Bryan's stalled chess game

Bryan Cross recently reviewed Roman but Not Catholic: What Remains at Stake 500 Years after the Reformation, by Kenneth Collins & Jerry Walls, in Faith and Philosophy 35/4 (October 2018), 485-491. 

i) It's worth noting who didn't write the review. It wasn't written by a cradle Catholic. It wasn't written by a graduate of a Catholic seminary. It wasn't written by a Catholic Bible scholar or church historians at a Catholic seminary or pontifical university. It wasn't written by a Catholic theologian. It wasn't written by a priest, monsignor, or bishop. It wasn't written by the prefect for the CDF. 

Rather, it was written by a Catholic layman and evangelical convert to Catholicism. It was written by a self-anointed spokesman for Catholicism. Whenever I read Bryan, I'm struck by how he presumes to pontificate (pun intended) for Catholic theology. But how representative are his views within the hierarchy or mainstream Catholic academia? Or is this an idealized abstraction that's out of step with official currents in Roman Catholicism? 

ii) I've skimmed the book Bryan is reading. I read the parts that interested me. For purposes of this post, I'll assume that Bryan accurately represents the stated positions of Walls and Collins in the book. I won't go back to compare his representations with theirs. They can do that on their own if they choose to respond to him. I did reread their section on the sufficiency and perspicuity of Scripture before writing this post. 

iii) It's somewhat roundabout to review a review. I don't necessarily frame the issues in the same way as Collins and Walls. And Bryan wasn't responding to me, so he can't be faulted for failing to engage my arguments, since that wasn't his aim. So my response is orthogonal to this particular exchange. I speak as an interested third party, overhearing their exchange. 

Keeping Christ in Christmas

Puritan cultural warrior:

Genesis in the church fathers

It seemed to me [reviewer James Pate] that a lot of the church fathers Allert profiled believed that the events of Genesis 1 occurred as narrated. Why seek to explain the light that existed before the sun, moon, and stars, if it is all just symbolic, anyway? They may have believed there was a deeper spiritual meaning to the details of Genesis 1, but they seem to have accepted Genesis 1 as history: a narrative about what happened in the past.

http://jamesbradfordpate.blogspot.com/2018/12/book-write-up-early-christian-readings.html

Invisible friends

Atheists mock Christian belief in their "invisible friend". 

i) Jesus is visible, not invisible. God Incarnate is visible. He was seen (heard, and touched) by thousands of observers in 1C Palestine.

ii) And that's not just a thing of the past. Consider many reported Christophanies in modern times:

https://epistleofdude.wordpress.com/2017/11/07/visions-of-jesus/

iii) But suppose Jesus is invisible. Charlemagne is invisible. I never saw him. Never met him. There are no photographs of Charlemagne. Does that mean Charlemagne is a figment of the imagination? 

iv) Consider an anonymous benefactor. Take someone who endows a college scholarship. Although that's an invisible friend, it's not an imaginary friend.

Calvinism as devotional theology

From a devotional standpoint, Calvinism has two centripetal orientations:

i) Our absolute dependence on God as creatures

ii) Our absolute dependence on God as sinners

(ii) presupposes (i), but (ii) deepens the sense of helplessness and indebtedness. 

Will John Chau help or harm missions in India?

Two missiologists address the question: "Will John Chau Help or Harm Missions in India?"

Reproduction machines

Had an impromptu debate with an apostate on Facebook

Michael 

What Doctrines do Atheists hold? I would prefer to describe myself as a Humanist because that does tell you something about my beliefs and values. If I called you a non-Buddhist, all that would tell you is some of the things a don't believe.

Hays 

Typically, atheists are physicalists. In addition, they believe the universe is a closed system:

Many ontological naturalists thus adopt a physicalist attitude to mental, biological and other such “special” subject matters. They hold that there is nothing more to the mental, biological and social realms than arrangements of physical entities. 

