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Our Farmer Abraham: the Binding of Isaac and Willing What God Wills

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Our Farmer Abraham: the Binding of Isaac and Willing What God Wills Our Farmer Abraham: The Binding of Isaac and Willing What God Wills David Worsley University of York Abstract: In The Philosophy of Hebrew Scripture, Yoram Hazony uses the archetypes of Cain, a farmer, and Abel, a shepherd, to characterise two distinct types of religious believers; those who piously submit to what others say the natural law is, and those who try to work out for themselves what the natural law involves. In this paper, I present a problem unique to Shepherds, namely, what should a Shepherd do if God were to ask them to violate what they understand to be a principle of natural law? I suggest that the Akedah provides an insight into just such a problem, and I conclude by offering one reason to think that Shepherds are preferable to Farmers. In chapter four of The Philosophy of Hebrew Scripture, Yoram Hazony uses the archetypes of Cain and Abel to contrast what he calls a Farmer ethic against a Shepherd ethic in religious believers.1 He writes: Cain [the farmer] has piously accepted the curse on the soil, and God’s having sent Adam to work the soil, as unchallengeable. His response is to submit, as his father did before him. And within the framework of this submission, he initiates ways of giving up what little he has as an offer of thanksgiving. In the eyes of the biblical author, Cain represents the life of a farmer, a life of pious submission, obeying in gratitude the custom that has been handed down, which alone provides the bread so that man may live. Abel [the shepherd] takes the curse on the soil as a fact, but not as one that possesses any intrinsic merit, so that it should command his allegiance. The fact that God has decreed it, and that his father has submitted to it, does not make it good. His response is the opposite of submission. He resists with ingenuity and daring, risking the anger of man and God to secure improvement for himself and for his children. Abel represents the life of the shepherd, which is a life of dissent and initiative, whose aim is to find the good life for man, which is presumed to be God’s true will. (Hazony 2012, 108) 1 See Hazony (2012, 103-139). Note that both Shepherd and Farmer want some sort of relationship with God. A person who does not want such a relationship does not fall under either the Shepherd or Farmer ethic. Hazony does not offer a vocational archetype(s) for such persons. As noted by an anonymous referee, this usage of “Shepherd” and “Farmer” is idiosyncratic; however, I will be sticking with it throughout this paper. Journal of Analytic Theology, Vol. 6, December 2018 10.12978/jat.2018-6.030003221424 © 2018 David Worsley • © 2018 Journal of Analytic Theology Our Farmer Abraham David Worsley As tempting as it might be to view the difference between the ethic of a Shepherd and the ethic of a Farmer in terms of the difference between natural law and something akin to divine command theory, Hazony thinks neither ethic admits any normative obligation to obey God.2 Instead, he sees both as falling under the purview of a (merely evaluative) natural law theory.3 The difference between the Shepherd and the Farmer rests on the thought that natural law is, in his words, “not immediately evident, and in fact not evident at all to that many” (2012, 256). Whilst Farmers unquestioningly obey what others—either those before them, or current religious authorities—have understood and passed on to them as the natural law, Shepherds sincerely seek to discover the natural law for themselves, even if this means questioning religious authorities, or what appear to be divine decrees.4 Shepherds, Hazony writes, “believe that such wisdom [i.e., natural law] can be found in the world, because they believe that God has spoken it [i.e., that God has a ‘true will’]. To find it is the difficulty, and the subject of a lifelong quest” (2012, 256). Shepherds, then, “look beyond obedience and [that] which appears to be required in a given moment, to seek what God truly loves, and what the Mosaic law is truly intended to achieve” (2012, 139). So, Hazony concludes, whilst Farmer’s best exemplify the virtues of piety, obedience, and trust,5 Shepherd’s best exemplify the virtues of fear and love of the Lord.6 Although there is nothing improper about adopting the ethic of a Farmer over that of the Shepherd, Hazony suggests that God might prefer Shepherds over Farmers. He writes: 2 For Hazony, it is never obligatory to obey divine requests. They are perhaps best seen as the requests of a friend (perhaps a friend you owe a significant debt to). There are, of course, consequences of not obeying these requests, but these