A & S & H – Ananias & Sapphira & Herod
There just is no problem with A & S & H where love and grace and Man are concerned. None. We’ll get to specifics a few paragraphs down, but, first, there are four general “lenses” by which to start unpacking the question of Ananias and Sapphira and Herod and in fact 100% of all Human Beings vis-à-vis the syntax of “Harvest” and the obvious fact that the claim of “…there are Possible Worlds in which such final interfaces are not logically necessary….” is a claim which is itself attempting to affirm a logical impossibility. Here’s those four lenses:
A – What about Ananias and Sapphira? – at https://escapetoreality.org/2015/04/09/what-about-ananias-and-sapphira/
B – How do you explain the violent judgement of Ananias and Sapphira? – at http://reknew.org/2012/08/how-do-you-explain-the-violent-judgement-of-ananias-and-sapphira/
C – Who Killed Herod? – at https://escapetoreality.org/2011/03/01/who-killed-herod/
D – Herod’s Death and the Wrath of God – at https://escapetoreality.org/2014/11/06/death-of-herod-gods-wrath/
E – The larger Map of Reciprocity amid love’s inherent Self/Other is what all of this topography is a part of and is, more broadly speaking, as per the following:
PART 1: ETHICS, PHARAOH, EGYPT’S FIRST BORN, ENOCH, HARVEST, LOVE, & LOGICAL NECESSITY
We Are All Pharaoh – We Are All Enoch – We Are All Egypt’s First Born – at https://metachristianity.com/ethics-pharaoh-egypts-first-born-enoch-harvest-logical-necessity/
PART 2: ETHICS, ANANIAS, SAPPHIRA, HEROD, HARVEST, LOVE, & LOGICAL NECESSITY
We Are All Ananias – We Are All Sapphira – We Are All Herod – at https://metachristianity.com/ethics-ananias-sapphira-herod-harvest-love-logical-necessity
Note: “The Cursings” via The Psalms adds other context and is at https://metachristianity.com/the-cursings-via-the-psalms/ Before getting to the main topic here, briefly we can comment on a question which often comes up which is Did God Take Them In Pain? The reply to that is looked at more closely in the other “Part” of this content, namely, “Part 1” which is We Are All Pharaoh – We Are All Enoch – We Are All Egypt’s First Born as per https://metachristianity.com/ethics-pharaoh-egypts-first-born-enoch-harvest-logical-necessity/ Also with respect to that same question of “Was There Pain?” see “Wasn’t There Pain & Suffering In Egypt’s First Born?” as per https://metachristianity.com/wasnt-there-pain-suffering-in-egypts-first-born/ …
To start then in getting into our main topic:
We can begin with some key content which is at https://www.reasonablefaith.org/writings/question-answer/does-the-atonement-imply-universalism/ and which is helpful in part vis-à-vis locations on the moral map of direct relevance to A & S & H as per:
1 – No one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and those to whom the Son chooses to reveal him. That leads us to….
2 – We are told in Scripture that His Grace has been revealed to the world, to all men. That leads us to….
3 – “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.” That leads us to….
4 – “…….every kind of sin and slander will be forgiven of men, but blasphemy against the Spirit cannot be forgiven.…..”
When Christ states that blasphemy “cannot” be forgiven” there are two quotes from Dr. Craig which help:
First:
“In the historical context, Jesus’ remark was triggered by unbelievers’ attributing God’s work in Jesus to Satan. More generally, the sin consists in resolutely resisting the Holy Spirit by refusing to recognize God’s work in Christ. When an unbeliever commits this sin, it is called “blasphemy against the Holy Spirit”; when a Christian commits this sin, it is called “apostasy”.
Second:
“The sin of rejecting God and His grace is a sort of Meta-Level or Higher-Order sin that cuts one off from the provision for sin that God has provided.”