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/naturalism/#MakCauDif 

In the final twentieth-century phase, the acceptance of the casual closure of the physical led to full-fledged physicalism. The causal closure thesis implied that, if mental and other special causes are to produce physical effects, they must themselves be physically constituted. It thus gave rise to the strong physicalist doctrine that anything that has physical effects must itself be physical. 

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/naturalism/#RisPhy

There is no ultimate reason for why things happen, although there are causes. This life is all there is. No immortality. No immortal soul. No resurrection of the body. Humans are fleeting, fortuitous combinations of particles. What we believe and cherish is the result of blind evolutionary conditioning and social conditioning. That's pretty standard. Some atheists toy with Platonic realism. Many atheists reject moral realism.

Can We Trust the Gospels?

Recently I read Can We Trust the Gospels? (Crossway 2018) by Peter Williams, a NT scholar and textual critic. 

Chap. 1 reviews the non-Christian sources. 

Chap. 2 provides an overview of the canonical Gospels.

Chap. 3 marshals a battery of evidence to demonstrate that the canonical Gospels reflect intimate knowledge of the time and place of Jesus, based on place names, proper names, bodies of water, roads, gardens, botanical terms, finance, local languages, Jewishness, and usual customs. 

It also compares the canonical gospels with apocryphal gospels to illustrate the dearth of such information in gospels from a later time and different place. 

Chap. 4 summarizes the argument from undesigned coincidences, drawing on Lydia McGrew's monograph.

Chap. 5 addresses the question of whether we have the actual words of Jesus, as well as harmonizing the Resurrection accounts of Matthew and John.

Chap. 6 debunks the textual skepticism of Bart Ehrman. 

Chap. 7 addresses the allegation that the Gospels are contradictory, appealing to literary paradox in John's Gospel. 

Chap. 8 applies the criterion of embarrassment, defends and sketches the argument from miracles, defends and sketches the argument from prophecy, as well as making a case for the Resurrection.

Despite the book's brevity, it's a fact-filled treatment. Highly recommended. Here's a sample:

What is Calvinism?

I. Preliminaries

I've discussed this before, but now I'd like to offer a more comprehensive statement. This will reflect my own understanding.

Calvinism is often defined by the "five points of Calvinism". But while that's an integral element of Calvinism, it's a reductionistic definition. 

There's a distinction between Reformed distinctives and Reformed essentials. Calvinism shares many essentials in common with other theological traditions. Usually the question "what is Calvinism" has reference to things that distinguish Calvinism from freewill theism or (traditionally) Catholicism. But it's misleading to define a theological tradition primarily by what makes it different from other theological traditions. 

Even in that respect, Reformed distinctives aren't necessarily unique to Calvinism. Calvinism is not the only predestinarian theological tradition. There's Augustinianism, classical Thomism, and Jansenism. 

This post is not a defense of Calvinism, but an exposition of some key tenets.

The mission of the church

Some Christians respond to the social justice movement by framing the issue in terms of the church's mission, or gospel/non-gospel categories. Now, there's certainly an important debate to be had regarding the mission of the church. And it's true that when the church suffers from mission creep, it loses focus, which contributes to doctrinal drift. 

That said, evaluating the social justice movement in terms of the church's mission or gospel/non-gospel categories is too abstract and roundabout. For the more direct issue is that Christian conservatives sharply disagree with secular progressives and progressive Christians on what the social issues should be. We don't see eye-to-eye with what's wrong. Off the top of my head, this is the agenda of the social justice movement:

Affirmative consent

Black Lives Matter

Climate justice (e.g. climate change, sustainability)

Economic justice (e.g. minium wage)

Feminism

Gay rights

Gun ban/confiscation

Immigrant justice

Income redistribution

Intersectionality

Reproductive rights (abortion, "free" contraception) 

Student debt
Toxic masculinity

Transgender rights

Universal basic income

Universal healthcare

White privilege 

Conversely, these are some social issues that concern many evangelicals, libertarians, and/or conservatives: 

Abortion (oppose)

Administrative state (oppose)
Affirmative action (oppose)

Capital punishment

Complementarianism

Due process

Euthanasia (oppose)

Freedom of religion

Freedom of speech

Freedom of association

Illegal immigration (oppose)

Muslim immigration (oppose)
Police state (oppose)

Privacy rights

Property rights

School choice

Self-defense

Parental rights

Surveillance state (oppose)

Tech giant censorship (oppose)

Where the debate comes to a head is over specific issues and political philosophy. "Social justice" is a euphemism as well as an umbrella term. 

