***QUOTE***
That said, however, I think there are problems of evil [not a singular "problem of evil"] that make the Christian belief that a good god exists improbable. While I am not so bold as to claim that these problems disprove the existence of any god or gods, I do contend that they place Christians in an awkward, defensive position in which they must adopt several ad hoc, and unconventional, beliefs in order to maintain their god's goodness.
That said, I will now present a few arguments that I believe are problematic for Christians. While none of them may be unanswerable, I believe that they force the Christian to accept answers that stretch the credibility of their openness to the "falsifibility" [forgive the word invention, I can't think of a better one] of their beliefs. In other words, I believe the "answers" that Christians invent for these problems demonstrate that their faith is not subject to falsifibility, and that their faith is, therefore, not subject to reason.
Argument #1:
P1: An omniscient, omnipotent, and omni-benevolent being would not commit an evil act.
P2: Ordering an army to kill non-combatant women, children, and infants is an evil act.
P3: The Christian God ordered an army to kill non-combatant women, children, and infants.
C: Therefore, the Christian God is not omniscient, omnipotent, and omni-benevolent.
I believe P1 is true by definition. If a being is all good, wise enough to know how to avoid evil acts, and powerful enough to accomplish his goals without evil acts, that being would not commit an evil act.
Christian theists often argue that P2 is true when applied to humans, but not to the Christian God. It is argued that humans are the Christian God's "property" and it is not, then, an evil act for him to destroy his own property.
This seems to me an ad hoc argument intended to save the Christian God from an obvious evil act (i.e. an act that would be obviously evil to most people who heard it). It also creates a problem for Christian moral philosophy.
Many of the same Christians who argue that a different morality applies to the Christian God justify human morality by reference to God's nature. They do this to avoid the horns of Euthyphro's dilemma. They do not want to say that morality is an arbitrary decision of God nor do they want to say that morality is external to God (because this would, presumably, make God subject to a standard outside of himself).
The defense, then, that P2 does not apply to the Christian God because of his position as "owner" of humanity is problematic because it implies a different moral standard for God and for humanity. If morality is determined by God's nature, however, and not his divine commands, then, there would not be two separate moral standards for God and for humanity. All morality would be unified by God's nature (i.e. if it is immoral to order an army to kill non-combatant women, children, and infants because of God's nature, then God's nature would not allow him to do so either).
Whether this defense is as problematic to those who do not maintain that morality is derived from God's nature is unclear to me. Perhaps, there is a way of justifying Christian moral belief that avoids both horns of Euthyphro's dilemma and avoids the problem of a morality derived from God's nature that does not apply to God himself. If there is such a justification, I do not know it.
http://notmanywise.blogspot.com/2006/07/problems-of-evil.html
***END-QUOTE***
1.Exbrainer assumes the existence of evil. Does he believe in moral absolutes?
2.The Bible gives a reason for holy war (e.g. Deut 9:4; 20:18). Exbrainer never addresses the reason given in Scripture.
3. How is it necessarily ad hoc to deny a uniform code of conduct to God and man alike?
To take an example from human affairs, most of us believe in age-appropriate conduct. Not everything that’s proper for adults is proper for children.
Is that an ad hoc distinction?
4. I’ve blogged on the Euthyphro dilemma on several occasions. It’s an artificial dilemma.
5. God is not merely dealing with people qua creatures, but with people qua sinners.
6.The fact that holy war is indiscriminate doesn’t imply that God is exacting judgment on the sins of each individual victim.
Natural disasters are also indiscriminate. The righteous are swept away along with the wicked. But that’s not the end of the story.
***QUOTE***
Argument #2 (general):
P1a: If the creator of this world were omniscient and omnipotent, then "he" could create a world in which all of his goals could be accomplished without pain and suffering.
P2a: If the creator of this world were omnibenevolent, then "he" would create a world in which all of his goals were accomplished without pain and suffering.
I believe P1a is true by definition. A being that is both omniscient and omnipotent would have both the wisdom and strength to accomplish his goals without inflicting (or allowing) pain and suffering.
It seems to me that P2a is also true by definition. Given a choice between accomplishing a goal with pain and suffering and accomplishing the same goal without it, a being that is all good would not inflict this pain and suffering because it would be unnecessary.
It seems to me that a possible defeator of this argument would be the claim that the Christian God could have had pain and suffering as a goal for humanity. In other words, while it might be true that an omnipotent and omniscient being could create a world in which many goals could be accomplished with or without pain and suffering, it might be the case that the particular goal of the Christian God in creating the world involved pain and suffering as its overall objective. Even an omniscient and omnipotent being could not accomplish a goal that included inflicting pain and suffering without pain and suffering.
This position, however, seems to create another problem. It seems to insist that the Christian God could not have chosen another goal for the world that did not involve pain and suffering. It seems to imply that the Christian God was not free to choose his own goals for the world; that he had to choose one that involved pain and suffering. This, however, seems to refute Christian doctrine of the Christian God's freedom, which leads into Argument #3.
***END-QUOTE***
1. P1a is not true by definition. There can be second-order goods which are contingent on evil. Such second-order goods are unobtainable apart from evil.
2. In fact, we find this argument in Scripture (cf. Rom 9:22-23; 11:32; Gal 3:22).
Once again, we’re treated to the spectacle of apostates who don’t know their way around the Bible. They raise abstract objections to the faith as if the Bible had no answer to their objections.
Perhaps they’d object to the answers given in Scripture, but the initial problem is with their failure to even interact with the answers given in Scripture.
3. (1)-(2) invalidate P1a and P2a alike.
4. Pain and suffering are generally means rather than ends.
5. Some pain and suffering are intrinsic goods. Retributive justice is intrinsically good.
6. Not all possibilities are compossible. Omnipotence can instantiate any compossible state of affairs. But to assume that God can achieve any end apart from any means is illogical
***QUOTE***
Argument #3:
P1a: If the creator of this world were omniscient, omnipotent, and free, then "he" could choose any goal for this world that he wanted.
P2a: If the creator of this world were omnibenevolent, then "he" would choose only those goals for this world that did not involve pain and suffering.
P1b: If the creator of this world is not omniscient, omnipotent, free, and omnibenevolent, then the Christian God is not the creator of this world.
P2b: The creator of this world is not omniscient, omnipotent, free, and omnibenevolent.
Cb: Therefore, the Christian God is not the creator of this world.
I believe P1a is true by definition. A free creator is not obligated to choose one goal over another. An omnipotent creator is not limited in his choices of goals by his power. An omniscient creator is not limited in his choices of goals by his ignorance of his options.
It seems that P2a is also true by definition. An omnibenevolent creator would limit himself to those goals that did not involve evil (viz. pain and suffering--see the justification of Argument #2, P2a for equating "pain and suffering" to "evil").
***END-QUOTE***
1. P2a is not true by definition. It fails to distinguish between a lesser good for a greater number and a greater good for a lesser number.
2. God is, indeed, free to choose between respective scenarios, but difference scenarios carry respective trade-offs. As I said before, not all possibilities are compossible.
3. Exbrainer is tacitly assuming that there is one best of all possible worlds. But what if some goods are incommensurable?
Which is the best style of church architecture? Byzantine? Gothic? Romanesque?
You might be able to say which is the best example of Byzantine or Gothic or Romanesque architecture. But to say that one style is better than another is hardly true by definition.
Wednesday, August 02, 2006
Tuesday, August 01, 2006
Regeneration and The Flyswatter: Part One, Bad Apologetics
The following is a guest post by Sam Hughey of the Reformed Reader.
Regeneration Before Faith
Gene M. Bridges (who frequently posts on Baptists Discussing Reformation) and Bob Ross (Calvinist Gadfly swatter) have exchanged comments regarding the Reformed view of Regeneration Before Faith. I think this is an edifying example of good and bad Apologetics and can be useful to all of us in our Apologetical development (especially mine). The source document is found here.
Gene Bridges affirms the view that man must be regenerated before man can have salvific faith while Bob Ross responds (to the contrary) with several Apologetical and Biblical errors:
1) Criticizing one’s activity does not disprove one’s view of Scripture. Gene’s ‘bloviating’ on numerous Internet Blogs fails to prove Gene’s use of Scripture is either correct or incorrect and certainly has no bearing on his use of time in so doing.
2) Forcing one’s presupposed conclusion onto another’s statements for the purpose of disproving their view is Apologetical suicide and shows the inability (or unwillingness) to accurately and honestly deal with the facts. Many of us make this same error and often without serious consideration as to what we are doing.
Bob Ross claims that any words resembling the phrase regeneration precedes faith belongs to the Hardshell Doctrine or is, at the least, ‘a’ Hardshell Baptist doctrine. While Hardshell Baptist doctrine includes the view that regeneration precedes faith, one is not necessarily a Hardshell (Primitive) Baptist on that merit. The reasoning is absurd. This type of fallacious reasoning would associate one with anything any other religious groups believes merely on the basis of ‘some’ type of similar belief. Is an Evangelical Christian in agreement with a Roman Catholic, Mormon, Jehovah’s Witness, etc., merely because all these groups believe in God?
Bob Ross claims Gene’s view of Regeneration preceding Faith fails to agree with Reformed Theology and is disproved merely on the grounds that one individual disagrees with him. Bob Ross stated,
Gene's ignorance of Reformed theology is appalling and is refuted by none other than John Frame, professor of theology at Reformed Theological Seminary.
Is the whole of Reformed Theology proven or disproved solely on the view of John Frame? Bob Ross believes this. John Frame’s statement is this,
I hold the Reformed view that children in infancy, even before birth, can be regenerated and saved, presumably before they have any conscious doctrinal beliefs.
So, how does Frame’s statement disagree with Bridges’? Both (Frame and Bridges) believe salvation occurs prior to the recipient having salvific faith. Both believe salvation occurs prior to belief. Both believe salvation is accomplished without man’s doctrinal involvement. Something that should be noted here is if Bob Ross is correct, that the unborn are not saved unless they have a conscious doctrinal belief then one must assume they either are taught the correct Biblical doctrinal belief, while still in the womb, or no unborn child is saved because they cannot have a conscious doctrinal belief.
Bob Ross continues with one of the most absurd remarks I have ever read/heard;
If a child is regenerated in infancy or even before birth and holds no "conscious doctrinal beliefs," you have a REGENERATED UNBELIEVER. Don't give me that nonsense about "The relationship is logical and causal, but not temporal." Reformed Theological Seminary professor John Frame clearly holds to a temporal relationship.
Perhaps Bob Ross does not understand the Biblical doctrine of Regeneration but it should be clear to anyone, Reformed or not, if Regeneration occurs one is no longer an unbeliever. To assume one can be Regenerated and still be an unbeliever is absurd and speaks contrary to Scripture.
Bob Ross attempts to defend his un-Biblical view of regeneration using Carroll as his defense with the following statement from Carroll (source not given),
As the founder of Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, Dr. Carroll said,
(1) Every one born of God has the right be called a child of God.
(2) But no one has the right until he believes in Jesus.
(3) Therefore the new birth is not completed without faith.
No one, according to Dr. Carroll, is regenerated without faith!
That nobody is regenerated without having faith is not the issue. ‘WHEN’ they have this faith is the issue and Carroll clarifies ‘WHEN’ with his following statement,
The true scriptural position [concerning regeneration] is this: There is, first of all, a direct influence of the Holy Spirit on the passive spirit of the sinner, quickening him or making him sensitive to the preaching of the Word. In this the sinner is passive. But he is not a subject of the new birth without contrition, repentance and faith. In exercising these he is active. Yet even his contrition is but a response to the Spirit's conviction, and the exercise of his repentance is but a response to the Spirit's conviction, and the exercise of his repentance and faith are but responses to the antecedent spiritual graces of repentance and faith. Carroll goes on to state that "repentance and faith are fruits of regeneration, (An Interpretation of the English Bible, Volume 4, p. 287).
Notice, Carroll clearly states that even faith is a response to the Holy Spirit’s conviction and faith is the fruit of regeneration, not the cause of it.
But Carroll is not the only Reformed Theologian who disagrees with Bob Ross and if Reformed Theologians are what makes or breaks Bob Ross’ theology, the following must be taken into equal consideration:
1. Q. What is meant by the word regeneration? A. Regeneration is God's causing a person to be born again. 9. Q. Does faith come before the new birth? A. No, it is the new heart that truly repents and believes, From John A. Broadus' A Catechism of Bible Teaching, reprinted in A Baptist Treasury, pp. 67-68.
In our natural state we are totally depraved. No inclination to holiness exists in the carnal heart; and no holy act can be performed, or service to God rendered, until the heart is changed. This change, it is the office of the Holy Spirit to effect. . . . But, in his own time and manner, God, the Holy Spirit, makes the word effectual in producing a new affection in the soul: and, when the first movement of love to God exists, the first throb of spiritual life commences, From John L. Dagg’s A Manual of Theology, pp. 277, 279).
Regeneration is a change of the soul's affections from self to God―an act of God by which the governing disposition of the soul which was formerly sinful becomes holy, 2 Cor. 2:17―this making us new creatures, From J.B. Tidwell’s Christian Teachings, p. 54.
This change [i.e., regeneration] is one that is wrought in the moral nature of man by the Spirit of God. Nothing but divine power could produce the change. . . . God's power works this change. . . . The man who experiences regeneration knows as well as he knows daylight from darkness that he himself did not work the change, From W.T. Conner’s The Gospel of Redemption, p. 189.
Two of the most influential Baptist documents also support the view that faith is the fruit of regeneration, not the cause of it:
Regeneration is a change of heart, wrought by the Holy Spirit, who quickeneth the dead in trespasses and sins enlightening their minds spiritually and savingly to understand the Word of God, and renewing their whole nature, so that they love God and practice holiness. It is a work of God's free and special grace alone, From The Abstract of Principles, VIII
Regeneration, or the new birth, is a work of God's grace whereby believers become new creatures in Christ Jesus. It is a change of heart wrought by the Holy Spirit through conviction of sin, to which the sinner responds in repentance toward God and faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, From The Baptist Faith and Message, IV. Salvation, A.
Bob Ross boasts that he has had no takers for an open debate on B.H. Carroll’s view. Perhaps it is because Carroll and many other Reformed (Baptist) Theologians have already settled the issue? If anyone accepts Ross’s invitation to debate him, perhaps he can explain why Carroll would say faith precedes regeneration but also says it is the fruit of regeneration.
_________________
Sam Hughey
The first to plead his case seem right; until another comes and examines him.—Proverbs 18:17
The Reformed Reader, Committed to the Historic Baptist faith!
I've Been Tagged
Dr. Anderson has tagged me....
1. One book that changed your life: See Spot Run (Hey, you asked)
2. One book that you’ve read more than once: By His Grace and For His Glory
3. One book you’d want on a desert island: The Bible.
4. One book that made you laugh: The Floatplane Notebooks, Clyde Edgerton
5. One book that made you cry: Pilgrim's Progress (Part 2: The Pilgrimage of Christiana and Her Children)
6. One book that you wish had been written: Is 42 really the answer? If you get that reference you're a bigger geek that I am.
7. One book that you wish had never been written: The Purpose Driven Life
8. One book you’re currently reading: A Concise History of the Christian World Mission
9. One book you’ve been meaning to read: Dear Timothy (Letters on Pastoral Ministry) (This was a gift from Tom Ascol, and I STILL haven't read it. Sorry, Tom, it really is next on my list)
1. One book that changed your life: See Spot Run (Hey, you asked)
2. One book that you’ve read more than once: By His Grace and For His Glory
3. One book you’d want on a desert island: The Bible.
4. One book that made you laugh: The Floatplane Notebooks, Clyde Edgerton
5. One book that made you cry: Pilgrim's Progress (Part 2: The Pilgrimage of Christiana and Her Children)
6. One book that you wish had been written: Is 42 really the answer? If you get that reference you're a bigger geek that I am.
7. One book that you wish had never been written: The Purpose Driven Life
8. One book you’re currently reading: A Concise History of the Christian World Mission
9. One book you’ve been meaning to read: Dear Timothy (Letters on Pastoral Ministry) (This was a gift from Tom Ascol, and I STILL haven't read it. Sorry, Tom, it really is next on my list)
Monologues Passing in the Night
***QUOTE***
Design Theory and its Critics:
Monologues Passing in the Nightight
Review article of: Robert T. Pennock (ed.), Intelligent Design Creationism and its
Critics, Cambridge and London: MIT Press, 2001; xx + 804 pages; hb. $ 110.00, pb. $
45.00; ISBN: 0-262-16204-0/0-262-66124-1.
discussion note by Del Ratzsch
3. Naturalism: Methodology and Beyond
The natural sciences are, obviously, characterized by some sort of naturalism, but
exactly what the type, scope, and implications of that naturalism are has become an
epicenter of the current dispute—an epicenter which several of the essays address
directly.