There is a critical segue here to the syntax of “cannot forgive” and that is the nature of this singular Meta-Level sin (….as compared to all other sins which are (all) Lower-Order sins….) which separate us from Him. The lucidity of Christ’s word “cannot” (blasphemy cannot be forgiven) for the only (single) Meta-Level sin in existence (…those informed and volitional affairs which Man knowingly, in the light of Day, makes between Self/Other or specifically between Man/God….) arrives within the intellectual grounds of a logical impossibility in that God cannot make a round square – God’s love for us does not violate, ultimately, our will as a matter of Decree and thus He “cannot untie that knot” because – simply – love cannot make automatons because – simply – love and automaton are mutually exclusive terms (….don’t conflate the mutable status of our own being while within “Eden” or “Privation” as such is the content and yield of His Proposal / Her Reply (so to speak) which is not the same content/yield as we find within Wedding wherein Permanence arrives – though not by the Means we may initially suppose…..for more on that see perhaps Divine Command Theory Collapses Into A Metaphysical Absurdity at https://metachristianity.com/divine-command-theory-collapses-into-a-metaphysical-absurdity/ specifically its links near its end regarding the Metrics of Pre-Eden vs. Eden v. Privation vs. Perfection ……). That carries forward then into the following:
Judgment is not about our sins, it is only about our final delight/choice as such lands within our choice amid The Self (…Necessary Insufficiency….) and the Necessary Being vis-à-vis the term God (….Necessary All-Sufficiency….). Judgment is not, and cannot be, on the weight of those “first-order sins” or else God’s Own All-Sufficiency / Cross would be blasphemed by….. God Himself, which forces a reductio ad absurdum. Rather, Judgment is on, is about, the only, single, Meta-Level sin in existence: His All-Sufficiency / Cross is blasphemed by…. Man himself. The terminus is never about our sins, it’s always (and only) about which resumé one delights in, trusts in, loves, prefers, chooses — the resumé of the Self which is necessarily contingent & insufficient — or the resumé of The-Other (God’s Own Self-Outpouring) which is (as God) Necessary v. The Necessary Being and (in His Self-Outpouring) All-Sufficient.
There are no other motions in play amid Man/God and the defense of that is this: Christ.
For any Created Self the issue of one’s own Necessary Insufficiency amid God’s Own Necessary All-Sufficiency will come racing to the forefront sooner or later, at some ontic-seam somewhere. Period. Hard Stop. Which is to say that any assertion that it can be otherwise vis-à-vis The-Necessary / The-Contingent is an absurd statement. Literally. Don’t worry – we’re still inching towards A & S & H.
There comes a point in Time for all men, for all of us, when our mutable and temporal I-Will-s become immutable and timeless I-Can-s inside of Life, and, just the same, there comes a point in Time for all of us, when our mutable and temporal I-Will-Not-s become immutable and timeless I-Cannot-s outside of Life.
This isn’t a big mystery: Time itself is not a fundamental feature of reality’s concrete furniture and though Physics is excited to discover this, such is, well, old news per the Christian Metaphysic vis-à-vis Scripture’s Metanarrative. Therein the stuff of Time is wholly in God’s hand and the mere fact that the particular juncture we speak of here (….our Time runs out in this life…) does not somehow “change” what that God/Time interaction actually is merely by it coming “right now” or merely by coming “ten years from now”. Again this isn’t a big mystery – this is merely what we know of Time vis-à-vis Physics even as this is all simply the age-old & well-known contour of reality which sums to Man before God, Finally, Ultimately (…perhaps even as Time gives way to Timelessness…).
There comes a point in Time when our temporal “I Will Have Thy Resume’ Of Thy Grace” enters the timeless, and, just the same, there comes a point in Time when our temporal “I Will Have My Resume’ Of My Self” enters the timeless. We all run out of Time – but – that one fact in itself is NOT what seals our fate. Rather – our own In-The-Light-Of-Day motion into that one and only Meta-Level Door vis-à-vis The-Self / Necessary-Insufficiency (on the one hand) or else The-Other / All-Sufficiency (on the other hand) is what traverses that interface of All-Sins-Will-Be-Forgiven (on the one hand) or else One Meta-Level Sin CANNOT Be Forgiven (on the other hand).