The primary reason that conservatives and Christians like me resist the social justice movement is not because I agree with their agenda but think that falls outside the mandate of the church. It's not as though I believe we need to work on those issues, but from a different platform than the church. No, the fundamental objection is that I don't agree with their menu. Indeed, I oppose their agenda. I oppose their priorities. I have a different menu. That's where the argument must be met. 

Boy Scouts goes belly up

https://www.wsj.com/articles/boy-scouts-of-america-considers-bankruptcy-filing-amid-sex-abuse-lawsuits-11544649657

This shows the progressive agenda is not unstoppable. People vote with their feet and their wallets as well as their ballots. The BSA snubbed its core constituency, and now is on the brink of extinction.

"Calvinism: A Doctrine of Devils" Documentary

To: Wormwood

From: Screwtape

Re: "Calvinism: A Doctrine of Devils" Documentary

I'm dismayed by your failure to preempt this exposé:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DaVsvtO45ec

Our best field operatives have now been outed. His Infernal Majesty is displeased with your dereliction. I've convened the executive emergency committee, but the damage is already irreparable. This could all have been prevented by a few discreet freak accidents. 

Celibate Jesus

It's sometimes alleged that Jesus was a bachelor because Jesus was gay. 

Some people say Jesus was gay, not because they really believe that, but because they like to get a rise out of Christians. They know some Christians will wax indignant if they make outrageous statements about Christianity, and they like to push their buttons. 

Some people say Jesus was gay, not because they really believe that, but because they want to destroy Christianity, and one tactic is to redefine Jesus. They know a gay Jesus is inimical to biblical, orthodox Christianity. It's like a computer virus. 

I suppose one argument for the gay Jesus is that he spent so much time in the exclusive company of other men. That, however, would be a fallacious inference.

i) For instance, Jack and Warnie Lewis were middle-aged bachelors who spent lots of time in the exclusive company of other men, belonged to men's clubs, yet there's no evidence they were gay. (Jack eventually married, late in life and unexpectedly.)

ii) More to the point, in the context of 1C Palestinian Judaism, the fact that Jesus spent so much time in the exclusive company of other men is actually evidence that he wasn't gay. If Jesus was suspected of being homosexual, he'd have no disciples. Back then, normal Jewish men had an extreme aversion to sodomites. And in addition to their personal aversion, they'd avoid the company of known or suspected homosexuals to protect their own reputation. Associating with sodomites would invite gossip and innuendo that they were homosexual, too. If they suspected that Jesus was gay, they'd go out of their way to avoid being seen in his company. 

iii) To my knowledge the traditional Jewish polemic against Christianity doesn't allege that Jesus was homosexual. It accuses him of sorcery, blasphemy, or illegitimacy. If there were rumors that Jesus was homosexual, wouldn't that be a fixture of the traditional Jewish polemic against Christianity?

So why was Jesus a bachelor? The NT doesn't say, so we can only speculate. 

1. As God-Incarnate, Jesus has an anomalous psychological makeup. On a two-minds Christology, the human mind of Jesus is to some degree conditioned by the divine mind. God Incarnate may not be psychologically suited to marriage.

2. In paganism, male gods and demigods fraternize with human women. As God Incarnate, Jesus might wish to avoid heathen associations with licentious gods.

3. The notion of God Incarnate having a sexual relationship with a human woman seems analogous to other sexual sins which transgress natural boundaries, viz. parental incest, bestiality, and pedophilia. 

4. Jesus didn't come to have a normal social life or normal lifespan. Rather, he came to die. And he knew ahead of time when he was going to die. Even if there weren't theological impediments to Jesus getting married (see above), that might well be a major deterent.