The most extended discussion on this issue takes the form of an exchange between
Johnson and Pennock. What is most striking about the exchange is a failure of clarity
about several key issues. The exchange begins with a Johnson essay which originally
appeared in the semi-popular periodical First Things. In it, Johnson primarily presses
one of his two usual cases: that in some instances, evidential standards within science
have been corrupted by an a priori allegiance to philosophical naturalism. The allegation
is that naturalism is the stipulated metaphysic of contemporary mainstream science,
meaning that non-naturalistic concepts – purpose, design, creation, supernatural agency
– are excluded by fiat and that purely naturalistic theories are the only ones even eligible
for a hearing. (That is, as Johnson sees it, particularly true with Darwinian versions of
evolutionary theory.) Consequently, even if naturalism is false, and even if some
implicitly supernaturalist theory is true, the (or a) competing – and ex hypothesi
mistaken – naturalistic scientific theory will triumph within the scientific community,
and since any force that the available evidence might have had in a non-naturalistic
direction will be denied as a matter of policy, the naturalistic theory will be advanced as
scientifically established by objective evidence. At that point, of course, evangelical
atheists within the scientific community (e.g., Dawkins) will publicly proclaim that
science has established their naturalistic worldview. In simplest terms, the idea is that if
one imposes a priori human constraints on the range of legitimate theories, then if
reality itself happens to fall outside those human stipulated constraints, human science
is at serious risk of generating an irreparably skewed scientific picture of reality. Surely,
as Johnson sees it, the rational thing to do, the objective thing to do, indeed the scientific
thing to do is to let data – and not human edict – establish the relevant boundaries.
Johnson’s second (and related) usual contention is that if the philosophical naturalist
protection were removed from selected scientific theories – most notably, evolutionary
theory – and such theories were required to live or die on their own explanatory and
empirical merits, evolution as a biological theory (including even non-naturalistic
versions—e.g., theistic evolution) would fall. Thus, for instance, he says:
"What [is taught] as “evolution” and label[ed] as fact, is based not upon any incontrovertible
empirical evidence, but upon a highly controversial philosophical presupposition. [Johnson, p.
60—all page references are from the present volume]"
But even if Johnson were right that naturalism has been imported into science and that
evidence is not even in principle allowed to point toward non-naturalistic theories, it
does not follow that the evidence we have does not point overwhelmingly toward some
version of natural evolution anyway, just as our theories on plumbing would likely
remain exactly as they are even if we didn’t normally insist on naturalistic plumbing
theories. Our evidence and theories might, even on a ‘level playing field,’ run in precisely
the evolutionary direction current mainstream science takes it to. Of course, the evidence
might, on a ‘level playing field,’ run some different direction.
But even though Johnson’s latter allegation does not follow from the earlier point, it
could nonetheless be correct. Is it? Most professionals in the area would deny that. Still,
Johnson is not wholly to blame for making the claim. Dawkins, for instance, has claimed
that even if the empirical evidence did not support Darwinism, it would still be the best
theory we’ve got. [1] More immediately, in a later essay in the present book, Matthew
Brauer and Daniel Brumbaugh say the following:
"Of course, such studies may not show the evolution of a new “kind”…as demanded by some neo-
creationists. To scientists, however, such a concern is simply irrelevant since evolution
necessarily generates higher-level patterns from lower-level processes. [Brauer and Brumbaugh,
p. 297, my emphasis])"
So when of evolution ask for evidence that, say, micro-evolution can result in
macro-evolution, the apparent response is that such questions of evidence are just
irrelevant because evolution just has to work as advertised.
Whatever the truth of the matter here, in making the claim he does Johnson has gone far
beyond his area of professional expertise. But regardless of who is right on this specific
point, there is one thing, it seems to me, that Johnson has gotten exactly right. If there is
a supernatural being whose purposes, decisions, and actions are involved in the
existence, governance or structure of physical reality, then any stipulated blanket
prohibitions against non-naturalistic explanatory resources runs the serious risk of
producing an inescapably skewed picture of physical reality. That is not, of course, to say
that if the supernatural does play a role, that if we dropped any naturalistic restrictions
that we would automatically be able to construct the correct theory. But the alternative
route (under the conditions postulated) would guarantee that we would not.
It seems to me that Pennock (and some others in this volume) have failed to fully
appreciate Johnson’s point here. Pennock’s response to Johnson is to claim that Johnson
has missed a crucial distinction between philosophical (or metaphysical) naturalism on
the one hand, and methodological naturalism on the other. Methodological naturalism
is, roughly, the principle that regardless of whether or not there are non-natural or
supernatural dimensions to reality, science must as a matter of methodological policy
restrict itself to the natural realm—natural phenomena, natural concepts, natural
methods, and natural explanations. On this view, anything supernatural (if such exists)
is beyond the scope and competence of science, and science consequently cannot
properly have anything whatever to say on such matters.
Perhaps there are occasions on which Johnson has indeed failed to take that distinction
into account. But what Pennock has apparently overlooked here is the fact that for
Johnson’s initial intended point, that distinction does not make the slightest difference—
i.e., even if Johnson has failed to see the difference, his initial point still stands. If
(perhaps for overwhelmingly good reasons) science is restricted (even just
methodologically) to ‘natural’ explanatory and theoretical resources, then if there is a
supernatural realm which does impinge upon the structure and/or operation of the
‘natural’ realm, then the world-picture generated by even the best science will
unavoidably be either incomplete or else wrong on some points. Unless one assumes
philosophical naturalism (that the natural constitutes the whole of reality) that will be
the inescapable upshot of taking even mere methodological naturalism as an essential
component of scientific procedure.
But even seemingly more innocuous assumptions can lead in similar directions. First, if
one restricts science to the natural, and assumes that science can in principle get to all
truth, then one has implicitly assumed philosophical naturalism. But second, consider
what happens if one stipulates methodological naturalism as essential to science, then
this does not assume that science can in principle get to all truth, but merely that science
is competent for all physical matters, or that what science does (properly conducted, and
in the long run) generate concerning the physical realm will, in principle, be truth. Again,
if the truth of the specific matter in question is non-natural, and if science is restricted to
natural conceptual resources, even the most excruciatingly proper naturalistic scientific
deliverances on that matter may be wide of the mark. Indeed, they will typically be
mistaken in exactly the way a science built on philosophical naturalism would be. [2] For
practical purposes, that comes close to importing philosophical naturalism into the
inner structure of science.
One of Johnson’s main points, then, is that methodological naturalism is not quite the
lamb it is sometimes pictured as being, and that if one conceptually links methodological
naturalistic science to truth in certain ways, something paralleling philosophical
naturalism comes out of the mix. Oddly enough, while criticizing Johnson for profound
confusion concerning distinctions among variant types of naturalism, Pennock
essentially concedes Johnson’s point. That emerges in the following passage:
"To be sure, this [referring to a statement about a particular Darwinian mechanism] is an
approximate and tentative scientific truth, not an ontological (metaphysical) truth in the sense
that it cannot rule out the possibility that a supernatural Creator is involved in the
process…Surely we may accept that statement [referring to a statement concerning a different
evolutionary, genetic explanation] as true, even though, as a merely naturalistic scientific truth, it
does not rule out the possibility of an intelligent supernatural cause…so it cannot be said to be
absolutely true in the ontological (metaphysical) sense. Similarly, the Creationists’ supernatural
story may be a metaphysical truth – God may have created the world 6,000 years ago but made it
look older as “Appearance of Age” creationists hold – but it is not a scientific truth. [Pennock, p.
104]"
So Pennock here distinguishes between ‘merely naturalistic scientific truth’ (presumably
what a proper science defined by methodological naturalism generates) and ‘ontological
(metaphysical) truth’ (what most of us would call real truth). If we do make that
distinction, then although mere naturalistic scientific truth may often or even usually
correspond to real truth, if we mistakenly equate real truth with mere naturalistic
scientific truth even on such purely material matters as the age of the earth we will be
implicitly doing something akin to assuming philosophical naturalism. And that is
Johnson’s point.
One underlying source of disagreement in this general area concerns the fundamental
character of science. Ruse and Pennock seemingly take science to be defined by
commitment to a specific method. Thus Ruse:
"This is not to say that God did not have a role in the creation, but simply that, qua science, that is
qua an enterprise formed through the practice of methodological naturalism, science has no
place for talk of God…[I]nasmuch as one is going to the scientist for science, theology can and
must be ruled out as irrelevant. [Ruse, pp. 365–66, my emphasis]"
and Pennock:
"The Methodological Naturalist does not make a commitment directly to a picture of what exists in
the world, but rather to a set of methods as a reliable way to find out about the world – typically
the methods of the natural sciences, and perhaps extensions that are continuous with them – and
indirectly to what those methods discover. [Pennock, p. 84]"
Hence, Pennock’s idea of a distinct category of ‘scientific truth’ in terms of the outcomes
of the initially accepted method. But ID advocates and sympathizers typically have a
different conception of science, as involving a commitment to getting at ontological
truths of nature, regardless of methodological restrictions. Thus, Plantinga:
"But of course what we really want to know is not which hypothesis is the best from some
artificially adopted standpoint of naturalism, but what the best hypothesis is overall. [Plantinga,
p. 138, his emphasis]"
and Behe:
"Science is not a game in which arbitrary rules are used to decide what explanations are to be
permitted. Rather, it is an effort to make true statements about physical reality. [Behe, p. 255]"
On this conception, there is no philosophically distinct category of scientific as opposed
to ontological truth, and if stipulated methodological restrictions begin to get in the way
of pursuit of truth, then so much the worse for the restrictions. It is worth noting that in
the absence of a presupposition of philosophical naturalism, there is no guarantee that
these two conceptions of science (the ‘methodic’ and the ‘alethic’, we might call them
respectively) will be equivalent.
Of course, it might be that removing methodological naturalist restrictions would prove
empirically unfruitful, for various reasons. (Indeed, most ID take that as already
historically substantiated in connection with Paley and Darwin.) But some of the reasons
typically given seem a trifle overheated. For instance, Pennock says:
"Once such supernatural explanations are permitted they could be used in chemistry and physics
as easily as Creationists have used them in biology and geology. Indeed, all empirical
investigation beyond the purely descriptive could cease, for scientists would have a ready-made
answer for everything. [Pennock, p. 90]"
Historically, of course, no such thing happened. Indeed, if the history told by of ID
is accurate, previously entrenched supernatural explanations lost the scientific battle to
mere fledgling naturalistic explanations in the 19th century—hardly what one would
expect if merely allowing currently disenfranchised supernatural explanations into the
discussion were likely to destroy current mature science. In any case, ID advocates don’t
buy the idea that considering the possibility of design would destroy all ‘natural’ science:
The fact that some biochemical systems were designed by an intelligent agent does not mean that
any of the other factors are not operative, common, or important. [Behe, p. 255]
One could try to escape Pennock’s unusual ‘two truth’ theory (mere naturalistic scientific
truth, and ontological (metaphysical) truth) by claiming that the methodological
restrictions on science were not constitutive of science, but were merely provisional
advice which could be given up even within science under suitable circumstances. Thus if
science ever got to the point where methodological naturalistic procedures had pushed
science into, say, Lakatosian ‘degenerative programmes’ (as ID advocates believe has
already happened), then that provisional advice could be given up.
That is the line taken by Kelly Smith in a (rather ill-tempered) response to Paul Nelson.
(Incidentally, I think that Smith misunderstood Nelson’s intent, which was to raise
questions about the process by which naturalistic evolutionists dismiss creationist
alternative explanations. Nelson was attempting to suggest some defeater-defeaters, as
epistemologists would call them, rather than attempting to construct a positive case for
creationism, as Smith seems to have read him.) Concerning methodological naturalism
and science, Smith says:
"MN [methodological naturalism] is, after all, methodological. It is part of the very nature of
science to be open to new possibilities, and it is not in the business of ruling things impossible.
Science is in the business of trying to figure out which explanations – out of all those (including
theological ones, at least in principle) that might be true – are more likely to be true…Science
does tend to shy away from theological explanations, but on purely methodological grounds…The
rule “Don’t involve divine mechanisms in a scientific explanation” is simply a rule of thumb
(though a good one)—it does not say that such explanations are unacceptable in principle, much
less that it’s impossible they are correct. [Smith, p. 713, his emphasis]"
Smith says this in support of his assertion that Nelson is confused about the very nature
of methodological naturalism. But nearly everyone – including nearly everyone on
Smith’s own side of the ID issue – would be surprised to hear that science is [Smith’s
emphasis] in principle in the business of evaluating theological explanations, and that
prohibitions to the contrary are mere rules of thumb, to be jettisoned if need be. For
instance, just in the present volume:
"Methodological naturalism is not a dogmatic ideology that simply is tacked on to the principles of
scientific method; it is essential for the basic standards of empirical science. [Pennock, p. 90,
emphasis mine]"
Indeed, Pennock more than once suggests that challenges to methodological naturalism
are philosophical attacks on scientific method itself. [Pennock, e.g., p. 760]
Others take similar positions:
"[T]he methodological naturalist insists that, inasmuch as one is doing science, one avoids all
theological or other religious reference. In particular, on denies God a role in creation. [Ruse, p.
365, emphasis mine, and see again Ruse, pp. 365–66 quoted above]"
According to Nancey Murphy that insistence is not casual, but is definitional:
"[W]hat we might call methodological atheism [her term for methodological naturalism]…is by
definition common to all natural science. [Murphy, p. 464, second emphasis mine] [3]"
In any case, Johnson and other ID advocates may be seriously mistaken about the
implications for both science in general and evolution in particular were the
methodological naturalistic lid lifted from science. (Indeed, I think they have tended to
overinflate the case.) But they seem to be right that that restriction, if strictly observed,
does have potential serious consequences both for evidential assessment procedures and
for deeper philosophical matters if the science it generates is conceptually linked to truth
claims in certain ways. Again, if the cosmos does not run completely on naturalistic
principles – if the supernatural, for instance, is a substantive factor in the existence,
structure or governance of the cosmos – then any approach which excludes such factors
by fiat risks a skewed understanding of relevant features of that cosmos.
The potential seriousness of the possible implications is – ironically – perhaps attested
by the lengths to which various ID find themselves driven: Pennock to a theory of
two sorts of truth (one of which may in some cases not be true at all), Smith to asserting
that theological explanations may in principle have a legitimate place in science after all.
The former runs counter to what most scientists and others take science to be ultimately
about – real truth – and the latter is precisely what ID advocates are routinely pilloried
for (allegedly) claiming.
4. Science and Substance
In addition to the more philosophical wrangles discussed above, disputes between ID
advocates and ID opponents routinely involve critical attacks on the empirical nuts and
bolts of the scientific preferences of the opposite side.
As a group ID advocates doubt or deny that random variation and natural selection (in
conjunction with other contemporarily-accepted mechanisms) can generate the
‘irreducible’ and ‘specified’ complexity seen (they claim) in the biological realm, and
doubt or deny that such processes can generate and increase genetic information. [4]
(This purported inadequacy of Darwinian evolutionary resources is generally a
significant component in ID cases for intelligent design in nature.) Such doubts and
denials have often elicited stinging responses. These denials take a variety of forms, but
the two most common involve rejection of the legitimacy of extrapolating from
microevolution to macroevolution, and rejection of the idea that genuine genetic
information can be produced or increased by random genetic alteration sieved by natural
selection. In response to such alleged barriers to evolution, ID often sketch out
this standard general scenario:
"Genes mutate, as a consequence of molecular mishaps. Organisms have their structure and
behavior affected by the mutations, usually for ill but occasionally for good. The organisms live,
reproduce, and die, and those carrying novel genes either reproduce more or less than other
organisms in the population. If they reproduce more, and certain other conditions are realized,
the frequency of those genes in the population will tend to increase. Through this process, useful
modifications slowly accumulate. Genetic material is duplicated within the genome, and the
duplicates acquire new roles, making more complex structures possible. Populations change over
time, split, and diverge. The striking features of evolution…are a consequence of the accumulation
of a great many of these small steps…If there is more “complex specified information” in a camel
than in a bacterium, then the natural process described above is able to create this information.
[Godfrey-Smith, p. 588]."
Such thoroughly general and programmatic glosses – ‘duplicates acquire new roles,
making more complex structures possible’ – do not sit well with challengers (including
ID advocates) who insistently ask both for more precise technical details of the proposed
processes of ‘acquiring’ and ‘making possible,’ and for more empirical evidence that
those particular processes really did characterize actual biological history. Such
demands are seldom well received. ID advocates are sometimes chided for demanding
evidences which are almost inevitably unavailable (e.g., fossilized soft tissue, such as
ancestral reproductive systems—both Kitcher [p. 275] and Brauer and Brumbaugh [p.
303] criticize Johnson on this count).
Interesting enough, parallel demands that ID advocates produce fine detail for their
theories are considered not only legitimate, but particularly telling. Kitcher, for instance,
asserts that a view such as Behe’s would ‘require…Behe, to explain just what it is that the
Creator does, and why he does things that way. [Kitcher, p. 285, see also p. 282])’ and it
is fairly evident that Kitcher suspects that neither Behe nor anyone else could do that in
any respectably defensible way. Information concerning ‘just what it is’ that God did far
in the past may well be as principially unavailable as are fossilized reproductive organs.
On both sides, it should not be overlooked that a particularly prominent characteristic of
even inevitably absent evidence is its absence. (Incidentally, care is certainly required in
connection with Kitcher’s claim. To recognize and explain some phenomenon as being
designed does not in the slightest require that we have any clue as to how it was
produced, what it is for, who produced it, or what motivated the production. Discovery of
some incomprehensible but inarguable alien artifact on Mars would make that very
clear.)
