Martians

I recently got into an impromptu Facebook debate with a religious pluralist. I've rearranged the comments to group related comments together:

Wayne

Were the 12 disciples reasoned into their faith?

Hays

They were eyewitnesses to the miracles of Jesus, including the Resurrection. 

Wayne

Was St. Paul?

Hays

He was converted through Jesus making a personal appearance to him. And, in addition, his own ministry was confirmed by miracles. 

Wayne 

How is this equivalent to being "reasoned into their faith" in the way that Jonathan suggests?

Hays

Among other lines of evidence, Jonathan appeals to testimonial evidence. That's an extension of firsthand observation, which we rely on that all the time, and it's often highly reliable. 

Wayne

He was knocked on flat on his (back?), struck blind, and communicated with directly by the risen Lord. How is this equivalent to being 'reasoned into his faith' in the way that Jonathan suggests?

Hays

Same answer (see above).

Wayne

It only implies inerrancy if you are desperate to find grounds for inerrancy.

Hays

So you're now admitting that your question was disingenuous. You never wanted an answer. 

Wayne

Divine inspiration more plausibly suggests infallibility with regard to a spiritual message, assuming the target audience happens to have ears to hear (i.e. an open heart in the presence of the Holy Spirit).

Hays

You're confusing the inspiration of Bible writers with the illumination or regeneration of readers. 

Wayne

If the traditional arguments that you have in mind are inductive, they cannot in principle support the absolute conclusion of 'inerrancy'.

Hays

You seem to be confusing an "absolute" position (i.e. the Bible has no errors) with absolute proof. But that's a non sequitur. 

I don't believe there are any Martians residing in subterranean cities on the red planet. That's an "absolute conclusion," inasmuch as my belief amounts to a universal negation. 

Is it a problem for my believe that my arguments for that conclusion are probabilistic rather than absolute? Do I need apodictic proof to be justified in my belief that there are no Martians hiding in underground complexes?

Wayne

And I'm saying that you can never arrive at a belief in inerrant scriptures (as regards internal consistency for over 1000 years or as applies to every claim that might seem to have a bearing on science or history) without having been coerced (through various kinds of 'group-think', usually involving threats of hell and hopes of paradise). The onus is on you to acknowledge these problems and think them through honestly.

Hays

The onus is not on me to accept the armchair narrative you foist on me. I wasn't raised in fundamentalist churches, so your narrative doesn't apply to me. That's a danger of stereotyping your opponent. 

Wayne 

Your 4 ways of 'making a case for Biblical inerrancy' can only support their general authority and reliability--and even that, typically, for someone who is culturally predisposed to accept them.

Hays

It's amusing how you continue to indulge in fact-free narratives about your opponent's assumed background. In fact, it's a revealing window into your standards of evidence, or lack thereof.

My dad was agnostic. My mother had drifted from the faith when I was growing up. I attended public school K-12. And I had a steady diet of secularized pop cultural TV fare. But don't let that stop you for concocting imaginary backstories about what Bible-believing Christians are culturally predisposed to accept. 

Wayne

How about the commonly held belief in eternal conscious torment-- for the devil and his angels AND for unrepentant human beings --how do you reconcile that idea with the idea of an all powerful, all knowing, all loving creator?

Hays

At this juncture there's nothing to reconcile inasmuch as you haven't even presented an argument for how that's supposed to be irreconcilable. Just bunching some things to gather, then positing an inconsistency, begs the question. The onus is on your to turn your objection into an argument. Then we'll have something to talk about.

Wayne

Why all the collateral damage? Are we or are we not created/chosen in Christ before the foundation of the world?

Hays

The elect, but not humanity in general.

Wayne

If so, why is it necessary that our salvation be bought at the price of the suffering of those who were not so created/chosen?

Hays

Once again, you need to flesh out your contention. In what sense do you think reprobation/double predestination entails that the salvation of the elect was "bought at the price of the suffering of those who were not so created/chosen"?

