What Made Pharaoh Change His Mind?

“At midnight the Lord struck down all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, from the firstborn of Pharaoh who sat on his throne to the firstborn of the captive who was in the dungeon...” – Exodus 12:29

In one plague after another God devastated Egyptian homes, crops, livestock, and water supply...  even a pandemic of physical disease spread across the land by the finger of God.  But regardless of the devastation none of them were compelling enough for Pharaoh to truly change his mind.  That is, until plague number ten arrived.

But why did this turn out to be the deal-breaker for Pharaoh?  The general interpretation, which includes the numerous films made of the exodus, seem to have an implicit understanding along the lines that this was the one plague that actually  ‘hit home,’ so to speak.  The tragic death of Pharaoh's very own son.  Some of the films in particular attempt to show a deep love for his child, and a supposed emotional brokenness over this situation.  And in this emotional brokenness everything has shifted his mind to now release the people of Israel.  Pharaoh is strangely even presented as somewhat of a victim of this family tragedy and presented in a markedly sympathetic light...

This unfortunately seems to be a common but unlikely interpretation that doesn't follow well the historical or biblical picture.  Historically, unlike our modern age with modern medicine, the death of a child in the ancient world was quite pervasive and regular.  In ancient Rome for example the child mortality rate was around 50% who would not make it to ten years old.  Of course this is not to say that Pharaoh would not have had an emotional reaction to his death, but looking closer there is more going on than just the loss of a son.  Notice first, it is the death of his firstborn son.  This son was of course the heir to the throne.  And thus God was effectively cutting off Pharoah's ruling dynasty and the designated line of succession in one night.  This is implicit not only in the fact of the son being his firstborn, but the text mentions this reality explicitly: “the firstborn of Pharaoh who sat on his throne.”  The fact that his son was “on the throne” in some sense, might also imply that he was already an adult who had some measure of rulership already.  Regardless, at the very least it means that this final plague would have been primarily a statement to Pharaoh about the impotence of his supremacy and his rulership, not primarily about family tragedy.

There is also some indication that all the plagues were not just intended to devastate Pharaoh's country, people, and land, but were in fact a theological statement.ˡ  They were a demonstration of the supremacy of Israel's God over and above the gods of Egypt, starting with the god of the Nile.  There are hints of this divine dual as the Egyptian magicians under the authority of their gods attempt to replicate Moses' signs and wonders from the hand of Israel's God (Exodus 7:11,22, 8:7,18).  Second, we also know that the Pharaohs of Egypt often thought of themselves as divine or the son of the gods –particularly the sun god Ra (who was shown to be embarrassingly weak with plague number nine, Exodus 10:21-23).  So working with this background, it would seem that God was marching through the pantheon and the last ‘god’ lined up for subjugation was Pharaoh himself and his ruling dynasty.

So what motivated Pharaoh to finally release Israel?  I agree that it was something that ‘hit home.’  But it is less about Pharaoh being a heart-broken father with a deep love for his son, and more about Pharaoh's rulership being dramatically subdued in a most humiliating way.  He is no god, his successor is struck down, and now he finds himself coming before the God of slaves to ask for a blessing (Exodus 12:32).  There is a bit more to that one night that finally changed Pharaoh's mind.

ˡ There is a brief summary of this idea in Kenneth Laing Harris, ESV Bible Commentary, 156.

Robinson Cano vs. NY'ers

Robinson Cano returns to New York with a lot people ready to ridicule him publicly.  That is, until they have to look at him face to face.  Hilarious.

Is There Free Will in Heaven?

The answer to this question is not as obvious as one might think.  On one side, free will is the basic requirement for any action to be worthy of moral praise or moral blame.  And if heaven is where all good things come together and are lived out, than yes, you might think of course there must be genuine free will in heaven.  But if that's true, do we have the real possibility to choose to sin in heaven?  That is equally strange, because sin is the one reality that heaven must never allow in!  And so the deeper you dig into what anyone actually means by free will (or heaven for that matter), the more difficult this question becomes.