Exchanges of the above sort are often not terribly productive. Challenged to cite a
specific example of a random mutation which would increase genetic information,
Dawkins, for instance, seems to think that even asking the question in this way somehow
counts against the inquirer [Dawkins, p. 617]. But regardless of what one thinks of the
question, the answer it elicited was, to say the least, peculiar. Dawkins first chooses to
understand ‘information’ as Shannon information, then cites a randomly generated
decrease in available alleles in a gene pool as, in the Shannon sense, an increase in
genetic information [Dawkins, pp. 617–631]. But of course, no one trying to understand
the mechanism by which a sequence of (selections from among) random mutations in
DNA could increase genetic information or produce genetic novelty in the sense of
expanding genetic capabilities from that of, say, a millipede to that of a lobster, is
seeking, as Dawkins seems to suppose, for an explanation of how genetic diversity can be
reduced in the relevant gene pools, or even how such decreases can drive reproductive
isolation.
It is clear, it seems to me, that despite enormous progress, explanations of the massive
genetic diversity and the overwhelming biological complexity we see around us (and are
still discovering) are still to some degree programmatic. Advocates of ID are right about
that. Advocates of evolution, citing that enormous progress and what they see as the still-
robust track record of evolutionary theory, counsel patience, viewing current puzzles as
‘signaling a need for further research’ and suggesting that ‘in a few decades time,
perhaps, in light of increased knowledge of how development works at the molecular
level, we may be able to see’ answers to some currently open questions [Kitcher, pp. 263
and 265] of contemporary evolutionary theory, including most ID advocates,
focusing on the programmatic character of the explanatory glosses such as that quoted
earlier, think that a century and one half after Darwin, it is time to pull the plug on the
more empirically tenuous, perhaps overly-theoretically-dependent parts of Darwinian
theory, or at least to encourage parallel exploration of alternatives.
[8] There are factual errors in other essays as well. For instance among other problems,
Braur and Brumbaugh repeatedly classify Michael Denton as a creationist. Denton has
classified himself variously as an agnostic or an Aristotelian teleologist or most recently
as a ‘skeptical theist’—but by no stretch is he a creationist. And Kitcher says: ‘How are we
to explain the regular, worldwide, ordering of the fossils? The only creationist response
to the latter question has been to invoke the Noachian deluge: the order is as it is because
of the relative positions of the organisms at the time the flood struck. [p. 259]’ But not
only is that inaccurate, it is inconsistent with Kitcher’s own discussion of creationist
flood geology in his Abusing Science. Concerning the ordering, Kitcher says: ‘Morris
appears to have three possible explanatory factors: (1) habitat (lower dwelling animals
were deposited first), (2) hydraulic characteristics (the order of deposition depends on
the animal’s resistance to the downward waters), (3) mobility (more mobile animals will
be deposited later). The passages I have quoted juggle these three methods so as to
obtain the desired results. [Abusing Science, p. 131, his emphasis]’ Kitcher goes on to
argue that those methods are not successful, but it is clear that there are more proposed
mechanisms than simply the first, as claimed by Kitcher in the initial quote.
http://www.calvin.edu/academic/philosophy/virtual_library/articles/ratzsch_del/design_theory_and_its_critics.pdf
***END-QUOTE***
Design Theory and its Critics:
Monologues Passing in the Nightight
Review article of: Robert T. Pennock (ed.), Intelligent Design Creationism and its
Critics, Cambridge and London: MIT Press, 2001; xx + 804 pages; hb. $ 110.00, pb. $
45.00; ISBN: 0-262-16204-0/0-262-66124-1.
discussion note by Del Ratzsch
3. Naturalism: Methodology and Beyond
The natural sciences are, obviously, characterized by some sort of naturalism, but
exactly what the type, scope, and implications of that naturalism are has become an
epicenter of the current dispute—an epicenter which several of the essays address
directly.
The most extended discussion on this issue takes the form of an exchange between
Johnson and Pennock. What is most striking about the exchange is a failure of clarity
about several key issues. The exchange begins with a Johnson essay which originally
appeared in the semi-popular periodical First Things. In it, Johnson primarily presses
one of his two usual cases: that in some instances, evidential standards within science
have been corrupted by an a priori allegiance to philosophical naturalism. The allegation
is that naturalism is the stipulated metaphysic of contemporary mainstream science,
meaning that non-naturalistic concepts – purpose, design, creation, supernatural agency
– are excluded by fiat and that purely naturalistic theories are the only ones even eligible
for a hearing. (That is, as Johnson sees it, particularly true with Darwinian versions of
evolutionary theory.) Consequently, even if naturalism is false, and even if some
implicitly supernaturalist theory is true, the (or a) competing – and ex hypothesi
mistaken – naturalistic scientific theory will triumph within the scientific community,
and since any force that the available evidence might have had in a non-naturalistic
direction will be denied as a matter of policy, the naturalistic theory will be advanced as
scientifically established by objective evidence. At that point, of course, evangelical
atheists within the scientific community (e.g., Dawkins) will publicly proclaim that
science has established their naturalistic worldview. In simplest terms, the idea is that if
one imposes a priori human constraints on the range of legitimate theories, then if
reality itself happens to fall outside those human stipulated constraints, human science
is at serious risk of generating an irreparably skewed scientific picture of reality. Surely,
as Johnson sees it, the rational thing to do, the objective thing to do, indeed the scientific
thing to do is to let data – and not human edict – establish the relevant boundaries.
Johnson’s second (and related) usual contention is that if the philosophical naturalist
protection were removed from selected scientific theories – most notably, evolutionary
theory – and such theories were required to live or die on their own explanatory and
empirical merits, evolution as a biological theory (including even non-naturalistic
versions—e.g., theistic evolution) would fall. Thus, for instance, he says:
"What [is taught] as “evolution” and label[ed] as fact, is based not upon any incontrovertible
empirical evidence, but upon a highly controversial philosophical presupposition. [Johnson, p.
60—all page references are from the present volume]"
But even if Johnson were right that naturalism has been imported into science and that
evidence is not even in principle allowed to point toward non-naturalistic theories, it
does not follow that the evidence we have does not point overwhelmingly toward some
version of natural evolution anyway, just as our theories on plumbing would likely
remain exactly as they are even if we didn’t normally insist on naturalistic plumbing
theories. Our evidence and theories might, even on a ‘level playing field,’ run in precisely
the evolutionary direction current mainstream science takes it to. Of course, the evidence
might, on a ‘level playing field,’ run some different direction.
But even though Johnson’s latter allegation does not follow from the earlier point, it
could nonetheless be correct. Is it? Most professionals in the area would deny that. Still,
Johnson is not wholly to blame for making the claim. Dawkins, for instance, has claimed
that even if the empirical evidence did not support Darwinism, it would still be the best
theory we’ve got. [1] More immediately, in a later essay in the present book, Matthew
Brauer and Daniel Brumbaugh say the following:
"Of course, such studies may not show the evolution of a new “kind”…as demanded by some neo-
creationists. To scientists, however, such a concern is simply irrelevant since evolution
necessarily generates higher-level patterns from lower-level processes. [Brauer and Brumbaugh,
p. 297, my emphasis])"
So when of evolution ask for evidence that, say, micro-evolution can result in
macro-evolution, the apparent response is that such questions of evidence are just
irrelevant because evolution just has to work as advertised.
Whatever the truth of the matter here, in making the claim he does Johnson has gone far
beyond his area of professional expertise. But regardless of who is right on this specific
point, there is one thing, it seems to me, that Johnson has gotten exactly right. If there is
a supernatural being whose purposes, decisions, and actions are involved in the
existence, governance or structure of physical reality, then any stipulated blanket
prohibitions against non-naturalistic explanatory resources runs the serious risk of
producing an inescapably skewed picture of physical reality. That is not, of course, to say
that if the supernatural does play a role, that if we dropped any naturalistic restrictions
that we would automatically be able to construct the correct theory. But the alternative
route (under the conditions postulated) would guarantee that we would not.
It seems to me that Pennock (and some others in this volume) have failed to fully
appreciate Johnson’s point here. Pennock’s response to Johnson is to claim that Johnson
has missed a crucial distinction between philosophical (or metaphysical) naturalism on
the one hand, and methodological naturalism on the other. Methodological naturalism
is, roughly, the principle that regardless of whether or not there are non-natural or
supernatural dimensions to reality, science must as a matter of methodological policy
restrict itself to the natural realm—natural phenomena, natural concepts, natural
methods, and natural explanations. On this view, anything supernatural (if such exists)
is beyond the scope and competence of science, and science consequently cannot
properly have anything whatever to say on such matters.
Perhaps there are occasions on which Johnson has indeed failed to take that distinction
into account. But what Pennock has apparently overlooked here is the fact that for
Johnson’s initial intended point, that distinction does not make the slightest difference—
i.e., even if Johnson has failed to see the difference, his initial point still stands. If
(perhaps for overwhelmingly good reasons) science is restricted (even just
methodologically) to ‘natural’ explanatory and theoretical resources, then if there is a
supernatural realm which does impinge upon the structure and/or operation of the
‘natural’ realm, then the world-picture generated by even the best science will
unavoidably be either incomplete or else wrong on some points. Unless one assumes
philosophical naturalism (that the natural constitutes the whole of reality) that will be
the inescapable upshot of taking even mere methodological naturalism as an essential
component of scientific procedure.
But even seemingly more innocuous assumptions can lead in similar directions. First, if
one restricts science to the natural, and assumes that science can in principle get to all
truth, then one has implicitly assumed philosophical naturalism. But second, consider
what happens if one stipulates methodological naturalism as essential to science, then
this does not assume that science can in principle get to all truth, but merely that science
is competent for all physical matters, or that what science does (properly conducted, and
in the long run) generate concerning the physical realm will, in principle, be truth. Again,
if the truth of the specific matter in question is non-natural, and if science is restricted to
natural conceptual resources, even the most excruciatingly proper naturalistic scientific
deliverances on that matter may be wide of the mark. Indeed, they will typically be
mistaken in exactly the way a science built on philosophical naturalism would be. [2] For
practical purposes, that comes close to importing philosophical naturalism into the
inner structure of science.
One of Johnson’s main points, then, is that methodological naturalism is not quite the
lamb it is sometimes pictured as being, and that if one conceptually links methodological
naturalistic science to truth in certain ways, something paralleling philosophical
naturalism comes out of the mix. Oddly enough, while criticizing Johnson for profound
confusion concerning distinctions among variant types of naturalism, Pennock
essentially concedes Johnson’s point. That emerges in the following passage:
"To be sure, this [referring to a statement about a particular Darwinian mechanism] is an
approximate and tentative scientific truth, not an ontological (metaphysical) truth in the sense
that it cannot rule out the possibility that a supernatural Creator is involved in the
process…Surely we may accept that statement [referring to a statement concerning a different
evolutionary, genetic explanation] as true, even though, as a merely naturalistic scientific truth, it
does not rule out the possibility of an intelligent supernatural cause…so it cannot be said to be
absolutely true in the ontological (metaphysical) sense. Similarly, the Creationists’ supernatural
story may be a metaphysical truth – God may have created the world 6,000 years ago but made it
look older as “Appearance of Age” creationists hold – but it is not a scientific truth. [Pennock, p.
104]"
So Pennock here distinguishes between ‘merely naturalistic scientific truth’ (presumably
what a proper science defined by methodological naturalism generates) and ‘ontological
(metaphysical) truth’ (what most of us would call real truth). If we do make that
distinction, then although mere naturalistic scientific truth may often or even usually
correspond to real truth, if we mistakenly equate real truth with mere naturalistic
scientific truth even on such purely material matters as the age of the earth we will be
implicitly doing something akin to assuming philosophical naturalism. And that is
Johnson’s point.
One underlying source of disagreement in this general area concerns the fundamental
character of science. Ruse and Pennock seemingly take science to be defined by
commitment to a specific method. Thus Ruse:
"This is not to say that God did not have a role in the creation, but simply that, qua science, that is
qua an enterprise formed through the practice of methodological naturalism, science has no
place for talk of God…[I]nasmuch as one is going to the scientist for science, theology can and
must be ruled out as irrelevant. [Ruse, pp. 365–66, my emphasis]"
and Pennock:
"The Methodological Naturalist does not make a commitment directly to a picture of what exists in
the world, but rather to a set of methods as a reliable way to find out about the world – typically
the methods of the natural sciences, and perhaps extensions that are continuous with them – and
indirectly to what those methods discover. [Pennock, p. 84]"
Hence, Pennock’s idea of a distinct category of ‘scientific truth’ in terms of the outcomes
of the initially accepted method. But ID advocates and sympathizers typically have a
different conception of science, as involving a commitment to getting at ontological
truths of nature, regardless of methodological restrictions. Thus, Plantinga:
"But of course what we really want to know is not which hypothesis is the best from some
artificially adopted standpoint of naturalism, but what the best hypothesis is overall. [Plantinga,
p. 138, his emphasis]"
and Behe:
"Science is not a game in which arbitrary rules are used to decide what explanations are to be
permitted. Rather, it is an effort to make true statements about physical reality. [Behe, p. 255]"
On this conception, there is no philosophically distinct category of scientific as opposed
to ontological truth, and if stipulated methodological restrictions begin to get in the way
of pursuit of truth, then so much the worse for the restrictions. It is worth noting that in
the absence of a presupposition of philosophical naturalism, there is no guarantee that
these two conceptions of science (the ‘methodic’ and the ‘alethic’, we might call them
respectively) will be equivalent.
Of course, it might be that removing methodological naturalist restrictions would prove
empirically unfruitful, for various reasons. (Indeed, most ID take that as already
historically substantiated in connection with Paley and Darwin.) But some of the reasons
typically given seem a trifle overheated. For instance, Pennock says:
"Once such supernatural explanations are permitted they could be used in chemistry and physics
as easily as Creationists have used them in biology and geology. Indeed, all empirical
investigation beyond the purely descriptive could cease, for scientists would have a ready-made
answer for everything. [Pennock, p. 90]"
Historically, of course, no such thing happened. Indeed, if the history told by of ID
is accurate, previously entrenched supernatural explanations lost the scientific battle to
mere fledgling naturalistic explanations in the 19th century—hardly what one would
expect if merely allowing currently disenfranchised supernatural explanations into the
discussion were likely to destroy current mature science. In any case, ID advocates don’t
buy the idea that considering the possibility of design would destroy all ‘natural’ science:
The fact that some biochemical systems were designed by an intelligent agent does not mean that
any of the other factors are not operative, common, or important. [Behe, p. 255]
One could try to escape Pennock’s unusual ‘two truth’ theory (mere naturalistic scientific
truth, and ontological (metaphysical) truth) by claiming that the methodological
restrictions on science were not constitutive of science, but were merely provisional
advice which could be given up even within science under suitable circumstances. Thus if
science ever got to the point where methodological naturalistic procedures had pushed
science into, say, Lakatosian ‘degenerative programmes’ (as ID advocates believe has
already happened), then that provisional advice could be given up.
That is the line taken by Kelly Smith in a (rather ill-tempered) response to Paul Nelson.
(Incidentally, I think that Smith misunderstood Nelson’s intent, which was to raise
questions about the process by which naturalistic evolutionists dismiss creationist
alternative explanations. Nelson was attempting to suggest some defeater-defeaters, as
epistemologists would call them, rather than attempting to construct a positive case for
creationism, as Smith seems to have read him.) Concerning methodological naturalism
and science, Smith says:
"MN [methodological naturalism] is, after all, methodological. It is part of the very nature of
science to be open to new possibilities, and it is not in the business of ruling things impossible.
Science is in the business of trying to figure out which explanations – out of all those (including
theological ones, at least in principle) that might be true – are more likely to be true…Science
does tend to shy away from theological explanations, but on purely methodological grounds…The
rule “Don’t involve divine mechanisms in a scientific explanation” is simply a rule of thumb
(though a good one)—it does not say that such explanations are unacceptable in principle, much
less that it’s impossible they are correct. [Smith, p. 713, his emphasis]"
Smith says this in support of his assertion that Nelson is confused about the very nature
of methodological naturalism. But nearly everyone – including nearly everyone on
Smith’s own side of the ID issue – would be surprised to hear that science is [Smith’s
emphasis] in principle in the business of evaluating theological explanations, and that
prohibitions to the contrary are mere rules of thumb, to be jettisoned if need be. For
instance, just in the present volume:
"Methodological naturalism is not a dogmatic ideology that simply is tacked on to the principles of
scientific method; it is essential for the basic standards of empirical science. [Pennock, p. 90,
emphasis mine]"
Indeed, Pennock more than once suggests that challenges to methodological naturalism
are philosophical attacks on scientific method itself. [Pennock, e.g., p. 760]
Others take similar positions:
"[T]he methodological naturalist insists that, inasmuch as one is doing science, one avoids all
theological or other religious reference. In particular, on denies God a role in creation. [Ruse, p.
