THE ATHEIST MISSIONARY SAID:
Let’s say that the consensus is that our species, being the higher primates, Homo Sapiens, has been on the planet for at least 100,000 years, maybe more. Francis Collins says maybe 100,000. Richard Dawkins thinks maybe a quarter-of-a-million. I’ll take 100,000. In order to be a Christian, you have to believe that for 98,000 years, our species suffered and died, most of its children dying in childbirth, most other people having a life expectancy of about 25 years, dying of their teeth. Famine, struggle, bitterness, war, suffering, misery, all of that for 98,000 years. Heaven watches this with complete indifference. And then 2000 years ago, thinks “That’s enough of that. It’s time to intervene,” and the best way to do this would be by condemning someone to a human sacrifice somewhere in the less literate parts of the Middle East. Don’t let us appeal to the Chinese, for example, where people can read and study evidence and have a civilization. Let’s go to the desert and have another revelation there. This is nonsense. It can’t be believed by a thinking person. Christopher Hitchens.
1. Well, that’s one narrative. I happen to prefer the narrative that commences with Gen 1, winds through the OT, arrives at the NT, and culminates in Rev 21-22.
2. As far as that goes, our “species” still dies. That didn’t cease 2000 years ago. The more important question is whether happens after you die.
3. Was there “war” c. 100,000 BC? Is that a cross between Raquel Welch in One Million Years B.C. and Steven Strait in 10,000 BC? Given a choice, I’d take my chances with Raquel.
4. And just think of the wonderful opportunities for big-game hunting. Not to mention clean air. Clean water. Star-gazing.
5. Is it worse to die at 25 than 95? If you live to be 95, you live beyond your prime. There are lots of things you’d like to do, but are now too enfeebled to do. In addition, you outlive your friends, your spouse, some of your kids.
What about those SF utopias where everyone above the age of 30 (or whatever) is liquidated?
6. In some ways a sinful world is worse than a sinless world. But even in that respect, there are men and women who exist in a sinful world who never have that opportunity in a sinless world.
7. And in some ways a redeemed world is better than a sinless world. So there are tradeoffs.
Suffering can be a source of good. Take a couple who marry young. Let’s say they lack the maturity for marriage. So they break up after a few acrimonious years.
They wander. Pursue other pairings. Then, ten years later, they come back together. All the suffering makes them appreciate each other in a way that wasn’t possible apart from suffering.
Or take best fiends. One betrays the other. Alienation ensues. One hates the other. They no longer speak to each other.
But after a few years, there’s a thaw. Reconciliation. Forgiveness. Their renewed friendship is deeper as a result of suffering.
Not all goods come ready-made.
8. By condemning “someone”? What about the Son of God incarnate?
9. China had a brilliant civilization. But unless you were among the charmed few who resided in the Forbidden City, you were no better off than somebody in “less literate parts of the Middle East.”
"If you live to be 95, you live beyond your prime."
ReplyDeleteI know a lady who is 103. Miss Caroline. She is from Poland. I said to her, "Wow! You are going to be 100! That's pretty special."
She said (with a wonderful Polish accent), "What's so special about it. I can hardly hear. I can't see too well. I have to use this walker. And I'm very tired all the time. "
I said, "Well, just having your 100th birthday is special."
It's not so special."-Miss Caroline
A wonderful lady. I am blessed to know her.
I have been reading a new biography of Nietzsche and one thing that keeps striking me is the obsession he and others had for the supposed supremacy of all things Greek. Everything went wrong when Greek civilization was left behind and the salvation of the world was to be attained by a return to the ideals of Greek civilization.
ReplyDeleteRodney Stark in The Victory of Reason, gives an excellent explanation as to why the West won because in the West, Christianity, that backward religion set the stage for the rise of reason. Something Greek civilization and the others could not do.
So, Nietzsche, Hitchens ..... the list goes on. Refusing to believe and not because of the evidence that favours the revelation of God in Christ and how that revelations helped create the best in society by laying the groundwork for science and the triumph of reason and capitalism. Necessary critiques of the evil uses of the above noted and needed but not the main point right now.