However a little background work will help us find where we should probably land on this.  Traditionally, there are two ways to understand free will.  In their definitions both views try to give the most intuitive answer to the following question:  What are the conditions necessary that will make someone morally accountable and responsible for their actions?  The first group will say something like this:  Free will is the ability to act unencumbered according to your own desires.  It is the ability to act according to what you really want to do.  Pretty basic.  This they say is the necessary condition that makes someone truly responsible for their actions.  For example, if a journalist cannot publish a story he wrote because of threats from the local mafia, he is not able to act according to his true desires.  He choices are being forced on him from the outside against what he really wants to do.  And thus, on this understanding, he is not able to act freely.  They would say his will is being encumbered.  This is the view of free will taken by Compatibilists.  More on Compatibilism later.

The second group want to say something stronger: Free will is the ability to genuinely choose among various alternatives.  Free will is not just being free from outside forces that might manipulate you to act contrary to your desires (like the mafia), but also being free from inside forces and necessitating compulsions from within you.  Conditions like your own physical brain chemistry or  your own internal nature that might determine your action.  They would grant there are certainly forces inside you that might influence you, but if the will is truly free it must be able to genuinely choose among multiple alternatives despite those influences without anything inside them or outside them that would determine their decision.  The key word here is determine.  So a journalist's decision to denounce government corruption is free not only because its what he really wanted to do, but also because within his own psychology (or even from God) he was not necessarily compelled one way or the other.  He could have genuinely chosen among the various options to write what he wrote.  This is called libertarian free will.

You see if what the journalist publishes is what he actually desired to write, then Compatibilists have enough information to say he certainly has free will.  But the Libertarian needs to know more.  Are the molecules and chemicals in his brain part of a deterministic system such that he could not have chosen anything other than what he in fact did choose?  If such a deterministic system exists, Libertarians will say no he cannot be genuinely free.  Compatibilists say these additional facts have no bearing on whether someone has free will or is morally responsible.  The journalist is accountable only in so far as he is able to act in accordance with his desires, regardless of whether their desires are physically or metaphysically determined or not.  Do you see how this works?

I'll let the cat out of the bag.  In my view a Compatibilist account of free will seems to make better sense of the assumptions the biblical writers, and in my view better sense of moral accountability altogether.  I only came to this view a few years ago.  Of course, more than a blog post would be necessary to outline the various reasons I find myself in this camp.  But one argument has proven to be very compelling for me, which is related to the question at the beginning.

Can we genuinely sin in heaven?  Notice a Compatibilist understanding of free will allows him to say “no” to this question, but also allows him to believe on his understanding that genuine free will can still truly exist in heaven.  Since free will is the ability to act according to your true desires, and being that we will only genuinely desire good things in heaven, then there is room within this view for heaven to be both always sin-free and also contain wills that are free.  It is simple, straightforward, and intuitive –at least on this question.  But notice also that a Libertarian understanding of free will requires them to say “yes” to this question in order for heaven to be a place where genuine free will can exist.  That seems a hard bullet to bite.  Because we should probably say about heaven –at the very least– that there will not be sin there.  And more than that, we seem to be compelled to say we should never be capable of sin in heaven.  But perhaps they can bite a different bullet and just say well in heaven we just won't have free will like we do now.  That's a hard sell as well, because free will is always the necessary precondition for any act to be morally good.  And the one thing we should probably say about heaven is that it is the one place where all good things live, exist and thrive.

I know some of you are thinking: what does it matter?  These hypothetical questions are just philosophical games.  You are right that many can treat it that way.  Nevertheless, I have never had such a revolution in my thinking about sanctification and how I might grow in my spiritual walk than the moment I solidified my thoughts on the free-will question.  How do I choose good and not sin today?  These two views have very different answers to this very practical question.  And unfortunately a person's unreflective default understanding of these sorts of ideas will almost always be the reigning cultural understanding of them.  And we know that pattern usually doesn't bode well for those seeking “not to be conformed to the world.”

