An Argument against Christian Conspiracy Theories

Preamble

I intend to argue that Christian Conspiracy Theories fail to run the gauntlet of scripture.  Specifically, I will use Ephesians 6:10-20 (especially 6:12) to severely cast doubt on the belief that there is a human cabal that manipulates world events to advance a (satanic) agenda.


Two Alternatives

There are two basic alternatives, the first I endorse and the second I will argue against:

1. Satan and his spiritual minions (demons etc.) conspire directly to influence world events by using the disobedience (greed, pride etc.) of individuals.  The intelligence for this manipulation remains with Satan.  Human actors need not be privy to Satan's strategies and schemes.
2. Satan and his minions use a secret human Cabal to influence world events.

The Cabal

Most conspiracy theories (not just Christian ones) posit a human Cabal that manipulates events.  The relationship between Satan and this Cabal takes two basic forms, with the second form also coming in two forms:

1. The Cabal is conscious of Satanic influence, that is, the Cabal are Satan worshipers who get their strategies directly from Satan.
2. The Cabal is merely influenced by Satan without necessarily being conscious of his schemes.

• 2a) Satan assembled the Cabal (without their conscious knowledge).
• 2b) Satan just uses an existing Cabal to accomplish his plans.

Problems with the Cabal from Satan's perspective

Relying on the Cabal is dangerous for Satan.  Investing his strategy with humans runs risks:

• Humans may repent and turn to God and bring down the Cabal (destruction from within)
• The Cabal may experience a leak and be discovered (destruction from without)
• It very hard to set up a Cabal.  Actual Satan worshipers in the case of (1) are very rare, so not only does Satan need powerful humans but he needs them to be Satanists.  In the case of (2a), it might be rather difficult to orchestrate the formation of a Cabal with the requisite power to manipulate world events.  In the case of (2b), there are no guarantees that Satan will find a suitable ready-made Cabal to do his dirty work.

The alternative I endorse does not face any of these difficulties because Satan does not need a Cabal, he just influences individuals directly through the run-of-the-mill sins of greed, pride etc.  The retort to this from the conspiracy side is that Satan is not intelligent enough to influence world events merely through individual disobedience.  That proposition is difficult to prove, furthermore, the testimony of scripture is clear that Satan is constantly at work in, or at least a threat to, the lives of individuals:

• Peter (Mk 8:31-33)
• Judas (Lk 22:3, Jn 13:27)
• Ananias and Sapphira (Acts 5:3)
• See also Eph. 2:2, 4:27, 6:11-12; 2 Tim. 2:25; 1 Cor. 7:5; 2 Cor. 2:11, 11:15

Problems with the Cabal from the the Christian conspiracy theorist's perspective

• Many Christian conspiracies posit a Cabal to explain how something like the one world government or new world order is to come about.  But scripture attests that Satan already has world power:
• God of this age 2 Cor. 4:4
• Prince of the Power of the Air Eph. 2:2
• Prince of this world Jn. 12:31, 14:30, 16:11
• Implied in Mt. 4:8,9
• There are too many candidates for the Cabal: Masons, Zionist Jews, Illuminati, Bilderbergers, CFRers, Skull and Bones, Templar Knights, Opus Dei, Priory of Sion, Rosicrucians, Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, Ordo Templis Orientis etc.  If a Cabal is discovered how do we know it is the top dog and not a low-rung group.  Perhaps our discovered Cabal is only a plant that is meant to throw one off the scent.  This proves that the existence of the Cabal is really worthless from a Christian perspective because we would never know if we had the real thing.
• It's hard to prove the existence of the Cabal for by definition it is super secret.  If there is evidence for the existence of a Cabal then theorists must be fair and admit evidence when it goes against the existence of a Cabal.  Conspiracy theorists are notorious for not adhering to this principle.  On this score, my alternative is much simpler.  Most of the phenomena that the Cabal is meant to explain is more simply explained just using greed and pride etc.  Why are Hollywood movies they way they are?  Because being the way they are makes someone money.
• The Christian belief in the Cabal just mimics non-Christian conspiracy thinking which is dangerous considering the anti-Semitism of many non-Christian conspiracies.  Of course, this doesn't prove that there are not Cabals but it does remind Christians that Conspiracy Theories do not have a Christian origin.  Non-Christian conspiracies have to postulate the Cabal since they don't have recourse to Satan, though even here some alien/reptilian theories come very close if not identical to the demonic. 
• Conspiracies, especially of the (2b) type, tend to slide into the belief that Satan just uses individuals because it is a small step from merely influencing a ready-made Cabal to influencing mere individuals.  Taking the intelligence out of the Cabal is a huge step away from your standard Conspiracy.
• Conspiracies are distracting.  They concentrate on the kingdom of Satan at the expense of the Kingdom of God.  
• Many Conspiracies rely on a faulty interpretation of Revelation but that is another blog!  

