Jeremiah 18 and the Potter/Clay

Instead of appealing to the obvious biblical antecedent of the potter analogy in Romans 9 (namely Isaiah 29:16 and 45:9) or the most logical intertestamental literature (namely Wisdom 15:7), many non-Calvinists will turn to Jeremiah 18.  

Jeremiah 18:1-10

(1) The word which came to Jeremiah from the Lord, saying, (2) Arise, and go down to the potter's house, and there I will cause thee to hear my words. (3) Then I went down to the potter's house, and, behold, he wrought a work on the wheels. (4) And the vessel that he made of clay was marred in the hand of the potter: so he made it again another vessel, as seemed good to the potter to make it.

(5) Then the word of the Lord came to me, saying, (6) O house of Israel, cannot I do with you as this potter? saith the Lord. Behold, as the clay is in the potter's hand, so are ye in mine hand, O house of Israel. (7) At what instant I shall speak concerning a nation, and concerning a kingdom, to pluck up, and to pull down, and to destroy it; (8) If that nation, against whom I have pronounced, turn from their evil, I will repent of the evil that I thought to do unto them. (9) And at what instant I shall speak concerning a nation, and concerning a kingdom, to build and to plant it; (10) If it do evil in my sight, that it obey not my voice, then I will repent of the good, wherewith I said I would benefit them.

What non-Calvinists seem to overlook is the phrase "seemed good" in verse 4.  The point in that passage is not "even if the clay pot turned out badly, the potter could still find something to use it for," rather it is that "the clay is malleable and God can make from the clay what it pleases God to make."

The translation "seemed good" is a valid translation but when we read it, we may overlook that this same phrase is used consistently to describe strong preferences:

Numbers 23:27

And Balak said unto Balaam, Come, I pray thee, I will bring thee unto another place; peradventure it will please God that thou mayest curse me them from thence.

Judges 14:3

Then his father and his mother said unto him, Is there never a woman among the daughters of thy brethren, or among all my people, that thou goest to take a wife of the uncircumcised Philistines? And Samson said unto his father, Get her for me; for she pleaseth me well. 

Judges 14:7

And he went down, and talked with the woman; and she pleased Samson well.

1 Samuel 18:20

And Michal Saul's daughter loved David: and they told Saul, and the thing pleased him.

1 Samuel 18:26

And when his servants told David these words, it pleased David well to be the king's son in law: and the days were not expired.

2 Samuel 17:4

And the saying pleased Absalom well, and all the elders of Israel.

1 Kings 9:12

And Hiram came out from Tyre to see the cities which Solomon had given him; and they pleased him not.

1 Chronicles 13:4

And all the congregation said that they would do so: for the thing was right in the eyes of all the people.

2 Chronicles 30:4

And the thing pleased the king and all the congregation.

Jeremiah 18:4

And the vessel that he made of clay was marred in the hand of the potter: so he made it again another vessel, as seemed good to the potter to make it.

Jeremiah 27:5

I have made the earth, the man and the beast that are upon the ground, by my great power and by my outstretched arm, and have given it unto whom it seemed meet unto me.

The phrase combines yāšar (יָשַׁר) (straight or good) and ʿayin (עַיִן) (eye) (hence the translation at 1 Chronicles 13:4).  While arguments from etymology should always come with an asterisk, the idea is that something pleasing is what your eyes settle or focus on.  It's what you like to look at, as opposed to the things from which you turn away your face. We have the saying, "I can't take my eyes off of you," as an expression of desire, and it may convey some of the connotation of this particular expression.  Another possible explanation for the expression could derive from the human love of symmetry and order, particularly to the eye.  While some people revel in messiness, almost everyone has to concede that having things lined up properly is more pleasant to look at.  

In short, the final stage of the pot per Jeremiah 18:4 is not up to the pot, nor is it a backup plan in case in the pot messes up the potter's first plan, rather it is what God in a very real sense wants to see.

While non-Calvinists will tend to emphasize the role assigned to nations (either to turn from evil or to turn to evil) and treat God as merely responsive to the nations, the outcome is nevertheless all in the hands of God.  The point of the metaphor is not that clay gets to decide its own construction, but rather that God is free to do what God wants to do.