365, emphasis mine, and see again Ruse, pp. 365–66 quoted above]"
According to Nancey Murphy that insistence is not casual, but is definitional:
"[W]hat we might call methodological atheism [her term for methodological naturalism]…is by
definition common to all natural science. [Murphy, p. 464, second emphasis mine] [3]"
In any case, Johnson and other ID advocates may be seriously mistaken about the
implications for both science in general and evolution in particular were the
methodological naturalistic lid lifted from science. (Indeed, I think they have tended to
overinflate the case.) But they seem to be right that that restriction, if strictly observed,
does have potential serious consequences both for evidential assessment procedures and
for deeper philosophical matters if the science it generates is conceptually linked to truth
claims in certain ways. Again, if the cosmos does not run completely on naturalistic
principles – if the supernatural, for instance, is a substantive factor in the existence,
structure or governance of the cosmos – then any approach which excludes such factors
by fiat risks a skewed understanding of relevant features of that cosmos.
The potential seriousness of the possible implications is – ironically – perhaps attested
by the lengths to which various ID find themselves driven: Pennock to a theory of
two sorts of truth (one of which may in some cases not be true at all), Smith to asserting
that theological explanations may in principle have a legitimate place in science after all.
The former runs counter to what most scientists and others take science to be ultimately
about – real truth – and the latter is precisely what ID advocates are routinely pilloried
for (allegedly) claiming.
4. Science and Substance
In addition to the more philosophical wrangles discussed above, disputes between ID
advocates and ID opponents routinely involve critical attacks on the empirical nuts and
bolts of the scientific preferences of the opposite side.
As a group ID advocates doubt or deny that random variation and natural selection (in
conjunction with other contemporarily-accepted mechanisms) can generate the
‘irreducible’ and ‘specified’ complexity seen (they claim) in the biological realm, and
doubt or deny that such processes can generate and increase genetic information. [4]
(This purported inadequacy of Darwinian evolutionary resources is generally a
significant component in ID cases for intelligent design in nature.) Such doubts and
denials have often elicited stinging responses. These denials take a variety of forms, but
the two most common involve rejection of the legitimacy of extrapolating from
microevolution to macroevolution, and rejection of the idea that genuine genetic
information can be produced or increased by random genetic alteration sieved by natural
selection. In response to such alleged barriers to evolution, ID often sketch out
this standard general scenario:
"Genes mutate, as a consequence of molecular mishaps. Organisms have their structure and
behavior affected by the mutations, usually for ill but occasionally for good. The organisms live,
reproduce, and die, and those carrying novel genes either reproduce more or less than other
organisms in the population. If they reproduce more, and certain other conditions are realized,
the frequency of those genes in the population will tend to increase. Through this process, useful
modifications slowly accumulate. Genetic material is duplicated within the genome, and the
duplicates acquire new roles, making more complex structures possible. Populations change over
time, split, and diverge. The striking features of evolution…are a consequence of the accumulation
of a great many of these small steps…If there is more “complex specified information” in a camel
than in a bacterium, then the natural process described above is able to create this information.
[Godfrey-Smith, p. 588]."
Such thoroughly general and programmatic glosses – ‘duplicates acquire new roles,
making more complex structures possible’ – do not sit well with challengers (including
ID advocates) who insistently ask both for more precise technical details of the proposed
processes of ‘acquiring’ and ‘making possible,’ and for more empirical evidence that
those particular processes really did characterize actual biological history. Such
demands are seldom well received. ID advocates are sometimes chided for demanding
evidences which are almost inevitably unavailable (e.g., fossilized soft tissue, such as
ancestral reproductive systems—both Kitcher [p. 275] and Brauer and Brumbaugh [p.
303] criticize Johnson on this count).
Interesting enough, parallel demands that ID advocates produce fine detail for their
theories are considered not only legitimate, but particularly telling. Kitcher, for instance,
asserts that a view such as Behe’s would ‘require…Behe, to explain just what it is that the
Creator does, and why he does things that way. [Kitcher, p. 285, see also p. 282])’ and it
is fairly evident that Kitcher suspects that neither Behe nor anyone else could do that in
any respectably defensible way. Information concerning ‘just what it is’ that God did far
in the past may well be as principially unavailable as are fossilized reproductive organs.
On both sides, it should not be overlooked that a particularly prominent characteristic of
even inevitably absent evidence is its absence. (Incidentally, care is certainly required in
connection with Kitcher’s claim. To recognize and explain some phenomenon as being
designed does not in the slightest require that we have any clue as to how it was
produced, what it is for, who produced it, or what motivated the production. Discovery of
some incomprehensible but inarguable alien artifact on Mars would make that very
clear.)
Exchanges of the above sort are often not terribly productive. Challenged to cite a
specific example of a random mutation which would increase genetic information,
Dawkins, for instance, seems to think that even asking the question in this way somehow
counts against the inquirer [Dawkins, p. 617]. But regardless of what one thinks of the
question, the answer it elicited was, to say the least, peculiar. Dawkins first chooses to
understand ‘information’ as Shannon information, then cites a randomly generated
decrease in available alleles in a gene pool as, in the Shannon sense, an increase in
genetic information [Dawkins, pp. 617–631]. But of course, no one trying to understand
the mechanism by which a sequence of (selections from among) random mutations in
DNA could increase genetic information or produce genetic novelty in the sense of
expanding genetic capabilities from that of, say, a millipede to that of a lobster, is
seeking, as Dawkins seems to suppose, for an explanation of how genetic diversity can be
reduced in the relevant gene pools, or even how such decreases can drive reproductive
isolation.
It is clear, it seems to me, that despite enormous progress, explanations of the massive
genetic diversity and the overwhelming biological complexity we see around us (and are
still discovering) are still to some degree programmatic. Advocates of ID are right about
that. Advocates of evolution, citing that enormous progress and what they see as the still-
robust track record of evolutionary theory, counsel patience, viewing current puzzles as
‘signaling a need for further research’ and suggesting that ‘in a few decades time,
perhaps, in light of increased knowledge of how development works at the molecular
level, we may be able to see’ answers to some currently open questions [Kitcher, pp. 263
and 265] of contemporary evolutionary theory, including most ID advocates,
focusing on the programmatic character of the explanatory glosses such as that quoted
earlier, think that a century and one half after Darwin, it is time to pull the plug on the
more empirically tenuous, perhaps overly-theoretically-dependent parts of Darwinian
theory, or at least to encourage parallel exploration of alternatives.
[8] There are factual errors in other essays as well. For instance among other problems,
Braur and Brumbaugh repeatedly classify Michael Denton as a creationist. Denton has
classified himself variously as an agnostic or an Aristotelian teleologist or most recently
as a ‘skeptical theist’—but by no stretch is he a creationist. And Kitcher says: ‘How are we
to explain the regular, worldwide, ordering of the fossils? The only creationist response
to the latter question has been to invoke the Noachian deluge: the order is as it is because
of the relative positions of the organisms at the time the flood struck. [p. 259]’ But not
only is that inaccurate, it is inconsistent with Kitcher’s own discussion of creationist
flood geology in his Abusing Science. Concerning the ordering, Kitcher says: ‘Morris
appears to have three possible explanatory factors: (1) habitat (lower dwelling animals
were deposited first), (2) hydraulic characteristics (the order of deposition depends on
the animal’s resistance to the downward waters), (3) mobility (more mobile animals will
be deposited later). The passages I have quoted juggle these three methods so as to
obtain the desired results. [Abusing Science, p. 131, his emphasis]’ Kitcher goes on to
argue that those methods are not successful, but it is clear that there are more proposed
mechanisms than simply the first, as claimed by Kitcher in the initial quote.
http://www.calvin.edu/academic/philosophy/virtual_library/articles/ratzsch_del/design_theory_and_its_critics.pdf
***END-QUOTE***
Israel's hypothetical right of survival
For a couple of weeks now we’ve been hearing about “bipartisan” support for Israel’s right of self-defense. But, upon closer inspection, that’s very misleading—especially when you consider the reaction to the Qana bombing.
There are those who are unconditional in their support of Israel’s hypothetical right of self-defense.
But as soon as Israel exercises her right of self-defense in the face of mortal provocation, then support for Israel evaporates—to be replaced by hand-wringing condemnations.
So what bipartisan support for Israel’s right of self-defense really means as that Israel has a right to defend herself as long as she never defends herself. But whenever she dares to actually defend herself, then she forfeits her right of self-defense.
For many, Israel’s right of self-defense is purely theoretical. The moment someone is injured or killed when Israel is forced to fight back, then she instantly loses her right of self-defense.
I’d also note that those who deplore warfare between Israel and her enemies only oppose one side of the war. They oppose the war when Muslims are killed. But when Jews are killed, well—that’s just par for the course.
So the peaceniks are demipeaceniks. Theirs is a one-sided pacifism. Their pacifism begins at ends at the Israeli border.
Have you ever noticed the ubiquitous phenomenon of statesmen who never met a problem they were prepared to solve? Their guiding philosophy is that for every problem there is no solution.
Their mission in life is to perpetuate problems. They oppose a problem-solver at every turn.
Their calling in life is to leave the world no better off than when they were born. They lie awake at night over the bone-chilling prospect that someone, somewhere might actually take decisive action to solve a problem once and for all.
They labor tirelessly to erect bureaucracies, enact international laws, and establish media outlets which will block every avenue towards the resolution of a problem. No solution is too important or too trivial not to be resisted.
There are those who are unconditional in their support of Israel’s hypothetical right of self-defense.
But as soon as Israel exercises her right of self-defense in the face of mortal provocation, then support for Israel evaporates—to be replaced by hand-wringing condemnations.
So what bipartisan support for Israel’s right of self-defense really means as that Israel has a right to defend herself as long as she never defends herself. But whenever she dares to actually defend herself, then she forfeits her right of self-defense.
For many, Israel’s right of self-defense is purely theoretical. The moment someone is injured or killed when Israel is forced to fight back, then she instantly loses her right of self-defense.
I’d also note that those who deplore warfare between Israel and her enemies only oppose one side of the war. They oppose the war when Muslims are killed. But when Jews are killed, well—that’s just par for the course.
So the peaceniks are demipeaceniks. Theirs is a one-sided pacifism. Their pacifism begins at ends at the Israeli border.
Have you ever noticed the ubiquitous phenomenon of statesmen who never met a problem they were prepared to solve? Their guiding philosophy is that for every problem there is no solution.
Their mission in life is to perpetuate problems. They oppose a problem-solver at every turn.
Their calling in life is to leave the world no better off than when they were born. They lie awake at night over the bone-chilling prospect that someone, somewhere might actually take decisive action to solve a problem once and for all.
They labor tirelessly to erect bureaucracies, enact international laws, and establish media outlets which will block every avenue towards the resolution of a problem. No solution is too important or too trivial not to be resisted.
Midrash
EB: One interesting tidbit about the tale of the "many raised saints" found only in Matthew is the probable insertion of the phrase "after his resurrection" which appears to have been inserted so awkwardly into the Greek that it makes the sentences read as though the tombs were opened and the saints raised at Jesus's death, but then they lingered about until "after his resurrection" a day and a half later when they finally "entered the holy city."
SH: Other issues aside, to claim that the phrase was “inserted” into the text implies that Matthew was redacting a preexisting tradition rather than fabricating the account whole cloth.
So even if we went along with Babinski’s assumptions, this could well be a primitive, historical tradition.
EB: Some of course don't think that those two little verses about the anonymous "many raised saints" are historical at all but merely midrash added by Matthew, just as Matthew appears to have added incidents in Jesus's birth and childhood filling in gaps in knowledge with tales composed to add understanding in a similarly midrashic fashion. (One prominent inerrantist scholar was voted out of the Evangelical Theological Society in the 1980s for acknowledging that there was indeed a case to be made for Matthew's use of midrash in his telling of the Jesus story.)
SH:
i) Those who either operate with metaphysical or methodological naturalism will automatically discount anything supernatural.
ii)”Midrash” is a rubbery term, often ill-defined and lacking in clear-cut criteria.
Midrash is frequently confused with typology. See Craig. A. Evans’ careful distinction between targumim, midrashim, pesher, allegory, and typology.
Cf. Dictionary for Theological Interpretation of the Bible, K. Vanhoozer, ed. (Baker 2005), 380-84.
Mt 2-4 is typological, not midrashic.
iii) Mt 27:52-53 is an example of inaugurated eschatology. The resurrection of these OT saints is a down payment on the endtime resurrection of the just, redeemed by the resurrection of Christ.
iv) Gundry was ousted from the ETS for treating parts of Matthew as fictitious.
v) For a defense of Matthew, consult such standard commentators as Carson, Blomberg, Keener, and France.
EB: As for inerrantist Christian apologists on the web who acknowledge the ancient use of midrash and even pesher to help try and explain the way some Gospel authors stretched the meanings of Old Testament verses to suit their prior view of "who Jesus was," please read "The Fabulous Prophecies of the Messiah" which includes comments from Christian apologists at the end.
SH:
i) I don’t believe that Gospel writers “stretched” the sense of OT verses to “suit” their “prior” view of who Jesus was.
Actually, it was their encounter with Jesus (Matthew, John, maybe Mark) and/or his disciples (Mark and Luke) that altered their prior Messianic expectations.
ii) Babinski is trying to turn this into an argument from authority by name-dropping or citing the opinion of this or that apologist.
But the deciding factor is the quality of the argumentation, and not who said what.
EB: On this topic of the Gospel author's use of midrash and pesher, even J. P. Holding has listed it among "leading Christian myths" that "OT prophecy fulfillment is a good apologetic. It actually isn't useful in the way it was at first. We need to understand (as do Skeptics) Jewish exegesis of the first century. It is not so much that the OT predicted the NT events as that the NT writers looked at history and sought OT passages that echoed what they had seen. This does not mean that there is not actual predictive prophecy at all (for even then God may have orchestrated the pattern) but rather that we cannot present an apologetic on this basis as we normally have; or else we are forced into a corner of explaining ie, why the NT allegedly uses OT passages "out of context."
SH:
i) What goes under the rubric of Messianic prophecy is a combination of specific prophecies along with a convergence of progressive theological motifs on the Christ-event.
Scholars like France, Motyer, Sailhamer, VanGemeren, and T. D. Alexander have done a good job of elucidating the various Messianic themes in OT revelation.
NT writers do not cite the OT out of context. Quite the opposite: they are extremely sensitive to the thematic progression of Scripture.
ii) So the argument from prophecy remains in force.
EB: Personally, I suspect that the ancient world was generally more mysterious and wondrous than today's and average people were more capable of believing stories or weird strange tales, and capable of repeating them and embellishing them as well.
SH:
i) Many modern-day Christians can testimony to God’s providential presence in their lives. There’s no fundamental difference between then and now.
ii) And even outside of Christian experience, many modern-day observers can testimony to a paranormal dimension of experience.
So the world is just as mysterious and wondrous today as it was two or three thousand years ago.
EB: I don't doubt that Christians were motivated in their beliefs…
SH: That sidesteps the question. What gave rise to the faith of the NT writers in the first place? An encounter with the Risen Lord, or exposure to credible testimony thereof.
EB: Truth telling does not seem to have been as important as convincing themselves and others of their beliefs.
SH: This disregards the process of canonization, in which Christians took issues of authenticity and forgery quite seriously.
EB: But certainties are more difficult to come by once Christianity began being examined by more rigorous standards.
SH:
i) Yes, indeed, the Christian faith has come sustained scrutiny ever since the Enlightenment. And it’s survived and thrived under such scrutiny.
ii) I’d add that scrutiny is a two-way street. How well does secularism survive under rigorous scrutiny?
EB: Historians are not easily cowed by partisan stories of miracles, or by miraculous partisan tales of how various religions allegedly began.
SH:
i) Once again, this sidesteps the question of how the NT writers came to be “partisans.”
Churchill wrote a very “partisan” history of WWII. Does that mean his account his historically worthless? Or did he have firsthand evidence to support his version of events?
ii) When Dominic Crossan reconstructs what “really” happened on holy week, he is giving us a partisan version of events. He is also motivated by his beliefs.
What’s more, since he wasn’t there, his partisan alternative is devoid of evidence, and flies in the face of the actual evidence.
EB: The Gospels themselves are written without the author's identifying themselves, and one could read all of the inerrantist and non-inerrantist historians one wants to try and guess who wrote them, and remain uncertain.
SH:
i) Can Babinski cite any anonymous MSS of the four gospels?
ii) How can I be “certain” that Babinski penned the writings attributed to him? Maybe they’re pseudonymous.
After all, an unbeliever would have a motive in pretending to be an apostate. Apostasy sells. Apostasy is a great marketing gimmick.
iii) Does Babinski hold his secularism to the standard of apodictic proof?
SH: Other issues aside, to claim that the phrase was “inserted” into the text implies that Matthew was redacting a preexisting tradition rather than fabricating the account whole cloth.
So even if we went along with Babinski’s assumptions, this could well be a primitive, historical tradition.
EB: Some of course don't think that those two little verses about the anonymous "many raised saints" are historical at all but merely midrash added by Matthew, just as Matthew appears to have added incidents in Jesus's birth and childhood filling in gaps in knowledge with tales composed to add understanding in a similarly midrashic fashion. (One prominent inerrantist scholar was voted out of the Evangelical Theological Society in the 1980s for acknowledging that there was indeed a case to be made for Matthew's use of midrash in his telling of the Jesus story.)