A & S & H & Timing? The mere fact that we sin in the light of day, knowingly, is, here, of no relevance whatsoever. We cannot equate or conflate “A” for “B” where A and B are as follows:
A. Knowingly Sinning In The Light Of Day
B. Finally Trusting In – Delighting In – The Self’s Necessary Insufficiency As Opposed To The-All-Sufficient-Other.
“A” is not “B” — We cannot equate those such that we make the error of stating the False Identity Claim of “A = B”. These three persons fully – in the light of day – spy God’s Spirit in ways there in Acts which none of us have ever seen and…. well? Well so far that just isn’t a problem vis-à-vis what All-Sufficiency vis-à-vis Grace vis-à-vis the Cruciform Lens can and will untie. Nothing so far sums to the Meta-Level Sin which Scripture (….see Dr. Craig’s content earlier…) describes as part of the architecture within that Interface amid God/Man vis-à-vis the term “Harvest” vis-à-vis the logical necessity of 100% of all things Adamic.
Fully sighted there in that full light of day we find that A & S & H directly, one-on-one, interface with and refuse Him for the sake of…well…. what? A Terminus which is somehow higher than “The Necessary Being”? Well of course not. Rather, in that light of genuine sight they motion into what they love and delight in – and so far EVEN THAT just isn’t a problem vis-à-vis what All-Sufficiency vis-à-vis Grace vis-à-vis the Cruciform Lens can and will untie. Nothing EVEN STILL (so far) sums to the Meta-Level Sin which Scripture (….see Dr. Craig’s content earlier…) describes as part of the architecture within that Interface amid God/Man vis-à-vis the term “Harvest” vis-à-vis the logical necessity of 100% of all things Adamic.
The architecture there of delighting in various contours of our own Humanity such as Safety and Security and (…say…) Sex and Companionship and Food and so on, and so on, only speaks to Inventions-Of-God and, therein, are not “evil-in-and-of-themselves” (so to speak). As Dr. Craig describes it:
“……My philosophy professor Norman Geisler used to put it in this very provocative way: everything about Satan is good. That is to say, Satan has properties like existence, power, intelligence; these are all good things. But the evil that he is characterized by is a privation of right order in his will, and is not a positive thing….” (by W.L. Craig at https://www.reasonablefaith.org/media/reasonable-faith-podcast/questions-on-the-end-of-time-determinism-and-string-theory …..)
So far A & S & H are not found traversing that proverbial Ontic-Seam wherein Mutability gives way to Permanence. So far this isn’t a big mystery – again for a reminder – Time itself is not a fundamental feature of reality’s concrete furniture and though Physics is excited to discover this, such is, well, old news per the Christian Metaphysic vis-à-vis Scripture’s Metanarrative. Therein the stuff of Time is wholly in God’s hand and the mere fact that the particular juncture we speak of here (….our Time runs out in this life…) does not somehow “change” what that God/Time interaction actually is merely by it coming “right now” or merely by coming “ten years from now”. Again this isn’t a big mystery – this is merely what we know of Time vis-à-vis Physics even as this is all simply the age-old & well-known contour of reality which sums to Man before God, Finally, Ultimately (…perhaps even as Time gives way to Timelessness…).
Again: There comes a point in Time when our temporal “I Will Have Thy Resume’ Of Thy Grace” enters the timeless, and, just the same, there comes a point in Time when our temporal “I Will Have My Resume’ Of My Self” enters the timeless.
