coffee_enjoyer
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coffee_enjoyer
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5hr ago
“All Israel” in that passage does not mean something like “literally every proclaimed Israelite”. In Romans 9 you find:
For not all who are descended from Israel belong to Israel […] it is not the children of the flesh who are the children of God, but the children of the promise are counted as offspring.
Isaiah cries out concerning Israel: “Though the number of the sons of Israel be as the sand of the sea, only a remnant of them will be saved”
These are instrumental to understanding what Paul says in Romans 11, preceding it in the same epistle (an epistle without original delineations nonetheless). Israel != flesh, and Israel = a saved remnant. If not all who are descended from Israel are Israel, then when we read in 11 that “all Israel will be saved”, we must take this to mean the aforementioned real Israel rather than descended Israel by flesh (otherwise there would be no point in making the distinction beforehand).
This is why there’s a theme of a remnant Israel and a “broken off” Israel. Consider how pointless Paul’s effort would be to “save some” of his brothers by preaching if, at the end of the day, literally all of them are saved regardless of his preaching.
This may come off as mere miscellany to any non-Abrahamist readers but the consequences are serious for keeping the gospel stable. If every Jew is saved at the end of days, then there is no reason to convert to Christianity as a Jew or to preach to Jews (which the original apostles did). And Jesus’ threats of hell make no sense. It destroys the integrity of the Gospel in the same way that someone saying “you don’t have to follow the mitzvahs to be rewarded and saved” would destroy the integrity of Judaism.
coffee_enjoyer
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7hr ago
Romans 11 says that the “natural branches” have been broken off due to their unbelief, and that there is a small “reserved” remnant who believe by faith. That reserved remnant are the Jews who believed / will believe in Christ. I don’t believe any early Christian theologians interpreted this differently
coffee_enjoyer
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7hr ago
You are highlighting one passing sentence of his out of a ~100-sentence post about something else. The highlighted sentence is a bash against Christians too. In any case his bash is incorrect; traditional/historic Christianity believes God simply chose to begin his revelation via a covenant with the nation (not an ethnicity yet) of Ancient Israel, and that this covenant is cut off with the induction of the Christian Faithful (with the exception of a remaining few who were yet to convert). So, traditionally speaking, Christianity does not hold that Jews are privileged by God in any way.
coffee_enjoyer
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14hr ago
The moral instinct itself functions as a way to secure the genes of the moral person’s group. That is the evolutionary purpose of morality. If moral people are coerced into doing good to everyone equally, then (1) this would decrease morality on the whole [moral genes] because behavioral energy expenditure is zero-sum and so amoral or immoral genes will flourish [see sociopathy], and (2) it would be unjust because they are owed the benefit of their own nature (moral in-group formation). As an example, members of Group A have strong moral interests in the form of guilt and pity and care for others, whereas Group B evolved such that this cognitive expenditure is spent on self-interest or family-interest. If Group A and Group B have to live together, and if Group A is pressured into giving moral help to Group B, then B is parasitic off of A, and in the future there will be less of Group A. In order for Group A to secure its genes, given that it spends cognitive energy on moral interest, it must direct its moral interest only to the in-group. Otherwise those genes will fade into oblivion. Anyone telling Group A to share its moral concerns (and this includes some mainstream interpretations of Christianity) are fundamentally against moral development, what may simply be called evil or satanic. If moral genes are enhanced from in-group interest, then moral in-group interest is better for the whole world. We can call this the trickle down theory of morality if we want to be cheeky, except in this case it’s real.
[in-group based rules-based utilitarianism fails because] each person is, after all, a member of multiple overlapping communities of various sizes and levels of cohesion, whose interests are frequently in conflict with each other
This is your brain on 20th century propaganda . jpg. More seriously, nobody in the past had any problem understanding what their in-group was. It was ethnicity and religion. This is the most natural way to develop an in-group such that it secures genes. The only exception you find in the favoring of ethnicity is when people join cults, like early Christianity, but consider that this cult was unusual in its promotion and selection for morality, and in any case these were region-specific churches which didn’t do a lot of charitable intermingling with each other.
Utilitarianism as a practical framework comes with huge benefits for an in-group, just not when seen as a top-level explanation of morality. I was writing about the Amish yesterday so let me use them as an example again. One of the rules they developed is that when you make a lot of money you give it back to the community. What is an ineffectual platitude in mainstream America is a gene-enhancing practice among the Amish. The recipients of the charity are all similar to the giver, both ethnically and religiously. For this reason, the Amish have the highest rate of charity and the lowest income disparity among all ethnic groups. Here, you see that a utilitarian rule works wonders. But note that this moral action would be wasted if not for the fact that the Amish select for moral genes via their cultural practices. Once you stop selecting for moral genes, then a moral person giving away money even to his own community is reducing sum-total morality over generations.
Another way that utilitarianism can help us practically is by creating rules which govern interaction between groups without privileging any one group. For instance, “in the case of a disaster, every nation should spend 2% of their resources on the affected nation”. This is a great rule and motivated purely by self-interest, because (1) we can all imagine being the struck nation, (2) it does not harm any moral nation by making them spend more. This is essentially insurance. People don’t take out insurance because they are moral but because they are self-interested. So maybe this shouldn’t even be counted as utilitarian, but we can imagine moral scenarios where this occurs.
There’s an interesting question of, “should we send malaria nets to Africa if we knew for certain they would not send aid to a different poor nation if they could” (in other words, if they were in our shoes). I would say absolutely not. If this intuition is shared, then it hints to a reciprocity rule undergirding morality between groups. Note that we can still send malaria nets, we would just require something of interest for ourselves: a territorial claim, resources, investment, etc.
We can read until that sentence starting with 11:20
Who are the natural branches that are not spared, which causes gentiles to be afraid lest they share the same fate? If all are spared, then there are no natural branches who are not spared. The phraseology explains that the verdict on Israel is more severe, hence “fear, for if God did not spare natural branches he will not spare you”, but your reading has it that Israel’s verdict is less severe. If gentiles fear a loss of salvation, and Israel’s verdict is more severe, but all of Israel is saved… this is a very silly interpretation which is all over the place.
Just continuing the reading, gentiles must fear God’s severity toward those who have fallen.
This supports my view given the conditional if. We are now back to talking about the grafted in Israel, the Israel by faith, which was defined two chapters ago. If Paul believes that they will all be saved, why is it if and not when? Why is it “God has the power” rather than “God will”?
Finally we have
The key to understanding the above is clearly the sentence that makes zero sense in your theology: “It is not as though the word of God has failed. For not all who are descended from Israel belong to Israel”. This makes no sense in your theology because it necessarily implies that not all of born-Israel are saved. There are (A) those descended from Israel, who (B) are not Israel, (C) which is important to know for the purposes of salvation, and we know (D) all of Israel will be saved. Your theology requires something that conflicts with (B) because you allege that all descended from Israel are Israel, whereas Paul specifically denies this. (C) is also a stumbling block to your theology because Paul specifically mentions (A+B) in the context of salvation and in the context of understanding the prophecy of saved Jews. An additional point (E) is that Paul writes “Though the number of the sons of Israel be as the sand of the sea, only a remnant of them will be saved”, which against conflicts with an all-inclusive salvation. If all are predestined to be saved then never can there be only a remnant saved.
That’s just saying that the natural branches would have an easier time fitting into Christianity than a Pagan Greek, given the monotheism and the shared scriptures which they are familiar with
So which ones aren’t?
Then why does he specifically mention a remnant?
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