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Thursday, May 08, 2008

Pity party

john w. loftus said...

“Some of the most mean spirited people on the web toward us apostates are Calvinists.”

Assuming, for the sake of argument, that this is true, why does Loftus care how people treat him? Remember, Loftus is a moral relativist. So he can’t very well say that we’re wronging him if we’re mean to him.

Like every other unbeliever, Loftus is living a lie. He pretends that atheism is a liberating experience. He’s no longer hobbled by the shackles of the Christian faith. Yet Loftus doesn’t live by his creed.

It isn’t quite correct for Van Til to say that unbelievers are living off of the borrowed capital of Christian theism. It isn’t borrowed—it’s stolen.

Loftus continues to think that everyone should be nice to him even though his worldview commits him to moral nihilism. He’s a fake and a fraud.

“Because I am a reprobate and going to hell, then with their God they feel justified in treating me just like their God does, and I find that utterly repulsive.”

Well, there is a certain logic in treating people the way God treats them. Should a Christian treat people better than God treats them?

That said, the way I deal with Loftus has nothing specific to do with my Calvinism. Rather, it’s dictated by two other considerations:

i) I treat Loftus like an enemy of the faith because he has made himself an enemy of the faith. Loftus is like a suicide bomber who whines about how the Marines treat him like an enemy combatant. Well, if you strap on a shaheed belt, you may have that effect on other people.

If Loftus weren’t such a militant, outspoken atheist, I’d handle him differently. But when he attacks the Christian faith, I reserve the right to counterattack.

ii) He’s a dishonest opponent. He raises an objection to the Christian faith. I (and others) answer him on his own grounds. His response is to repeat himself. Recycle the same refuted objections.

If he offered respectable objections, his objections would be treated with respect. When his objections are disreputable, they richly merit my disrespect.

“Their theology not only creates atheists, as Clark Pinnock wrote, but it also motivates me like no other 'respectable' theology to debunk the Christian faith.”

Loftus keeps trotting out this silly complaint. How would Calvinism create an atheist? Calvinism is not the only theological option on the table. What about Lutheranism or Arminianism or Catholicism or Orthodoxy, &c.?

Logically, the only reason that Calvinism would create an atheist is if a man perceives that Calvinism presents the most candid and consistent interpretation of the Bible, and the very clarity of Calvinism leaves the him bereft of any theological fallback position.

Why would Loftus find that objectionable? Does he think that people should be Christians under false pretenses? That they should be kept from facing the Bible squarely and thinking through the implications of their theology?

Why wouldn’t Loftus appreciate the fact that Calvinism cuts through all of the confusions and evasions and narrows down the range of alternatives to a stark choice between atheism and Reformed theism?

Doesn’t Loftus want to bring the issue to a head? Push the fence-riders off their perch, forcing them to come down on one side or the other?

I’m reminded of John Derbyshire, the cradle Anglican, who lost his nominal faith in middle age when, for the first time in his life, he sat down and actually read through the Thirty-Nine Articles:

“My Christianity was of the watery, behavioral Anglican variety…I was once hanging around in the National Review offices talking to an editor (since departed) who was also an Anglican, though an American one — which is to say, an Episcopalian. We got to talking about the Thirty-Nine Articles that define Anglican faith. Did she actually know any of the articles, I asked? No, she confessed, she didn’t. I admitted that I didn’t either. We looked them up on the Internet. There we were, two intelligent and well-educated Anglicans, a fiftysomething guy and a thirtysomething lady, gazing curiously at the articles of the faith we had professed all our lives.”

“Working in America, and especially exchanging e-mails for several years with National Review readers, I lost my Anglican innocence. Take a fish out of water, it dies; take an Englishman out of Anglican England, his faith takes a blow. It doesn’t necessarily die — I know plenty of cases where it didn’t — but people of really feeble faith, like mine, need every possible support, and emigration knocks one prop away. In America, at any rate for most conservatives (taking my Episcopalian colleague as an exception), you are actually supposed to think about your faith, and even, for heaven’s sake, read about it!”

http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=ZDBmYzcyZTgzNzNkYWM0MzY3YjE1ZThhZGJiMDRiZWE=v

13 comments:

  1. "Doesn’t Loftus want to bring the issue to a head? Push the fence-riders off their perch, forcing them to come down on one side or the other?"

    Actually, my experience is that a lot of people like to sit on the fence and prefer to sit on the fence. And that they greatly resent anyone who tells them that intellectual honesty and moral integrity requires them to get off the fence. They will say things like "False antithesis" or "false dichotomy" or "via media" (given your Anglican reference).

    People do not want to choose. Nor do they want to have to choose. Their choice is to not have to make a choice. And to stay above the fray.

    To some degree this is understandable. It's like not taking a position on whether it's an old earth or young earth. Or whether it was a global flood or a local flood.

    But other things you have to make a choice. And to not decide is a decision.

