How Not To Critique The Doctrine of Federal Headship

Atheist Aaron Kinney is somewhat infamous for misrepresenting other's positions, and then going in for the kill. In fact, I remember a year ago (or so) when he critiqued Nelson Goodman's article: The New Riddle of Induction (TNR), and admitted he never actually read Goodman himself! (Kinney admitted so in the combox of his post on TNR. Indeed, a reading of his construal of Goodman's position is enough to show that he hadn't read Goodman, even if he hadn't admitted as much.) It is because of this behavior that one should remain cautious about engaging Kinney, who has no regard for context, charity, or analysis. Basically, one can be confident that if he responds to Kinney, he will face more misrepresentations and thus thrust himself into a debate where he's spending pages untangling and correcting the misrepresentations created by Kinney. Nevertheless, since Kinney responded to my post I thought I should at least offer one response, even though I know I'm being a glutton for punishment. Kinney's response focused on my defense of the doctrine of Adam's federal headship.


Responding:

****************

"It takes an evil sort to believe that newborn babies are sinful and deserving of death, but that's exactly what Paul Manata believes!"

****************

Reply:

1. This obviously begs the question against the case I made in the post Kinney is citing.

2. This is logically fallacious. It's obviously an example of poisoning the well.

3. Can Kinney even account for "evil" in his naturalistic worldview?

4. Notice that I believe that infants are born guilty and so deserving of death. Taken this way, the claim is that "people worthy of the death penalty should get the death penalty." Is there any objection here? How could I be "evil" for believing that people should get their just desserts?

I take it that Kinney means that this is evil to believe this because babies are innocent and not worthy of death.

But the problem here is that Kinney is pro-abortion (see here).

Not to get too far off track (but this is needed for my conclusion below), Kinney writes in the above post,

***************

"A woman has the right to control her body at all times. She has the right to terminate her pregnancy whenever she wishes, because her womb is her own, and nobody else's. A human is a fetus that is developed enough to survive if it were to leave the womb. An abortion is the artificial termination of a pregnancy of a fetus or embryo that cannot survive outside the womb.

So, abortions only happen to non-humans. Otherwise it's just prematurely induced labor."

***************

Problems:

(a) Notice that the woman "has the right to terminate the pregnancy whenever she wishes. So, if a woman wished to terminate her pregnancy the day before the baby was due, the woman could do so. It's the woman's body so the woman can choose to "terminate" the baby (called "pregnancy!"). Since Aaron admitted that after 8 weeks the baby is a human, Aaron has admitted that a woman can terminate humans.

(b) Notice that the baby is a distinct body, with its own DNA code, and so it's is not the woman’s body (unless, of course, Aaron wants to say that some women can have penises in the case of their carrying a male baby with a penis!). So, it does not follow that even if a woman can do what she wants to do with her own body, she can do what she wants to with another's body.

(c) Notice the functional account of humans consistent with Aaron's property-thing view of humans. So we don't get too far off track, the property-thing view is ridiculous! :-)

(d) What does "survive outside the womb mean?" One day old infants cannot "survive outside the womb." If you doubt me, take one and leave it in the park and see if it makes it home for breakfast!

(e) Aaron loves Wikipedia. He constantly quotes from it as an authoritative source. Wiki states that an "abortion" is: "An abortion is the removal or expulsion of an embryo or fetus from the uterus, resulting in, or caused by, its death." So, if a woman chooses to "terminate" her pregnancy in the third trimester (which she can since Aaron said she could do so whenever she wants to), then how is it not an abortion? Would he say that women can expel a baby in the third trimester and then the hospital must keep it alive and some person other than the mother must take care of it? If so, how does this square with his "individualism" since he'd be forcing people to take care of other people's kids? If not, then how is it not an abortion?

So, sorry for the mild rabbit trail. Even though ((b)-->(e), well, (c) was a shameless rabbit trail)) isn't really relevant to the debate (other than to show that Kinney is for the death of human beings in instances where the baby is (so-called) "viable"), point (i) shows that Kinney must be for the death of innocent, non-guilty babies.