Scripture describes those vectors as that one, and only, Meta-Level Motion and sums to nothing more nor less than the Self motioning into its own Self – what some describe as the Isolated-I, the Pure-Self and this just is the death of, refusal of, love’s topography vis-à-vis Self/Other. That becomes immediately obvious once we recall that love just “is” those motions amid/among all the stuff of “Self/Other” and here is where our True End – which is the Trinitarian Life vis-à-vis Ceaseless Self-Giving vis-à-vis love – this is where THAT is refused and traded away in exchange for the Isolated-I, for Isolation, for Privation and THAT in the end sums to something akin to “Reality-Minus-Self/Other” – which sums to something akin to “loveless-ness”.
Sighted-Refusal of All-Sufficiency seems to be (as far as we can find in scripture) the only Meta-Level Sin which “cannot” be (and therefore is not) untied by Grace – because Grace cannot make round squares.
As for eventual immutability where Man is concerned: It seems there is a Choice that – once Man so motions – leads to all those affairs of incarnation’s amalgamation and there amid what just “is” God-In-Man, Man-In-God, wherever Man (Contingency) shall turn his eyes, whether above his head, or beneath his feet, or into his own chest, he shall see, he shall find – not his (Man’s) own insufficiency and contingency, but His (Immutable Love’s) Own All-Sufficiency and Necessity.
All Men / 100% of Human Beings ultimately intersect with God in what Scripture seems to land within the syntax of a bi-directional final response. Grace is – to all men – granted, offered, freely and also then – all men – freely and volitionally respond with that Free-Fall into Grace which we call Salvation or – instead – with that volitional pushing-off, refusal of, said Free Fall.
The Legalists like to disguise this fact with something along the lines of, “….well over here it is something different than that Two-Way-Interface….” Unfortunately the Legalist must pit God against God in order to pull it off. God’s love perfectly coheres with that intersection: All-Men eventually come to that “juncture” which H & A & S came to and that one little fact is what the Legalists omit as they build up their whole misguided theology on H & A & S. That “mere fact” (…that all men eventually come to that juncture…) ought not – ever – cause any theological attrition with respect to His unassailable Gospel of Grace. Whenever such attrition is noted we can be sure that we are getting disoriented.
It’s not, after all, like a Man can somehow “….go on and on forever without ever running into God…..” Why? Because that would be nothing more than metaphysical nonsense.
“…the Angel of the Lord…..”
As we look at this particular vector recall again the larger Map of which this is a part as per:
PART 1: ETHICS, PHARAOH, EGYPT’S FIRST BORN, ENOCH, HARVEST, LOVE, & LOGICAL NECESSITY
We Are All Pharaoh – We Are All Enoch – We Are All Egypt’s First Born – at https://metachristianity.com/ethics-pharaoh-egypts-first-born-enoch-harvest-logical-necessity/
PART 2: ETHICS, ANANIAS, SAPPHIRA, HEROD, HARVEST, LOVE, & LOGICAL NECESSITY
We Are All Ananias – We Are All Sapphira – We Are All Herod – at https://metachristianity.com/ethics-ananias-sapphira-herod-harvest-love-logical-necessity
All-Men per Luke 12:20 when it comes to that business of “timing” of when any man finds himself at “that juncture” (before God), are entirely in God’s Hands (….as to “timing”….). Think it through – our lives vis-à-vis our very being are in His Hands and that “mere fact” that our own particular swath of time runs out in this life (eventually) isn’t some spoooooky & daarrrrrk mystery – as in – like – seriously – but all of that is, again, quite simpkle as it sums to a logical necessity vis-à-vis Contingent-Being / Necessary Being in the setting of what both Physics and Scripture tell us regarding the non-fundamental nature of Time – and so all such vectors are merely “Man before God”.
