A Friendly Critique of the Cameron and Comfort vs. Rational Responders Debate Part II

INTRODUCTION

In this post we will continue with the second and final critique in this series discussing how not to do apologetics. I've already been on The Narrow Mind discussing this "debate" with Pastor Gene Cook Jr., and now it is time to put this thing to bed by finishing my friendly critique of Comfort's use of the teleological argument.

A HELPFUL CRITICISM OF CLASSICAL APOLOGETIC ARGUMENTATION

Kirk Cameron stated, “Existence of God can be proven by faith . . . the reason many do not believe in God is because of a theory that can be likened to a fairy-tale for grown-ups.” [i.e., evolution] Ray Comfort went on to propose that he would attempt to scientifically demonstrate the existence of God through (1) creation and (2) conscience but then defies that later in his opening presentation by making an appeal to the 10 commandments. Comfort stated, “Where there is a design, there must be a designer. . . where there is a painting there must be a painter.” However, as we will see both scientifically and philosophically, appealing to a nebulous designer doesn’t necessarily lead to the conclusion that the proposed designer is the Triune God of Christianity and this type of argumentation has been exposed for its own philosophical inadequacies by both secular and sacred philosophers alike. What that we turn to the argument that Ray appealed to, namely, a modified and simplistic version of the intelligent design argument.

Some Positives of the Intelligent Design Argument (ID):

This movement has produced much literature that indirectly supports the biblical creationist viewpoint.[1] It makes clear that Darwinism/naturalism is based on the philosophical presupposition that the supernatural does not exist, thus inevitably affecting the way one interprets any scientific data.

Some Problems with the Intelligent Design Argument:

1. However, the major problem with the ID movement is a divorce of the Creator from creation. The Creator and His creation cannot be separated; they reflect on each other.

In today's culture, many are attracted to the ID movement because they can decide for themselves who the creator is—a Great Spirit, Brahman, Allah, God, etc. The current movement focuses more on what is designed, rather than who designed it. And so, leaders in the movement do not have problems with accepting an old earth paradigms or allowing evolution to play a vital role once the designer formed and set in motion the basic components (i.e., natural laws) necessary for the evolution of the universe.

Adherents of ID fail to understand that old earth theories have provided a scientific foundation for the edifice of Darwinism. If the Scriptures to not depict a relatively young earth, then maybe other events of the creation week can be called into question; and maybe God was not a necessary part of the equation for life after all. This same type of thinking was evident in Sapient’s rejoinder argument regarding having an eternal universe vs. having an eternal God.

Without the framework of the Bible and the understanding that evil entered the world through man’s sin, God appears sloppy and incompetent per the objection given by the woman who asked the emotionally-charged question about the existence of God as related to the existence of cancer (i.e., a different version of the so-called “problem of evil” argument). People like her ask why God is unable to prevent evil from thwarting His plans, resulting in such poor design, instead of understanding that because of the Fall there is now a cursed design and that it is all ordained for the good of the elect and the glory of His name.

2. God’s role as Creator is absolutely foundational to His role as Redeemer.

In addition, because ID arguments do not formally acknowledge and account for Christ as redeemer, there seems to be no final solution for the evil and supposed dysteleology in this world; and by all appearances evil will continue to reign supreme. However, when starting with Christ and His Word as the presuppositional starting point versus neglecting it, we read that Jesus clearly conquered death with the Resurrection (Romans 6:3–10) and that one day death will no longer reign (1 Cor. 15:26). And so, from a presuppositional perspective, the Triune Creator and His creation are intimately involved and reflective of each other and so they cannot be divorced from each other in order to adequately account for each other.

As already noted in part I of this series, Romans 1:20 clearly states that all men know about God through His creation. However, intuitively recognizing that He is the Creator is only the first step. Colossians 1:15–20 and 2 Peter 3:3–6 demonstrate how God’s role as Creator and Redeemer are inexorably intertwined. Again, God’s role as Creator is foundational to His role as Redeemer. Recognizing a mere “designer” is not enough to be saved from hell; submitting to the Redeemer is also necessary. Thus, as I stated in part I, to purport to enter a formal debate stating that you will avoid the gospel in order to defend the God of the gospel is immoral.

Because the Creator and His creation cannot be separated, knowledge of God must come through both general revelation (nature) and special revelation (the Bible). Louis Berkhof said, “ . . . since the entrance of sin into the world, man can gather true knowledge about God from His general revelation only if he studies it in the light of Scripture.”[2] It is only then that the entire truth about the Triune God and what is seen around us can be fully understood and used to point to understand the bad news in Genesis (which explains things like cancer and supposed dysteleology) and the good news found in Jesus Christ. And now, we turn to a philosophical critique.

Philosophically: The teleological (design) argument for God’s existence as it has been classically constructed has both theological and philosophical problems. It was originally constructed as follows by Thomas Aquinas:

1. Every agent acts for an end, even natural agents.
2. Now what acts for an end manifests intelligence.
3. But natural agents have no intelligence of their own.
4. Therefore, they are directed to their end by some Intelligence.[3]

For the keen reader, it is clear that this argument neither proves the existence of the Christian God nor can it escape its own philosophical problems in its traditional form. And so I will now turn to a brief critique thereof. The Scottish philosopher David Hume (1711-1776) was one of the first philosophers to really put the screws to this argument.