    Also, much thanks for the link to the Derbyshire story! It was fascinating and instructive!

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  2. I just find it ironic that Loftus is always so concerned about a position that he thinks creates more converts to his view...

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  3. “Their theology not only creates atheists, as Clark Pinnock wrote, but it also motivates me like no other 'respectable' theology to debunk the Christian faith.”

    Where's the scientific evidence of this claim? The reports? The statistics? Doesn't Loftus laud science as the best basis on which to base one's beliefs?

    Loftus wasn't a Calvinist.

    None of his fellow debunkers were.

    In fact, of every professing Christian cum atheist I've ever met or heard of, the vast majority have been Arminian (or some variation).

    And, Loftus says he wants to "debunk Christianity." Well, why give away the farm. You would think that with Calvinism creating all kinds of atheists, Loftus would leave us alone to do our thing. Maybe even promote our theology. Learn it like the back of his hand so as to move other non-Calvinist Christians over to our position. From there it's only a small step to atheism. Defending Calvinism as the consistent picture of the Bible would help in Loftus' goal to "debunk" Christianity.

    Why does he spend so much time battling us, then? It seems means-end irrational for him to do so.

    I suggest that it's because he finds us the strongest, most capable expression of Christianity. With us on the scene, he knows he doesn't have a shot at "debunking." Why spend time with the Arminians (or other variations of)? They're simple to knock off. He doesn't spend energy on them because theirs nothing to worry about. They don't present the strongest challenge to his unbelief.

    This is the only way to read Loftus in a way that doesn't make his antics irrational.

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  4. “Their theology not only creates atheists..."

    Of course it does. It strikes at the heart of sinful man's autonomy. Nominal Christians (i.e. the unregenerate) will turn from the faith by suppressing the truth for make-believe while the regenerate (when they discover the truth of Calvinism) accept it for the truth of God that it is.

    The belief that Calvinism creates atheists (who, like Loftus, are usually completely ignorant of what Calvinism actually is) is fully compatible (sorry!) with Total Depravity.

    They exchanged the truth of God for a lie...

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  5. Paul Manata: "I suggest that it's because he finds us the strongest, most capable expression of Christianity."

    Heh, heh, I love it.

    In addition to the Arminianism and atheism opposition, I have also found virulent anti-Calvinism from Roman Catholics, Eastern Orthodoxers, Lutherans, and Emergers.

    Wazzup wit' dat??

    ;-)

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  6. Well yes, the whole bird-man thing was a tad weak, and moral objections are a complete waste of time unless you can formulate an internal Biblical critque showing contradiction...

    But please don't let Loftus' flaws assuage your doubts. Y'all know that's fallacious.

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  7. Well then again, we calvinists have to keep up our reputation for being grouchy and dour. Calvin and Knox are a pretty hard act to follow, after all.

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  8. This reminds me of Loftus' naturalist argument against the death penalty.

    He argues that we shouldn't put a murderer to death because he couldn't help doing what he did. He was forced to do so by his genes and external environment.

    Of course, the come back is that neither the judge who sentenced him to death nor the guy who stuck him with the needle could help it either. They were forced by their genes and external environment to administer the death penalty!

    [And thus materialist ethics refutes itself!]

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  9. Although the doctrine is odious, in my opinion Calvinism's bad reputation come from its the tendency to be shrill, paranoid, argumentative and otherwise obnoxious (if that causes offense, I'm not really sorry).

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  10. "Although the doctrine is odious, in my opinion Calvinism's bad reputation come from its the tendency to be shrill, paranoid, argumentative and otherwise obnoxious (if that causes offense, I'm not really sorry)."

    I have seen criticism of Calvinism before about it being shrill, argumentative, and obnoxious.

    But I have never seen Calvinism described as "paranoid". Why would non-Calvinists see Calvinists or Calvinism as paranoid?

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  11. Funny how paranoid, shrill, argumentative, and obnoxious are also perfect adjectives to apply to Dawkins, Hitchens, and Dennet.

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  12. One wonders, with regard to the alleged shrillness and obnoxiousness as to whether this applied to all who would demand a declaration on one side or the other. Certainly this comes to mind with Dawkins and his ilk. In my experience, it is not theology which creates atheists (or Christians, for that matter), but emotion and experience. If a person, confronted with Calvinism, denies the faith, I would go so far as to say that such a person was probably no more than a cultural Christian. Of course, if the person rejects Calvinism, that is another matter (look at Wesley).

    I'd agree with John Derbyshire's point about the CofE, either one believes the articles and ends up outside the Church of England, albeit, still inside the Church of God, or one finds oneself adrift. Says he, now a Welsh Presbyterian.

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  13. Thnuh said:
    ---
    But please don't let Loftus' flaws assuage your doubts. Y'all know that's fallacious.
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    That presupposes that I have doubts in the first place. Given Loftus is typical from the atheist front, I have no reason to doubt.

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