Wayne

Unless these questions are acknowledged as legitimate and then substantially addressed…

Hays

You're taking intellectual shortcuts while you demand far more from Christians. But the onus is not on Christians to rebut accusatorial questions. Accusatorial questions don't amount to rational objections. If you find something objectionable about Christianity, you assume the initial burden of proof to turn that into an actual argument. You need to give reasons for why that's supposed to be a problem for Christianity. Unless and until you put an actual argument on the table, the burden of proof is not on the Christian to rebut something for which you've provided no evidence.

Wayne

Could he not just as easily have made the choice between annihilation and eternal life?

Hays

Annihilation isn't justice, but an evasion of justice. 

Wayne

Does the end really justify the means?

Hays

Sometimes yes, sometimes no. Although any end doesn't justify any means, some ends justify some means. 

Wayne

So the damned never had a chance from the get-go. Not only were they born under the weight of original sin, they were never intended to be saved in the first place. Does that seem reasonable to you? Does that seem like the action of an all knowing, all powerful, all loving God?"

Hays

Yes it does.

This goes back to ancient and perennial debates over the necessary preconditions of moral responsibility. The compatibilist/incompatibilist debate continues to rage in contemporary philosophy, with many variations. It's not as if one side won the argument. 

What people find intuitively plausible or implausible is typically dependent on the examples used to illustrate their intuitions. Change the example, and what appears to be intuitively implausible may now seem plausible, or vice versa. We could get into the weeds of this debate. 

Wayne

If the suffering of the damned is not necessary to some higher good, that makes God a sadistic monster.

Hays

That only follows on the assumption that retributive justice is, at best, an instrumental good rather than an intrinsic good. That's an assumption you need to defend.

Wayne

If it is necessary, it limits his power.

Hays

You seem to have a simplistic grasp of omnipotence. There are things even an omnipotent agent can't do. Take second order goods. In the nature of the case, those can't be produced directly. 

Likewise, although an omnipotent agent can often bypass natural media, he can't do that constantly without destroying the nature of creaturehood. If God opts to achieve an effect through a natural medium, that limits what he can do. That's a self-imposed limitation. To work through a medium is to accept the in-built constraints of the medium. And that's the nature of mundane existence. Our mode of subsistence is creaturely. So God relates to us on our own level–or else not at all. 

Wayne

You mistake moral and intellectual clarity for accusations. I'm saying that you cannot reconcile the traditional attributes of God with the commonly held teaching of eternal conscious torment.

Hays

Yes, that's what you're saying. By saying and showing are two different things. 

Wayne

Prophesies are like horoscopes--they are vague and ambiguous--easy to read whatever meaning into.

Hays

According to you. 

Wayne

As a Christian…

Hays

Was that sarcastic? 

Wayne

I must admit that Isaiah 53 seems incredibly compelling. But to the average Jew, not so much, eh?

Hays

You mean, like the Jewish authors of the NT?

Wayne

But even as a Christian [sic], I don't find, 'I called my son out of Egypt' (Matthew quoting Hosea) at all persuasive. Do you?

Hays

A striking example of typology. And in the nature of the case, we're in a better position to appreciate the emerging pattern in retrospect. 

Wayne

Miracles fall under historicity and are often doubtful, to say the least.

Hays

Because you say so. 

Wayne

Finally, the fact that many objections have been fielded just shows the ingenuity of apologists. Many have been fielded well, to be sure, and many have not.

Hays

Because you say so. 

Wayne

Moreover, your argument is so weak that it is laughable to anyone who is seriously concerned with the question.

Hays

You're not entitled to speak on behalf of others. We didn't vote to make you the standard of comparison.

Wayne 

To deny the seriousness and legitimacy of these objections...

Hays

You're at liberty to regard your objections as "serious" and "legitimate". You are not at liberty to impose your plausibility structure on anyone else. 

Wayne

And to pressure people to believe these doctrines

Hays

We're simply pointing out what God requires of his people. 

Wayne

Poses a moral hazard (since it encourage people to deny the logical and moral implications of such teachings)

Hays

Putting aside your tendentious characterization of their "logical" and "moral" implications, it's dangerous to encourage people to deny revealed truths.