Blasphemy Laws for the Modern World

Blasphemy is verbal defamation against that which is held with the highest regard.  I know it sounds really strange but a long time ago it used to be God that was held with the highest regard in society.  And in such societies it was unbearable to hear God spoken of with such disdain.  Many of them made laws against it because they believed it could quickly incite people to hatred and violence.

Of course in our society verbally defaming God is way down on the list of the worst things that can come out of people's mouths.  And besides that we as western societies are too enlightened to limit people's free speech in the modern era...  or are we?

The answer is we are not.  We still believe in blasphemy laws.  We still believe in laws that limit free speech against what people take to be of supreme value.  But we just believe something else has replaced God as that which is supremely valuable.  Instead of blasphemy, we call it hate speech.ˡ   Speech that offends, threatens, or insults groups, based on race, color, religion, national origin, sexual orientation, disability, or other traits.  You see, in a democracy the “demos” rules.  It is the people themselves who are given the right to rule.  And our values have been shaped around this in such a way that those held with the highest esteem are unequivocally “the people.”  And in such a world, verbal defamation against the people themselves cannot be tolerated -especially minorities whose voices must not be suppressed when you strive for a healthy democracy.  Thus, the active limitation of free speech and free expression as in every society continues on, just under a new name.  But make no mistake.  It is blasphemy; it is outlawing speech that defames that which is supreme.  We're not more enlightened or tolerant than those wacky medieval folk.  We just have a different supreme value.

This is interesting in its own right.  But here's another little wrinkle that might be prophetic for the direction of western culture.  What happens when God commits blasphemy?  That is, what happens when God's purported speech offends “the demos?”  The answer for now is the only space appropriate for such speech is the non-public arena.  The answer for the future might be just the space between your ears.

( ˡ This connection was drawn from a lecture by Doug Wilson)

Jesus and Headbangers

Working for Costco I had quite a few friends and co-workers that loved heavy metal music, and in fact two were in metal bands themselves.  And now I have another friend on this side of the world that also loves American heavy metal music, particularly Metallica.  He even got a chance to see them live when they came to Istanbul last year.  Christianity and traditional religion has historically had a turbulent relationship with this genre of music.  They both understand just enough of a veneer of the other to spit fire back and forth.  One sees the other as promoting hate-filled, violence-begetting, devil music.  And from the other side, Christianity is seen as part of the pompous, self-righteous, power-hungry, establishment.  There seems to be a very strong ideological impasse... or is there?

I've read a few articles recently that outline some compelling reasons that if Christianity widens its gaze a little more to the underlying core of what metal is really about, there would be less of an impasse.  In fact, one writer says that perhaps the Metalhead with a Iron Maiden t-shirt you might have passed on the sidewalk last week might be “closer to the kingdom of God” than most people.  What does he mean?

“People in the metal culture understand that the world is not a warm fuzzy happy place full of sweetness and light... [they] know there is something deeply wrong with the world.  And metal often expresses our outrage. Instead of pretending everything is okay or anesthetizing ourselves with consumerism, self-pity, or poison, Metalheads tend to confront things head on.  This is unbelievably important because it is the hardest part of the Christian message for most people to grasp and Metalheads understand it from the get-go.  Metalheads know something is really, really wrong...”