1. Hume basically said, “Is it true that order shows us that there is a Creator if you are not predisposed to do so?” Hume said that we have examples of order in which we have no idea that there is any intelligent agency behind them. The natural evidence shows us that some cases of order have a designer and some don’t (i.e., no natural evidence for the creator of a tree). The actual evidence shows that only some things have order with intelligent agency and things like trees and stones (which have order, harmony, and intricacy) don’t. So, unless you beg the question (Hume says), only then can you say that every instance of the natural artifacts of the world are designed. Hume took the same premise but came to the opposite conclusion. He said, “I can take the very world that you’re appealing to and prove the opposite conclusion. I can show you that since we don’t see a creator making everything then obviously there are some forms of order that don’t need or have a creator.” Again, this is a similar line of argumentation used by Sapient to argue for uncaused, eternal matter to explain away the necessity of the uncaused, eternal God.
2. Hume said there are alternative explanations for the order that we do see. For instance, he said that the harmony of the heavens can be explained on the basis of physical laws of motion and the order that we see in the natural world can be explained on the basis of evolution (yes, Darwin hadn’t written yet, but you will see in Hume’s dialogues discussions of “cosmological accidents” [i.e., an early discussion of survival of the fittest] wherein only the worlds that had survival value or were “adaptively adequate” survived. Hume would say that there may have been many creatures that came about by chance but only the ones that had any staying power are the ones that survived and are still around and they have adaptive abilities (not because a creator made them that way), but they have survived so that we see their adaptive abilities. And so, it’s all really just a result of time, chance, and natural processes working on these organisms and all the rest died out. There have been a lot of things that were non-adaptive and didn’t have characteristics that were purposeful and they died out, leaving the more adaptive and fit organisms to propagate themselves. Similar argumentation has been used by naturalistic philosophers to explain what they believe are the natural truths rather than the logical truths of the laws of logic. They say, “The reason we say that ‘A is not ~A’ is because you don’t survive very well unless you say that. Trying living on the premise that there is a bear attacking and there is not a bear attacking me at the same time and the same relationship. And so, those who don’t follow the laws of logic get eaten by lions and since they don’t survive only those who believe and follow the laws of logic hang around long enough. And so, the laws of the logic are not necessary, they just work out best for those who follow them.” And so, Hume is made a similar argument against the teleological argument by saying that it is not necessarily true that all things have their origin in an intelligent creator but can be just as easily explained by saying that only some worlds and organisms in those worlds endured or survived because they were adaptively adequate and ordered in such a way that they survived, and those that were not so ordered, died or passed out of existence. And so, at the end of the day it only looks like they were designed. And so, according to Hume’s reasoning, science can account for this intricacy and order because as scientific knowledge increases, those things that were previously anomalous to us are now easily explained through purely natural causes.
3. Some philosophers (i.e., Swinburne) have said that there are some things that science can explain, but there are other regularities (i.e., regularities of succession) that science cannot explain. So this philosopher may say to the naturalist, “You appeal from order to natural law, but why is this regularity of succession, and enduring regularity of things.” Why is it true that the universe operates the way that it does over the long haul? Why are their natural laws at all? This is a good criticism because when the naturalist appeals to natural law for an explanation of order and regularity within the created universe the Christian philosopher/scientist may then ask “Well, why is natural law law-like? Why is their natural order in natural laws? Why is it that the law of gravity has been the law of gravity for so long? How do you account for that orderliness in terms of gravitational laws?” And so, Swinburne would take this tact to say that Hume is wrong, but Swinburne has not taken us as far as we need to go to make the teleological argument function properly.
4. If the naturalist says that the wider laws of nature can be appealed to explain order in the universe and our experience. But the Christian appeals to the wider laws of nature were made laws by God. And to that, the atheistic scientist who is in tune with his naturalistic philosophy would simply say, “The fundamental laws of nature have no explanation at all. You ask me why the law of gravity operates consistently with regularity over the long haul and I will tell you that it’s just a basic given of the universe.” The Christian then says, “You can’t stop your argument there [i.e., who made gravity?]” and the astute atheistic scientist says, “Oh so, explanations can never end?” and the Christian says, “No, they have to end somewhere, and for me they end with God!” and the atheistic scientist says, “Oh, in other words, your explanation of the law of gravity can stop somewhere, but you don’t want my explanation to stop somewhere? But that is special pleading on your part Mr. Christian, and my explanation ends just short of God!” And so the atheist appeals to the fundamental laws of nature as having no necessary explanation because they, in themselves are the explanation. They are just brute, basic facts about the universe that express the way things are in an ultimate sense. Moreover, if the scientist is atomistic in his reason, he can go on to add that the ordinary analytical rules of evidence cease to apply just at the level of our most ultimate and basic laws. This is because scientific explanation is to explain something in terms of the broader context of law, and then you explain that law in the terms of the broadest terms of the most basic laws. But do you explain the most basic laws by more basic laws? But once you get to the most basic laws, there can be no further explanation. In the nature of the case the scientist is not committed to explaining everything ad infinitum, he gets to the basics and then all explanation stops because being atomistic, after breaking things down as far as possible, there can be no further appeal to anything more basic or foundational. Even the atheistic, atomistic scientist will remind the Christian theist that he too must be content with ultimate mysteries. And in that sense, every school of thought has its most ultimate given, and the ultimate given for the atheistic scientist is the basic laws of nature whereas for the Christian it is the Triune God. Mr. Atheist may posit that we can’t prove who is right or wrong based on the order of the universe because the Christian has his account for it and the atheist has his account. But now our atheistic scientist friend can add this little stinger by appealing to Occam’s Razor, “But my naturalistic hypothesis for the human eye is more economical than your supernaturalistic hypothesis.” Occam essentially said that superfluous explanatory devices should be shaven off of our way of speaking and thinking and we should just speak and think of the most elegant and efficient ways of talking about things. Naturalistic hypotheses do not make appeals to God for the origin of the universe, it just appeals to the way things are, and in that sense, it is less complicated than the supernaturalistic hypothesis. So, since we prefer the less complicated hypothesis to the more complicated,” and the scientist also says, “maybe the supernatural hypothesis is not acceptable to science at all.” And so, that’s the way that the thinking of Swinburne may be answered by a perceptive atheist, thus further showing the need for a reconstruction of the teleological argument.
5. A fifth line of argument against the teleological argument. It is has been said that William Paley’s analogy between the world and human design can be countered with an equally plausible analogy. Paley argued that the world can be likened to a machine (i.e., a watch) because machines have order. But someone devastatingly says that this type of order can also be found in biology. And so, the plant and animal world can be seen as analogous to an organism. The classical Christian apologist says that the painting proves that there was a painter, now look at organisms or the world as a whole and they too prove there must be a maker/creator. And so, someone puts the screws to Paley by moving not from watch, to organisms, to a creator, but from a watch to organisms and thus tries to liken the world to an organism. And so, instead of having a “watchmaker God” you have the world as one giant organism. The point is per the naturalist that if you want to argue by analogy to God then they can argue from analogy too by saying that the world is simply one large organism. And so, per the objector, the world is alive (i.e., Gaia hypothesis; ancient earth religions, etc.). This point here is to show not that any of these objections to the teleological argument are true, but rather that they challenge Paley’s watchmaker argument. If anything, this certainly does not show that the Christian God is the necessary Creator of the world, but that “god” is merely the immanent (vs. being both transcendent and immanent) life principle of the earth, which is itself alive.
6. A sixth line of argument against this use of the teleological proof for God goes something like this, “When evil and imperfection in the world are taken into account, the argument does not suggest that the creator is both omnipotent and omnibenevolent.” Assuming the teleological argument in its traditional form, one of the classic arguments against it from detractors is, “If God is the source of order and adaptiveness he either could not make the world in such a way that there was no evil or imperfection (hence, he was not omnipotent) or either he could, and chose not to (hence, he was not omnibenevolent).” And so, because evil and imperfection exist in the universe, sin, evil, and imperfection must be attributed to the creator and in that case, it would not work for the Christian because this “god” would be altogether different from the Triune God of Scripture.[4] And so, the above six lines of argumentation show some of the inherent weaknesses in the probabilistic, traditional form of the teleological argument.