Take single men and women diagnosed with an incurable degenerative illness. They may be asymptomatic at the time of diagnosis. Their illness is a time-bomb, just waiting to detonate. 

Or take someone who's diagnosed with an inoperable brain aneurysm. In their head is a ticking time bomb. 

They may forego marriage and kids due to the prospect of incapacitation or premature death. They make a great personal sacrifice. 

5. Imagine the havoc it would wreak in church history if Jesus had kids. That would foster the cult of Christ's sons and daughters. There might be rival cults, since each dominical son or daughter would their own family tree. What if two or more dominical descendants had a theological dispute with each other?  

Imagine the theological clout the descendants of Jesus would have. Instead of following the Bible, Christianity would be diverted into a family cult. People with dominical bloodlines would command slavish followers. There'd be disputes over dominical lineage. 

6. If Jesus had a wife and kids, he'd be neglecting his family by spending so much time on the road. An absentee husband and father. 

7. Conversely, it would be quite impractical for Jesus to take his family with him as he traveled by foot all over Palestine. Exposure to the elements day and night. 

Some of his disciples may have been married while some of his disciples may have been bachelors. There's be no semblance of privacy, sleeping out of doors. That's not a problem if it's just a bunch of men. It is a problem when you throw men and women together, some married, some unmarried. 

Traditionally, men often team up for male-only expeditions. They can go at their own pace. Don't have to worry about protecting or providing for women and children in tow. Privacy is not an issue. 

That's true in historical explorations. Military situations. Some missionary situations. Take Mormon missionaries who pair off: two young guys. Nothing gay about that arrangement. 

(That's not a plug for Mormonism–just a sociological observation.) 

Pascal's Wager at the social level

http://alexanderpruss.blogspot.com/2018/12/pascals-wager-at-social-level.html

Advice for undertrained missionaries like John Chau

From a Chinese missiologist:

https://www.patheos.com/blogs/jacksonwu/2018/12/11/missionaries-undertrained-john-chau/

I'd point out that historically, many missionaries were poorly prepared. It was on the job training. They learned about the unevangelized by living and working with the unevangelized. They learned how to do evangelize by hands-on experience.

Can a Calvinist honestly say “God loves you” to everyone and anyone?

I'll comment on a recent post by Arminian theologian Roger Olson:

https://www.patheos.com/blogs/rogereolson/2018/12/can-a-calvinist-honestly-say-god-loves-you-to-everyone/

Recently a leading American Calvinist pastor-theologian has asked and answered this all-important question on his blog: Can a Calvinist (and he means himself and those who agree with him) honestly say “God loves you” to everyone and anyone?

i) Why is Olson coy about identifying the individual in question? 

ii) Can a traditional freewill theist honestly say “God loves you” to everyone and anyone? If God makes a world containing many people who will suffer "eternal torment" (Olson's phrase), and if God knows full well that that's the end-result of his action, how is that loving to the damned? God wasn't forced to make them. No one put a gun to his head.  

Many freewill theists believe the vast majority of the human race is damned. That's why they allege that according to Calvinism, God only saves a "chosen few". So how is that the action of a loving God, if he could spare them that horrible fate by not making them in the first place? 

iii) Suppose, as a Calvinist, that I can't honestly say God loved Pablo Escobar. Is that a damaging admission? 

There is no analogy in human experience to determining a fellow human being to torment (let alone eternal torment) as punishment for doing what the fellow human being could not have avoided doing. Especially when what the fellow human being did was inwardly determined by the person doing the punishing.

That's a confused statement:

i) Of course there's no analogy in human experience for exacting eternal punishment on a human being, since humans lack that prerogative. 

ii) Isn't it redundant to say "determining" the individual to hell for doing what they could not avoid doing? Doesn't Olson think "determination" and the inability to avoid doing something are equivalent?

iii) Why does Olson think it has to be "inwardly" determined? In Calvinism, why can't that be "outwardly" (i.e. providentially) determined?

iv) But to get to the nub of his objection: "punishment for doing what the fellow human being could not have avoided doing."  