And since Christianity teaches there is an innate poison that has infected our world and everyone in it [called sin] there is a strange philosophical harmony between the two that ties them together at a very fundamental level.  On other levels some have argued less-persuasively that Christians can learn from heavy metal culture to make their faith more passionate and less highly-structured and serious.  All in all however, while there are some compelling ways it seems that the heavy metal world needs to be better understood, particularly by the Christian community.  I also wonder if, on the other side, Christianity needs to be more properly understood just as well, particularly by the Metal culture.  Below is an attempt to start that conversation:

So the obvious, but actually sometimes not so obvious, things first.  Christianity is about following Jesus.  Some people follow Jesus well.  Some not so well.  So a more proper understanding of Christianity is really a more proper understanding of Jesus, not necessarily the people who claim to follow him.  While that seems pretty basic, it is interesting to me that the strongest indictments of Christianity have nothing to do with Jesus or his teachings, and almost always are directed at the easiest caricatures of those who claim some sort of connection to him.  That said, everyone including the heavy metal culture needs this basic reorientation first, if they want to actually understand Christianity.

The metal culture might find it ironic that Jesus actually had the most verbal venom for the religious hypocrites of his day.  In front of the crowds, he would tell stories about how some members of the most pious religious sect actually had a lower standing before God than lifelong traitors and thieves whom God forgave.  He called the religious hypocrites blind fools, greedy vipers, self-indulgent, children of hell, lawless and murderous.  You get the point.  If you don't like some of the religious folks around you, you need to get in line behind Jesus.

The people in the metal world might also find it ironic that Jesus was stirring a movement that defied the world system and many of the powers that governed it.  He intentionally made himself an enemy of that system, and would defeat it in the most unlikely of ways.  If you're only thinking politics here, you're getting only a small part of the picture.  Nevertheless, even politically Jesus was killed as a political rebel.  A fake king.  A usurper who didn't get the memo that Caesar doesn't like other so-called kings.  While historians might see the irony of how Jesus' defiance had political implications for the Romans centuries later, it is much more astonishing that all this was just a minor sub-plot in a much bigger confrontation.  I'll say more on this in a second.

Underneath the politics, the religious system around Jesus probably got the sharpest end of his contempt.  He intentionally broke many of the religious traditions of the Jews, publicly humiliated the religious leaders, and in his spare time physically razed their headquarters in the temple courtyard.  It was a religious system that could not endure such brazen opposition for long, and the establishment knew they had to shut him down.  But underneath even that, Jesus was not ultimately interested in simple religious reform.  He had made an even bigger enemy.  Neither the Jews nor the Romans were actually what he was ultimately fighting against.  They were only a means.  They were a means to confront and intentionally defy instead the most potent enemies of the human race... enemies who go all the way back to the beginning... death and sin, and the spiritual power that stood behind them.  This is the story of the bible.  It is why C.S. Lewis says “Christianity is the story of how the rightful king has landed, and he's calling us all to take part in his great campaign of sabotage.”  Jesus was a rebel, but his real enemy no one even thought to confront.  He was a rebel, but his method of rebellion no one even thought to imagine.

Depersonalizing the Supernatural

I just finished watching the old Star Wars series this week with Heidi.  One of the most important elements of the movie is the pervasive "Force" ...which is something like a supernatural energy that permeates the universe.  The force doesn't have its own thoughts or emotions, its just... well... a force.  It's an impersonal power and energy that can be mastered or controlled by those with either good or bad intentions.

It got me thinking.  Every religion and most worldviews maintain some belief in the reality of the supernatural.  There is something beyond chemicals and matter.  There is something beyond atoms and electrons.  There is something beyond our world or something that perhaps permeates into our world.  But what sort of supernatural things are there?  The answer to this question is where the similarities usually end.  Is the supernatural a karmic energy that balances out the injustices of the world?  Is true reality just a hidden supernatural force underneath everything that we have forgotten about?  Is the supernatural a bunch of human-like gods with their own righteous (or sometimes cruel) agendas?