Now, positively, we will look at why it is that this notoriously philosophically weak argument has found such endurance in human thought. Philosophers keep coming back to this argument. Even after Hume and Kant criticized it, they granted that it had an appeal and a certain staying power with people. Why does it have such appeal in spite of the fact that philosophically speaking, it is a weak argument in its traditional form? Why do people keep getting drawn to this weak and fallacious form of argument? Well, I will suggest that it appeals to sinful men because of the philosophical borrowed Christian capital which contains the idea of an ordered world has an intuitive appeal to men. And although the autonomous formulation of the argument is poor, there can be another form of the argument that is honoring to God from a presuppositional perspective. And so, the fallacy comes in the autonomous formulation of the arguments. We can reformulate this argument in an explicit fashion so that it corresponds to the intuitive power of the argument. And the intuitive power of the teleological comes from the fact that all men are living on “borrowed capital.” They are assuming the very thing that the argument is trying to prove, it just has to be shown in a more adequate way, via an indirect argument. An indirect line of argumentation says that when you look at the various actual possibilities for explaining the origin of the world that you can show which explanation is sufficient by the impossibility of contrary, actual worldviews.
When you look at a Christian worldview you have some explanation for order in your life experience, but when you appeal to actual (vs. hypothetical, which are not helpful to this discussion) non-Christian views, you cannot appeal to order at all. Worse, you can’t even appeal to reason in a non-Christian world and life view and be consistent with those same presuppositions. It is not that you are making a direct argument by recognizing one or two instances of order in your experience and then moving on from there to prove an orderer; no, this is saying that order is all around us and we can’t even reason and be orderly in our thought patterns without a Christian worldview. And so, the essence of indirect argumentation is that you compare various systems of thought and argue from the impossibility of contrary actual worldviews. We’ll look at a subtle example of this found in the conclusion of Cornelius Van Til’s Why I Believe In God,

Deep down in your heart you know very well that what I have said about you is true. You know there is no unity in your life. You want no God who by His counsel provides for the unity you need. Such a God, you say, would allow for nothing new. So you provide your own unity. But this unity must, by your own definition, not kill that which is wholly new. Therefore it must stand over against the wholly new and never touch it at all. Thus by your logic you talk about possibles and impossibles, but all this talk is in the air. By your own standards it can never have anything to do with reality. Your logic claims to deal with eternal and changeless matters; and your facts are wholly changing things; and "never the twain shall meet." So you have made nonsense of your own experience. With the prodigal you are at the swine-trough, but it may be that, unlike the prodigal, you will refuse to return to the father's house.

On the other hand by my belief in God I do have unity in my experience. Not of course the sort of unity that you want. Not a unity that is the result of my own autonomous determination of what is possible. But a unity that is higher than mine and prior to mine. On the basis of God's counsel I can look for facts and find them without destroying them in advance. On the basis of God's counsel I can be a good physicist, a good biologist, a good psychologist, or a good philosopher. In all these fields I use my powers of logical arrangement in order to see as much order in God's universe as it may be given a creature to see. The unities, or systems that I make are true because [they are] genuine pointers toward the basic or original unity that is found in the counsel of God.

Looking about me I see both order and disorder in every dimension of life. [We might understand this better if I say “I see unity and particularity”. I see the laws of nature but I also see the individuality of things. D] But I look at both of them in the light of the Great Orderer Who is back of them. [Now, that sounds similar to a teleological argument. The difference is that he does not say, “On autonomous grounds when you look at this particular instance of order and see if there must be a god.” No, he is essentially saying that on autonomous grounds you can have any order at all! And only if you renounce your autonomy and think God’s thoughts after him can you then have order. D] I need not deny either of them in the interest of optimism or in the interest of pessimism. I see the strong men of biology searching diligently through hill and dale to prove that the creation doctrine is not true with respect to the human body, only to return and admit that the missing link is missing still. I see the strong men of psychology search deep and far into the sub-consciousness, child and animal consciousness, in order to prove that the creation and providence doctrines are not true with respect to the human soul, only to return and admit that the gulf between human and animal intelligence is as great as ever. I see the strong men of logic and scientific methodology search deep into the transcendental for a validity that will not be swept away by the ever-changing tide of the wholly new, [This is just a fancy way of saying “I see them come back with their very orderly explanations only to admit that it’s all in a random universe.” D] only to return and say that they can find no bridge from logic to reality, or from reality to logic. And yet I find all these, though standing on their heads, reporting much that is true. I need only to turn their reports right side up, making God instead of man the center of it all, and I have a marvelous display of the facts as God has intended me to see them.

And if my unity is comprehensive enough to include the efforts of those who reject it, it is large enough even to include that which those who have been set upright by regeneration cannot see. My unity is that of a child who walks with its father through the woods. The child is not afraid because its father knows it all and is capable of handling every situation. So I readily grant that there are some “difficulties” with respect to belief in God and His revelation in nature and Scripture that I cannot solve. In fact there is mystery in every relationship with respect to every fact that faces me, for the reason that all facts have their final explanation in God Whose thoughts are higher than my thoughts, and Whose ways are higher than my ways. And it is exactly that sort of God that I need. Without such a God, without the God of the Bible, the God of authority, the God who is self-contained and therefore incomprehensible to men, there would be no reason in anything. No human being can explain in the sense of seeing through all things, but only he who believes in God has the right to hold that there is any explanation at all.

So you see when I was young I was conditioned on every side; I could not help believing in God. Now that I am older I still cannot help believing in God. I believe in God now because unless I have Him as the All-Conditioner, life is Chaos. [And so here, we see that Van Til in this sentence reasons from the impossibility of contrary actual worldviews. He says that without the Christian worldview, all is chaos. D]

I shall not convert you at the end of my argument. I think the argument is sound. I hold that belief in God is not merely as reasonable as other beliefs or even a little or infinitely more probably true than other beliefs; I hold rather that unless you believe in God you can logically believe in nothing else. [This explains why Hume, Kant, et. al. cannot get away from the teleological argument. In their heart of hearts they know very well that unless you believe in God you cannot logically believe in nothing else. That isn’t to say that people don’t have other beliefs, but it’s to say that those other beliefs are going to get destroyed by this random view of the universe. D] But since I believe in such a God, a God who has conditioned you as well as me, I know that you can to your own satisfaction, by the help of the biologists, the psychologists, the logicians, and the Bible critics reduce everything I have said this afternoon and evening to the circular meanderings of a hopeless authoritarian. Well, my meanderings have, to be sure, been circular; they have made everything turn on God. So now I shall leave you with Him, and with His mercy.

