry at the model. It’s not the model’s fault that the child built it wrong, so it would be unjust to take that out on the model.
Paul’s God is fickle and arbitrary. He makes people like Pharaoh disobedient, and then punishes them for their disobedience. He picks others for glory and mercy, who have done nothing to merit such favor. The sad thing is that many Christians view this as a good thing and talk about God’s wondrous mystery and mercy. This is not a good thing. Such a God is untrustworthy. Unlimited power and a personality disorder make for a very dangerous combination.
And the description of God in this chapter is at odds with other passages that claim God is the embodiment of love and wants all men to be saved. Both versions can’t be right. In addition to its contradictory descriptions of God, the Bible is filled with all kinds of contradictory accounts, failed prophecies, immoral commandments, bad science, and faulty history. Why do so many people, even after learning about the Bible’s faults, continue to believe that it teaches anything accurate about the supernatural?
Finding Truth 
Thanks, Arch, KC, Nan, Nate, and Cap’n. I appreciate you all taking the time to address my question about Job. I think the consensus that the concepts about Sheol, the realm of the dead, and the possibility of life after death, developing over time makes sense.
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BTW, Nate – assuming you’re lurking out there somewhere – I realize that this particular thread is about Paul, but Nan raised what I think is an interesting point in her book, Things I Never Learned in Sunday School (available on Amazon) – Paul’s letters predate the gospels by a significant number of years. Has anyone access to any authorities who have analyzed whether or not Paul’s writings may have influenced the anonymous authors of Mark, Matthew, Luke and John?
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I’m just sorry, Marc, that I couldn’t be more help.
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You are very welcome , Marc !
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arch, in answer to your above question, I just found this book: “Paul and the Gospels.” It’s a collection of several established scholars who attempt to situate the Apostle Paul, the Pauline writings, and the earliest Christian Gospels together in the context of early Christianity. See http://www.bloomsbury.com/us/paul-and-the-gospels-9780567617422/
I’d love to read it, but not sure I’m willing to pay $120 for the privilege!
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I think I’ll wait for the movie —
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Well, dear friends, let’s talk about justice:
@arch
“Would I LIKE to see more justice? Depends on what you’re calling justice this week – tit for tat, eye for an eye? Not really, it certainly wouldn’t increase my happiness. ”
Did I miss something? Have I been accused of changing my mind, on a weekly basis, about what justice means? If so, I protest that that’s a grossly unfair accusation!
Justice means big things and little things; it means that when I walk into a store I wait for my turn to check out if somebody else finishes her shopping before I do. It means I pay for the items I take. It means I treat the clerk (and everyone else, for that matter) with respect. Am I saying anything here that is controversial?
Were I to walk into a store and shoot the clerk that would be an injustice, the opposite of justice.
I can’t be the only one here who notices that the just world is a world where I can be happy whereas the unjust world is a world where I could only be miserable. If I’m treated unjustly, I’ll be unhappy; and if I’m stuck in a situation where I must behave unjustly in order to get by — I’ll be unhappy about that!
I realize that the word “justice” can be used in several ways and that it’s possible to use the word to apply, not to the condition of people treating each other right, but to the actions taken to deal with people who DON’T treat other people right.
Let me do something I usually don’t do and refer to a passage in the Christian scriptures. Specifically, to the story of the woman caught in adultery (John 8, 1-11). I myself am well satisfied that the events depicted in this story didn’t actually happen to Jesus (or to anyone else in any of the various cultures where similar stories are told.) For one thing, it seems far-fetched to think that a little vigilante crew of “crime stoppers” would bother to drag their offender (caught in the very act of sinning!) to Jesus in order to get his thoughts on the matter. It also seems that the statement, “Let him who is without sin cast the first stone” is unlikely to actually stop a stone-thrower in his tracks — much as we might appreciate the poetry of such a declaration.
I like the story because it can be used profitably as an “instructive fable”. And the instruction is all about justice. Specifically, about the dichotomous ways the word can be used. The vigilante crowd used to word to mean “sinners getting ‘what’s coming to them'”. To Jesus it meant people appreciating the importance of marriage and upholding marital fidelity. Jesus (or, more properly, the fictionalized Jesus of the parable) could see that stoning the woman wasn’t going to improve relations between unmarried couples. So he employed a method that actually had some promise of working, which was to let the woman off with a stern warning.
“Eye for an eye” and so on is justice in the way the would-be stone throwers used the word. I’m using the word in the same way as the hero of our little fable.
Does that make it any clearer?
Paul
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It was never unclear in the first place.