Have you folks ever wondered about the logical inconsistency inherent in a supposedly perfect being needing or wanting to create anything? I would have thought that a perfect being has no needs or wants.
ReplyDeleteHe has no needs. But why assume he has no wants? Where's the inconsistency? Where's your argument?
ReplyDeleteRemember that creation is for the benefit of the creatures (or a subset thereof), and not for the benefit of the Creator.
Have you ever wondered why The Atheist Missionary asks such rank amateur questions? Where does he get this stuff? Is there some atheist handbook called "101 objections to Christianity" or something?
ReplyDelete"..to create.."
ReplyDeleteOr
Not to create.
Actually that's not the question is it?
We are already all here.
The question is, how di this get created, all that we have here?
Was it an eternal gas, or perhaps a eternal dust? How about an eternal Designer, Creator, Intelligence, Being.
TAM,
ReplyDeleteRevelation is part of who God is, so creating a universe that is revelatory, is not inconsistent.
Au contraire. While I am a rank amateur, the question I posed certainly does not hold rank amateur status. There is a basic inconsistency between the suggestion that a being is perfect and that being wanting to create anything, let alone imperfect beings like us. In fact, the supposedly perfect being supposedly made us in his image. We're not perfect - anything but. The simple fact of human anatomical imperfections (which can be explained with precision as arising from evolutionary adaptations) stands are irrefutable proof that your Creator, if he exists, is certainly not perfect.
ReplyDeleteWhat you've now done is to repeat your original assertion, sans argument, then move the goalpost. Positing an inconsistency is not an argument. Where's the argument?
ReplyDeleteIn addition, your appeal to anatomical "imperfections" presumes a standard of comparison.
Neal, yep you nailed it. My 10 year old is able to reason through these 'irrefutable' proofs.
ReplyDeleteAh TAM. Is Leonardo Da Vinci's David made in the image of a human man. Is it itself a living human being.
So surely we can be made in the image of God and not possess divinity and perfection. God loves, we love. God displays justice, we have a sense of and seek justice... Oh wait, I can't believe I am trying to explain this.
I'm going to head back to read some Wittgenstein because we obviously differ on our definitions of "perfect".
ReplyDeleteI'll come back when I need help with the big words (which won't be long).
Da Vinci's David is an imperfect image made by a fallible (though incredibly gifted) human being.
ReplyDeleteIf you're perfect, everything you create would be perfect if you bothered to create anything. The question I posed is why something that was perfect would bother to create anything. If we get past that goalpost, then we start wondering why the perfect being would create something that was less than perfect. As for a standard of comparison, look no further than the expanding size of babies' heads at birth. Women’s average pelvic size has not been able to keep up and the ensuing mismatch – newborn head lengths that are slightly bigger than mothers’ pelvic widths – has resulted in more difficult deliveries than in other hominid species.
"The question I posed is why something that was perfect would bother to create anything."
ReplyDeleteTo magnify His perfection.
Why not?
If you're perfect, everything you create would be perfect if you bothered to create anything.
ReplyDeleteOut of curiosity, does this mean you think there is a "perfect" correlation between our efforts and what we produce?
But to the point, the only thing that seems to follow is that if you are perfect (in that you are all powerful) you can accomplish exactly what you set out to do. But I don't see why we should think that if you are perfect you should only set out to create perfect copies of yourself.
THE ATHEIST MISSIONARY SAID:
ReplyDelete“If you're perfect, everything you create would be perfect if you bothered to create anything.”
In the nature of the case, God is greater than whatever he creates.
“The question I posed is why something that was perfect would bother to create anything.”
I already answered that question.
“If we get past that goalpost…”
No, I’m not going to play ball on a field with a sliding goalpost. I’m not here to humor you. Get a dog.
“…then we start wondering why the perfect being would create something that was less than perfect.”
Since you haven’t bothered to define “perfection,” your question is meaningless.