SH:
i) Those who either operate with metaphysical or methodological naturalism will automatically discount anything supernatural.
ii)”Midrash” is a rubbery term, often ill-defined and lacking in clear-cut criteria.
Midrash is frequently confused with typology. See Craig. A. Evans’ careful distinction between targumim, midrashim, pesher, allegory, and typology.
Cf. Dictionary for Theological Interpretation of the Bible, K. Vanhoozer, ed. (Baker 2005), 380-84.
Mt 2-4 is typological, not midrashic.
iii) Mt 27:52-53 is an example of inaugurated eschatology. The resurrection of these OT saints is a down payment on the endtime resurrection of the just, redeemed by the resurrection of Christ.
iv) Gundry was ousted from the ETS for treating parts of Matthew as fictitious.
v) For a defense of Matthew, consult such standard commentators as Carson, Blomberg, Keener, and France.
EB: As for inerrantist Christian apologists on the web who acknowledge the ancient use of midrash and even pesher to help try and explain the way some Gospel authors stretched the meanings of Old Testament verses to suit their prior view of "who Jesus was," please read "The Fabulous Prophecies of the Messiah" which includes comments from Christian apologists at the end.
SH:
i) I don’t believe that Gospel writers “stretched” the sense of OT verses to “suit” their “prior” view of who Jesus was.
Actually, it was their encounter with Jesus (Matthew, John, maybe Mark) and/or his disciples (Mark and Luke) that altered their prior Messianic expectations.
ii) Babinski is trying to turn this into an argument from authority by name-dropping or citing the opinion of this or that apologist.
But the deciding factor is the quality of the argumentation, and not who said what.
EB: On this topic of the Gospel author's use of midrash and pesher, even J. P. Holding has listed it among "leading Christian myths" that "OT prophecy fulfillment is a good apologetic. It actually isn't useful in the way it was at first. We need to understand (as do Skeptics) Jewish exegesis of the first century. It is not so much that the OT predicted the NT events as that the NT writers looked at history and sought OT passages that echoed what they had seen. This does not mean that there is not actual predictive prophecy at all (for even then God may have orchestrated the pattern) but rather that we cannot present an apologetic on this basis as we normally have; or else we are forced into a corner of explaining ie, why the NT allegedly uses OT passages "out of context."
SH:
i) What goes under the rubric of Messianic prophecy is a combination of specific prophecies along with a convergence of progressive theological motifs on the Christ-event.
Scholars like France, Motyer, Sailhamer, VanGemeren, and T. D. Alexander have done a good job of elucidating the various Messianic themes in OT revelation.
NT writers do not cite the OT out of context. Quite the opposite: they are extremely sensitive to the thematic progression of Scripture.
ii) So the argument from prophecy remains in force.
EB: Personally, I suspect that the ancient world was generally more mysterious and wondrous than today's and average people were more capable of believing stories or weird strange tales, and capable of repeating them and embellishing them as well.
SH:
i) Many modern-day Christians can testimony to God’s providential presence in their lives. There’s no fundamental difference between then and now.
ii) And even outside of Christian experience, many modern-day observers can testimony to a paranormal dimension of experience.
So the world is just as mysterious and wondrous today as it was two or three thousand years ago.
EB: I don't doubt that Christians were motivated in their beliefs…
SH: That sidesteps the question. What gave rise to the faith of the NT writers in the first place? An encounter with the Risen Lord, or exposure to credible testimony thereof.
EB: Truth telling does not seem to have been as important as convincing themselves and others of their beliefs.
SH: This disregards the process of canonization, in which Christians took issues of authenticity and forgery quite seriously.
EB: But certainties are more difficult to come by once Christianity began being examined by more rigorous standards.
SH:
i) Yes, indeed, the Christian faith has come sustained scrutiny ever since the Enlightenment. And it’s survived and thrived under such scrutiny.
ii) I’d add that scrutiny is a two-way street. How well does secularism survive under rigorous scrutiny?
EB: Historians are not easily cowed by partisan stories of miracles, or by miraculous partisan tales of how various religions allegedly began.
SH:
i) Once again, this sidesteps the question of how the NT writers came to be “partisans.”
Churchill wrote a very “partisan” history of WWII. Does that mean his account his historically worthless? Or did he have firsthand evidence to support his version of events?
ii) When Dominic Crossan reconstructs what “really” happened on holy week, he is giving us a partisan version of events. He is also motivated by his beliefs.
What’s more, since he wasn’t there, his partisan alternative is devoid of evidence, and flies in the face of the actual evidence.
EB: The Gospels themselves are written without the author's identifying themselves, and one could read all of the inerrantist and non-inerrantist historians one wants to try and guess who wrote them, and remain uncertain.
SH:
i) Can Babinski cite any anonymous MSS of the four gospels?
ii) How can I be “certain” that Babinski penned the writings attributed to him? Maybe they’re pseudonymous.
After all, an unbeliever would have a motive in pretending to be an apostate. Apostasy sells. Apostasy is a great marketing gimmick.
iii) Does Babinski hold his secularism to the standard of apodictic proof?
Monday, July 31, 2006
J.P. Holding And Matthew Green
Last week, Matthew Green of Debunking Christianity posted another article on the resurrection. It's a response to J.P. Holding, and I've only read portions of the discussions they've been having, so I can't comment on those discussions in much depth. However, a reader has brought this thread at TheologyWeb to my attention. He said that many of the issues Matthew Green raises in his article were already discussed in the TheologyWeb thread linked above. He also wrote:
1. While I would not presume to speak for Holding, I believe Green has overstated when he says that the “core” of Holding’s argument revolves upon the meaning of anastasis. It seems rather to be a minor accessory in an overall argument making use of Jewish beliefs, psychological expectations, and simple logic. We would note that a member of the discussion thread who is an expert in Koine Greek advised Green (message #99) to be cautious in his pursuit of his point trying to link the words anistemi and anistasis too closely.
2. Questions such as, “Why would God resuscitate a prophet temporarily, only to have that prophet die and then raise him up, transphysically, at the general resurrection from the dead?” may be of historical and speculative interest but are not an argument. Arguably there are practical considerations that would forbid allowing a resurrected person to travel the earth, but in the end, questions of motive require greater explication of relevance to become more than simply interesting questions.
3. Green has not related his expectations adequately to the Jewish conception of general resurrection as an end-of-the-age event. This is the primary difficulty in Jesus’ disciples believing that he could be risen from the dead prior to any general resurrection, not that the dead could not be raised by God’s power. As a result, Green improperly conflates categories.
4. It is not improbable, if the Jewish belief Holding reports about angels is true, that the first persons seeing eg, the Gospel of Matthew’s saints risen from the dead, upon initial impression thought that these persons were angels and not the persons they seemed to be, but it demands too much from the text to have it reported how any witnesses were disabused of that specific notion.
Will Charles and Bob ever call?
After all they've got the goods on James White and Dr. White is supposedly unwilling and/or unable to interact with Bob Ross in debate. Well, you've had three weeks to set your schedules gentlemen. Will you call this time?
You didn't call last week, yet again. Come on, surely one of you will call in and talk to him one on one "live," or do you really not have the courage of your convictions at all? So, here's the schedule. Tomorrow's Thursday, and if you can't make it tomorrow, why not just make an appointment on your schedule for the week after.
Most Tuesday Mornings at
11:00am MST and
Most Thursday Afternoons at 4:00 MST
(pre-feeds begin 30 minutes or so before start of program)
You didn't call last week, yet again. Come on, surely one of you will call in and talk to him one on one "live," or do you really not have the courage of your convictions at all? So, here's the schedule. Tomorrow's Thursday, and if you can't make it tomorrow, why not just make an appointment on your schedule for the week after.
Most Tuesday Mornings at
11:00am MST and
Most Thursday Afternoons at 4:00 MST
(pre-feeds begin 30 minutes or so before start of program)
Book Alert!
Backus Books Featured Book
I am pleased to announce the opportunity to offer books from Mercer University Press here at Backus Books. The first of these titles is Anthony Chute's A Piety Above the
Common Standard: Jesse Mercer and Evangelistic Calvinism.
Jesse Mercer (1769–1841) was a Baptist pastor, editor, and denominational statesman who figured prominently in the debates over Calvinism among Southern clergymen.
Most studies of Calvinism in America have focused on Jonathan Edwards, the New Divinity Movement, and the Princeton theologians. Calvinism, however, played a key role
in shaping the religious mind of the South, particularly among Baptists who debated the relationship between divine sovereignty and human responsibility as it related to
missions, education, and social reform. These debates led to the formation of two Baptist groups, Primitive and Missionary, the latter of which ultimately became Southern
Baptists.
This book explores the role of Jesse Mercer within these debates as he promoted the first form of the Georgia Baptist Convention. His Calvinistic theology governed his
actions and life. He emphasized missions, theological training for pastors, and cooperation between churches in fulfilling the Great Commission.
Calvinism is as important a topic today in the study of religion as it ever has been. This book gives perspective and history to current trends and understandings.
Anthony L. Chute received his Ph.D. in Historical Theology from Trinity Evangelical Divinity School. He is assistant professor of church history at California Baptist
University, Riverside, California.
This book lists for $25 and I am offering it as a featured book for $18 plus postage. This is a $2 savings over the regular inventory price of $20. As always, you may order
online ( www.backusbooks.com ) through PayPal, by US Mail to Backus Books, Box 17274, Rochester, NY 14617. Or, you may order by phone at 585-785-7341. This is an
excellent book introducing you to the theology and ministry of an early American Baptist.
Don Moffitt
Backus Books
HT: Scripture Searcher
I am pleased to announce the opportunity to offer books from Mercer University Press here at Backus Books. The first of these titles is Anthony Chute's A Piety Above the
Common Standard: Jesse Mercer and Evangelistic Calvinism.
Jesse Mercer (1769–1841) was a Baptist pastor, editor, and denominational statesman who figured prominently in the debates over Calvinism among Southern clergymen.
Most studies of Calvinism in America have focused on Jonathan Edwards, the New Divinity Movement, and the Princeton theologians. Calvinism, however, played a key role
in shaping the religious mind of the South, particularly among Baptists who debated the relationship between divine sovereignty and human responsibility as it related to
missions, education, and social reform. These debates led to the formation of two Baptist groups, Primitive and Missionary, the latter of which ultimately became Southern
Baptists.
This book explores the role of Jesse Mercer within these debates as he promoted the first form of the Georgia Baptist Convention. His Calvinistic theology governed his
actions and life. He emphasized missions, theological training for pastors, and cooperation between churches in fulfilling the Great Commission.
Calvinism is as important a topic today in the study of religion as it ever has been. This book gives perspective and history to current trends and understandings.
Anthony L. Chute received his Ph.D. in Historical Theology from Trinity Evangelical Divinity School. He is assistant professor of church history at California Baptist
University, Riverside, California.
This book lists for $25 and I am offering it as a featured book for $18 plus postage. This is a $2 savings over the regular inventory price of $20. As always, you may order
online ( www.backusbooks.com ) through PayPal, by US Mail to Backus Books, Box 17274, Rochester, NY 14617. Or, you may order by phone at 585-785-7341. This is an
excellent book introducing you to the theology and ministry of an early American Baptist.
Don Moffitt
Backus Books
HT: Scripture Searcher
Sunday, July 30, 2006
Defining ignorance
***QUOTE***
Believers in Christianity are not like they were decades and centuries ago. When confronted with harsh biblical criticism, they will not tell you things like "just have faith because nobody really 'knows' anything", nor will they admit "I can't prove the Bible or Christianity, but I believe in them." No, those days of quaint and humble honesty are long gone.
What believers of today will tell you is a minimum of ten ways to explain the days of Genesis 1 and the snake of Genesis 3 as figurative rather than literal. On accepting Jesus, they will present the trillemma, "Lord, liar, or lunatic" and try to buff it up with skewed logic. They will refer to Blocher's Thesis time and again, and wax eloquent quoting Alvin Plantinga and William Lane Craig on issues of common dispute. Concerning the problem of evil, instead of admitting that the existence of evil troubles them, they shine on asking skeptics to "define evil," as though this somehow helps to alleviate the problem. Looking to score points in a debate, believers want a formal definition, which is fine, though it is unnecessary. I suppose, if someone wanted me to, I could give them a definition of sadness, though we all know what it is! Even so, there is no one alive who doesn't know what evil is. Well, I will accommodate them here anyway.
http://debunkingchristianity.blogspot.com/2006/07/defining-evil.html
***END-QUOTE***
One of the common denominators uniting so many apostates is their deficient knowledge of Christian theology.
In this respect, Holman is your run-of-the-mill know-nothing. If, say, he were to read The Defense of the Gospel in the New Testament by F. F. Bruce, followed by A History of Apologetics by Cardinal Dulles, he could never have ventured such a pig-ignorant statement about the fideistic piety of Christians living decades or centuries ago.
Concerning the problem of evil, what about the Irenaen theodicy repristinated by John Hick, or Augustine’s privative theory of evil, or Aquinas’ commentary on Job, or Calvin’s nuanced discussion of evil and providence*, or the supralapsarian theodicy of William Twisse, or the modal theodicy of Leibniz, or Jonathan Edwards’ analysis of original sin—to name a few?
*Cf. P. Helm, Calvin’s Ideas, chap. 4.
I confess that I’m unacquainted with the “trillemma.” Is that a coloratura apologetic pioneered by Joan Sutherland?
I don’t have ten different ways of explaining the days of Gen 1. What about one or two?
The fact is that modern-day Evangelicals are much more likely to take the days of Gen 1 as calendar days than Christians were several decades ago in the time of Warfield or Bernard Ramm.
As to the identity of the serpent in Gen 3, I’m sorry if it’s inconvenient for Holman to consider the fact that Gen 3 was written in Hebrew rather than English, which is why we need to be sensitive to the possible presence of puns in the original—or that Gen 3 was revealed at a time and place when the cultural frame of reference was not supplied by the local pet store, but by a world immersed in ophiolatry, ophiomancy, and demonology.
What Holman is really smarting from is his frustrated desire to kill him a few Yankees and be home in time for supper.
He’s mad at Christians because we won’t roll over and play dead. He’s mad at us because he was hoping that he could dispatch the Christian faith in three easy steps.
And then he makes the unwelcome discovery that Christian theology is far more sophisticated than he ever was or ever will be.
Continuing with Holman:
***QUOTE***
What I am needlessly laboring to prove here is one simple fact -- that defining evil in it's many forms was never a problem. It is impossible to turn away from even by the most staunch standards of optimistically warped theists who refuse to see reason on the issue. Evil is all around us, and regardless of which side of the debate on the existence of God our convictions may fall, we cannot help but recognize it when we see it. Yet Christians, in the spirit of trying to blend in with the academic mainstream of western thought, have resorted to making silly formalized arguments against the problem of evil and asininely quibbling over definitions of the word itself! An entire world is losing faith in God over the abundance of evils, and all the while, we are being told by Christian philosophers that we can't even define the term! I can, and just did, but don't have to. I see it every time I see a hospital, a police car, an ambulance, or when I turn on the local 6'o clock news. I see it every time I see a pair of reading glasses, a walking cane, or a sign on the highway that says "Buckle Up for Safety." I see evil, and everyone around me sees it too, even those who swear up and down that it doesn't shake their faith.
The buck of the existence of evil cannot be passed from God. He will never escape his appointment to stand forever convicted in the court of human reason as the most evil and fiendish being ever conceived. The standard by which we convict is that of the senses, the same senses with which we judge all of reality, and who could ask for a more objective standard than that?
***END-QUOTE***
i) Consistent with his invincible ignorance, Holman acts as if Christians treat the problem of evil as a semantic problem. No, we don’t—although certain elementary distinctions are in order: ends and means, primary and secondary causality, natural and moral evil.
ii) Holman betrays his philosophical naïveté when he says that our senses supply the standard of right and wrong.
This is especially ironic when you consider that most unbelievers, for whom matter is all, subscribe to radical empiricism.
Is evil red or yellow? Smooth or fuzzy? Does evil have a distinctive fragrance? How much does evil weigh? Is evil long or short? Thick or thin? Round or square? Liquid or solid?
What we see around us are events. The events don’t come stamped with good and evil labels.
That’s a value-judgment we bring to the events, not a sensory impression we read off the events. Moral norms are invisible and intangible.
iii) It wasn’t Christians who resorted to making “silly, formalized” arguments for the problem of evil. No, it was unbelievers like Mackie who proposed the logical problem of evil.
This, again, is another common denominator of apostates. Not only don’t they know Christian theology, but they’re equally clueless when it comes to their own side of the argument.
Christians like Plantinga merely responded to the logical problem of evil in the way it was framed by unbelievers.
If Plantinga’s formulation is silly, then it’s a silly counterargument to a silly argument. And the silliness originates with Holman’s side of the debate.
iv) Is the entire world losing faith in God due to the problem of evil? Does Holman have any statistical data to back up such a sweeping claim?
Rodney Stark (The Victory of Reason: How Christianity Led to Freedom, Capitalism, and Western Success) and Philip Jenkins (The Next Christendom: The Coming Global Christianity) inform us that the demographics are just the reverse.