5. So, I am for the just death of criminals, Kinney is against this but for killing babies who do not deserve death!

So, his above poisoning-the-well-argument, made up of question-begging epithets, turns out to be quite ironic.

So, I'd say that "it takes all sorts of evil to believe that babies are innocent and not worthy of death, yet we can still kill them.

***************

Paul Manata said: "I believe babies sin immediately...

Aaron Kinney said: "I've actually encountered many Christians who have expressed this kind of view. I have yet to meet an atheist or agnostic who has expressed anything so condemning of something so clearly innocent."

***************

No, atheists tell us that babies are just meat machines who have no inherent dignity. Indeed, some of these babies can be killed because they are inconvenient to the mother's plans; kind of like a tumor which puts an end to the plans of a business man unless it's cut off. Some babies are like dead weight, then.

I have yet to meet a Christian who has expressed anything so condemning of something that clearly has more dignity than a tumor, leech, or female facial hair.

***************

"Later in the thread, Paul Manata confuses the concept of self-ownership with the concept of God owning everyone and everything in his poor attempt to justify original sin:

Adam was chosen by God. We suffer. We are not punished for his sin (as your wrongly asserted in your previous post). But we reap the consequences. I vote in, say, Bush. He invokes laws. My son may suffer for some. But he's not old enough to vote, you say! Doesn't matter. He was chosen for him. God chose for us. He made the best choice. His choice was infallible. His choice was perfect. Adam was the best representative we could have. He stood in for you. He was chosen to be your representative, just like, say, Duncan Hunter was chosen to be my son's representative, even though my son didn't vote.

...

I bet you'd gladly accept a million dollar inheritance from your grandfather, even though you did nothing to deserve the money, and you didn't choose him to be your grandfather. Same with Adam. We could have inherited the blessings and no one would have complained. But we inherit the sin, and we whine and moan. Thus it's us who are irrational (irrationality is a consequence of sin) and not my argument.

Emphasis Paul's. Now, can you spot the error?

In first scenario, God chooses Adam to represent everybody. Which means that before Adam represented everyone, it was God that represented them. Everyone belonged to God, and then by decree they belonged to Adam (even though they weren't born yet!). Adam fucked up, and then God makes every person suffer because they were owned or represented by Adam. "

***************

My reply:

6. Where does he get the idea that before Adam represented mankind that God represented them? Now, God does represent His people when the second person of the trinity takes on a human nature and comes to earth to do what the first Adam didn't do (cf. Rom. ch. 5).

7. He seems to take "belongs to God" as "representation" in the sense that a federal head "represents" all of his.

This is ambiguous. In one sense, all men "belong" to God, before and after Adam. This doesn't mean that God is the federal head of all men, otherwise all men would not see hell.

8. Aaron's characterization of the federal headship position is ludicrous.

9. So Aaron has already misrepresented the Calvinist position here. It appears that he really didn't even read the post he's responding to. But, this is to be expected with him.

Continuing...

***************

"In the second scenario, a person accepts a million dollars that he didn't earn. But notice that it was him who chose to accept it, which implies self-representation. A person is free to choose whether he wants to accept the million dollars because he represents himself, but in the first scenario, a person was not free to choose because he was represented by God or Adam, and never himself."

***************

10. No, the person cannot choose to accept it or not, in this sense: It is willed to him. Now, he can choose to leave what he has, or give it away, but the million is his, regardless.

11. You can also choose to give your guilt away. Like I could give the million dollars to back to the trust, or Frank, Pete, or Susan, I can give my guilt to Jesus Christ.

12. But the point of my analogy was to show that one can reap the rewards of someone even though they never choose them. I never choose my grandfather, but I still reap the benefits. Conversely, children or wives can be left with debt.

My point in this analogy, though, was that people don't complain about being represented by Christ - they gladly accept the benefits, but they complain about being represented by Adam.

13. Our life shows that we agree with Adam's choice for us, and that we would have chosen the same. God chose the perfect representative. God chose infallibly. The idea that others represent others was defended in my post, and is clearly a just concept. Aaron votes in representatives. My children have me as their representative. Adam was our representative.

Continuing....