“As for a standard of comparison, look no further than the expanding size of babies' heads at birth. Women’s average pelvic size has not been able to keep up and the ensuing mismatch – newborn head lengths that are slightly bigger than mothers’ pelvic widths – has resulted in more difficult deliveries than in other hominid species.”
i) Optimal design is a comparative concept. Optimal in relation to what? Engineering has its tradeoffs. Creaturely media have inherent limitations. You might as well say merlot is “imperfect” unless merlot is chardonnay.
ii) Bigger heads make for bigger brains. Bigger brains make humans more adaptable. That’s a survival advantage. So your objection is simplistic.
These comments are for The Atheist Missionary (TAM). As usual, other people have already responded by saying some things I would have said.
ReplyDeleteThe word "perfect" is used in multitudinous ways in theological and philosophical discourse. Next time you go to your local library go and read a multi-volume Catholic encyclopedia on the topic of "perfection" or "infinite" and you'll see what I mean. This isn't the place to copy and paste all the nuances of the word. To get an unauthoritative taste of it, read the Wikipedia article on it.
TAM, in theological dialogue, your question is sometimes called the "Full Bucket" problem. It asks, "How do you add more water to an already full bucket?"
Well, sometimes the word "want" means "desire" and other times "lack" (as in "The LORD is my shepherd. I shall not *want* [i.e. lack]).
Answer: God doesn't lack (or need) anything outside of Himself (hence aseity); even if He may desire things beside Himself.
Among other reasons, God's creating the world was for:
1. His greater enjoyment even though God was already/always fulfilled in the intra-trinitarian love and fellowship shared between the persons of the Trinity.
2. the benefit and enjoyment of God's creatures (or as Steve said, for a subset of them).
3. For the manifestation to others (necessarily God's creatures) of God's glorious attributes which also contribute to #2 and #1.
Or as the Westminster Confession of Faith says:
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2. God hath all life, glory, goodness, blessedness, in and of himself; and is alone in and unto himself all-sufficient, not standing in need of any creatures which he hath made, nor deriving any glory from them, but only manifesting his own glory in, by, unto, and upon them. He is the alone fountain of all being, of whom, through whom, and to whom are all things; and hath most sovereign dominion over them, to do by them, for them, or upon them whatsoever himself pleaseth.
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to be continued:
continued...
ReplyDeleteGod wanted to share the enjoyment of His glory, goodness and fellowship with creatures. Another way of putting it is that the intra-Trinitarian love overflowed and desired to share that love with others. Just like human love can result in children, so God's love resulted in created and adopted sons of God destined for glory.
Referring to any current imperfections in the human species as evidence for the imperfection of God doesn't take into account the Fall of Adam and Eve. It affected all aspects of humanity, including the physical. Also, God never intended this world, as it is, to last forever since He planned to redeem and renovate it after the Fall to a degree greater than before the Fall.
Using the word "perfect" to refer to God necessarily requires us to use the word in a different sense for creatures since God is infinite and possesses attributes incommunicable to creatures (beside the communicable ones).
For creatures, one way to define perfection is that the object fulfills at least one aspect for which it was created.
For example, a ceramic cup can be considered "perfect" if it can successfully hold liquids for drinking. But it may not be perfect if it was meant to be a shatter-proof cup. In that case a plastic cup would be considered "perfect" in that sense. In the same way, Adam was created perfect morally and phyiscally but mutably. He was able to fall from that state and "shatter". Redeemed and Glorified humanity will become "shatter-proof".
Atheist Missionary,
ReplyDeletePlease read up on this question of God's wants a bit more.
Here's a hint - if you don't want to be taken as a rank amateur, take some of these popular questions, find the well-known Christian answers, and deal with THOSE. Show why the answers aren't any good. Take us where we've never been before.
The Atheist Missionary said:
ReplyDeleteAs for a standard of comparison, look no further than the expanding size of babies' heads at birth. Women’s average pelvic size has not been able to keep up and the ensuing mismatch – newborn head lengths that are slightly bigger than mothers’ pelvic widths – has resulted in more difficult deliveries than in other hominid species.
