Intellectual Arts and Crafts

John W. Loftus said:

evanmay, it’s really interesting to me, on the one hand, how that you will never admit to an internal critique by an outsider. There’s always something wrong with it. In my opinion this is simply because your Christianity does not rest on one isolated belief, but instead rests on them all. Your beliefs all stand or fall together and I can never talk about the whole system but only about isolated belief at a time.

On the other hand, you think you can internally critique another’s belief system as an outsider, when you have the same intellectual problem that I do as an outsider to your faith. Just as I cannot cause you to doubt your brand of Christianity by isolating one of your beliefs for a critique, so also you cannot do so of another religious (or non-religious) belief system. And you claim that you can do this.

4/20/2006 6:44 AM

I believe my fears that John Loftus does not exactly understand the concept of an “internal critique” are now being realized.

No, Mr. Loftus, it isn’t that I’ll never admit to an internal critique performed by an outsider. Rather, and frankly, it is that you are terribly handicapped when it comes to internal critiques. You clench to your presuppositions so tightly that you are unable to prevent yourself from forcing them into the claims of Christ.

John Loftus doesn’t agree with me that worldviews can be critiqued internally alone. Fine. But when he does enter an internal critique, I will surely hold him accountable within the realms of the worldview he is critiquing. I mean, his last post even started with the question, “What if I’m wrong?”! In other words, he set himself up to adopt Biblical assumptions. But then he fails to adopt all of the Biblical assumptions. For instance, he’ll begin to talk about the doctrine of temptation, but then he fails to take into account the doctrine of depravity. He’ll set up arguments against one particular Biblical doctrine, but fail to recognize the other doctrines with which it is in harmony. The doctrine of temptation was not meant to be isolated from the doctrine of depravity. Loftus can’t embrace a “devil-made-me-do-it” mentality (a mentality that presupposes the Christian worldview’s doctrines of Satan) while ignoring his own deadness in sin (another mentality that presupposes the Christian worldview).

Likewise, Loftus fails to remain within the internal critique when he argues that God is unjust to punish sinners. The argument itself presupposes the Christian worldview and is therefore an obvious internal critique. Loftus wouldn’t be talking about the claims of Christianity if he didn’t intellectually agree to assume its principles. Why, then, is he willing to assume a couple of doctrines for the benefit of his arguments (such as the doctrines that God exists and that he punishes sinners), but unwilling to assume the totality of Biblical truth (such as the doctrines of depravity, sin, justice, and God’s intrinsic goodness)? You see, Loftus’ “internal critiques” (using the phrase loosely) are completely self-serving: he’ll pick and choose Biblical principles that he needs for his arguments, divorce them from the context of the Biblical worldview, marry them to his own presuppositions from his own worldview, and then say “Ahah! They don’t match!” Well, of course they don’t! Mr. Loftus, Biblical principles weren’t meant to be coupled with atheistic assumptions! You aren’t free to play “match-maker,” picking and choosing a couple of concepts from a few worldviews, combining them together, and creating your argument against Christianity from recycled dogmas. This isn’t arts and crafts.

Loftus states, “Your beliefs all stand or fall together and I can never talk about the whole system but only about isolated belief at a time.”. The problem here isn’t that you fail to recite a Systematic Theology work to me every time you argue against Christianity. Rather, the problem is that you isolate doctrines and divorce them from their Biblical contexts before you even position yourself to critique them. Just imagine if I would do this in everyday life. Imagine if I picketed outside of the local Wal-Mart, claiming that they were unfair to require money from their customers while I obstinately ignore the fact that they are exchanging goods and services for the customers money. Or imagine if I stopped by the local prison and accused the cell-guards of slavery because they were keeping men locked up in “cages” while I refuse to take into account both the crimes the men have committed and the law that states that they must be imprisoned. You see, that is exactly what you are doing every time you isolate a Biblical doctrine and rip it from the context of the Christian worldview.

Loftus’ problem is that Christianity, being a rational worldview, has covered itself well. It has left nothing open for Loftus to attack, and Loftus can’t stand this. So his only option is to pick-and-choose which doctrines he will take into account, throwing all of the rest into the trash, that he might declare himself triumphant because he defeated that one child that was removed from its parents.

Evan May.