But that’s one of the fringe benefits of being an unbeliever. You can get away with brazen falsehoods and fact-free claims.
v) Finally, Holman’s real problem is not with the definition of evil, but with a secular outlook which logically leads to moral relativism as well as the dehumanization of man. For a consistent secularist, there is no problem of evil because there is no evil—and even if there were moral absolutes, a meat machine has no transcendent rights.
Believers in Christianity are not like they were decades and centuries ago. When confronted with harsh biblical criticism, they will not tell you things like "just have faith because nobody really 'knows' anything", nor will they admit "I can't prove the Bible or Christianity, but I believe in them." No, those days of quaint and humble honesty are long gone.
What believers of today will tell you is a minimum of ten ways to explain the days of Genesis 1 and the snake of Genesis 3 as figurative rather than literal. On accepting Jesus, they will present the trillemma, "Lord, liar, or lunatic" and try to buff it up with skewed logic. They will refer to Blocher's Thesis time and again, and wax eloquent quoting Alvin Plantinga and William Lane Craig on issues of common dispute. Concerning the problem of evil, instead of admitting that the existence of evil troubles them, they shine on asking skeptics to "define evil," as though this somehow helps to alleviate the problem. Looking to score points in a debate, believers want a formal definition, which is fine, though it is unnecessary. I suppose, if someone wanted me to, I could give them a definition of sadness, though we all know what it is! Even so, there is no one alive who doesn't know what evil is. Well, I will accommodate them here anyway.
http://debunkingchristianity.blogspot.com/2006/07/defining-evil.html
***END-QUOTE***
One of the common denominators uniting so many apostates is their deficient knowledge of Christian theology.
In this respect, Holman is your run-of-the-mill know-nothing. If, say, he were to read The Defense of the Gospel in the New Testament by F. F. Bruce, followed by A History of Apologetics by Cardinal Dulles, he could never have ventured such a pig-ignorant statement about the fideistic piety of Christians living decades or centuries ago.
Concerning the problem of evil, what about the Irenaen theodicy repristinated by John Hick, or Augustine’s privative theory of evil, or Aquinas’ commentary on Job, or Calvin’s nuanced discussion of evil and providence*, or the supralapsarian theodicy of William Twisse, or the modal theodicy of Leibniz, or Jonathan Edwards’ analysis of original sin—to name a few?
*Cf. P. Helm, Calvin’s Ideas, chap. 4.
I confess that I’m unacquainted with the “trillemma.” Is that a coloratura apologetic pioneered by Joan Sutherland?
I don’t have ten different ways of explaining the days of Gen 1. What about one or two?
The fact is that modern-day Evangelicals are much more likely to take the days of Gen 1 as calendar days than Christians were several decades ago in the time of Warfield or Bernard Ramm.
As to the identity of the serpent in Gen 3, I’m sorry if it’s inconvenient for Holman to consider the fact that Gen 3 was written in Hebrew rather than English, which is why we need to be sensitive to the possible presence of puns in the original—or that Gen 3 was revealed at a time and place when the cultural frame of reference was not supplied by the local pet store, but by a world immersed in ophiolatry, ophiomancy, and demonology.
What Holman is really smarting from is his frustrated desire to kill him a few Yankees and be home in time for supper.
He’s mad at Christians because we won’t roll over and play dead. He’s mad at us because he was hoping that he could dispatch the Christian faith in three easy steps.
And then he makes the unwelcome discovery that Christian theology is far more sophisticated than he ever was or ever will be.
Continuing with Holman:
***QUOTE***
What I am needlessly laboring to prove here is one simple fact -- that defining evil in it's many forms was never a problem. It is impossible to turn away from even by the most staunch standards of optimistically warped theists who refuse to see reason on the issue. Evil is all around us, and regardless of which side of the debate on the existence of God our convictions may fall, we cannot help but recognize it when we see it. Yet Christians, in the spirit of trying to blend in with the academic mainstream of western thought, have resorted to making silly formalized arguments against the problem of evil and asininely quibbling over definitions of the word itself! An entire world is losing faith in God over the abundance of evils, and all the while, we are being told by Christian philosophers that we can't even define the term! I can, and just did, but don't have to. I see it every time I see a hospital, a police car, an ambulance, or when I turn on the local 6'o clock news. I see it every time I see a pair of reading glasses, a walking cane, or a sign on the highway that says "Buckle Up for Safety." I see evil, and everyone around me sees it too, even those who swear up and down that it doesn't shake their faith.
The buck of the existence of evil cannot be passed from God. He will never escape his appointment to stand forever convicted in the court of human reason as the most evil and fiendish being ever conceived. The standard by which we convict is that of the senses, the same senses with which we judge all of reality, and who could ask for a more objective standard than that?
***END-QUOTE***
i) Consistent with his invincible ignorance, Holman acts as if Christians treat the problem of evil as a semantic problem. No, we don’t—although certain elementary distinctions are in order: ends and means, primary and secondary causality, natural and moral evil.
ii) Holman betrays his philosophical naïveté when he says that our senses supply the standard of right and wrong.
This is especially ironic when you consider that most unbelievers, for whom matter is all, subscribe to radical empiricism.
Is evil red or yellow? Smooth or fuzzy? Does evil have a distinctive fragrance? How much does evil weigh? Is evil long or short? Thick or thin? Round or square? Liquid or solid?
What we see around us are events. The events don’t come stamped with good and evil labels.
That’s a value-judgment we bring to the events, not a sensory impression we read off the events. Moral norms are invisible and intangible.
iii) It wasn’t Christians who resorted to making “silly, formalized” arguments for the problem of evil. No, it was unbelievers like Mackie who proposed the logical problem of evil.
This, again, is another common denominator of apostates. Not only don’t they know Christian theology, but they’re equally clueless when it comes to their own side of the argument.
Christians like Plantinga merely responded to the logical problem of evil in the way it was framed by unbelievers.
If Plantinga’s formulation is silly, then it’s a silly counterargument to a silly argument. And the silliness originates with Holman’s side of the debate.
iv) Is the entire world losing faith in God due to the problem of evil? Does Holman have any statistical data to back up such a sweeping claim?
Rodney Stark (The Victory of Reason: How Christianity Led to Freedom, Capitalism, and Western Success) and Philip Jenkins (The Next Christendom: The Coming Global Christianity) inform us that the demographics are just the reverse.
But that’s one of the fringe benefits of being an unbeliever. You can get away with brazen falsehoods and fact-free claims.
v) Finally, Holman’s real problem is not with the definition of evil, but with a secular outlook which logically leads to moral relativism as well as the dehumanization of man. For a consistent secularist, there is no problem of evil because there is no evil—and even if there were moral absolutes, a meat machine has no transcendent rights.
DagoodS Multiplies His Errors
DagoodS has posted more about the authorship of John's gospel, in the form of a comment in his original thread. He's responding to somebody who replied to him there, but some of his comments are relevant to my response to him as well. I'm not going to address everything DagoodS has written in his latest post, since he was writing in response to somebody else and since so many of his arguments have already been answered in sources he could easily have consulted. See here, for example, or consult the material on John's gospel produced by Craig Keener, D.A. Carson, Leon Morris, Craig Blomberg, and other conservative scholars. DagoodS has a record of making claims without doing much research on the relevant subjects. He ignores large amounts of evidence against his position, he makes unreasonable demands of the Biblical authors, and when he's refuted on one point, he moves on to another argument with the same sort of reasoning that led him to an error on the previous point.
His latest post repeats the same sort of unreasonable demands he often makes of the Biblical authors:
"We would then need to develop a methodology for why John included what he did that correlates with the synpotics....Despite the vast differences [between the Synoptics and John], there ARE some similarities (due to a common oral story) and you would need to defend the Gospel writer’s actions as to why he choose some, and not others (other than 'I don’t know') especially in light of the fact that he deliberately failed to choose some that would have conformed to his theme, but choose others that did not....While you may call them 'new' accounts, you would also have to develop a system, or method as to why the pervious accounts, with their emphasis and focus, would not use them....My proposal, that the author of the Gospel of John did not know the Synoptic Jesus, but only knew the tale trough oral tradition, answers these problems. Your solution, that the author included things that were known to not be in the Synoptics, introduces problems, as to why the Synoptics would not have included them, and why Jesus is portrayed in such a different manner, comparing the two."
Steve Hays, in a previous reply to DagoodS on another subject, has already addressed his ridiculous demand that we produce a "system" that will explain why Biblical authors wrote what they wrote. Historians don't make such a demand regarding non-Biblical authors, so why should we make that demand with regard to the Biblical authors? And why does DagoodS think that there's a "theme" John and other authors would have followed? They could have had more than one objective in writing a document. Even if one theme was dominant, others could be taken up along the way. Authors will use some of the material they're familiar with when they compose a document, but they may be unable to include everything they know or may not want to include everything.
An example I've mentioned before is the resurrection appearance to James, which was well known (1 Corinthians 15:7). None of the gospel authors mention it. We don't conclude that they therefore must not have known about it, and we don't need a system that will explain to us why each author decided not to include the resurrection appearance to James. There are many possible explanations, and we don't have to know which one is correct in order for the correctness of one of them to be plausible. DagoodS tells us that "I don't know" isn't a sufficient answer, but historians don't reject the historicity of an account in Josephus or Tacitus, for example, just because they don't know why the author chose to include that account or why he didn't include other accounts of a similar nature that he could have included. Christians don't say "I don't know" in the sense of not being able to think of any possibility. Rather, they say it in the sense of not having much evidence by which to reach a conclusion about which possibility is the best one. Historians do the same with non-Biblical authors.
With regard to the passages on love in the gospels, every gospel author would have thought of the love of Jesus as the greatest example of love by logical implication. John quotes Jesus' comments on the subject, which makes sense given the emphasis John places on the theme of love, but we have no reason to conclude that the other gospel authors would have included the same material if it was historical. There's no reason to think that they intended to record everything Jesus said about love, and none of the gospel authors considered their gospel the only source of information on Jesus' life that people would have. Mark would have known about the resurrection appearances of 1 Corinthians 15, for example, even though he doesn't include them in his gospel. John would have known that information about Jesus' infancy was available, even though he doesn't include it in his gospel. Etc. If Matthew's audience could be expected to know that Jesus' love was the greatest example of love they could emulate, then why would Matthew think there was a need for him to include Jesus' statement to that effect in his gospel? He might include it anyway, despite no need for including it, but its absence doesn't logically lead to the conclusion that he must have been ignorant of what Jesus said.
"You indicate this is a 'new' requirement [in John 13:34-35]. What was the 'old' requirement? What was the old type of love they were to use, when loving God, loving their neighbor, and loving their enemies? Before, were they NOT to love as Jesus loved them? Were they stumped as to what type of love to use up until Jesus described it at the Last Supper? This makes no sense that for the first time Jesus actually described the type of love they were to use, and that is what makes it 'new.' Again, is it now greater than the previous commandments, or less?"
John 13:34-35 is about loving other people, not loving God. Love of God remained the greatest commandment. But Jesus gave us the greatest example of love. Having a better example than was previously available would heighten the commandment in that sense, but concepts such as loving God with all your heart and loving others as yourself would have been understandable to people prior to our having Jesus' example. And as I said in my first reply to DagoodS, the commandment could still be referred to as "new" even if it began weeks, months, or years earlier. The concept of imitating Jesus' love would be a logical implication that probably would have occurred to the early Christians even without Jesus' mentioning of it, but He did mention it on the occasion John is narrating. John has a lot of interest in the theme of love, so he mentions it. Other gospel writers were focusing on other themes and had already mentioned some of the general principles related to love, so why would they need to include Jesus' statement of John 13 in their accounts? There's no need for it.
"My proposal, that the author of the Gospel of John did not know the Synoptic Jesus, but only knew the tale trough oral tradition, answers these problems."
The "problems" DagoodS mentions aren't of much significance. And to accept his solution to those alleged problems, you have to accept far more significant problems with that solution. You have to conclude that the external sources commenting on authorship were nearly universally wrong, despite the presence of John's disciples for something like 60 years after John's death. You have to conclude that all of the manuscripts with John's name on them are wrong. You have to conclude that the absence of the "Baptist" qualifier for John the Baptist has nothing to do with the author's identity as John the apostle. You have to reject the most natural reading of John 21:24 and the implications that follow from the beloved disciple's close relations with Peter. Etc. In other words, DagoodS wants us to solve his proposed problems by accepting far worse problems.
"Can you explain why, after Jesus had told them to stay in Jerusalem until Pentecost (Luke 24:48) that they were out in Galilee fishing [in John 21]? Or, why they were hopping back and forth between Galilee and Jerusalem, if you take Matt. 28:16 as before Luke? )"
How does DagoodS know that John 21 is supposed to have occurred after Luke 24:48? He doesn't. Luke tells us that a timespan of 40 days was involved (Acts 1:3), so his accounts in Luke 24 have to involve telescoping. That sort of compressing of events is common in both ancient and modern literature. It would be a logical conclusion even if Acts 1:3 had never been written, but since Luke does give us that indication that he was compressing the events, DagoodS' reading is even more inexcusable.
As far as "hopping back and forth" is concerned, that sort of travel was common, especially for occupational reasons or for the purpose of religious observance. Luke 24 refers to an appearance to people traveling, John 21 refers to some of the disciples going fishing (an occupation of some of the apostles), etc. We don't know all of the reasons why the people traveled as they did, but why would we need to know? And why use a term like "hopping"? The appearances occurred over a span of weeks, not hours, so the people involved wouldn't have needed to be "hopping" in order to do some traveling during that timeframe.
Mark doesn't address the resurrection appearances aside from referring to an appearance in the future (Mark 16:7). That leaves us with the other three gospels. Of those three, Matthew and John agree that Jesus appeared in both Jerusalem (Matthew 28:9, John 20:14) and Galilee (Matthew 28:16, John 21:1). Luke doesn't mention Galilee, but that makes sense in light of his focus on Jerusalem in Acts. As J.P. Holding notes:
"More likely is that Luke has arranged things this way in order to emphasize Jerusalem as Jesus' destination, and in Acts, as the center for the spreading of the Gospel (Acts follows a pattern in which the Gospel is spread from Jerusalem in ever-wider geographical circles, even as people return to that city; cf. Acts 11:2, 12:15, 15:2, 18:21, 19:1 and 21, 20:16)."
Most scholars think that Luke knew about Mark's gospel and used it as a source he considered reliable, and Mark's gospel mentions Jesus' post-resurrection presence in Galilee (Mark 16:7). Luke would have known about at least one of the appearances in Galilee, even though he focuses on Jerusalem.
"If it [the witness in John 19:35] IS the author, this sounds quite a bit like, 'And I am telling the truth. I am NOT lying.' Which gives us reason to be cautious."
Once again, DagoodS hasn't done enough research. As Craig Blomberg explains:
"That an author could refer to himself with the demonstrative pronoun ekeinos (lit. 'that one'; NIV 'he') is demonstrated by Josephus in War 3.202." (The Historical Reliability Of John's Gospel [Downers Grove, Illinois: InterVarsity Press, 2001], p. 255)
Craig Keener cites other evidence supporting the same conclusion, such as other extra-Biblical sources who use the third person to refer to themselves and the fact that John's gospel sometimes has Jesus speaking of Himself in the third person (The Gospel of John: A Commentary, Vol. 2 [Peabody, Massachusetts: Hendrickson Publishers, 2003], pp. 1154-1155). Furthermore, John 19:35 concludes by saying that the testimony is being given "so that you also may believe". The language is reminiscent of John 20:31, where the author is the one who is writing in order to bring people to faith. John 21:24 tells us that the beloved disciple is the author, and John 1:14 could be a reference to the author's eyewitness status as well. Perhaps John 1:14 isn't intended as a reference to his eyewitness status, but the possibility that he is an eyewitness in that passage weakens the force of DagoodS' appeal to the third person in chapter 19. The gospel uses both the first person and the third person, as do other ancient authors. Given the testimony of John 21:14 and the many other lines of evidence we have for Johannine authorship, DagoodS' appeal to John 19:35 is weak.
Though the phrase "I am telling the truth. I am not lying." doesn't appear in John's gospel, it's worth noting that DagoodS is wrong about that phrase as well. When the apostle Paul used that phrase (Romans 9:1, 1 Timothy 2:7), he was using a common rhetorical device for introducing the testimony of a witness (Ben Witherington with Darlene Hyatt, Paul’s Letter To The Romans: A Socio-Rhetorical Commentary [Grand Rapids, Michigan: Eerdmans, 2004], pp. 249-250). There's no implication that Paul had a history of lying. Even if he had been suspected of lying in some circles, such as among the Judaizers, it doesn't logically follow that such people had good reason for their suggestion that Paul was a liar. Does DagoodS want to suggest that in Romans 9:1, for example, Paul wasn't actually concerned for his fellow Jews? Not only does the evidence suggest that such doubt of Paul's testimony is unwarranted, but even if we had no such evidence, how could DagoodS possibly be confident that Paul was being dishonest?
"He says he is an eyewitness in John 1:14. Actually he says he was a witness to 'his Glory.' Odd, then, that he did not include the transfiguration in his Gospel."