The “you” referred to in both my comment and yours, was a universal “you,” which might better have been written, “one.”
You’re trying to define justice in such a way that will force us to say it must have had divine sources, and I have no inclination to play that.
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Paul,
I’m pretty sure I see that too, and I think Nate’s very last reply to you also said he saw that as well – I’m not totally clear on exactly what you are suggesting, but it sounds like simple practical morality (my own terminology). In other words, there are actions that we can do that will promote the welfare and flourishing of conscious beings. This is a popular take on moral realism that can be agreed upon by both atheists and theists in my opinion. Massimo Pigliucci is an atheist who explains this position well (can easily be found with a free search). Richard Carrier is another atheist who tries to popularize this in laypersons terms as well.
But where are you taking this reasoning? Is it what Arch is suggesting?
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as usual, the conversation has taken some swift (and interesting) changes in direction… but i do want to get back to afterlife in judaism. using a source arch cites, chabad.org, there is an article which specifically says the torah contains the concept of the afterlife: http://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/266286/jewish/Do-Jews-Believe-in-an-Afterlife.htm. i understand that the ancient jewish concept is different than later jewish, and christian, concepts. but it’s not correct to say that the jews had no concept of the afterlife, and that they only made it up when the babylonians started breaking down the walls (which is, essentially, ken’s contention).
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@Dave,”but it’s not correct to say that the jews had no concept of the afterlife, and that they only made it up when the babylonians started breaking down the walls (which is, essentially, ken’s contention).”
I never said the jews had no concept of the afterlife. I said the concept of an afterlife came late in Judaism.
I provided several sources to support this including the Oxford Bible Commentary. I’m not trying to convince anyone of anything. I was simply quoting out of a book which is used by scholars throughout the world .
If you’re simply looking at articles , there are probably as many articles to refute your idea as supports it.
That’s the beauty of religion and religious documents. One can always find a quote to support anything one wants to believe . 🙂
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@Arch, @Nan, @Howie, @Nate
I seem to have fallen in with a gaggle of hyper-vigilant paranoids!
A very, very sweet gaggle, mind you; but paranoid all the same.
It is not my intention to catch the lot of you off guard, trip you up and dupe you all into faith. Of course, the idea of it is so delightfully absurd that you’ve got me chuckling about it — and I’m ready for my laugh about now.
I told you what my point is. The issue Paul dealt with in Romans 9 (or the ‘issue beneath the issue’ as it were) is one you have to contend with whether you believe in God or you don’t. We’re ALREADY in even ground, here, without needing to agree about God’s existence.
Instead of trying to make sense of God, let’s content ourselves to try and make sense of ourselves, of the human person. We’re desperate for justice, and goodness, and love and mutual regard and, yet, we live in a world ‘red in tooth and claw’ as Tennyson called it.
That’s the knot Paul was trying to unravel. I agree with you that his solution to the puzzle was less than satisfactory; but I urge you not to be so rough on him. Each one of us has to confront the same confounding knot — and it’s no easy trick to untie it.
We’re warm in a cold universe. We’re very warm in a very cold universe. We’re very warm, and very, very small in a very cold and very, very large universe.
Please don’t try to slough off this essential existential question as if it were one only ‘believers’ had to wrestle with.
Paul
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@ Dave
If the afterlife was so great ( or even existed) someone would have figured out how to get a message across that could be understood by everyone.
I mean, are we not continually being told by the Christian brethren how shitty this life is and how they can’t wait for JC to show jhis bearded mug in a blaze of loving glory as he nukes us all to Hell – because he loves us of course. And how god’s chambermaids are busy making up the beds for us in Heaven?
”If only they would worship me, the ungrateful sods”, mused the god, God
“Tell my old boss he can go ”eff ” himself. The water’s fine, and the chicks are hot. Come on over. Regards.
Dave”
If this were true, of course, I venture there would be a massive increase in suicides.
Sadly, such hopefuls would be presented with a very different picture.
In the famous words of Cheech and Chong. “Dave’s, not here, man”.
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😀 I’m laughing with you on that one Paul!! I can admit being paranoid in that sense – maybe I’ve been online too long conversing with theists who want to shove their god down my throat! 😉 I appreciate your different approach.
As far as your point goes, I think you should go back and read our comments over. Yes I think we are in the same boat as far as wanting to be content. But we expressed pretty clearly why we’re not in the same boat as to the difficulty of that existential question. And we’ve also explained other reasons why this passage can be quite disturbing.