Ephesians 6:12

One of the biggest strikes against the Cabal is the teaching that our struggle is not against flesh and blood but against Satan and his minions.  So even if there is a Cabal, who cares?  From a Christian perspective that is not the heart of our struggle.  This also goes to show that conspiracy theorists tend to be rather judgmental and unloving and suspicious of behavior that may otherwise be righteous.  

What Conspiracy Theorists get right

The one thing Christian conspiracy theorists get right is being suspicious of power that other Christians may not recognize as satanic.  

Theological Upshot

Conspiracy Theories add next to nothing to the Kingdom of God.  They are worthless.

Open Theism and Peter's Denials

Preamble

In my last blog I used the idea of "prophetic strength" to argue that Open Theism provides the best explanation of Biblical prophecy.  I argued that most prophecy has rather low strength.  However, there are prophecies that seem to have rather high strength.  I will discuss one of these, the denials of Peter, and argue that its strength is perhaps not as high as may first appear.

The Predictions:

All four Gospels have Jesus predicting that Peter will deny him in the future.  Matthew and Mark have this prediction said on the way to Gethsemane and Luke and John have is said at the Last Supper.

• Matthew 26:34: Truly I say to you that during this night before a cock crows, three times you will deny me.
• Mark 14:30: Truly I say to you today this night before a rooster crows twice you will deny me three times.
• Luke 22:34: I tell you, Peter, will not crow today a rooster until three times you deny to know me.
• John 13:38: Truly, truly, I say to you never will a cock crow until you deny me three times.

The reason that these predictions are used against Open Theism is that they seem very specific and supposedly involve Peter's free will choices.

Preliminary Consideration:


Mark's prediction is different from the others in that he has Peter's three denials occurring before the rooster crows twice.  There is another difficulty that has to do with the actual three denials.  Here are the questioners in each of the Gospels [and where they said their question or accusation]:

• Matthew: 1)  One [used in tandem with "another" in the second denial] servant woman [court]; 2) Another woman [entrance way]; 3) Those present [entrance way]
• Mark: 1) One of the servant women of High Priest [courtyard]; 2) Same servant woman [presumably in the courtyard still even though Peter moved to the forecourt]; 3) bystanders [forecourt]
• Luke: 1) A certain servant woman [courtyard]; 2) Another man [courtyard]; 3) A certain man (another) [still in courtyard]
• John: 1) gatekeeper servant woman [courtyard]; 2) servants and guards [courtyard still]; 3) One (masculine) of the servants of the High Priest, a relative of the man whose ear Peter cut off [courtyard still]

The difficulty is harmonizing all these denials.  It is clear that the gospels cannot be referring to the same individuals in the second and third denials.

Other considerations:

• John has an episode at the end of his Gospel (chapter 21) where Jesus questions Peter three time which seems to echo Peter's three denials.  This seems to shows that Jesus thought of Peter's denials in terms of three.
• Jesus could have said something like "Before a cock crows twice, thrice you will deny me." [Mark's version]  This 2/3 pattern is similar to the 3/4 pattern in Proverbs 30:15,18,21,29 and Amos, and to the 2/3 pattern in Job 33:29.  In other words, there is Biblical warrant for saying that Jesus was using an idiom and so the numbers "two" and "three" may only be incidental to the actual prediction. 

