Here we are with Part 3 in our discussion of Paul Vendredi's series on the atonement. Remember this is not a refutation of his arguments and a defence of penal substation per se. It is a display of how holey is arguments are and how his logic is worthy of Spock who is a fictional being from a fictional planet in a fictional universe.
Book 3 will cover part 60 of Mr. Vendredi's series on the atonement which critiques claims 5 and 6 of the atonement school.
Claim 5 is as follows: “all sin is a debt we owe to God for the crime of having robbed him of his honour and because we have robbed an infinite being we owe him an infinite debt.”
According to Mr. Vendredi this claim rests on a simplistic hermeneutic which is an abuse of anthropomorphism. The prooftext that God can be robbed is:
Malachi 3:8: ¶Will a man rob God? Yet ye have robbed me. But ye say, Wherein have we robbed thee? In tithes and offerings.
Malachi 3:9: Ye are cursed with a curse: for ye have robbed me, even this whole nation.
He counter punches this woodenly anthropomorphic interpretation of God being robbed with:
Psalms 50:10: For every beast of the forest is mine, and the cattle upon a thousand hills.
Psalms 50:11: I know all the fowls of the mountains: and the wild beasts of the field are mine.
Psalms 50:12: If I were hungry, I would not tell thee: for the world is mine, and the fulness thereof.
Take that atonement school!
So why is God being robbed anthropomorphic and God owning possessions not? Can a spirit own anything? If God owns the cattle upon a thousand hills then what about the other hills? And what about the fact that God commands the Israelites to tithe? That his claim of being robbed is based on that command being neglected?
NO. DISCUSSION.
He then tells us that this claim fails logically because even if God could be robbed the robber is a finite being and can only rob God of a finite amount! If Mr. Vendredi's claim that men can only rob God of a finite amount is valid then why does God punish sinners for eternity? Is this injustice on the part of God? Are these verses only hyperbole? As you can guess there is no discussion of everlasting punishment.
Daniel 12:2: And many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt.
Matthew 18:8: Wherefore if thy hand or thy foot offend thee, cut them off, and cast them from thee: it is better for thee to enter into life halt or maimed, rather than having two hands or two feet to be cast into everlasting fire.
Revelation of John 20:10: And the devil that deceived them was cast into the lake of fire and brimstone, where the beast and the false prophet are, and shall be tormented day and night for ever and ever.
Instead he breaks off into another ridiculous tangent, this time about the Greek gods. Homer used anthropomorphism to make the gods look foolish while the atonement school takes the passions of God seriously rather than just as a literary device. Mr. Vendredi could have used these precious minutes explaining the meaning behind these anthropomorphisms but he does not. He chooses to give us a lesson in mythology.
Claim 6 goes like this: “Because the sins of the fathers pass on to their children no baby is innocent rather all babies are born with a sin nature and are therefore criminals owing god the same infinite debt that their parents owe.”
Part 1 of this claim, the sins of the fathers fall on the guilt of the children, is refuted by using the same arguments he used to refute original sin. Namely that each man is responsible for his own sin. He pits the following two verses agasint one another.
Jeremiah 32:18: Thou shewest lovingkindness unto thousands, and recompensest the iniquity of the fathers into the bosom of their children after them: the Great, the Mighty God, the LORD of hosts, is his name,
Vs.
Jeremiah 31:30: But every one shall die for his own iniquity: every man that eateth the sour grape, his teeth shall be set on edge.
When Jeremiah says that the children shall suffer for the sins of their fathers it is merely a hyperbolic way of saying everyone suffers when someone sins.
Is the Babylonian captivity hyperbole? Is the wholesale slaughter of the Canaanites, including infants, hyperbole? How about the destruction of the entire family of Achan? Is that hyperbole? If everyone dies for his own iniquity and babies die without having committed iniquity then why do babies die? Again we get no discussion.
We do get the declaration that this doctrine leads to a heretical Christology.
Is baby Jesus depraved? This was covered in the last book. Suffice it to say Mr. Vendredi is silent on why infants grow up to become sinners. Is it in their fallen human nature? Is it because of the examples they see? What is the origin of sin in children? Why do innocent babies grow up to become sinners?
What deserves at least a passing comment gets nothing.
Psalm 51:5 is the prooftext used to show that babies are born with a sin nature but when the Psalmist says he was born in sins and iniquity that's really a synonym for the damaged human condition and has nothing to do with sin or guilt transference.
Psalms 51:5: Behold, I was conceived and born in a damaged condition
Mr. Vendredi does not even attempt to reconcile his interpretation, that man is merely damaged and not a sinner estranged from God, with any verse that proves otherwise. Verses that tell us man is wicked from his youth, the thoughts of his heart are evil continually, that the Pharisees are a brood of vipers. He also fails to tell us what he means by damaged. If man is not born a sinner then how is he born damaged? Did he inherit it from Adam? If so how does this not contradict his claim that there is no original sin? And if he did not inherit it from Adam then from whence did it come?
Mr. Vendredi's final critique of claim six is pure reductio ad absurdum.
Very simply put if babies are as depraved as rats then there is no moral argument against abortion. Calvinists see babies abstractly as depraved sinners but practically as innocent creatures. It is cognitive dissonance to espouse infant depravity and to oppose abortion.
All babies are depraved sinners.Abortion is the destruction of babies.Therefore abortion is the destruction of depraved sinners.
Now on the face of it that is a valid syllogism. And I submit that this, that infants are not innocent sinless creatures, might indeed be why God commanded the Israelites to slaughter the Canaanite infants. But it does not mean that the doctrine of infant sin negates any opposition to abortion. According to this syllogism the most you can get is that abortion is the destruction of sinners. There is nothing in this syllogism that necessarily leads to an approval of abortion. You can go even farther and say:
All men are sinners.Murder is the destruction of men.Therefore murder is the destruction of sinners.
A valid syllogism. But it still does not prove that the doctrine of original sin means an approval of murder.
Mr. Vendredi is so caught up in formulating valid syllogisms that he tosses truth and logic right out the window. He wishes to use ridicule instead of actually engaging with the argument. Why does he conflate infant depravity with an approval of murder? It makes no sense. If Mr. Vendredi confesses that he is a sinner does that mean he approves of suicide? No Calvinist approves of abortion or murder and the doctrine of infant depravity does not lead to such an approval. Mr. Vendredi's syllogisms do not even prove his case.
Let's try a syllogism modeled after his sort of muddy logic.
All men get hungry.Gluttony stops men from being hungry.Therefore gluttony is the solution to hunger.
Mr. Vendredi thinks he has won the argument because of his clever syllogisms.
If an abstraction in theology leads to infanticide in reality then that theology should be jettisoned.
Claim six is an an abstraction in theology leading to infanticide in reality.
Therefore claim six should be jettisoned.
If P then Q.P.Therefore Q.
MODUS PONENS!!!
But he has not. He has in no way proven that infant depravity leads to infanticide. It's a shame that Mr.Vendredi stoops to this level of absurdity. Being that there are still eleven more claims to critique I doubt there is any less silliness to come.
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