As a very minor side note, I found it interesting to see that the lexical form of the word for potter, yāṣar (יָצַר), differs from the lexical form of the word for straight/good, yāšar (יָשַׁר), primarily in that the former has a tzadie instead of a shin (yod-tsadeh-resh vs. yod-shin-resh).  Thus, as reflected in the transliterations, the words sound a bit alike.  I will leave it to others more versed in the pronunciation of Biblical Hebrew to say whether there is wordplay here, but I just found it interesting.  

Dabney's useful Systematic Theology but with a few caveats

Robert Lewis Dabney wrote a book, Systematic Theology, which - while not my personal favorite - provides a great foundation in theology even to this day. The form of the book is helpful for self-study of the topic of Systematic Theology, as it is divided into easy-to-read lectures. There are, however, parts of the book that some will find offensive.  For example, Dabney wrote (emphasis added):

When  arguing  against  the  Pelagian  sophism, that  man  could  not  be  responsible  for  his  disposition,  because it  is " involuntary,"  I  showed  you  the  ambiguity  wrapped  up  in that  word.  Of  course,  anything  which,  like  disposition,  precedes volition,  cannot  be  voluntary  in  the  sense  of  proceeding out  of  a  volition;  what  goes  before  of  course  does  not  follow after  the  same  thing.  But  the  question  is, "whether  disposition is  self-prompted."  There  is  a  true  sense  in  which  we  intuitively know  that  a  man  ought  not  to  be  made  responsible  for what  is  "involuntary," viz.:  for  what  happens  against  his  will. But  does  any  man's  own  disposition  subsist  against  his  will?  If it  did  it  would  not  be  his  own.  There  is  here  a  fact  of  com-mon sense, which is very strangely overlooked; that a man may most freely prefer what is natural to him, and in that sense his prior to his volition choosing it. Let a simple instance serve. Here is a young gentleman to whom nature has given beautiful and silky black hair. He, himself, thinks it very pretty, and altogether prefers it. Does he not thereby give us as clear, and as free an expression of his taste in hair, as though he had selected a black wig? So, were he to purchase hair dye to change his comely locks to a "carroty red," we should regard him as evincing very bad taste. But I ask, if we saw another whom nature had endowed with "carroty red hair," glorying in it with pride and preference, we should doubtless esteem him guilty of precisely the same bad taste, and precisely as free therein as the other. But the colour of his hair was determined by nature, not by his original selection. Now, my question is : must we not judge the moral preference just as free in the parallel case, as the aesthetic?

(R. L. Dabney, Syllabus and Notes of the Course of Systematic and Polemic Theology, 2nd edition (St. Louis, 1878), Lecture XLIX, section 2, pp. 593-94)

As you can see, Dabney thought that black hair was more aesthetic than red hair, and that this was an aesthetic that would likely be shared by his readers.  This negative view of redheads was not unique to his time.  While aesthetics have changed over time, negative views of "gingers" and the like continue to persist.

I wish I could say that this is the only or even the most serious place where his comments will cause offense.  Here are some other places where people have taken offense:

If infant membership were the great corrupter, and its absence the great safeguard, immersed Churches ought to be uniformly pure. How is this? It is an invidious task to make the inquiry; but it is their own test. Look, then, at Ironsides, Dunkers, Mormons, African Churches in America. We shall not be so uncharitable as to charge all this on immersion.

(R. L. Dabney, Syllabus and Notes of the Course of Systematic and Polemic Theology, 2nd edition (St. Louis, 1878), Lecture LXVI, section 10, p. 793)

Some have criticized Dabney for identifying "African Churches" among those American churches that did not practice infant baptism, because there was a denomination, the African Methodist Episcopal Church (AMEC), that did practice infant baptism.  Apparently, some feel slighted that Dabney did not more particularly distinguish African Baptist churches from the AMEC.  I suspect these critics may see this as an attempt to marginalize exclusively black churches (Dabney's own church evidently had both black and white members).