My Solution:

My proposal is that Jesus was only trying to teach Peter that his bravado was unwarranted and that Peter was not ready for the reality of the disappointment that the Kingdom of God was about suffering and not political onslaught.  However, Jesus' prediction was most likely not meant to be foretelling but was a strategic challenge to help Peter when the moment of the disappointment arrived.  The importance of the prediction is not to show off Jesus' predictive powers but for the nurturing of Peter.  The open theist Greg Boyd has made the point that Jesus in the Gospel of John (chapter 21) alludes to Peter's denials in order to teach him the real values of the Kingdom and that he predicted that Peter would follow him on the road of suffering and death.  This episode helps tie together Jesus' motive for saying what he did to Peter and what actually happened.

There is no reason why Jesus cannot use language in such a way as to challenge and there is no reason why Jesus cannot use language that is hyperbolic or figurative or whatever.  It is my conjecture that Jesus' prediction used an idiom and the purpose of the idiom was to communicate Jesus' assurance that Peter would deny him.  Jesus was only saying that he was sure Peter would deny him.  Jesus was sure that Peter's bravado was misplaced (because Peter believed in a political messiah?) and he was sure that there would be opportunity for Peter to deny him.  At the same time, Jesus was sure Peter would try try to follow (albeit at a distance) because he knew Peter had deep feelings for Jesus.  So, Jesus uttered his statement to Peter to warn him that his confidence was misplaced.

Sure, Peter could have not denied Jesus and he could have then come to Jesus and complained that Jesus was wrong.  But couldn't Jesus have then replied by saying that the only reason he worded things they way he did was for Peter's benefit and that it was meant to make Peter think about the foundations of his commitment.  Jesus could have said: "Look Peter, I wasn't putting my divinity on the line and predicting that you would 100% for sure deny me, but that is not what I was attempting to do, I only wanted you to learn about yourself.  Can't I use language that is strategic and not literally true?  After all, you have heard me say a lot of parables you knew I used language in ways everyone else does."


Open Theism

If I am correct about the meaning of Jesus' prediction, then this gives considerable more leeway in how this prediction is assessed in relation to Open Theism.  All that "needed" to happen for Jesus' prediction to be literally true, if that is the way we want to go, is to say that Peter denied Jesus before dawn, but it would not have necessarily taken supernatural knowledge to come to this conclusion.  Jesus knew a lot about Peter and he knew a lot about the situation.

I will grant that the Gospel writers were impressed by the fact that Peter literally fulfilled Jesus' figurative "prediction" since they all recounted three denials.  I think they did this because they did want Jesus' figurative prediction to be literally true in order to highlight Jesus' superior knowledge.  However, since we cannot harmonize all the Gospel denials, it is safe to say that Peter denied Jesus on multiple occasions (compare the so-called "six denial solution").  This is bolstered by the fact that the Gospels at times claim that the questioners/accusers were plural, in which case, it would be hard for an eye-witnesses to count the actual denials (see Matthew's and Mark's third and John's second). But if this is true, then those who hold the view that the future of the universe is completely settled cannot point to the precision of Peter's denials as evidence against Open theism.  There were more than three and Jesus was not very specific how these denials occurred.  In other word, Jesus prediction had rather low strength.

The Open theist can always claim that God could have just forced Peter to deny Jesus three times, and forced the rooster to crow after the third (this may have been true even on my story) and forced the questioners/accusers to question or accuse.  But why?  Nothing hung on Jesus' prediction being literally true.  It is not where Jesus put his emphasis.  Jesus put his emphasis on Peter's attitude.

Finally, Jesus, in John's last chapter (21) alludes to Peter's three denials.  The only thing this need show is that someone (Peter, the other disciple who was present [only mentioned in John, by the way!], or someone else, could have noticed that Peter denied Jesus on multiple time and amazingly literally fulfilled Jesus figurative saying).  Jesus picked up on that and asked Peter three times in keeping with the three in his figurative prediction.  Nothing here requires that the future be completely settled.

Theological Upshot:

I conclude that Peter's denials do not cast doubt on Open Theism.  The accounts themselves just do not lend themselves to the type of future prediction that the settled view predicts. Open Theism is still the best explanation of the strength of Biblical prophecy, including Peter's denials.    

Open Theism and Biblical Prophecy

Preamble

Bible prophecy is often used to refute Open theism, but I want to argue that Bible prophecy actually supports Open theism versus the settled view.  My basic argument is that Open theism provides the best explanation of the strength of Bible prophecy.  If my argument is sound, then there are some important ramifications which I will discuss below.