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I don’t dislike you, CC, please believe that, but we just seem to disagree on so many fronts. You see, I’m NOT desperate for justice, I don’t expect goodness, although it’s nice when I find it, and I’m quite aware that love and mutual regard must be earned, not expected.
Alexander was reputed to have some degree of insight as to how to slice through such a knotty problem.
And the more I learn of Paul, the more I have reason to believe that his main struggle dealt with how to increase his own influence within the Judeo/Greco/Roman world.
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ARE we so paranoid, CC, or didn’t you make it abundantly clear in your original comment, to wit:
If I’m so paranoid, prithee tell us where do YOU think we came up with those concepts? Are you trying to guide us to say a box of CrackerJacks?
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@arch
“You see, I’m NOT desperate for justice, I don’t expect goodness, although it’s nice when I find it, and I’m quite aware that love and mutual regard must be earned, not expected.”
Methinks the Pteryx doth protest too much!
If you truly are unperturbed when you’re violated or ripped off, you’re the very first of that stripe I’ve ever come across….
Paul
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Actually, now that you mention it, I don’t recall ever having been either. Maybe I’ve just lived a rather sheltered life. Possibly it’s in my perspective – there are things I can do something about, and things I can’t. Those I can, I do – those I can’t, I relegate to a garbage heap I call the past, and never dwell on them again.
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Hi Paul,
I agree with you here. I think Paul was trying to make sense of his place in the world, as we all are. And like most of us, there were some core beliefs that he held onto a priori and never went back to question. His faith in the Jewish god was the main one. Given how that god was portrayed, given the promises he made to the Jews (according to their scriptures) and given the current state of Paul’s world, he was really just trying to rationalize everything. At least, that’s how I see him.
I don’t really fault Paul for his conclusions, but that doesn’t mean I agree with him. I think his conclusions were bogus and bring up many more difficulties than they solve. Even when this chapter of Romans is read in context, it’s obvious that Paul’s ultimate answer was that God’s sovereignty trumps all. He can do what he wants because he’s god, and we have no right to call foul.
Anyway, leaving Paul aside, I agree with you about justice. I do crave it. By justice, I don’t mean payback — I think that’s largely irrelevant. I crave the kind of justice you were talking about: kindness, fairness, respect, courtesy, etc. The world can be better than it is, and I hope that more and more people will work together to bring more justice to society, regardless of their religious beliefs.
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Nate, if Cap wants to get into the “essential existential question,” maybe you should consider writing another post that addresses this. Seems to me it’s a topic that stands on its own since it plays a role in one’s viewpoint of life — whether or not they believe in god(s).Just a suggestion.
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CC, although I’ve no doubt you believe I’m simply being obstreperous, but I believe that you think that because you and I rather loosely belong to the same species, we must have the same wants and needs, or even the same definition of terms. I maintain, nay, nay, not so.
You imply I should – I believe your word was, “crave” justice. I quit smoking last Summer – I CRAVE a cigarette, every minute of every day – that’s what crave means to me. As far as justice for a mass murderer is concerned, as long as he’s taken off the street, where he won’t continue to hurt others, I couldn’t care less how he is punished, of even IF he’s punished – actually, I’d just as soon he was hospitalized, so as to determine what makes him want to kill, and to see if that can be cured.
You can’t prove your point (whatEVER it might have been), by comparing, or making assumptions based on, our commonalities, they’re too scarce.
(But if you can get me a cigarette, I’ll agree to anything you say!)
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Arch,
I agree with your point about justice being the protection of others, and the cure of the criminal if possible. There have been those in the early Church who viewed judgment as diagnosis, and punishment as corrective therapy. As an Orthodox Christian, I share this view.
I never knew when I was being vociferous I was also being obstreperous. Thanks for expanding my vocabulary Arch.
(If someone gives you a cigarette, you will probably just blow smoke up their ass.)
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Hey Marc – I had to look up the word “obstreperous” too. I guess sophisticated words like that should be expected from a guy named Archaeopteryx! 😉
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@Arch
“I believe that you think that because you and I rather loosely belong to the same species, we must have the same wants and needs, or even the same definition of terms. I maintain, nay, nay, not so.”
Uncle! While it’s certainly true that I AM of the belief that those of us who “rather loosely belong to the same species” (??) have a great deal of commonality, and while it is also true that I go out of my way to look for ways we humans are similar rather than different, I have no desire to fight you.
I shall, however, think of you the next time I light a cigarette and will blow some second-hand smoke in your (virtual) direction!
🙂
Paul
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Actually, as much as it would pain me to do so, I would decline it, I KNOW I’ve got to make it stick this time.
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