Jesus tells us the Angels of the Lord intersect all men and He tells us this of Angles repeatedly in His parables. That is the “mechanism” whereby Man/God intersect. No man (no soul) just jumps out of his skin and pulls himself up to God (and so on). The Legalist of course omits this fact from his entire misguided theology on H & A & S just so that he (the legalist) can say God kills Christians. Thus far we have the Legalists omitting two key facts about reality – namely the following:
A. …the fact that All Men intersect God in that bi-directional final response – period –
B. …the fact that All Men are “harvested” (for better or worse) by the Angles of the Lord – period –
A Critical Nuance:
As noted briefly a few paragraphs up, there can be no attrition of Grace in our theology and therefore we find in our A – Z the following:
Grace vis-à-vis All-Sufficiency’s Own Self-Outpouring. Therein all men inherit either the informed choice of “Thy-Grace” or the informed choice of “My-Resume’”. The mere fact that Time is Contingent and, therefore, ultimately runs out vis-à-vis Privation for all of us is not what actually makes that proverbial choice and that is why that mere fact is not what made the choices for H & A & S. Not even close. Our own life-choice in and of that solitary, singular, and informed, Meta-Level choice between / amid Self / God is where Grace / All-Sufficiency is freely (and informed) refused or freely (and informed) entered into.
We say informed because the word “world” actually means “world” and thus we cannot fail a test for which we’ve never been prepared. In First John 2 world means world and we discover (yet again) that the stuff of time and the stuff of circumstance (literally) cannot be ontological impasses to the reach of Grace’s Hand (….though that is a separate discussion…). The Legalists will here invoke spooky twists to make clean words mean what they don’t. Scripture has it that it is His Will that all men come to Him and that He reveals to the world in and by His Own peculiar modes (….world means world….) His Own peculiar News. Scripture also tells us that all men are free within volition’s landscape to chase after Grace’s resume’ or their own resume’ – and that cannot be otherwise as it is logically impossible for automatons to be found inside of Love’s House given the necessary landscape of Proposal (…which is different in both content and yield than Wedding…. wait for it…).
The Remainder Consists Of A Few Excerpts From A Brief Discussion:
The following is a reply in a few exchanges on this topic which had a few overlapping segues from other topics as well. The primary complaint from our Non-Theist friend (to which the following replies were addressed) was that there ought to be Possible Worlds in which the Contingent Being (…in our case such would be all things Adamic and so on….) can avoid that syntax of Means & Ends & Harvest & Interface with The Necessary Being such that the Contingency called Time and the Contingency of Body and Self and Privation (Etc.) were more akin to, say, the landscape of “Deism” wherein God just winds-up-the-remote-control-car and sets it loose, turns His back, and walks away, never to be seen again — and of course we can add ten thousand combinations / permutations of that complaint. Several replies to that complaint are copy/pasted here with only minor edits and so the “you” & “I” and “we” and so on are for the most part still present. It will begin and end with “Begin Excerpts” / “End Excerpts” — and begins here:
Begin Excerpts:
As contingent beings we all come to our end and meet God (…the Necessary Being…) at what is a logically unavoidable interface. Given the term “GOD” / “Being Itself” your analysis seems to presuppose that it is logically possible that less than 100% of the contingent beings called “Humans” are harvested by God – as if that A. logically necessary and B. Necessarily Immaterial interface actualizing “before” the material body ceases to live instead of “after” the physical body ceases to live somehow changes the logical necessity of that interface.
But that’s impossible. Let’s just GRANT that A & H & S WERE directly and immediately harvested and let’s just GRANT that A & S & H WERE NOT directly and immediately harvested – so then? What does either one of those do with respect to the logical necessity of that Interface vis-à-vis the Contingency we call Time and the Contingent Self that is 100% me and you and any other Human Being? WHAT do you do with that 100%?
