predestination, non-cognitivism, and hookah

For most of this discussion we were joined by a couple of others: T who stands as an atheist/agnostic humanist/secularist from what I gather, and D, a strong presuppositional Calvinist. Our brief, informal discussion over a delightful spiced-chai hookah mostly concerned problems of predestination and ethics. On the former, the familiar question arose of why God would create people only to predestine them for hell, and under what definition, if any, this could be construed as good and/or loving. As far as I could tell, no satisfactory answer was given from the presuppositionalist. The main strategy was to question the justification for the atheist’s definition of justice and/or love by which God is judged to be immoral. Although the atheist may not have a basis for morality that is acceptable to the presuppositionalist, this fact doesn’t seem to matter, since the atheist’s presuppositions for what provides an adequate basis for morality are different from those of the presuppositionalist, and does nothing to ease the atheist’s discomfort at the idea.

There was some discussion about the big bang theory, and whether or not it provides an adequate account of creation / the universe. I mostly tuned it out, because I think that whole line of questioning is fundamentally misguided and I find it tedious. I took this time to enjoy the pleasant buzz I was getting from the tobacco.

On the moral issue, S backed down from non-cognitivism, seeming more amenable to a hybrid non-cog theory or an anti-realist cognitivism. There was some discussion of what constitutes “nature” and what features of the natural world, if any, would justify a robust moral realism, but no conclusions. We came to the issue of subjectivism: how would one advocate for humanism against, for example, a Nazi ethic? The ensuing discussion took essentially the same form as before (concerning how to effectively convince an Islamic terrorist to abandon his program of systematically killing Jews): the Christian would point to historical facts and theological propositions, whereas the humanist would urge his moral intuitions on the listener. On the Christian side are questions of history and theology; on the humanist, the standard problems of relativism/subjectivism. Discussion was too brief and unsystematic to reach any conclusions here, either.

We wrapped up returning to the question of hell: how is eternal suffering justified as punishment for finite, individual offenses/sins? I sketched a preliminary answer: hell is not so much a 1-for-1 punishment, but more the logical conclusion of a life trajectory, if life has eternal significance/ramifications. The Bible paints a dark picture of humanity: through a primordial choice, we sadly inherit, by default, the negative trajectory. I don’t think that accepting this requires a radically new concept of justice necessarily, but maybe of humanity.

Overall, a very pleasant discussion, if ultimately fruitless.

For further discussion: let’s nail down the particulars of non-cognitivism, realism vs. anti-realism and figure out what seems most reasonable to S. Can any of these overcome the standard objections to relativism and/or vindicate a secular ethics? Again, I think we should revisit MacIntyre, who provides a great historical context for these issues and advocates something different entirely. Also: human “depravity,” which might make (double) predestination easier to swallow — scare quotes b/c that term has baggage — but let’s also discuss Christian universalism, which has been in circulation since at least Gregory of Nyssa, and would essentially dissolve the issue. David Bentley Hart has a recent book on the topic that might be worth checking out.