What Van Til has said is that you cannot account for the ordering of your experience at all without God because the Triune God of the Bible is the hinge upon which everything turns. And so, there is something of a presuppositional reformulation of the basic gist of the teleological argument here. He is saying that you cannot have both particularity and order in your experience assuming naturalism. And so, apart from a Christian world and life view, trying to pull the particularities of the universe together with the unity thereof will always result in a rational-irrational dialectical tension that eventually pulls the worldview apart rather than giving harmony to it.

CONCLUSION

With all due respect to these Christian brothers, Cameron and Comfort would have done well to defer their assumed debate responsibilities to another who has the philosophical and academic ability/awareness to interact with hardened infidels who spend their entire time ranting and raving about the non-existence of the Triune God. As much as I appreciate these brothers, it is time for them to step up the study time so as to be ready to give an account for the hope that is within them with gentleness and reverence (1 Peter 3:15).

---

[1] See AiG’s views on the intelligent design movement here: (1) (2) (3) (4) (5)

[2] Louis Berkhof, Introductory Volume to Systematic Theology, (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1938), 60.

[3] Norman L. Geisleir, The Baker Encyclopedia of Christian Apologetics, (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 1999), 714.

[4] In all fairness, it should be noted that Paley conceded that his argument did not necessarily prove the existence of the Christian God.

Responding to e-Hecklers

Below I will share with you an interesting discussion I'm having with an atheistic physics professor who has started e-heckling me. Below is the caption he e-mailed me from the Freethought of the Day by Katha Pollitt in an attempt to "get my hackles up",

“When you consider that God could have commanded anything he wanted--anything!--the Ten [Commandments] have got to rank as one of the great missed moral opportunities of all time. How different history would have been had he clearly and unmistakably forbidden war, tyranny, taking over other people's countries, slavery, exploitation of workers, cruelty to children, wife-beating, stoning, treating women--or anyone--as chattel or inferior beings.” -- Katha Pollitt (1949-), "Stacked Decalogue," The Nation, September 22, 2003

*************************************************************************************
Dear ____,

As a Christian, it is interesting to note how intelligent Pollitt must think that she is since she (like Eve) arrogates to herself the prerogative to think that she can decide better than God when it comes to moral issues.

What is even more amazing is that she (and by implication you also, since you sent this e-mail), assumes some fixed standard of morality whereby Yahweh's laws as given in historical time can be weighed and judged over and against some moral standard that Yahweh has supposedly violated.

Since both you and she would take umbrage with the validity of the existence of Yahweh and His 10 commandments as given to the ancient Israelites , and assuming that you hold to one of the three major brands of atheistic materialism, I challenge you to answer the following questions:

(1) An Epistemological Question:

What non-arbitrary epistemological basis do you have to say that is it wrong for Yahweh not to forbid war, tyranny, invasion, slavery, exploitation of workers, cruelty to children, wife-beating, stoning and treating women like chattel since on the assumption of naturalistic materialism, you couldn't know it was wrong in the first place given the lack of reliability of your cognitive faculties?

In other words, assuming the truthfulness of your position, God doesn't exist and we are the products of naturalistic evolutionary theory. Given that proposition, consider what Charles Darwin had to say,

"With me, the horrid doubt always arises, whether the convictions of a man's mind, which have been developed from the minds of lower animals, are of any value or at all trustworthy. Why would anyone trust the convictions of a monkey's mind, if there were any convictions in such a mind?" [Darwin, C. 1881. Letter to W. Graham. In F. Darwin, ed., The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin. New York, D. Appleton & Co., 1905.]

Also, Richard Vitzhum, who wrote a definitive work titled 'Materialism: An Affirmative History and Definition' also commented in like manner,

"A revised and modernized materialism concludes from all of this [i.e., what he was arguing for in his book], that all human thought and feeling is the product of a series of unthinking and unfeeling processes originating in the Big Bang." [pp. 218-219]

And so, given naturalism and evolution, the probability that you have reliable cognitive faculties is low or inscrutable. This means you have a defeater for your belief that your cognitive faculties are reliably aimed at producing true beliefs (whatever "belief" is in your worldview).

On this assumption, atheistic materialist physicalist philosopher Patricia Churchland has also noted that given evolution, "truth, whatever that is, takes the hindmost." And, materialist Richard Rorty has noted that the belief that your beliefs are aimed at truth is "unDarwinian." (Now, you don't want to be "unDarwinian" do you?)

Worse yet, Darwin himself noted that he has "horrid doubt[s]" when he reflects on the assumption that his mind has evolved from the mind of lower animals. He rightly says that he wouldn't trust the convictions of a monkey's mind, and so assuming evolution and naturalism, why should he trust the convictions of his own mind?

And so, to sum it up, upon what epistemological basis can you know that moral realism exists (i.e., objective, absolute, universal, moral laws) assuming the conjunction of naturalism and evolution?

And to offer a related follow-up question: If what Pollitt says is true, how can you can figure out solutions to these perceived problems since the very cognitive faculties you use to problem solve are called into question by the very process they supposedly arose from?

(2) A Metaphysical Question:

Assuming Pollitt's argument is correct for the sake of argument, it would then follow that her argument against the supposed inferior nature of the decalogue is "true". But given the assumption of the truthfulness of that statement, how do you account for immaterial, abstract concepts of "truth" assuming only the existence of concrete particulars?

Syllogism One:

1. Concepts are immaterial.
2. But some versions of materialism (like yours) hold that anything that exists is material.
3. Our concepts are not material things.
4. Therefore, concepts do not exist.
5. Our concept of "truth" is immaterial.
6. In some versions of materialism (like yours), "truth" does not exist.

Syllogism Two:

1. Material things are extended in space.
2. Our concept of "truth" is not extended in space.
3. Therefore, our concepts of "truth" are non-material.
4. Some versions of materialism (like yours) posit that no non-material entities exist.
5. Therefore, assuming some versions of materialism (like yours), concepts of "truth" do not exist.

Those questions should suffice for now. We'll see if your worldview has any money in its philosophical bank account to support the checks you are trying to write.

Catholic bibliology: sic et non

Interpreting the Bible: Three Views

The Replies of the Biblical Commission

Evan Maybe, or Evan Maybe Not

Evan Maybe said:

And since we're off topic, is Evan May really 17 yrs old like his profile says?

Yes.

I don't believe I've ever given any background information about myself on this blog (not that information about my life is very necessary). Obviously, I post on here less now than I ever have, and my affections for blogging are increasingly diminishing--while my posture towards the local church as my primary means of growth is strengthening.