Also, there is this question:
Did God Take Them In Pain? The reply to that is looked at more closely in the other “Part” of this content, namely, “Part 1” which is We Are All Pharaoh – We Are All Enoch – We Are All Egypt’s First Born as per https://metachristianity.com/ethics-pharaoh-egypts-first-born-enoch-harvest-logical-necessity/ Also with respect to that same question of “Was There Pain?” see both a. “Wasn’t There Pain & Suffering In Egypt’s First Born?” as per https://metachristianity.com/wasnt-there-pain-suffering-in-egypts-first-born/ … and also b. “The Cursings” via The Psalms at https://metachristianity.com/the-cursings-via-the-psalms/
Further, I don’t see that your long list of conflations compel us to equate [A] the many sins of Christians across the centuries to [B] Scripture’s discussions of that same logically necessary and immaterial interface – nor to Scripture’s discussions of Man’s logically necessary and immaterial interfaces with “GOD” / “The Good”.
Thinking It Through: You say, “But They Thought God Killed A & S!” First of all – there’s not compelling evidence for that. Secondly – you seem to argue as if “…the fact of Peter believing that there are different people of Clean/Unclean status there in Acts….” means that such is the case according to Scripture’s terminus. But the God of the OT Who is the God of the NT confronted Peter on that, and so on.
Did you catch that? Perhaps “IF” Acts ended “THERE” with Peter’s notions you’d then have the (false) appearance of a point worth making. But you’ve only a kind of Half-Narrative.
Did you catch that? That is why we have to employ the Whole Metanarrative of Scripture as the Corrective Lens – and the same goes for Christians and their various misguided fears in the book of Acts. And let us be clear that if you mean to interact with the Christian Metaphysic then the proverbial Corrective Lens sums to vectors vis-à-vis the Cruciform Lens.
“If” they believed God killed A & S well then okay – maybe, maybe not – but it’s irrelevant without THE REST of the Corrective Lens vis-à-vis the Cruciform Lens. Just like witch hunts. Just like with Peter’s initial beliefs with respect to Clean/Unclean (…racism…). We’ve THE REST of that Corrective Lens vis-à-vis the Cruciform Lens to employ and we’ve the demands of both love and logic forced upon us by that very same Corrective Lens.
So we again arrive again at the problem of the 100% which you’ve expunged from your definitions. Of the 100% of contingent beings (…Man…) necessarily subsumed by, harvested by, God / God’s Angels / etc. in that Logically Necessary Traversal of Time’s Contingency you say that some vector in Scripture’s Metanarrative in all of that is logically impossible. Well WHICH case or cases vis-à-vis Humanity’s 100% is it exactly that your supposed logical impossibilities apply to in that Metanarrative? As in:
A — As contingent beings do we all find ourselves subsumed by, harvested by, the Necessary Being in what is a logically unavoidable interface?
B — Given the term “GOD” / “Being Itself” why does your analysis presuppose that it is logically possible that less than 100% of the contingent beings called “Humans” are subsumed by, harvested by, “Being Itself” / “GOD”?
C — Does Scripture foist Time and Physicality as the end of all definitions? Or instead is it the Cruciform love housed in the ceaseless and Self-Giving diffusiveness of the Ontic-Self in totum? Is it Christ where the key to all definitions is found?
While I don’t agree with “everything” of G. Boyd, his Cruciform hermeneutic properly directs our reason towards reality’s irreducible substratum there in love’s timeless reciprocity amid those uncanny Trinitarian processions housed in “Being Itself” / “GOD”.
“There’s simply no reason to think the cruciform hermeneutic (reading Scripture through the lens of the cross) applies only to the Old Testament. If we truly believe the cross is the quintessential revelation of what God is *really* like, as I do, then the cross must serve as our interpretive lens *whenever* and *wherever* we see, or believe we see, God in action. Knowing that God’s true character looks like Jesus voluntarily dying on the cross for his enemies, we will always know that something else is going on if God appears to act in ways that are contrary to this enemy-loving, non-violent character.” (…by G. Boyd…)
D — Why does your premise seem to presuppose that “IF” that logically necessary and immaterial interface actualizes “before” the material body ceases to live instead of actualizing “after” the physical body ceases to live, that somehow that changes both the logical necessity of that interface and the Cruciform Lens through which all definitions emerge?