Far more upsetting to most readers is this (emphasis added):

Here is the great charter of Bible republicanism. Men have by nature, a general equality in this; not a specific one. Hence, the general equality of nature will by no means produce a literal and universal equality of civil condition; for the simple reason that the different classes of citizens have very different specific rights; and this grows out of their differences of sex, virtue, intelligence, civilization, &c., and the demands of the common welfare. Thus, if the low grade of intelligence, virtue and civilization of the African in America, disqualified him for being his own guardian, and if his own true welfare (taking the "general run" of cases) and that of the community, would be plainly marred by this freedom; then the law decided correctly, that the African here has no natural right to his self-control, as to his own labour and locomotion. Hence, his natural liberty is only that which remains after that privilege is retrenched. Still he has natural rights, (to marriage, to a livelihood from his own labour, to the Sabbath, and to the service of God, and immortality, &c., &c). Freedom to enjoy all these constitutes his natural liberty, and if the laws violate any of it causelessly, they are unjust.

(R. L. Dabney, Syllabus and Notes of the Course of Systematic and Polemic Theology, 2nd edition (St. Louis, 1878), Lecture LXXIII, section 2, p. 869)

Although this is worded hypothetically "if ... then ..." it seems plain that Dabney believed that Africans had lower intelligence than Europeans and would not be good at exercising self-control, such that they needed European guidance.  This may not be the most invidious kind of racism - the kind that involves hatred of people - but it is a negative stereotype about an entire race.  Even if Dabney seems to admit of exceptions to this rule, the fact that Dabney suggests that Africans were generally of lower intelligence is deeply disturbing.  Moreover, the fact that this was "common knowledge" in Dabney's day does not excuse it.  

Thankfully, Dabney does not let this error extend more generally.  For Dabney:

In  what  then  are  men  naturally equal?  I  answer,  first:  in  their  common  title  to  the  several quantums  of  liberty  appropriate  to  each,  differing  as  they  do  in different  men;  second,  they  are  equal  in  their  common humanity,  and  their  common  share  in  the  obligations  and  benefits of  the  golden  rule.  All  men  are  reciprocally  bound  to  love their  neighbors  as  themselves ;  and  to  do  unto  others,  as  they would  that  others  should  do  to  them.  See  Job  xxxi: 13-15. Here  inspiration  defines  that  equality  as  in  full  force  between master  and  slave;  and  as  entirely  compatible  with  that  relation.

(R. L. Dabney, Syllabus and Notes of the Course of Systematic and Polemic Theology, 2nd edition (St. Louis, 1878), Lecture LXXIII, section 2, p. 869)

So, Dabney affirms that the duty to love our neighbors applies between masters and slaves reciprocally, and affirms that both masters and slaves share in common humanity.  Thus, contrary to some of Dabney's recent critics, his views on African intelligence and his support of a class structure are cordoned off.  They do not extend to suggesting that Africans should be hated, nor do they extend to suggesting that Africans are not made in the image of God. 

Finally, and it seems trivial to mention it, at p. 85, Dabney uses as an example the idea that king of Guinea "could not conceive it possible that water could be solidified by cold in the higher altitudes." The context of this comment is as sophistic response to the idea that a necessary truth is one the negation of which is inconceivable.  It seems this is less about the idea that king of Guinea was not intelligent, but rather that living in a tropical area, he had no experience of ice.  Likewise, at the same page, Dabney notes that the "natives of Guinea are generally black, of England generally white," but again this was just intended to reflect an example of a true (at that time) fact of the population makeup of those places.

Times have changed, and attitudes have changed.  Charles Murray's and Richard Herrnstein's 1994 book, "The Bell Curve: Intelligence and Class Structure in American Life," was similarly criticized for suggesting that there is a connection between race and intelligence.  Thirty years later, there is all sorts of "common knowledge" about "white privilege" that is eerily reminiscent of these race-based mentalities.   

(Link to p. 85 of the Systematic Theology)

P.S. Perhaps I should point out that there are other things Dabney wrote, such as his Defense of Virginia and the South, as well as other writings (including correspondence) that survives to this day.  The former is an interesting read from a historical and political science perspective.  There is some good material in it, but one will definitely find attitudes and opinions (especially about African Americans) that - while considered "common knowledge" at the time - are now viewed as both wrong and offensive.  Frankly, I haven't read through his correspondence.  It's probably more of historical interest than anything else.  I haven't recommended it, and I have no plan to do so.