But here it is:

The Most Important: Created in God's image, I exist for his own glory and pleasure. My most ultimate purpose and highest commitment is to magnify the Name above all names. My greatest passion and most intense desire is to experience and delight in God. My prayer every morning as I wake up is that my day would be filled with God-honoring, Christ-exalting thoughts and that my God-hating, Christ-belittling sinful unbelief would be mortified more and more, until the day where I will see Christ face-to-face.

The Less Important: I'm a teenager (17, will be 18 August 1st) who loves to study theology because I long to know God more. I love learning the technical skills of grammatical-historical exegesis, not simply because they are fun, but because through them I know Scripture better.

I live in New Orleans, LA. My local church, Lakeview Christian Center, part of Sovereign Grace Ministries, was greatly affected by hurricane Katrina. Our building was completed flooded and eventually demolished. ...But the story does not end there. God's providence has kept our congregation together, and on May 24th, 9am, we will have the ground-breaking ceremony to start the construction of our new $11,000,000 facility. We expect to walk through the doors of this new building less than 15 months from now. God's grace has been very evident because by this devastation the door has been opened to many ministry opportunities that were previously unavailable. We gladly welcome what his sovereign plan has for us in this next chapter. To learn more about what has happened with the church the past few years and how you can help, check out this video.

My current occupation: I work as an administrative assistant at the church office. My responsibilities include mostly minuscule and humbling tasks such as folding and cutting paper, and some other newly learned skills such as managing the website, creating the newsletter, designing the bulletin, etc. I also manage the resources and make sure supplies are ready for the services. Mainly, I work to serve the pastoral team in their responsibilities, whether that means doing research on theological topics or simply making phone calls.

Having just graduated high school, I am now a freshman in college, majoring in history at the University of New Orleans. While God's sovereign plans certainly rule my life and not my own desires, I expect to go to seminary after I complete my undergraduate studies. I also expect to get married soon, even at my young age, because of my conviction that getting married and growing up are so intimately connected that it is biblically irresponsible to put off marriage in pursuit of career or personal fulfillment. Then there's the fact that there's that girl in my life.... :-)

Have I fallen off of the face of the planet? No, I'm still here. You can still e-mail me any time, and I enjoy receiving questions or comments. I hope that this post has helped to put some flesh on the bones of someone that you might have read in the past. I'm certain that I've said many foolish or arrogant things before, and for those I apologize. I simply want to know God more, and I want to stand for his truth in an age that so quickly abandons it for something "better." The cross of Christ is all that I need, and for the joy set before me I will bear it on my back as I lay down my life for Christ's bride and his glory.

Don't forget to send me a present on my birthday (or better yet, I just graduated!), ;-)

Enjoying Him,

Evan E. May

Jerry Falwell, R.I.P.

Passionate and Restless
Rabbi Daniel Lapin Mourns the Passing of Jerry Falwell
Jerry Falwell, 1933-2007
Three Reasons to Honor Jerry Falwell
A Holy Warrior, Wholly Committed
Educated, Inspired Conservative Christians
The Moral Majority of the Story
Power to the People

"Extensive torture"

The topic of torture came up in the GOP debate last night. Here's a truly chilling example of what goes on at Gitmo.

Beware of the graphic descriptions! This is not suitable reading material for anyone under the age of 21.

******************************************************************************************

'Extensive torture'

Majid Khan, who has been accused of planning to blow up petrol stations in the US...

Mr Khan produced a list of further examples of psychological torture, which included the provision of "cheap, branded, unscented soap", the prison newsletter, noisy fans and half-inflated balls in the recreation room that "hardly bounce".

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/6659585.stm

Touchstone's Subjective Objective in Being Objectively Subjective

The nice thing about asking T-Stone questions is that before I ask them I already know both the manner in which he will respond (obliquely, at best) as well as the fact that he would never pause to consider the reason why I asked the questions I did. As such, T-Stone is actually quite easy to "lead" to a specific area, which was the reason I asked the questions I did.

For instance, I originally asked:

How is it possible for you to even determine that you have a filter that needs corrected in the first place?

T-Stone responded:

If you are asking how can I determine *for certain* that I have such a filter, I can't.

But he then said:

Contradictory accounts of the same event suggest that a) either we weren't witnessing the same event in the first place, or b) one or more (or all) of us has an interpretation of the event that is at odds with what actually happened.

Given the choices of a) and b), b) seems more plausible (emphasis added).

The problem with this is that in order to determine plausibility in any meaningful way, you have to know what things ought to be normal. In other words, for T-Stone to say that b) is more plausible than a), he must know that reality more closely corresponds to b) than to a). In saying which is more “plausible”, T-Stone is smuggling in an objectivist claim.

Similarly, T-Stone continued:

A unified reality with various amounts of distortion in the perceptions of observers would explain the contradictions more naturally than some sort of "personal universes" or "multiple histories" view that maintains the perfection of the observer's perception, and instead messes with the underlying reality to resolve the contradictions (emphasis added).

T-Stone says that accepting his view is “more natural” than other views. This is therefore an objectivist claim. Likewise, he argues that these opposing views “[mess] with the underlying reality to resolve the contradictions.” But in order for T-Stone to know that these view “mess” with this “underlying reality” he is first required to know what the underlying reality is. Again, while claiming to be subjective, he’s engaging in objectivist claims.

This is most obvious in his answer to my question, “You are assuming that you have a subjective filter. Why? Because 'everyone' does?" In response, he says:

Simply because this assumption has proven the most effective for me as a model of the real world (emphasis added).

This statement simply cannot be made subjectively. There is no “subjective” way to determine that an assumption has proven effective, nor that it models “the real world” unless you know what the real world is. T-Stone’s argument requires him to have objective knowledge of the universe in order for him to make his subjective claim.

Naturally, T-Stone may simply reply, “It is only my subjective opinion that it would be more natural to believe what I do, or that it would model the real world accurately, etc.” But note A) T-Stone does not speak as if this is his mere opinion; he speaks using objectivist language while saying we ought to read it as if he applies a subjectivist disclaimer before he says it (but that subjectivist disclaimer refutes his very argument, which is why he never explicitly states it!); and B) if it really is just his subjective appeal all the way down, T-Stone’s denial of objective reality is based on a position of pure fideism. It is T-Stone’s belief that this is the case. There is no underlying basis for his position other than T-Stone’s bare faith. This is, indeed, the very definition of blind faith. He merely believes because he wants to believe, not because there is any reason for him to believe.

T-Stone also said:

I don't know for certain that Abraham Lincoln will not show up on my door tomorrow.

This is the silly sort of thing that T-Stone is reduced to stating because of how hard he must grasp at subjectivity. The fact of the matter is that he does know “for certain” that Abraham Lincoln will not show up at his door tomorrow. He only says he doesn’t know this “for certain” because if he said those two magic words, he’d be committing himself to an objectivist position.