Form of the Argument

Premise 1:  The strength of Bible prophecy is value X.
Premise 2:  Open theism provides a better explanation of value X than the Future-is-settled view.
Therefore Open theism is preferable to the settled view.

Premise 1

To understand premise 1, I want to explain what I mean by the strength of prophecy.  I contend that the strength of Bible prophecy as a whole depends on the strength of individual prophecies and the quantity of such prophecies.  Let us say for the sake of argument that Jesus was born in a manger on the evening of March 31, 4 B.C. in Bethlehem to parents of Davidic lineage.  If this was so, then the following predictions, let's say made in 500 B.C., would be on a scale of weaker strength prophecies to stronger strength prophecies:

1. A King will be born
2. A King will be born in Israel
3. A King will be born in Bethlehem
4. A King will be born in Bethlehem in 37-4 B.C.
5. A King will be born in Bethlehem in 4 B.C.
6. A King will be born in Bethlehem in 4 B.C. on March 31st
7. A King will be born in Bethlehem in 4 B.C. on the evening of March 31st
8. A King named Jesus will be born in Bethlehem in 4 B.C. on the evening of March 31st
9. A King named Jesus will be born in a manger in Bethlehem in 4 B.C. on the evening of March 31st
10. A King named Jesus will be born in a manger in Bethlehem in 4 B.C. on the evening of March 31st to parents named Joseph and Mary.

Prediction 10 is stronger than prediction 1 because you have to know much more about the future to be right about 10 than you do about 1. Specificity is not the only measure of the strength of prophecy, however. The amount of such prophecies also figures in the calculus.  It could be the case that one prediction of value 4 is stronger that two predictions of value 3, but that would depend on the scale.  But the obvious point remains that the more correct predictions the Bible makes the stronger Bible prophecy will be.  But keep in mind that prophecies of low strength are still true.

I contend that the individual Old Testament prophecies concerning Jesus' first advent fall in the 2-3 range in the (imperfect) scale of my example, but they do not reach to strength 4.  This leads me to rate the overall strength of Bible prophecy, taking into account quantity as well as quality,  in the 2-3 or 3-ish range.  This is fairly low.    



Premise 2

Open theism provides a better model for why Bible prophecy would have strength 2 or 3 and not 9 or 10.  If the future is open then there is a lot of historical wiggle room that God gives freedom.  Given this freedom, and given God's unthwartable sovereign plans, then we wouldn't expect Bible prophecy to be much higher than 2 or 3.  Open theism is often compared to a chess game in which a grandmaster will always beat a novice even though the grandmaster does not know in advance what moves the novice will make.  The grandmaster's plan of victory is assured.  God's plans are assured even though the individual moves might not be known in advance.  The grandmaster will win, even though we don't know that it is by capturing the rook and forcing checkmate on move 14, say.  In other words, the reason the strength of Bible prophecy is low is that Open theism is true.

A person who believes that the future is completely settled might have a response to all this, even if they were to admit that the strength of Bible prophecy is in the 2-3 range.  They might want to say that God purposely keeps the strength of the prophecies low.  But why?  It can't be to glorify himself because God would get more glory if the predictions had a higher strength.  It's harder to predict 10 than 1 in the example I gave, so the reason why God keeps prophetic strength low is not related to his glory.  Some might claim that keeping prophetic strength low safeguards faith.  But this gambit seems to plays into the hands of Open theists because it highlights God's desire to safeguard human free will.  If God went about amazing people with predictions of the 10 variety then it wouldn't take any faith to believe in him. So, the non-open theist lands in a dilemma.  Therefore, Open theism provides a better explanation as to why prophetic strength is low.

Ramifications

Since I claim Old Testament prophecy of Jesus' first advent has a rather low strength, and that Jesus is important and ought to garner as high a strength as any other Biblical topic, then we ought not expect prophecies yet to be fulfilled to have any higher strength.  If this is so, then much of the pin-the-tail on the anti-Christ speculation is rendered fruitless.  Bible prophecy just doesn't work that way.  The same would apply to prophecies at all times, including those in Daniel, for example.  If so, does this have bearings on how we date that book?

Theological Upshot

I have tried to show that Bible prophecy actually is a boon and not a bane to Open Theism.  I grant the subjective nature of my arguments but I think the basic logic holds.