***************

"Paul Manata wholly denies self-ownership as a foundation, and then tries to assign consequences to all of humanity for something that someone else did. All the while, every human on Earth is a permanent slave; enslaved to God, then to Adam, and suffering the consequences of their master's actions."

***************

Problems:

14. Aaron Kinney denies representation as a foundation, and then tries to assign consequences to people who weren’t represented or didn't do the act themselves.

15. My son faces the consequences for my decisions - god or bad. If I make poor decisions about where to invest my money, my son would reap the consequences: rice and beans for dinner, second hand clothes, less toys, etc. Why should my child reap these consequences for something someone else did? Indeed, he never "chose" me to be his parent!

16. This whole slave-to-Adam idea is a strange one. I've never heard the doctrine of federal headship called this. Can Kinney substantiate this misrepresentation? Even worse, Kinney claims to have been a Calvinist. Why is it that all these so-called Calvinists, who apostasize, never know anything about Calvinism?

Advancing...

***************

"Paul then tries to make an analogy, but by using a comparative example where self-ownership is in play! It is easy to see how they don't equate. In the Adam scenario, we have no choice but to inherit the fruits of Adam's actions, whether they be sinful consequences or holy blessings; it's not our choice to make! Yet in the second analogy, the person is free to accept or reject the offerings of the older relative (in this case one million dollars). In the second analogy, it is his choice to make! "

****************

Reply:

17. All analogies break down at some point. The question is, does it break down at the relevant points.

18. I've already proven that people reap the consequences of the actions of their representative. Does Aaron advocate that my 5 yr old has the right to leave his parents if they make a bad monetary decision?

19. Man does have the choice to ultimately reject the consequences of Adam's sin. Man does not choose Jesus, though. So how is Aaron's counter relevant, at all? Aaron doesn't choose to accept another representative, but it's still someone else's fault? Take some ownership.

20. Now, Aaron can say that this is disanalogius because he has a choice to accept Jesus, but he didn't have that choice to accept Adam. But I've already addressed this.

(a) People have their representatives chosen for them all the time.

(b) people reap the consequences for representatives that they didn't choose, all the time.

(c) Maybe I voted in a bad representative who now represents Aaron. God voted in the perfect representative, though. Adam was perfect because he was chosen infallibly, he did exactly what Aaron would have done, Aaron shows he agrees with Adam's choices, so on and so forth.

Moving forward...

***************

"In the first situation there no choice for the individual; no self-directed action or responsibility is possible. But in the second situation, there is nothing but complete self-directed choice. In the second situation, the consequences can clearly be assigned to the person in question, for he was able to use his consent and choice through self-representation or self-ownership. "

***************

Notice Aaron is saying something he's already said three times now.

Continuing...

***************

"These two scenarios are simply not analogous, because the fundamental component, representation/ownership of action, is different between the two scenarios to a mutually exclusive degree."

***************

I never said that they were completely analogous. That wasn't the point of the analogy. The point was you'd accept the consequences of someone else’s actions, even though you didn't choose that person or do anything to merit the blessings.

Moving along....

***************

"I wonder if Paul Manata could ever provide a real-world analogy that would properly fit the original sin problem? I doubt that any Christian could."

***************

21. The original sin instance took place in the real world. ;-) How was that not question begging?

22. I gave plenty of examples.

23. No analogies are perfect, all break down, that's why they're called analogies!

and along....

***************

"Either you start with self-ownership or you don't. In the real world, you do, but in the Bible, you don't. Since self-ownership and other-ownership are mutually exclusive, no proper analogy is possible."

***************

24. Either you start with God ownership or you don't. In the real world you do, but in Aaron's mind you don't.

25. Since "other-ownership" is completely disanalogous to "federal headship" it, ironically as it turns out, is Aaron's argument that is disanalogous! Federal headship isn't about "other-ownership."

***************

"The concept of original sin is in an illogic and immoral category all it's own."

***************

26. Of course no laws of logic were shown to be violated.

27. Of course no objective and relevant system of morality was advanced.

28. So, in the spirit of assertions: The concept of humanism is an illogical and immoral category all it's own.

thanks,

PM