But even not saying those two magic words, T-Stone has still committed himself to an objectivist position, for he has said that reality is objectively such that it he cannot be certain that Abraham Lincoln won’t show up at his porch tomorrow. In saying that he cannot rule out the possibility, he is saying that it is objectively the case that Honest Abe could possibly do this; and he can only know that Abe could possibly do this if he is making an objective statement about reality. Of course, T-Stone hasn’t considered this because he doesn’t really believe it. His subjectivity claims are merely to avoid having to argue for his position (remember, he only has bare fideism—and irrationalism—for his position).

To be fair to T-Stone, he did get close to the truth here:

But I have no experience available to me, no precedent, for the re-appearance of a long dead American President. I can't be certain that it can't or won't happen, but I have no empirical basis to suggest that it will.

I remind T-Stone that I originally asked him:

Is it reasonable for you to couch all your truth claims in subjectivist language, or is it instead reasonable to assert dogmatically that reality is what you think it is because you have no reason to think otherwise?

While I disagree with T-Stone’s empiricism in his above quote, I point out that the existence of it ought to lead T-Stone to an objective position rather than a position of subjective doubt. It is unreasonable to doubt everything. Again, my original post on radical skepticism dealt with this.

T-Stone finishes:

Hey, why am I answering all these questions you offer, when you won't answer the few that I've put to you?

Firstly, how am I supposed to know the inner workings of an irrational mind in or to answer the question of why you do anything? :-P Secondly, I have answered your relevant questions. Thirdly, if you’re referring to the definitions of subjective and objective (as is implied by your previous comments), it’s not like I’ve never provided a definition for them. Look at almost any one of my interactions with Dawson for examples of this. I don’t see a need to continually repeat myself simply because you don’t read.

But if you insist, a basic definition is easy. Objective truth is truth that is dependent upon the object; subjective truth is dependent upon the subject. Objective truth is true regardless of what the subject thinks, dreams, imagines, believes, etc because it is based on the ontology of the object. Subjective truth can never leave the subject. It is confined to each individual subject. Therefore, it is impossible for a subjective truth to be true for more than one subject (even if two subjects hold the same proposition, it is not really the same proposition for the first subject’s proposition is only true for the first subject, etc.).

Caption This!

Okay, I'm on vacation, technically, til July when I'll resume posting articles on the main page, but I couldn't resist this. We're terribly serious here, but let's all lighten the mood. This is a space where everybody, even those with whom we regularly disagree, can have some fun and set aside some of our differences...okay, so no discussions about who's better Kirk or Picard or any such (wags finger). Those sorts of discussions can be moved to trekbbs.com. I just couldn't resist a round of "caption this" when I ran across this picture while browsing their forums a few days ago.

So, here you go...have fun and play nice!

Hecklers for humanism

“In the blog world, it’s easy to get sucked into fruitless discussions where you fire off post after long post in response to someone who is about as responsive as a wall.”

http://www.reformedcatholicism.com/?p=1143

This assumes that the aim of responding is to persuade the “atheist heckler.” But, speaking for myself, although I don’t think I’m unique in this respect, the atheist heckler is simply a convenient foil.

“It’s stressful”

Stressful for whom, the atheist heckler or me? I’m not stressed out by responding to the atheist heckler. I have no religious doubts. I have no emotional investment in apologetics. I’ve been blessed with an effortless faith, and my passions lie outside the sphere of polemical theology.

For me, apologetics is a purely intellectual exercise. I’m quite detached about it. I have no personal stake in apologetics, for that’s epiphenomenal to where I live and breathe. And I’m rather bemused by how worked up some bloggers can get. But this is a pretty faceless, nameless mass medium of communication.

To me, the evidence for God is ubiquitous, and the flaws in various attacks on the faith are easy to detect. The atheist labors under the insurmountable handicap of being wrong. Nothing can overcome the handicap of being wrong, dead wrong. No amount of ingenuity or erudition or brilliance can compensate for being wrong, dead wrong.

“And doesn’t produce any results. In other words, it’s a huge waste of time.”

How is Josh in any position to know that? Has the angel Gabriel been whispering in his ear?

“Steve Hays gets sucked into this all the time. He responds to the most foolish crap going line-by-line, picking apart every word of some atheist heckler, undoubtedly spending hours doing so. And what’s it accomplish? Absolutely nothing.”

It’s true that I’ve devoted a lot of time to picking apart ever word, line-by-line, of Tim Enloe, Paul Owen, and Kevin Johnson, although I rather doubt they’d appreciate Josh’s rather harsh characterization of his fellow bores…uh…I mean, boars.

And while we're on the subject, what effect for the kingdom is all the ecclesiastical naval-gazing and spiritual self-absorption over at Reformed Catholicism supposed to have?

“Theological discussion is wasted on hecklers.”

This is a rather faithless attitude. It’s true that I don’t expect to win over the hecklers. But even an atheist heckler is not above and beyond the reach of God’s grace.

Today’s obnoxious, know-nothing heckler may be tomorrow’s zealous soul-winner. Isn’t saving even one of these from the everlasting bonfire worth the time?

I myself am only one person. I’m just one Christian. But it’s very important to me that I’m heavenbound rather than hellbound. If every Christian were instrumental in the conversion of just one unbeliever, wouldn’t that be worth the time and effort? Convincing just one individual literally makes a world of difference, an eternity of difference, for that one solitary individual.

One of the interesting things about heaven is that we don’t know who-all we’re going to encounter when we get there. God can bless and multiple our feeble little efforts so that we may touch lives without ever knowing, in this life, the impact we’ve had in the hands of God’s almighty providence. Where is Josh’s compassion for the lost?

Incidentally, or not so coincidentally, this complacency is more common among liturgical churches.

“A heckler is someone who doesn’t engage what’s being said, continues to parrot silly little propagandistic maxims that have been substantially dealt with, and responds to developed exposition with one-liners. Invariably, one-liners are loaded with all kinds of baggage that takes a substantial amount of material to dissect–and then when you’re done, you just get another one-liner. Hecklers aren’t interested in theology or discussion. They’re interested only in causing frustration.”

This is largely true. But aside from the fact that I’m aiming my reply to the crowd behind the heckler, a lot of the one-liners are just so much bluff, bluster, and bravado. Yelling and screaming to compensate for the lack of reasoning. And there are hecklers who are aware of this. They know it’s a pose. Putting on a brave front to impress their homiez.

In addition, apathy can be a greater impediment to conversion than anger or misplaced passion. At least an atheist heckler, except when he’s just a poseur, genuinely cares about the issues. There may even be a twisted idealism at work. When someone is angry, you’re in contact with the real person. It’s much harder to get a foothold with the morally, emotionally, intellectually, and spiritual indifferent. There’s nothing to work with. Nothing to grab or grasp. Teflon indifference.

