Prima Donna

A friend drew my attention to the DL today. White spent a few minutes near the start attempting to refute my "hit piece": 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HO5MbkGC-Ro

He's reacting to this post:

https://triablogue.blogspot.com/2019/03/is-status-quo-frozen-in-place.html

On the DL, he suggested that I didn't have anything else to post on that day, so I went for the low low road. Unfortunately, his counting leaves something to be desired since there were no fewer than 7 posts that day. 

This is a problem with White. He makes snide off-the-cuff comments that come back to bite him. 

Let's comment on something he said earlier on Facebook, which he copy/pasted onto my post:

I really have no idea why Steve has to run over to spit at me about every six months or so, but I guess I was due my spittle today. Absurd out-of-context argument. Maybe Steve doesn't understand Twitter? This was the beginning of what is called a thread. There was more---much more. And, of course, I have sort of said a great deal about this topic over the past year, inclusive of hours of material on the Dividing Line, editing the Statement on Social Justice and the Gospel, and speaking at the G3 PreConference on the topic as well. So, isolating a single tweet, ignoring the rest of the thread it was a part of, and the entire context of what I've said---well, good job, Steve. Really helps polish up the ol' credibility as they say! For those who do not have a regularly scheduled "spit at James White" thing going on, nothing in what I said for a moment is an argument against pursuing righteousness in God's creation. It does, however, argue against a worldview that does not begin with the divine decree---i.e., intersectionality, that random, chaotic thought process that sees us all as victims of impersonal forces that shape us RATHER THAN image bearers who are called to faithfulness no matter what God's providence sends our way. If Steve can't see that, I feel sorry for him. But I think he can. Only problem is, when you keep spitting in the wind, it ends up in your eyes.

1. Notice how emotional White gets over intellectual criticism: "Steve has to run over to spit at me about every six months or so, but I guess I was due my spittle today…For those who do not have a regularly scheduled 'spit at James White' thing going on…Only problem is, when you keep spitting in the wind, it ends up in your eyes."

For the life of me I'll never understand why some grown men act like Prima Donnas. White is reacting like John Loftus, Richard Carrier, and Dave Armstrong. If you're that thin-skinned, you shouldn't be a Christian apologist. Intellectual criticism comes with the territory. And if you're that self-important, you need to take a break and reset your priorities. The more seriously we take ourselves, the less seriously we take the Gospel. 

2. It's hypocritical to use Twitter, then whine about people judging what they say on Twitter. And yes, I read the entire Twitter thread before I wrote the post. And no, the rest of the thread didn't "completely change" what I said in the post. 

3. I'm very selective about viewing podcasts generally. I dislike the medium. And White's DL marathons are really bad. He rambles incessantly, veers off into chronic digressions, like a random association test. He's ad libbing the whole time. It's a very lazy, inefficient form of analysis. He should rediscover the art of writing. How to express himself in compact, organized fashion. 

Moreover, his complaint is an exercise in misdirection because I wasn't evaluating his overall position on social justice and intersectionality. So that's neither here nor there. 

4. Let's go back to what he originally said:

Let me put this simply.

Intersectionality is utterly incompatible with a belief in the sovereign kingship of God and His divine decree.

It is God who makes men to differ, God who makes the lame and the blind and the rich and the poor.

i) To "put it simply" is to summarize his position. That's his position in a nutshell. Needless to say, if you think your position can be succinctly stated in two sentences, then that moots the claim that no one can understand your position unless they listen to hours of your exposition. Conversely, if you think a two-sentence summary is too simple, too liable to misunderstanding, then don't put it simply. What you're not entitled to do is to put it simply, then complain that readers oversimplify your position. Isn't that obvious? 

ii) And notice how the two sentence are juxtaposed, so that the second sentence illustrates the principle enunciated in the first sentence. The problem is that his formulation is classically fatalistic. He makes it sound like you can't do anything, and shouldn't try, to change the status quo since God decreed the status quo. If God decreed who is rich and poor, then who are we to try and help the poor out of poverty?

But if that's not what he intended to convey, if belief in the sovereign kingship of God and His divine decree is compatible with improving the status quo for the lame, the blind, and the poor (to take his examples), then where does that leave his original antithesis? 

Put another way, if that's not what he intended to convey, then he should be able to reword what he said to avoid the fatalistic formulation. Just rewrite it. Present an alternative formulation that avoids the fatalistic dichotomy which his original statement erected.