The glory in view in John 1:14 is a glory that was involved in Jesus' life in general. John goes on to discuss some of the details of that life. Mentioning the Mount of Transfiguration wouldn't be necessary for illustrating the type of glory he had in view. And I would remind the readers of the implausibility of DagoodS' suggestion that the author of the fourth gospel was ignorant of both the Synoptic gospels and the traditions behind them. See my discussion of the subject in my original reply to DagoodS. The concept that the author of the fourth gospel didn't know about the Mount of Transfiguration is ridiculous.
We have a large amount of internal and external evidence for John's authorship of the fourth gospel, evidence DagoodS has failed to refute or even address. Stringing together a series of weak arguments based on internal evidence (John doesn't cite the Synoptic passages on love, etc.) can't overturn the nearly universal external testimony, the universal manuscript evidence, etc. As I said before, what DagoodS is doing is trying to overturn a combination of strong internal evidence and strong external evidence by appealing to weak internal evidence.
His latest post repeats the same sort of unreasonable demands he often makes of the Biblical authors:
"We would then need to develop a methodology for why John included what he did that correlates with the synpotics....Despite the vast differences [between the Synoptics and John], there ARE some similarities (due to a common oral story) and you would need to defend the Gospel writer’s actions as to why he choose some, and not others (other than 'I don’t know') especially in light of the fact that he deliberately failed to choose some that would have conformed to his theme, but choose others that did not....While you may call them 'new' accounts, you would also have to develop a system, or method as to why the pervious accounts, with their emphasis and focus, would not use them....My proposal, that the author of the Gospel of John did not know the Synoptic Jesus, but only knew the tale trough oral tradition, answers these problems. Your solution, that the author included things that were known to not be in the Synoptics, introduces problems, as to why the Synoptics would not have included them, and why Jesus is portrayed in such a different manner, comparing the two."
Steve Hays, in a previous reply to DagoodS on another subject, has already addressed his ridiculous demand that we produce a "system" that will explain why Biblical authors wrote what they wrote. Historians don't make such a demand regarding non-Biblical authors, so why should we make that demand with regard to the Biblical authors? And why does DagoodS think that there's a "theme" John and other authors would have followed? They could have had more than one objective in writing a document. Even if one theme was dominant, others could be taken up along the way. Authors will use some of the material they're familiar with when they compose a document, but they may be unable to include everything they know or may not want to include everything.
An example I've mentioned before is the resurrection appearance to James, which was well known (1 Corinthians 15:7). None of the gospel authors mention it. We don't conclude that they therefore must not have known about it, and we don't need a system that will explain to us why each author decided not to include the resurrection appearance to James. There are many possible explanations, and we don't have to know which one is correct in order for the correctness of one of them to be plausible. DagoodS tells us that "I don't know" isn't a sufficient answer, but historians don't reject the historicity of an account in Josephus or Tacitus, for example, just because they don't know why the author chose to include that account or why he didn't include other accounts of a similar nature that he could have included. Christians don't say "I don't know" in the sense of not being able to think of any possibility. Rather, they say it in the sense of not having much evidence by which to reach a conclusion about which possibility is the best one. Historians do the same with non-Biblical authors.
With regard to the passages on love in the gospels, every gospel author would have thought of the love of Jesus as the greatest example of love by logical implication. John quotes Jesus' comments on the subject, which makes sense given the emphasis John places on the theme of love, but we have no reason to conclude that the other gospel authors would have included the same material if it was historical. There's no reason to think that they intended to record everything Jesus said about love, and none of the gospel authors considered their gospel the only source of information on Jesus' life that people would have. Mark would have known about the resurrection appearances of 1 Corinthians 15, for example, even though he doesn't include them in his gospel. John would have known that information about Jesus' infancy was available, even though he doesn't include it in his gospel. Etc. If Matthew's audience could be expected to know that Jesus' love was the greatest example of love they could emulate, then why would Matthew think there was a need for him to include Jesus' statement to that effect in his gospel? He might include it anyway, despite no need for including it, but its absence doesn't logically lead to the conclusion that he must have been ignorant of what Jesus said.
"You indicate this is a 'new' requirement [in John 13:34-35]. What was the 'old' requirement? What was the old type of love they were to use, when loving God, loving their neighbor, and loving their enemies? Before, were they NOT to love as Jesus loved them? Were they stumped as to what type of love to use up until Jesus described it at the Last Supper? This makes no sense that for the first time Jesus actually described the type of love they were to use, and that is what makes it 'new.' Again, is it now greater than the previous commandments, or less?"
John 13:34-35 is about loving other people, not loving God. Love of God remained the greatest commandment. But Jesus gave us the greatest example of love. Having a better example than was previously available would heighten the commandment in that sense, but concepts such as loving God with all your heart and loving others as yourself would have been understandable to people prior to our having Jesus' example. And as I said in my first reply to DagoodS, the commandment could still be referred to as "new" even if it began weeks, months, or years earlier. The concept of imitating Jesus' love would be a logical implication that probably would have occurred to the early Christians even without Jesus' mentioning of it, but He did mention it on the occasion John is narrating. John has a lot of interest in the theme of love, so he mentions it. Other gospel writers were focusing on other themes and had already mentioned some of the general principles related to love, so why would they need to include Jesus' statement of John 13 in their accounts? There's no need for it.
"My proposal, that the author of the Gospel of John did not know the Synoptic Jesus, but only knew the tale trough oral tradition, answers these problems."
The "problems" DagoodS mentions aren't of much significance. And to accept his solution to those alleged problems, you have to accept far more significant problems with that solution. You have to conclude that the external sources commenting on authorship were nearly universally wrong, despite the presence of John's disciples for something like 60 years after John's death. You have to conclude that all of the manuscripts with John's name on them are wrong. You have to conclude that the absence of the "Baptist" qualifier for John the Baptist has nothing to do with the author's identity as John the apostle. You have to reject the most natural reading of John 21:24 and the implications that follow from the beloved disciple's close relations with Peter. Etc. In other words, DagoodS wants us to solve his proposed problems by accepting far worse problems.
"Can you explain why, after Jesus had told them to stay in Jerusalem until Pentecost (Luke 24:48) that they were out in Galilee fishing [in John 21]? Or, why they were hopping back and forth between Galilee and Jerusalem, if you take Matt. 28:16 as before Luke? )"
How does DagoodS know that John 21 is supposed to have occurred after Luke 24:48? He doesn't. Luke tells us that a timespan of 40 days was involved (Acts 1:3), so his accounts in Luke 24 have to involve telescoping. That sort of compressing of events is common in both ancient and modern literature. It would be a logical conclusion even if Acts 1:3 had never been written, but since Luke does give us that indication that he was compressing the events, DagoodS' reading is even more inexcusable.
As far as "hopping back and forth" is concerned, that sort of travel was common, especially for occupational reasons or for the purpose of religious observance. Luke 24 refers to an appearance to people traveling, John 21 refers to some of the disciples going fishing (an occupation of some of the apostles), etc. We don't know all of the reasons why the people traveled as they did, but why would we need to know? And why use a term like "hopping"? The appearances occurred over a span of weeks, not hours, so the people involved wouldn't have needed to be "hopping" in order to do some traveling during that timeframe.
Mark doesn't address the resurrection appearances aside from referring to an appearance in the future (Mark 16:7). That leaves us with the other three gospels. Of those three, Matthew and John agree that Jesus appeared in both Jerusalem (Matthew 28:9, John 20:14) and Galilee (Matthew 28:16, John 21:1). Luke doesn't mention Galilee, but that makes sense in light of his focus on Jerusalem in Acts. As J.P. Holding notes:
"More likely is that Luke has arranged things this way in order to emphasize Jerusalem as Jesus' destination, and in Acts, as the center for the spreading of the Gospel (Acts follows a pattern in which the Gospel is spread from Jerusalem in ever-wider geographical circles, even as people return to that city; cf. Acts 11:2, 12:15, 15:2, 18:21, 19:1 and 21, 20:16)."
Most scholars think that Luke knew about Mark's gospel and used it as a source he considered reliable, and Mark's gospel mentions Jesus' post-resurrection presence in Galilee (Mark 16:7). Luke would have known about at least one of the appearances in Galilee, even though he focuses on Jerusalem.
"If it [the witness in John 19:35] IS the author, this sounds quite a bit like, 'And I am telling the truth. I am NOT lying.' Which gives us reason to be cautious."
Once again, DagoodS hasn't done enough research. As Craig Blomberg explains:
"That an author could refer to himself with the demonstrative pronoun ekeinos (lit. 'that one'; NIV 'he') is demonstrated by Josephus in War 3.202." (The Historical Reliability Of John's Gospel [Downers Grove, Illinois: InterVarsity Press, 2001], p. 255)
Craig Keener cites other evidence supporting the same conclusion, such as other extra-Biblical sources who use the third person to refer to themselves and the fact that John's gospel sometimes has Jesus speaking of Himself in the third person (The Gospel of John: A Commentary, Vol. 2 [Peabody, Massachusetts: Hendrickson Publishers, 2003], pp. 1154-1155). Furthermore, John 19:35 concludes by saying that the testimony is being given "so that you also may believe". The language is reminiscent of John 20:31, where the author is the one who is writing in order to bring people to faith. John 21:24 tells us that the beloved disciple is the author, and John 1:14 could be a reference to the author's eyewitness status as well. Perhaps John 1:14 isn't intended as a reference to his eyewitness status, but the possibility that he is an eyewitness in that passage weakens the force of DagoodS' appeal to the third person in chapter 19. The gospel uses both the first person and the third person, as do other ancient authors. Given the testimony of John 21:14 and the many other lines of evidence we have for Johannine authorship, DagoodS' appeal to John 19:35 is weak.
Though the phrase "I am telling the truth. I am not lying." doesn't appear in John's gospel, it's worth noting that DagoodS is wrong about that phrase as well. When the apostle Paul used that phrase (Romans 9:1, 1 Timothy 2:7), he was using a common rhetorical device for introducing the testimony of a witness (Ben Witherington with Darlene Hyatt, Paul’s Letter To The Romans: A Socio-Rhetorical Commentary [Grand Rapids, Michigan: Eerdmans, 2004], pp. 249-250). There's no implication that Paul had a history of lying. Even if he had been suspected of lying in some circles, such as among the Judaizers, it doesn't logically follow that such people had good reason for their suggestion that Paul was a liar. Does DagoodS want to suggest that in Romans 9:1, for example, Paul wasn't actually concerned for his fellow Jews? Not only does the evidence suggest that such doubt of Paul's testimony is unwarranted, but even if we had no such evidence, how could DagoodS possibly be confident that Paul was being dishonest?
"He says he is an eyewitness in John 1:14. Actually he says he was a witness to 'his Glory.' Odd, then, that he did not include the transfiguration in his Gospel."
The glory in view in John 1:14 is a glory that was involved in Jesus' life in general. John goes on to discuss some of the details of that life. Mentioning the Mount of Transfiguration wouldn't be necessary for illustrating the type of glory he had in view. And I would remind the readers of the implausibility of DagoodS' suggestion that the author of the fourth gospel was ignorant of both the Synoptic gospels and the traditions behind them. See my discussion of the subject in my original reply to DagoodS. The concept that the author of the fourth gospel didn't know about the Mount of Transfiguration is ridiculous.
We have a large amount of internal and external evidence for John's authorship of the fourth gospel, evidence DagoodS has failed to refute or even address. Stringing together a series of weak arguments based on internal evidence (John doesn't cite the Synoptic passages on love, etc.) can't overturn the nearly universal external testimony, the universal manuscript evidence, etc. As I said before, what DagoodS is doing is trying to overturn a combination of strong internal evidence and strong external evidence by appealing to weak internal evidence.
The Discomfiter
At 3:29 PM, July 30, 2006, Daniel Morgan said...
“I am still unwilling to believe this guy is authentic, with his big ‘deconversion because of John’ story.”
http://debunkingchristianity.blogspot.com/2006/07/exbeliever-comments-on-repperts.html
I have to second Mr. Morgan’s suspicions. It stretches credulity to the breaking point to suppose that anyone in his right mind would take the arguments of John Loftus seriously.
No halfway intelligent believer would lose his faith over the standard fare that Loftus dishes up on a regular basis. For once, Danny and I are on the same page.
The only plausible alternative is that the Discomfiter is legit, but out of his mind.
Like flies on a dunghill, Loftus has a way of attracting a unique clientele. There was that New Age flake he briefly recruited—Quackeria or whatever her name was.
Then he had a one-time team member—Paladin?—who was, by his own admission, a little funny upstairs.
Not to mention the massage therapist who used to be an ordained minister in a notorious cult. Not that I have anything against a nice backrub, mind you, although I’d naturally prefer the services of a shapely Swedish masseuse to a hair-handed apostate.
So that’s another possibility which Danny may have overlooked.
“I am still unwilling to believe this guy is authentic, with his big ‘deconversion because of John’ story.”
http://debunkingchristianity.blogspot.com/2006/07/exbeliever-comments-on-repperts.html
I have to second Mr. Morgan’s suspicions. It stretches credulity to the breaking point to suppose that anyone in his right mind would take the arguments of John Loftus seriously.
No halfway intelligent believer would lose his faith over the standard fare that Loftus dishes up on a regular basis. For once, Danny and I are on the same page.
The only plausible alternative is that the Discomfiter is legit, but out of his mind.
Like flies on a dunghill, Loftus has a way of attracting a unique clientele. There was that New Age flake he briefly recruited—Quackeria or whatever her name was.
Then he had a one-time team member—Paladin?—who was, by his own admission, a little funny upstairs.
Not to mention the massage therapist who used to be an ordained minister in a notorious cult. Not that I have anything against a nice backrub, mind you, although I’d naturally prefer the services of a shapely Swedish masseuse to a hair-handed apostate.
So that’s another possibility which Danny may have overlooked.
UFC: Exbrainer v. Van Til in the Octogon
Referee: Let's git it on!
Exbrainer: Just having “an answer” is not enough. It must be a good answer. Presuppositionalism doesn’t give a good answer.
Van Til: Define “presuppositionalism.”
Exbrainer: "Presuppositionalism: Assume all the most undemonstratable [sic.] and controversial aspects of our faith and we can answer all of the other questions by reference to these undemonstrable [sic.] and controversial aspects of our faith."
Van Til: Hmmm…sounds like a straw man argument to me. Suppose I were to defined secularism along the same lines:
"Assume all the most indemonstrable and controversial aspects of our secular fideism and we can answer all of the other questions by reference to these indemonstrable and controversial aspects of our secular fideism."
Exbrainer: Very well, then. You asked me to account for the laws of logic. What is your answer to this question?
Van Til: They are constituted by the infinite and timeless mind of God.
Exbrainer: But why should I believe a “god” exists?
Van Til: There are many reasons, but one reason is the transcendental argument for the existence of God (TAG). For an example of what I mean, consider the following exposition:
“If Knowledge, Then God: The Epistemological Theistic Arguments of Plantinga And Van Til.”
http://www.ccir.ed.ac.uk/~jad/papers/IfKnowledgeThenGod.pdf
Exbrainer: Gee, presupposing something so outside of my experience doesn't seem wise on my part.
Van Til: What makes you think that God is outside our experience? We can experience God in creation and providence, revelation and redemption, theophany, Incarnation, and saving grace.
Exbrainer: Define God.
Van Til: God is a Spirit, infinite, eternal, and unchangeable, in his being, wisdom, power, holiness, justice, goodness, and truth.
We can experience wisdom, power, holiness, justice, goodness, and truth. We can experience an incorporeal substance, for our own finite minds are incorporeal.
Moreover, we can grasp some ideas for which we have no direct experience. We understand what is meant by an infinite number or a timeless number.
Exbrainer: Why should I believe the first premise that God is a precondition of logic or abstract objects generally?
Van Til: That depends on whether you want a short answer or a long answer. If you want a long answer, then I’d suggest that you brush up on modal metaphysics. If you’re up to it, you can read the following Christian treatments:
R. Davis, The Metaphysics of Theism & Modality (Peer Lang 2000).
W. Vallicella, A Paradigm Theory of Existence: Onto-Theology Vindicated (Kluwer 2002).
A. Pruss, Possible Worlds: What They Are Good for and What They Are.
http://www.georgetown.edu/faculty/ap85/papers/PhilThesis.html
Greg Welty,
“An Examination of Theistic Conceptual Realism as an Alternative to Theistic Activism.”
http://www.ccir.ed.ac.uk/~jad/welty/mphil.pdf
If you want even more, you can wait for Welty to post his doctoral dissertation or Brian Leftow to publish his book on Divine Ideas.
Given the material that’s already out there, as well as material in the pipeline, it would be quite dishonest to say that Christians have no answer to your question or never defend their operating premise.
Exbrainer: But referring to something undemonstratable [sic.] and controversial (like the non-corporal Christian God or the inerrancy of the Bible) doesn't seem like much of an “explanation.” I mean it doesn't hold a lot of power.
Van Til: Why are you changing the subject? What does the inerrancy of Scripture have to do with TAG?
As far as that’s concerned, there’s a vast body of literature in defense of Biblical inerrancy. But for you to introduce this issue in the middle of a debate over TAG is a diversionary tactic.
To say that God’s existence is “controversial” is not a salient objection to God’s existence.