Wayne

If you wish to discuss these ideas further, you need first to demonstrate that you at least understand my objections to them.

Hays

I'm not commenting for your benefit, but for the benefit of lurkers.

Wayne

Moreover, we haven't even broached the topic of other faiths and other scriptures

Hays

Well, that's easily disposed of. Muhammad was a false prophet by his own yardstick. He told doubters to measure him by the Bible. He doesn't measure up. End of story. 

Joseph Smith was a classic con artist. The evidence is abundant.

I'd say Swedenborg was either mentally ill or demonically possessed. 

Even in principle, the Hindu scriptures can only be as inspired as the nature of divinity in Hinduism, which ranges from an impersonal concept of the divine to folk polytheism. In the former case, inspiration is impossible, and in the latter, it would amount to revelation from gods who are finite in knowledge and morally flawed. 

Buddhism ranges from atheism to folk polytheism. Same problem. 

I could continue, but that's a start. 

Wayne

And the spiritual lives of those born in other cultures before and after the common era.

Hays

Like what? Buddha deserting his wife? Vedic sages getting high on mushrooms? 

Wayne

Unless Christian apologists are willing to seriously inquire into all these questions, it is no wonder that young people can be talked out of their faith.

Hays

What Christian apologists have you read? What about Win Corduan on Eastern religion? What about D. S. Margoliouth and Michael Nazi Ali on Islam (to name a few)?

Complaints about the morality of everlasting punishment are nothing new. You think Christian apologists have ignored that? Surely you jest.

Once again, there's an scholarly literature defending the inerrancy of Scripture from various angles. It's not as if Christian "apologists" (i.e. scholars, philosophers, scientists) have neglected that issue.

Wayne

Indeed, their faith was little more than indoctrination to begin with."

Hays

You could say that for anything. You could say that for a kid raised in "progressive Christian" churches. You could say that for a kid raised in atheism.

Wayne

So doing, our faith is no longer dependent on the idea of inerrant scriptures or fear of hell

Hays

That's because your faith is an intellectual compromise that isn't consistently based on revelation or naturism. 

Wayne

Rather, we can recognize and honor the light that lights everyone who comes into the world and acknowledge, truly, that whosoever will may come and drink of the water of life freely.

Hays

As I noted before, you're ripping those passages out of context. They are set in the context of cultivating explicit faith in the historical Jesus of the Gospels.

Wayne

Most compelling, from where I stand, is the notion of the perennial philosophy which finds historical and cultural expression in various religious and philosophical traditions, including Christianity. The latter, certainly, has some historical basis, but one need not imagine that this tradition must be true in every historical detail-- or that it is the only on-ramp to the Way of Truth and Life --in order for it to be an authentic on-ramp that functions positively in the lives of individuals and communities.

Hays

A basic problem is that you're caught in the self-refuting dilemma of the religious pluralist and relativist. In order to distill a core of common truth in various religious and philosophical traditions, you must exempt yourself from the skepticism you impute individual adherents. You must simultaneously assume a God's-eye view of what reality is like while you deny that same objectivity to the benighted adherents of each and every religious and philosophical tradition. The rest of us are blind men groping different parts of the elephant, while you alone are sighted, so you can see the whole picture. 

Wayne

To invite skeptics to bracket their skepticism and look to the living Christ who is not so far from any one of us.

Hays

You offer than nothing but your own skepticism. Drowning men clinging to each other, as they sink beneath the waves.

You then engage is a classic word-study fallacy, by supposing that the concept of Biblical faith is reducible to the dictionary definition of a word.

Wayne

Instead, to the living Reality that IS Christ-in-you

Hays

Unbelievers don't have "Christ-in-them".

Wayne 

Behold I stand at the door and knock... Whosoever will may come and drink of the water of life freely...

Hays 

Think it about it. Really think. Those passages require a response. An informed response. They require historical knowledge of Jesus to respond. You desperately want these passages to mean something they clearly don't. Moreover, it's just a charade for you to prooftext your position from Scripture when you deride the verbal plenary inspiration of Scripture. You're position is riddled with glaring inconsistencies.