consequences are presented as a choice to be chosen. Perhaps the best way to view God’s requests is that they are an invitation to wrestle with him. And, somewhat perversely, you don’t do the best thing if you always merely obey them. Hazony writes: The fact is that no one has to obey because God said so. From the story of Adam in Eden, through almost every page of Scripture, and down to our own time, people choose to live as they choose to live. Some live in accordance with what seems reasonable to them, and do not live in accordance with God’s law; others live in accordance with what seems reasonable to them, and do live in accordance with God’s law. The choice is entirely in Human hands. This is why Moses has to urge Israel to “choose life.” Moses has to urge this on them and on us precisely because no one has to obey because God said so. Indeed, the principle that no one has to obey is pretty close to the heart of the biblical world view – and this is what the authors of Scripture are trying to teach. (2012, 254) 3 “On this view, the ethics of the Bible is based, in the first instance, on a form of natural law.” (2012, 103) 4 Many Psalms, for instance, read like extended wrestling contests with God. Likewise, the book of Job paints its protagonist as wrestling with God for answers. 5 “In the biblical narratives, there is a keen awareness of the virtues—obedience, piety, stability, productivity—that belong principally to the farmer rather than the shepherd, and which are ascribed to figures such as Cain, Noah, Isaac, and Joseph. Thus while the line of shepherds represented by Abel, Abraham, Jacob, and Moses receives by far the greater emphasis and praise, the History also recognises the central role that individuals of the contrasting type must inevitably play in building up any human society” (2012, 139). 6 “The fear and love of God, then, are commanded by Moses, and are inscribed in his law. But these qualities, as they are understood in the History of Israel, are shepherd’s virtues, which can serve as a source for individual inquiry, for challenging the existing order and the decreed course of events. Not so the trust in God, which is a genuine virtue as well—but a farmer’s virtue, a virtue of men such as Cain and Noah, Isaac and Joseph, who are never portrayed as questioning the fate God has decreed for them, no matter how harsh their road has become” (2012, 251). 205 Our Farmer Abraham David Worsley The Biblical God is portrayed as revealing his truths and unleashing his deeds in response to man’s search for truth. He even longs for man’s questioning and seeking. Indeed, his preference for human beings who seek and question is such as to have given rise to an entire tradition of biblical figures questioning God’s decrees, conducting disputations with God, and at times even changing God’s mind – including Abraham’s argument with God over the justice of destroying Sodom; a series of occasions in which Moses challenges God’s intentions to destroy Israel; Gideon’s questioning whether God has not abandoned Israel; David’s anger over what he sees as God’s unjust killing of one of his men; and the arguments of Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Havakuk, Jonah, and Job questioning God’s justice. In all of these cases, man is shown as able to challenge God’s decrees and yet have the respect of God as a consequence. In the cases of Abraham and Moses, it would appear that a view presented by a human being can prevail even over that which God initially sees as right. [T]he capstone of this tradition is the story in which Jacob struggles all night with God himself and in the morning receives a new name—the name Israel: “Your name will no more be called Jacob, but Israel, for you have striven with God and with men and have prevailed.” (2012, 235) However, whilst they may be preferred, Shepherds are also open to a possible dilemma not faced by the Farmer. Assuming God can in fact do so,7 what should the Shepherd do if God clearly requests that they violate what they understand to be a principle of natural law?8 Farmers, it seems, can demonstrate their trust in God without doing violence to their ethic by straightforwardly obeying this divine request.9 Nevertheless, even though Hazony thinks it is never obligatory to obey divine requests, it seems to me that Shepherds cannot sincerely cultivate the virtues of fear and love of the Lord, at least as Hazony paints these virtues, whilst at the same time either directly defying a clear divine request or obeying a request they understand to be bad (that is, contrary to their understanding of the natural law).10 So, should circumstances obtain that 7 Robert Adams, for instance, thinks God is incapable of commanding something specific that violates natural law (namely, God’s own goodness).
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