To say that God existence is indemonstrable is tendentious when TAG is the very topic of conversation. Instead of scrutinizing TAG, you beg the question by merely reasserting that God’s existence is indemonstrable.
Exbrainer: Suppose Socrates and Euthyphro were having their dialogue when a bolt of lightening hit the tree beside them. Euthyphro says, “Aha, how do you explain lightening? My worldview says that Zeus throws those lightening bolts down from heaven. If you presuppose that Zeus exists, I have a worldview that accounts for lightening.” To this, Socrates responds, “I don't know how lightening works, but my worldview says the answer will somehow be something natural.” At the time, Euthyphro's worldview had more “explanatory power” than Socrates'. Would that make Euthyphro's worldview truer than Socrates'?
Van Til: That’s irrelevant to TAG. TAG is concerned with the source of global truth-conditions, not with the source local truth-claims like thunder and lightning.
Referee: And the winner is Van Til by submission.
Exbrainer: Just having “an answer” is not enough. It must be a good answer. Presuppositionalism doesn’t give a good answer.
Van Til: Define “presuppositionalism.”
Exbrainer: "Presuppositionalism: Assume all the most undemonstratable [sic.] and controversial aspects of our faith and we can answer all of the other questions by reference to these undemonstrable [sic.] and controversial aspects of our faith."
Van Til: Hmmm…sounds like a straw man argument to me. Suppose I were to defined secularism along the same lines:
"Assume all the most indemonstrable and controversial aspects of our secular fideism and we can answer all of the other questions by reference to these indemonstrable and controversial aspects of our secular fideism."
Exbrainer: Very well, then. You asked me to account for the laws of logic. What is your answer to this question?
Van Til: They are constituted by the infinite and timeless mind of God.
Exbrainer: But why should I believe a “god” exists?
Van Til: There are many reasons, but one reason is the transcendental argument for the existence of God (TAG). For an example of what I mean, consider the following exposition:
“If Knowledge, Then God: The Epistemological Theistic Arguments of Plantinga And Van Til.”
http://www.ccir.ed.ac.uk/~jad/papers/IfKnowledgeThenGod.pdf
Exbrainer: Gee, presupposing something so outside of my experience doesn't seem wise on my part.
Van Til: What makes you think that God is outside our experience? We can experience God in creation and providence, revelation and redemption, theophany, Incarnation, and saving grace.
Exbrainer: Define God.
Van Til: God is a Spirit, infinite, eternal, and unchangeable, in his being, wisdom, power, holiness, justice, goodness, and truth.
We can experience wisdom, power, holiness, justice, goodness, and truth. We can experience an incorporeal substance, for our own finite minds are incorporeal.
Moreover, we can grasp some ideas for which we have no direct experience. We understand what is meant by an infinite number or a timeless number.
Exbrainer: Why should I believe the first premise that God is a precondition of logic or abstract objects generally?
Van Til: That depends on whether you want a short answer or a long answer. If you want a long answer, then I’d suggest that you brush up on modal metaphysics. If you’re up to it, you can read the following Christian treatments:
R. Davis, The Metaphysics of Theism & Modality (Peer Lang 2000).
W. Vallicella, A Paradigm Theory of Existence: Onto-Theology Vindicated (Kluwer 2002).
A. Pruss, Possible Worlds: What They Are Good for and What They Are.
http://www.georgetown.edu/faculty/ap85/papers/PhilThesis.html
Greg Welty,
“An Examination of Theistic Conceptual Realism as an Alternative to Theistic Activism.”
http://www.ccir.ed.ac.uk/~jad/welty/mphil.pdf
If you want even more, you can wait for Welty to post his doctoral dissertation or Brian Leftow to publish his book on Divine Ideas.
Given the material that’s already out there, as well as material in the pipeline, it would be quite dishonest to say that Christians have no answer to your question or never defend their operating premise.
Exbrainer: But referring to something undemonstratable [sic.] and controversial (like the non-corporal Christian God or the inerrancy of the Bible) doesn't seem like much of an “explanation.” I mean it doesn't hold a lot of power.
Van Til: Why are you changing the subject? What does the inerrancy of Scripture have to do with TAG?
As far as that’s concerned, there’s a vast body of literature in defense of Biblical inerrancy. But for you to introduce this issue in the middle of a debate over TAG is a diversionary tactic.
To say that God’s existence is “controversial” is not a salient objection to God’s existence.
To say that God existence is indemonstrable is tendentious when TAG is the very topic of conversation. Instead of scrutinizing TAG, you beg the question by merely reasserting that God’s existence is indemonstrable.
Exbrainer: Suppose Socrates and Euthyphro were having their dialogue when a bolt of lightening hit the tree beside them. Euthyphro says, “Aha, how do you explain lightening? My worldview says that Zeus throws those lightening bolts down from heaven. If you presuppose that Zeus exists, I have a worldview that accounts for lightening.” To this, Socrates responds, “I don't know how lightening works, but my worldview says the answer will somehow be something natural.” At the time, Euthyphro's worldview had more “explanatory power” than Socrates'. Would that make Euthyphro's worldview truer than Socrates'?
Van Til: That’s irrelevant to TAG. TAG is concerned with the source of global truth-conditions, not with the source local truth-claims like thunder and lightning.
Referee: And the winner is Van Til by submission.
Columbine values
DM: Perhaps you [S&S] would like to reconsider that statement in light of the utilitarian (survival consequentialist) ethic I took the time to clarify here in response to Steve's thread. Murder violates the basic right of life within society, where society is a collection of individuals who sign in on a social contract, out of rational self-interest, to promote virtuous behavior in order to further their own survival, health, and prosperity.
SH:
i) I don’t know that S&S subscribes to utilitarianism. So I don’t know that he’s regard this as an adequate counter to his objection.
ii) Even if S&S did regard utilitarianism as valid up-to-a-point, this doesn’t mean that he’d regard secular utilitarianism as valid.
iii) Morgan offered a vicious circular argument for the value of survival. He is also attempting to graft utilitarianism onto egalitarianism, which is incoherent—as I’ve pointed out before.
For example, Patton and Churchill were far more valuable to the war effort than the average foot soldier who served under them.
England could afford to lose a lot of foot soldiers and still win the war, but if she’d lost Churchill, she’d have lost the war.
All men are not equal in their contribution to the common good. Danny is attempting to square his politically correct egalitarianism with utilitarianism, but they tug in opposing directions.
iv) Notice that, for Danny, murder is not intrinsically evil. Rather, murder is only evil as a matter of social convention.
The right to life is not intrinsic, but a right conferred by society according to the terms of the social contract.
v) In addition, how broadly is he defining the social circle? Who is a signatory to the social contract?
vi) Danny continues to evade the common conflict between individual survival and collective survival.
For some reason, Danny thinks that he can blow past these objections and leave them unanswered.
Is he hoping we’ll forget or give up?
Danny’s problem is that he doesn’t have good answers for certain objections. He’s an apostate who’s trying to rebuild his ship at see. He scurries about to cobble together an ethical system, with snips and snails and puppy dog tails from utilitarianism, egalitarianism, evolutionary ethics, and social contractualism.
DM: here answers that -- primary value is survival, and survival is furthered within society, thus we endanger our own survival by disrupting society and/or breaking the terms of our contract.
SH:
i) This is a downright Hobbesean version of social contract theory. An individual never has the right to buck the system since that would introduce a destabilizing factor, endangering the common good.
On this view, the individual is nothing. He is never entitled to challenge social injustice or a personal miscarriage of justice, for as long as the species survives, an individual or minority group can be thrown to the sharks for the common good.
He is never entitled to challenge the social contract since the social contract is the source of all entitlements.
There is, indeed, a certain inner logic to this position. It’s the logic of the totalitarian state.
Notice how Danny’s ruthless utilitarianism and Hobbesean contractualism is diametrically opposed to his doe-eyed egalitarianism.
ii) Once again, Danny ignores the frequent dilemma between self-interest and altruism.
Suppose that my selfish impulses do, indeed, endanger the general welfare. But why should I, as an atheist, commit self-immolation for the common good? Why should I care about posterity? I have no personal investment in the distant future. I won’t be around to enjoy it.
These are tensions generated by Danny’s own eclectic morality. Yet no matter how often you raise them, he chooses to brush them off and repeat himself as if there were no problems.
S&S said: “there are many cultures that never recognized the ‘right to life’ (i.e. Huns, Mongols, Aztecs, etc.). The idea of a "right to life" (i.e. human rights) is a Christian idea.”
To which Danny responded: “Um, sure...if you want to believe that...”
Want to believe what? What does Danny deny? Does he deny that the right to life is a Christian idea?
Even if he denies that, what about the first part of S&S’s statement? Does he also deny that there were pre-Christian cultures in which there was no egalitarian right to life?
Why is Danny’s version of the social contract superior to the Aztec social contract?
Once more, Danny blows past an inconvenient counterexample to his arbitrary claims.
DM: Why do I have to say that? I would say, "One used their life to make humanity worse off, while the other used their life to make humanity better off. One extolled and exemplified virtue, while the other provides a model for evil." Why does your bald assertion logically follow? I'm tired of hearing your illogical assertions.
SH: “Better” and “worse.” “Virtue.” “Evil.”
Danny has never met an ethical question he couldn’t beg.
DM: False. What you mean is "no eternal or afterlife justice". So long as people are still alive and a society exists within which justice can be rendered, your bald assertion (not an argument) is false.
SH: Really? What is the just punishment for a child rapist or a serial killer?
There are many heinous crimes committed in this life for which there is no adequate punishment here and now.
DM: So you don't believe in rendering justice or a value judgment on the basis of cause and effect? A legacy, or the effects of one's life, is not a valid criterion for evaluating said life? Why is that?
SH: Because, as S&S pointed out, if you’re an atheist, then death is the great equalizer. And the beneficiaries of your legacy will soon join you in collective oblivion.
DM: Got away with? I would say that dying in the commission of murder is hardly "getting away with it".
SH: Danny misses the point. Or maybe he appreciates the point, but dodges the point because he doesn’t have a good answer.
By committing suicide, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold suffered the very same fate as their victims. The fatalities at Columbine did not distinguish between the victim and the perpetrator.
DM: Is death not the just punishment prescribed for such crimes for adults in most states in the US?
SH: Absent heaven and hell, capital punishment is insufficient to right the scales of justice.
DM: Is their death no sufficient to prevent any such event from recurring, and thus removing the source of danger to society (the purpose of justice -- to secure law and order)?
SH: Deterrence or law and order are not the purpose of justice. The purpose of justice is retribution. That’s why it’s called retributive justice.
DM: How are the effects of their actions "undone" if they are roasting in flames forever (or even worse, chilling out in paradise as they repented right before death).
SH:
i) Heaven and hell are compensatory.
ii) Committing suicide to evade justice after committing mass murder is hardly an act of contrition.
DM: Violence against fellow humans, even those outside the society, confers no benefit to the survival of the species and the society unless they are threatened and acting in self-defense. Any commission of violence endangers the one acting with risk of reciprocity.
SH: It’s funny to see the way in which Danny lurches back and forth between his ruthless, Hobbesean-coated social Darwinism, on the one hand, and this Pollyannaish eyewash on the other hand.
If you’re smart about it, crimes pays. White-collar crime can be very lucrative, and sometimes you need to supplement white-collar crime with a dash of blue-collar crime. Throughout history, assassination has often been a very efficient method of career advancement.
SH:
i) I don’t know that S&S subscribes to utilitarianism. So I don’t know that he’s regard this as an adequate counter to his objection.
ii) Even if S&S did regard utilitarianism as valid up-to-a-point, this doesn’t mean that he’d regard secular utilitarianism as valid.
iii) Morgan offered a vicious circular argument for the value of survival. He is also attempting to graft utilitarianism onto egalitarianism, which is incoherent—as I’ve pointed out before.
For example, Patton and Churchill were far more valuable to the war effort than the average foot soldier who served under them.
England could afford to lose a lot of foot soldiers and still win the war, but if she’d lost Churchill, she’d have lost the war.
All men are not equal in their contribution to the common good. Danny is attempting to square his politically correct egalitarianism with utilitarianism, but they tug in opposing directions.
iv) Notice that, for Danny, murder is not intrinsically evil. Rather, murder is only evil as a matter of social convention.
The right to life is not intrinsic, but a right conferred by society according to the terms of the social contract.
v) In addition, how broadly is he defining the social circle? Who is a signatory to the social contract?
vi) Danny continues to evade the common conflict between individual survival and collective survival.
For some reason, Danny thinks that he can blow past these objections and leave them unanswered.
Is he hoping we’ll forget or give up?
Danny’s problem is that he doesn’t have good answers for certain objections. He’s an apostate who’s trying to rebuild his ship at see. He scurries about to cobble together an ethical system, with snips and snails and puppy dog tails from utilitarianism, egalitarianism, evolutionary ethics, and social contractualism.
DM: here answers that -- primary value is survival, and survival is furthered within society, thus we endanger our own survival by disrupting society and/or breaking the terms of our contract.
SH:
i) This is a downright Hobbesean version of social contract theory. An individual never has the right to buck the system since that would introduce a destabilizing factor, endangering the common good.
On this view, the individual is nothing. He is never entitled to challenge social injustice or a personal miscarriage of justice, for as long as the species survives, an individual or minority group can be thrown to the sharks for the common good.
He is never entitled to challenge the social contract since the social contract is the source of all entitlements.
There is, indeed, a certain inner logic to this position. It’s the logic of the totalitarian state.
Notice how Danny’s ruthless utilitarianism and Hobbesean contractualism is diametrically opposed to his doe-eyed egalitarianism.
ii) Once again, Danny ignores the frequent dilemma between self-interest and altruism.
Suppose that my selfish impulses do, indeed, endanger the general welfare. But why should I, as an atheist, commit self-immolation for the common good? Why should I care about posterity? I have no personal investment in the distant future. I won’t be around to enjoy it.
These are tensions generated by Danny’s own eclectic morality. Yet no matter how often you raise them, he chooses to brush them off and repeat himself as if there were no problems.
S&S said: “there are many cultures that never recognized the ‘right to life’ (i.e. Huns, Mongols, Aztecs, etc.). The idea of a "right to life" (i.e. human rights) is a Christian idea.”
To which Danny responded: “Um, sure...if you want to believe that...”
Want to believe what? What does Danny deny? Does he deny that the right to life is a Christian idea?
Even if he denies that, what about the first part of S&S’s statement? Does he also deny that there were pre-Christian cultures in which there was no egalitarian right to life?
Why is Danny’s version of the social contract superior to the Aztec social contract?
Once more, Danny blows past an inconvenient counterexample to his arbitrary claims.
DM: Why do I have to say that? I would say, "One used their life to make humanity worse off, while the other used their life to make humanity better off. One extolled and exemplified virtue, while the other provides a model for evil." Why does your bald assertion logically follow? I'm tired of hearing your illogical assertions.
SH: “Better” and “worse.” “Virtue.” “Evil.”
Danny has never met an ethical question he couldn’t beg.
DM: False. What you mean is "no eternal or afterlife justice". So long as people are still alive and a society exists within which justice can be rendered, your bald assertion (not an argument) is false.
SH: Really? What is the just punishment for a child rapist or a serial killer?
There are many heinous crimes committed in this life for which there is no adequate punishment here and now.
DM: So you don't believe in rendering justice or a value judgment on the basis of cause and effect? A legacy, or the effects of one's life, is not a valid criterion for evaluating said life? Why is that?
SH: Because, as S&S pointed out, if you’re an atheist, then death is the great equalizer. And the beneficiaries of your legacy will soon join you in collective oblivion.
DM: Got away with? I would say that dying in the commission of murder is hardly "getting away with it".
SH: Danny misses the point. Or maybe he appreciates the point, but dodges the point because he doesn’t have a good answer.
By committing suicide, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold suffered the very same fate as their victims. The fatalities at Columbine did not distinguish between the victim and the perpetrator.
DM: Is death not the just punishment prescribed for such crimes for adults in most states in the US?
SH: Absent heaven and hell, capital punishment is insufficient to right the scales of justice.
DM: Is their death no sufficient to prevent any such event from recurring, and thus removing the source of danger to society (the purpose of justice -- to secure law and order)?
SH: Deterrence or law and order are not the purpose of justice. The purpose of justice is retribution. That’s why it’s called retributive justice.
DM: How are the effects of their actions "undone" if they are roasting in flames forever (or even worse, chilling out in paradise as they repented right before death).
SH:
i) Heaven and hell are compensatory.
ii) Committing suicide to evade justice after committing mass murder is hardly an act of contrition.
DM: Violence against fellow humans, even those outside the society, confers no benefit to the survival of the species and the society unless they are threatened and acting in self-defense. Any commission of violence endangers the one acting with risk of reciprocity.
SH: It’s funny to see the way in which Danny lurches back and forth between his ruthless, Hobbesean-coated social Darwinism, on the one hand, and this Pollyannaish eyewash on the other hand.
If you’re smart about it, crimes pays. White-collar crime can be very lucrative, and sometimes you need to supplement white-collar crime with a dash of blue-collar crime. Throughout history, assassination has often been a very efficient method of career advancement.
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