E — Of the 100% of contingent beings who traverse Time and Circumstance, which % is it exactly for whom said Time and said Circumstance is just all to much for the reach of something that is necessarily All Sufficient?
F — Of the 100% of contingent beings necessarily subsumed by, harvested by, God / God’s Angels / etc., which case(s) is it exactly that your logical impossibilities apply to?
G. You will need to justify why you re-invent Scripture’s Metanarrative in order to add A. vectors of Pain/Suffering to B. the whole-show of 100% of such Traversals/Harvests despite the following facts:
On Scripture’s definitions [A] wherever we find someone in the Old Testament (…Enoch, Egypt’s First Born, Etc….) or in the New Testament (…Rapture, Christ, Harvest, Etc…) any such individuals are obviously beneath/within the Decree of Non-Culpable or else Innocent or else a New Creation’s Redeemed and, also, [B] all such Traversals/Harvests necessarily entail (to make the obvious point) “Non-Metaphysical-Naturalism” when it comes to explanatory termini with respect to Means & Ends and thereby it’s obviously the case that all such cases are UN-Natural Traversals of Time’s Necessary Terminus such that any such Pain & Suffering is for obvious reasons NOT “in-play”.
End Excerpts.
For context the following is added and is from Divine Command Theory Collapses Into A Metaphysical Absurdity which is at https://metachristianity.com/divine-command-theory-collapses-into-a-metaphysical-absurdity/
Abraham & Isaac & Shortsighted Attempts To Justify Divine Command Theory:
a. Abraham, Faith, Divine Command Theory, & Basic Reading Comprehension at http://disq.us/p/1yh7bgt
b. Abraham, Isaac, and God’s Foreknowledge at http://disq.us/p/1yhjehw
c. Abraham, Isaac, Kierkegaard’s Paradox, Cyrus, & Isaiah 45:7 at http://disq.us/p/1yhjyrv
d. God Emotionally Tortured Abraham?? at http://disq.us/p/1yhkd08
God as Being Itself in fact is The-Good and thereby the Vectors/Agenda which stream from said Fountainhead define The Good. Oddly, our Non-Theist friends will often ask,
“Would you kill someone if your God told you to? I wouldn’t!”
Given the Christian Metaphysic the reply is (…from the Christian….) No-If-Christ and (…from the Non-Theist, from Psychology 101, from Anthropology 101….) Yes-If-That-Non-Theist (…true for any of us of course…) had been raised in Abraham’s conceptual milieu which was quite comfortable with Child Sacrifice – for then given the eternally open-ended Normative Ethics (which is all Non-Theism has) it’s obvious that the Non-Theist (…in fact anyone…) if raised beneath that ceiling WOULD obey ANY “God” should that “God” have enough weight to draw his attention/devotion.
The REAL question is A. what is the Agenda of the Christian God and 2. why is it logically impossible that Abraham kills Isaac and 3. how is it possible that the Non-Theist misses the obvious answers. For God to first Meet and then Stop Abraham in the middle of his own conceptual comfort with Child Sacrifice isn’t a difficult sub-narrative and yet our Non-Theist friends cannot grasp the obvious logical necessity that in all possibilities the child Isaac remains untouched. As discussed in the four links a, b, c, and d.
The Means To Proper Definitions:
With respect to the fundamental nature of reality the Christian metaphysic affirms that the “A” and the “Z” of reality carries the rational mind into an Ethic of irreducible and self-giving love through the Cruciform Lens – the corrective lens under review here (…the lens which to many have not addressed in any meaningful way…). In short, reality’s irreducible substratum sums to Timeless Reciprocity in and by those uncanny Trinitarian processions vis-à-vis Being Itself vis-à-vis GOD. As to the How/Why of that triune topography, see A Thoroughly Trinitarian Metaphysic — at https://metachristianity.com/thoroughly-trinitarian-metaphysic/
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