What's the general principle? Is Olson's position that you shouldn't be punished for doing something unless you could avoid doing it? 

Let's explore that principle. Does Olson mean an agent should be able to avoid doing something from start to finish? Or at the inception? Does he mean the decision to do something? Or the implementation? Some actions are momentary but other actions involve a process. Does he mean an agent should be able to exit the process at any step along the way?

Given the arrow of time, in a cause/effect world, many actions have a point of no return. Even if the agent could avoid an outcome prior to the point of no return, there's a turning-point beyond which it's too late to change your mind. Suppose you can choose whether or not to pull the trigger, but once you pull the trigger, there's no going back. 

For many human agents, the accidental necessity of the past is a source of regret. With the benefit of hindsight, they wish they made a different choice. But many actions have irreversible consequences. They wish they could step into the time machine and choose a different course of action. 

If Olson thinks agents can be blameworthy for actions that precipitate an inevitable chain reaction, why does he think that's consistent with moral responsibility? Where does he draw the line–and why?

Again, I have to remind Calvinists and everyone of the inextricable connection between the Calvinist doctrines of providence and predestination. According to classical, historical, consistent Calvinism (from Calvin to Edwards to Hodge to Piper), God has determined everything that happens to happen exactly as it does happen without any exceptions. And that includes the fall of Adam and all of his posterity.

No, he doesn't have to remind me of the inextricable connection between Reformed predestination and providence, although it would be more accurate to say God predetermined that outcome. 

Curved grading

I have a beef about traditional grading. Let's use seminary as an example. Take comprehensive exams. Professors don't expect students to get 100%. Few students get a perfect score. 

Yet that means they don't expect students to remember everything they were taught. But what's the objective of teaching? The objective is not to pass the test, but to master the material. If, however, there's too much material to remember, then students aren't learning what you're teaching. But why teach more than they can learn? Why teach more than they can remember? Shouldn't mastery be the goal?

Consider an exam on internal anatomy, in which a med student scores 90%. Say that's a passing grade. 

Say that means he can identify 90% of your internal organs. It's the other 10% he's confused about. Would you undergo an operation by a surgeon who could identify 90% of your internal organs? What about the pesky 10%? Is that a kidney or the spleen? Flip a coin?

Someone might object that surgical knowledge is a life and death affair, so there's not the same margin for error. But does that mean seminaries teach students lots of irrelevant stuff? 

A better approach might be short, weekly quizzes. Passage requires a perfect score, but they can retake the quiz until they get 100%. At least that way they know it all. They mastered all the material. They remembered what they were taught. They may forget some of that at a later date, but that's better then never knowing it in the first place. 

Then there's the tradition of grading on a curve. That's unfair for two reasons.

To begin with, curved grading is, in effect, a group grade. You're not being graded on the quality of your own performance. Rather, your grade is dependent on how all the other students performed, even though you have no control over their performance. 

But it gets worse. Some students cheat. And that raises the bar for the honest students, since curved grading averages the grades. If students weren't graded on a curve, then each student's grade would be independent of the others. But if some students cheat, that raises the bar for the other students by distorting the curve. Honest students are downgraded by the cheaters. Honest students get a lower grade than they'd otherwise get because they're competing with students who take unfair advantage. 

I don't speak as a disgruntled student. I was a high-performing student in college and seminary. I'm speaking on behalf of other students. 

Predestination and prayer

A stock objection to Calvinism is that predestination makes prayer pointless. Ironically, there's a parallel objection based on the providential inutility of foreknowledge. So classical freewill theists are on the hook for an analogous objection.

But back to Calvinism. Let's take a comparison: a movie has plot. But the fact that it's scripted doesn't mean it makes no difference what the actors/characters do. Rather, the plot unfolds in a certain way because of what the actors/characters do, which in turn depends on the script. They follow the script. The plot doesn't play out in spite of what the actors/characters do, but rather, actors/characters have an instrumental role by enacting the script. 

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Investing in the future