1. It's obvious TAM is oversimplifying matters. But if he wants to argue the point, simplifications won't do. He has to get down to nitty gritty details. For example, it's not just the pelvis' size but also its other dimensions which are important in parturition (e.g. the angle between two bones called the inferior pubic rami, the pubic inlet as well as outlet shape and other variations between men and women). Also, it's not just the size of the baby's head that's the problem. It's likewise the angle at which the baby comes out. All this is just for starters.
Yet if TAM adjusts one of these factors, how will it effect other factors in a woman? How would adjusting the female pelvis effect say the osteoblasts and osteoclasts involved in making bone? How would adjusting hormones like estrogen, progesterone, FSH, and LH effect menstruation? Each of these could have repercussions down the line too. They could effect other physiological processes in her body.
Like Steve said, engineering has its tradeoffs.
2. I think a lot of the problems with delivering babies these days isn't because of "bad design" so much as a woman's age. It'd be ideal for a woman to deliver a baby in her teens or early twenties. Younger women tend to have a lot less complications. But people are giving birth much older these days.
3. Actually, I think it's really amazing how a baby is born. Just check out how a baby is positioned as he develops in his mother's womb in a standard OB/GYN textbook like Williams Obstetrics. For instance, during parturition the baby actually rotates and moves or contorts his head and body in such a way as to allow safe passage through his mother's birth canal. How does the baby know how to move like this? Likewise the mother's body helps guide and push the baby along in an optimal direction. How does her body know how to do that?
4. Of course, I'm not trying to gloss over the problems in parturition. Gen 3:16 will always be the case in this world. But I think it is, as the old cliche goes, a miracle whenever a baby is born, particularly given all the potential problems and complications. And how much more so with women who give birth in their later years (e.g. Sarah, Elizabeth).
5. While it's true spermatogenesis continues to the end of men's lives, unlike oogenesis, it's also true that men's sperm deteriorate as they get older (e.g. DNA mutation, impeded sperm motility). So even if TAM were able to adjust mothers and babies in such a way as to preserve optimal design, he'd also have to correspondingly account (at least in part) for how this would effect fathers. If TAM changed the size of a woman's pelvis, how would this effect fertilization in coitus? Would impregnation be more difficult? How would it effect male sperm? What would it mean for say acrosomal reaction time to penetrate the ovum's zona pellucida? And so forth.
It's very odd to suggest that a God who wants good for others is imperfect. Why is wanting good for others an imperfection?
ReplyDeleteCreation is a reflection of God's generosity.
I think I finally get where "Atheist-M" is coming from.
ReplyDeleteA perfect Being, holy and without flaw, can only do what is perfect. It's a mind set that he has, or you have, if you are still listening.
But, God is infinite as well. Can you explain what His infinite atribute means? Or even His being eternal. He always was and alwasy shall be the same?
If you can not, that is normal for us finite beings.
So, in that sense, His perfection is not the same as our thinking of perfection. It may be similiar in some ways.
But this Creator created every star, and put it where he wanted it. I mean, can man even create just one star?
We are discussing a Creator that is so far beyond our understanding-and we need to acknowledge that. Yet, He came down to us, and became like us, because of another of His attributes: Love.
A.M.,
ReplyDeleteIf you're perfect, everything you create would be perfect if you bothered to create anything.
I have recently dealt with this assertion in detail here.
Steve,
ReplyDelete"Suffering can be a source of good. Take a couple who marry young. Let’s say they lack the maturity for marriage. So they break up after a few acrimonious years.
They wander. Pursue other pairings. Then, ten years later, they come back together. All the suffering makes them appreciate each other in a way that wasn’t possible apart from suffering."
As a Christian, I accept this as an explanation. I was wondering, though, if you had thoughts on this: whereas in your example the suffering is a means of producing appreciation (a good), why do you suppose God, through His providence, would chose this means when He might have created a situation where, from the get-go, both were highly appreciative of each other?
Do you think these alternative means of achieving the same outcome are somehow problematic as somehow being inconsistent with the nature of humans as He has created them? (This is just something I've pondered but without being able to develop the idea or understand it further than this).
There's a difference between knowledge by acquaintance and knowledge by description.
ReplyDelete