Let’s also remember that in our secularized society, many unbelievers are unbelievers because, in part, they really don’t know any better. They swagger around and sally forth in the supreme confidence that Scripture is Tommyrot from start to finish?

How could any halfway intelligent many or woman still believe this obvious or demonstrable mythology? Haven’t we ever heard of science or higher criticism?

But when they briefly leave their compounded of like-minded hecklers and accidentally pick a fight with the wrong person, to suddenly find themselves disarmed at the first blow, not knowing either side of the argument, it can be an eye-popping experience. They’re not used to seeing their one-liners dissected line-by-line. And once they run out of one-liners, they have nothing to fall back on.

As I’ve also said before, not every Christian has ready-made answers to stock objections. Not every Christian has access to a good library.

“In my 5 years of blogging (started here in May 2002), I’ve learned the importance of terminating discussions with hecklers when it’s clear that they’re not going anywhere, although I don’t practice this perfectly.”

That’s always an option.

“Spirited debate with people is great, when they’re engaging–even if they sometimes make me mad (to be fair, I usually return the favor). But trying to respond to hecklers does nothing but make me lose sleep over so much triviality.”

I don’t blog when I’m mad. I don’t get angry over blogging. It doesn’t engage me emotionally. For me it’s just the brain giving orders to ten fingers, while bypassing the heart—which resounds to the beat of another drummer. If you pour your heart into blogging, then blogging means too much to you. If it means that much to you, then it means too much to you. There are a lot of bloggers who have the wrong temperament for blogging. They blog as if their life depended on it.

Show me your Bible

Where can we find the official Bible of the Eastern Orthodox church?

***********************************************************************

The fact that there are variations of the translations of the Bible indicates most clearly the need for a common edition of the Greek New Testament on which other translations will depend.

The text of the Patriarchate was prepared by a commission in 1904, which also has approximately 2,000 variations compared to the Common Edition, Textus Receptus, prepared much earlier. Despite these efforts there is still no one common edition of the New Testament Greek accepted by all. It must be recognized, though, that the edition issued by the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople depended mainly upon the passages and verses designated by the Church to be read during the celebrations on Sundays and feast days, For this reason these passages were kept intact with fewer changes. It is evident that greater efforts involving all the Christian churches must be made to arrive at one common edition in the original language recognized by all Christians.

The Eastern Orthodox Church officially uses the Septuagint-Old Testament Greek which was translated from the original Hebrew language into Greek in the third century B.C.

http://www.goarch.org/en/ourfaith/articles/article7068.asp

THE SEPTUAGINT, derived from the Latin word for "seventy," can be a confusing term, since it ideally refers to the third-century BCE translation of the Hebrew Scriptures into Greek in Alexandria, Egypt. There is a complicated story, however, behind the translation and the various stages, amplifications, and modifications to the collection we now call the Septuagint.

In the third century, the great Christian scholar, Origen (184/85–254/55), keenly interested in the textual differences between the Hebrew and the Greek, set out to arrange the Church's Old Testament in six columns: (1) the Hebrew, (2) a Greek transliteration of the Hebrew, (3) Aquila's translation, (4) Symmachus's translation, (5) the Septuagint (LXX), and (6) Theodotion. The volumes were compiled in Caesarea, probably between 230 and 240 CE, a project funded by Origen's patron. The resultant work, the Hexapla, was massive, and has for the most part perished, probably due to cost and labor of transcribing all 3600 folios for posterity. Origen was a very careful scholar, but he did not observe modern editorial conventions. He composed his version of the LXX from several different manuscripts and preferred readings that brought the text into conformity with the Hebrew. Thus, this fifth LXX column, while establishing the first "standardized text" of the Christian Church, created problems for modern scholars who would seek to recover a pre-Christian version of the LXX.

Further rescensions of the Greek text in the fourth century are attested. Hesychius (fl. 3/4th c.) is said to have created a rescension for the Church in Egypt; Lucian (d. 312 CE), in Antioch. Some scholars posit other rescensions from this period. Thus, we find some Greek Church Fathers quoting the same Old Testament texts, but in very different forms. There is no indication, however, that this troubled to Church leadership. The insistence on letter-for-letter, word-for-word accuracy in the Scriptures was a feature that was not to emerge in Christian thought for many centuries, and then in imitation of Jewish and Islamic models. As far as most early Christians were concerned, any Greek version of the Old Testament read in the Church merited the term Septuagint.

Wherever Christianity spread, translations of the Hebrew Scriptures were made based on the LXX. Thus, it became the basis for translations made into Arabic, Ethiopic, Armenian, Old Latin, Coptic, Georgian, and Old Church Slavonic. (It was not the basis either for the Syriac version [known as the Peshitta], which is a pre-Christian translation based directly upon the Hebrew, or for St. Jerome's Latin translation, which is also based on the Hebrew.)

Modern scholars, sifting through this very interesting and eventful history, have attempted to create editions of the Septuagint that reflect as early a text as possible. Rahlfs's edition of the LXX (1935) is semi-critical, utilizing what he believed to be the chief manuscripts. Brooke, McLean, and Thackeray's partial edition (1906–40) sought a more critical approach. The Göttingen edition of the LXX (1931–), now mostly complete, is the most critical edition of the LXX, taking into account over 120 manuscripts, many languages, and a multitude of patristic quotations. Modern Biblical scholars have accepted the Göttingen as the standard working edition, although the ease and accessibility of Rahlfs's edition has made it popular less exacting work and study. It is important to bear in mind that all these editions are eclectic, and reasonable attempts to reconstruct the earliest version of the Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible.

Thus, the term Septuagint could refer to any one or more of the states of the Greek translation throughout history. It is important to understand specifically what is meant in any given discussion of the LXX. A strict, purist use of Septuagint would allow the term to be used only of the earliest, (probably) unrecoverable translation of the Pentateuch made by the Jewish scholars around 282 BCE (some refer to this as the "Old Greek," but with some confusion, since the assignment of this term forces Septuagint to be applied to texts with no direct connection to the legend of the seventy-two).

http://www.kalvesmaki.com/LXX/

The LXX is in some sense the "official" Orthodox Old Testament, but from the time of Origen's Hexapla until recently there seems to have been little effort to actually publish a standardized version. Ancient manuscripts and fragments differ so much from each other and from the readings in the Church's lectionary that this is something of a problem. The first "official" (hierarchically approved) printed editions, which appeared in Russia and later in Greece in the XIX Century, were essentially reprints of Western scholarly texts based on the Codex Alexandrinus and other ancient manuscripts rather than on the liturgical practice of the Church. Even now, it is not clear to us that there is a universally accepted Orthodox version based on liturgical usage.

http://www.voskrese.info/spl/Xlxx.html

The Radical Skeptic

This post will consist of two parts in one post. The first part is directed toward T-Stone. The second part is for everyone else :-)

Part I

In comments on this post, I pointed out the irony that Touchstone would defend Cameron’s subjective testimony during his & Comfort’s “debate” (which isn’t really the correct word for what happened) with Brian Sapient and Kelli Whatshername (you know, from the Green Day song). The irony of T-Stone’s comment is due to the fact that T-Stone never misses a chance to bash the Triabloguers who, rather than presenting subjectivist “testimony,” actually produce arguments.