Most people have not given up on the supernatural.  Many seem determined to say there is something out there.  But most seem equally determined to depersonalize the supernatural.  What do I mean by that?  Most explicitly is of course how so many in the last 50 years have been particularly drawn to eastern worldviews and religions whose beliefs center on declaring that the true supernatural reality of the universe is something impersonal.  The supernatural is a force, an energy.  It is not something that has feelings or beliefs.  It is not something that has a will or emotions or self-awareness.  It is an "it," not a "he" or "she."  Even though monistic Hinduism, atheistic Buddhism, even New Age metaphysics all have personal gods way back in their historical roots, the greater emphasis today is the mystical and esoteric truths which focus in on the core belief of an impersonal ultimate supernatural reality.  It's not just that people have been specifically drawn into these beliefs (although many have), but how as a whole our tolerant western culture seems to find eastern visions of impersonal supernatural forces as much more agreeable/open-minded, than say a personal Christian God.  The culture is slowly and methodically leaning toward a more depersonalized vision of the supernatural.

But there are also less obvious ways the supernatural is being steadily depersonalized across the world and even within theistic religions.  We can think about this better if we think about marriage for example.  My marriage is a very personal relationship.  I know my wife.  She knows me.  Taking care of my wife is not like taking care of my car.  If I plan perfectly all my various marital duties and do them exactly on schedule, that does not mean I have a healthy marriage.  That's because my wife is not a machine, she is a person.  I have to deeply understand her, and come along side her, and truly feel things toward her and our marriage that she can sense.  Marriage is something significantly more than duty.  My car doesn't care about what I feel or my motivations; it just cares (in a manner of speaking) about whether I'm doing my due diligence in a timely way.  And so the question is: Is interacting with the supernatural more like how I should interact with my car... or more like how I should interact with my wife?  Even for those religions who believe in a personal God, the unfortunate answer to this question is that people often believe the interaction is more like my car.  

From pagans to Pharisees to everything in between, religious people seem to actually prefer a depersonalized interaction with supernatural reality.  It is about religious duties and practices that really form the center of people's interaction with the supernatural, even if the supernatural is personal.  There are lots of reasons perhaps, but the one that immediately presents itself is that a personal interaction is significantly more difficult to manage, predict and control than interacting with a depersonalized set of duties and requirements.  (Need we mention marriage again!)  If I can reduce my interaction with the supernatural to simply a set of manageable rituals and behaviors that will bend the world (or the afterlife) in my favor, it will be substantially easier for me to control the outcome.  Or so it seems for many.  As you might sense, this propensity to depersonalize our interaction with the Supernatural brings under the umbrella a lot of theistic religion and practice.

There are other reasons we depersonalize the supernatural as well.  It provides a pretty simple account for the existence of suffering and evil in the world.  Forces are not moral agents, only a person can be a moral agent.  So safely putting the supernatural into the impersonal category disallows it from being morally accountable for the existence of moral or existential evil.  Additionally, people prefer depersonalizing the supernatural so that the notion one's own ultimate moral accountability loses its edge.  After all, you can't really offend a force.  You can only offend a person.  Forces are quite a bit safer to manage along those lines as well. 

There are of course objective reasons that would say this trend is not leading us toward an accurate picture of the Supernatural.  But as I hinted at, it's not really a set of objective reasons that are drawing us as a culture away from it anyway.  A husband who treats his wife like a impersonal robot needs more than a lesson or two on the value of healthy love and intimacy.  His heart needs to taste and be captivated by the beauty of true leadership and intimacy.  He needs to see it lived out in front of him in an attractive, healthy, winsome, and joyful way.  So it is with us who love our personal interaction with the ultimate supernatural Reality of the universe!  Our lives need to be a unique display for a world that is growing more favorable toward a robotic or even 'a force' vision of the supernatural.  We all love Star Wars; but I can't imagine anything better than living as a second-tier servant and son under the personal God (as I know him), than even living as a first-tier Jedi that has made the supernatural serve me!

What about you?

The Power of an Idea

"Sow a thought, reap an action. Sow an action, reap a habit. Sow a habit, reap a character. Sow a character, reap a destiny."

– William James