From the "Contributors" section of the book Small and Medium Sized Enterprises in East Asia: Sectoral and Regional Dimensions (click on image for full size):
Monday, August 02, 2010
Paul Tobin's credentials
From the back cover of the book The Rejection of Pascal's Wager: A Skeptic's Guide to the Bible and the Historical Jesus (click on image for full size):
From the "Contributors" section of the book Small and Medium Sized Enterprises in East Asia: Sectoral and Regional Dimensions (click on image for full size):
From the "Contributors" section of the book Small and Medium Sized Enterprises in East Asia: Sectoral and Regional Dimensions (click on image for full size):
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"I believe people should be experts on the topics they write on" -- Hector Avalos, fellow contributor with Tobin to TCD.
ReplyDelete"An invaluable addition to the growing literature on atheism. Major scholars show why Christianity is bankrupt as a religion for the modern day..." -- Victor Stenger
ReplyDeletehttp://sites.google.com/site/thechristiandelusion/Home/blurbs
"These guys at Tribalogue are not worthy of a response. First, they are not scholars as were the authors of TCD. Second, because they are not scholars they don't understand the issues involved." -- Ken Pulliam
http://debunkingchristianity.blogspot.com/2010/07/on-assessing-triablogues-review-of.html?showComment=1279733274914#c6673356466668477669
is it true that jason of triablogue is not a calvinist?how come?
ReplyDeleteThis book is really silly.
ReplyDeleteI don't get it. Doesn't a Master's Degree in Business qualify you as a Biblical Critic anymore?
ReplyDeleteLonelyBoy,
ReplyDeleteI'm not a Calvinist. I agree with Calvinism on a lot of issues (the preservation of the saints, imputed righteousness, the faulty nature of many of the Biblical interpretations cited against Calvinism, etc.). But I haven't studied the relevant issues enough to be convinced of Calvinism (or Arminianism) as a whole.
i see,jason are you not convinced about the philosophical/exegetical arguments of steve when it comes to calvinism, have been reading triablogue for years now and I am astonished to learn that you are not a calvinist.
ReplyDeleteLonelyBoy,
ReplyDeleteThere are many godly people who are not Calvinists. Calvinism is not required for salvation anymore than you're required to explain how a combustion engine works in order to drive your car to work.
Jason's focus has been primarily on the history of the Church, and I for one believe he's been of far greater value to Triablogue for that than if he had decided to focus on the differences between Calvinism and Arminianism and come to a solid conclusion there. We've got plenty of folks on the T-blog who can deal with those issues, but very few of us could even claim to have 10% of the knowledge of Church history that Jason has.
LonelyBoy,
ReplyDeleteThe fact that I'm not a Calvinist has been mentioned by me and others at this blog many times. Pedantic Protestant has been on the Triablogue staff as well, and he's not a Calvinist. (I'm using his screen name because I think he may not want his actual name mentioned for other reasons.)
Whether I agree with Steve's comments on Calvinism varies from issue to issue. In some cases, I haven't read much or anything from the other side and/or haven't given the issue much thought, so I wouldn't decide in favor of Calvinism after reading something he wrote on the subject. He could be correct and be presenting the best arguments available for the correct position, and I wouldn't know it.
The issues surrounding Calvinism are highly controversial. I've repeatedly seen men I respect say that they don't know what to believe on the subject after having studied it for many years. I've repeatedly seen Calvinists acknowledge that some of the issues involved are complicated, that they don't know the answer to some of the questions critics ask them, etc. The same can be said of Arminianism. And though the issues are important, they aren't issues that scripture defines as foundational in the sense that a person has to affirm the correct position in order to be saved. I have a full-time job, and the work I do for Triablogue and in other contexts is the equivalent of having a second job, even setting aside everything I read relevant to Calvinism. I already seem to have more books lined up to read than I'll be able to get to in a lifetime. Since I didn't get involved much in the issues surrounding Calvinism early on in my life, I'm already involved in a lot of other issues and have a lot of other responsibilities lined up that are keeping me occupied. There are many significant topics I can address that appear to me to be more resolvable than the issues pertaining to Calvinism. And many of those other issues are getting far less attention. (The vast majority of people don't put much effort into studying theological issues, and their culpable negligence places a massive burden on the shoulders of the small minority who decide to act more responsibly. If you decide to study a subject like Calvinism, you'll get help from a tiny minority of people, but most of society won't lift a single finger to help you. They're too busy watching American Idol, playing baseball, or reading a romance novel.) In that sort of context (and there are other factors I haven't mentioned), it's probably going to take me a long time to sort through the issues.
Thanks, Peter.
ReplyDeleteI see I thought all writers here embrace Calvinism anyway Jason let me ask you why do you think most first rate scientists and philosophers are unbelievers despite their claims to be rational and free thinkers.
ReplyDeleteFWIW, if anything, I responded to the same question you asked here, LonelyBoy.
ReplyDeleteLonelyBoy,
ReplyDeletePeople can reject the truth, on religious matters or in other contexts, for a lot of reasons. Your question is vague. I don’t know how you’re defining "first rate scientists and philosophers", I don’t know what statistics you have in mind, and I wouldn’t know enough about these scholars to go into much detail about what factors are involved. Scholarly opinions have changed a lot over time, and there are significant differences from one field to another in the statistics I’ve seen.
A group, such as atheists, can focus on one field of scholarship because it’s weak in other fields. Or it can think it’s strong in some field where it’s actually weak. The fact that the group encourages its members to become disproportionately involved in a particular field doesn’t prove that its focus on that field is warranted. I suspect that newness is a factor as well. Christianity has been around for a long time, and it’s been prominent in society for many centuries. Atheism’s prominence is more recent. That has some appeal. And Christianity is a religion involving a historical revelation that can’t be derived from something like science or philosophy. How many scientists and philosophers know much about the historical evidence for Christianity? A religion like Christianity can be seen as an obstacle to what somebody, including a scholar, desires in terms of sex, money, or whatever else. In some contexts, Christians may have failed to make as good a case as they could, which creates a misconception of a weakness in Christianity itself.
There are a lot of possible reasons for the prominence of non-Christian individuals or beliefs within a particular field of scholarship. And non-Christians would offer some of the same explanations for Christian prominence where it’s existed over the centuries. We have to look beyond the prominence of individuals and beliefs to the truthfulness of those beliefs. Prominence alone doesn’t prove truthfulness, as the inconsistency of who’s been prominent from one location or period of time to another indicates.