T-Stone took umbrage with my classification of his position. He said:

Peter,

The problem is that you offer arguments that are supremely subjective, yet suppose they are objective. Nothing wrong with subjective arguments, or objective arguments. But it's a problem when you try to claim the mantle of objectivity for your subjective assertions. A "truth in advertising" problem.

-Touchstone

(If you disagree, let's have a look at your "objective arguments", shall we and we'll see just how much subjective you tuck away in there...)

The problem is that T-Stone hypocritically applies a radical skepticism to anything I say in an attempt to turn everything into a subjective argument when he does not use the same radical skepticism against his own views. There is a reason for this. He isn’t a radical skeptic (no one is, for we all must actually live in this world).

When it comes to T-Stone, I could argue “2 + 2 = 4 in a Base-10 system is objectively true” and T-Stone would counter: "Have you considered quantum mechanics possibly making 2 + 2 both equal to and NOT equal to 4 at the same time and in the same relationship? No? Then you're being subjective while pretending to be objective!"

T-Stone's refuge is to hold onto pure skepticism as his weapon against the T-Bloggers. But his skepticism comes at a price. If T-Stone is to remain faithful to his skeptical position, he can never assert any positive claim. This includes his claim that I am being subjective instead of objective, as well as his claim that skepticism is a valid approach.

Perhaps the best argument is a demonstration. So, T-Stone can have it back now. He begins by saying: “The problem is that you offer arguments that are supremely subjective, yet suppose they are objective.” T-Stone: is this an objective statement? That is, can you objectively demonstrate that my arguments are “supremely subjective”? Can you even define “subjective” and “objective” (without doing another of your “trivial Google searches” that you are so fond of)? And if you do define those words, how do you know that you defined them correctly? Isn’t your use of the words themselves subjective rather than objective?

T-Stone continues: “Nothing wrong with subjective arguments, or objective arguments.” Really? Is THIS an objective statement, or a subjective statement? How do you know it is true that there is nothing wrong with either type of argument?

T-Stone charges: “But it's a problem when you try to claim the mantle of objectivity for your subjective assertions.” But A) how is it objectively a problem for me to lie (if, indeed, that is what I have done) and B) how do you KNOW that i) it actually is a problem for me too and ii) that I did violate this principal? What is your objective proof that I am engaged in such bad behavior here? Show me your objectivity, T-Stone.

You challenge me to show my arguments (as if I hadn’t already done this hundreds of times). I’m challenging you to back up your statements.

And since this began as a discussion in interpretation in the first place, I want you to objectively prove to me right now that you have objectively understood my statements (whether you agree or disagree with them). Keep in mind that no matter what you say, I’m going to respond with, “But how do you know this is true?” just as you do.

Dealing with the radical skeptic is oh-so-fun, isn’t it T-Stone? But if it’s good enough for you to behave this way, it’s good enough for me to respond in kind. When you’ve had enough of this nonsense, we can move on.

Part II

While my above challenge to T-Stone is a serious challenge (that is, T-Stone has to do it if he’s going to keep any sense of self-respect), it may also actually appear to some as a valid method of attacking someone’s point of view. It appears valid because A) the method employed is only asking questions and B) there is a level of “uncertainty” associated with knowledge. But in reality, the radical skeptic approach is self-contradictory and, as such, it is impossible for it to actually be true.

It is rather simple to demonstrate this if we take the radical skeptic view toward radical skepticism in the first place. “Is radical skepticism objective? How can we know? Have we understood radical skepticism correctly in order to know whether we’re using it right in the first place?”

The bottom line is, if radical skepticism is true we cannot know that it is true. If we know that radical skepticism is true, then we know that radical skepticism must be false for radical skepticism cannot know anything. This is the self-contradictory nature of radical skepticism. As such, even before we look at the questions in any attack against our position, we know that at the basic level skepticism can no longer be viable.

But there is another level where the radical skeptic approach becomes self-contradictory, and that is during its application. When we get into language (which is where this subject with T-Stone originated), this means that the radical skeptic who assumes that there can be no objective transfer of meaning in a text must, in the midst of attacking that text, make an objective statement about the very text he is criticizing. To illustrate this, consider the following:

I write out a concept C. Our radical skeptic reads concept C and applies his radical skepticism to it. His radical skepticism says, “I cannot know for certain anything about C.” But in order to make this claim, he must have universal knowledge of C! If he does not know the totality of C, he cannot say, “I cannot know anything about C” for there could remain a part of C that he is able to know, if he surveyed it. Thus, in order for the skeptic to say that he cannot know anything about a concept, he must first assert that he knows all there is to know about the concept!

In reality, the skeptic, in an attempt to remain consistent, can only say: “I cannot know that I cannot know anything about concept C.” But this, in turn, is yet another concept! This concept (“I cannot know that I cannot know anything about concept C”) we will call concept C'. C' falls to the same problem. The skeptic cannot say, “I cannot know C'” without knowing C' universally. This leads to C'': “I cannot know that I cannot know C'.” Ad infinitum.

Maintaining a radical skepticism is, therefore, inherently irrational. Skepticism must end somewhere. And in language this is ultimately demonstrated in the fact that the radical skeptics will write, talk, gesture, or use all other types of language in order to convey the meaning that you cannot know any meaning they are attempting to convey. This hypocrisy undoes their arguments, for it is obvious that if they convince someone to their position they have conveyed the meaning they wished to convey using the very means they say cannot do this.

As such, it cannot be “skepticism all the way down.” There must be some point where we have unquestionable positions, for to question them would be to commit ourselves to infinite regress.

T-Stone said he wanted examples of my arguments that were objective so he could see how much subjectivism was in them. Perhaps he can start with this one…

Hitchens' flat world

Hitchens' flat world
 
Father Raymond J. De Souza
National Post

Saturday, May 12, 2007

Hitchens' approach is to romp through history, using his cutting literary style to spoof and mock all the absurdities he finds in the world of religion. If Hitchens met a local vicar with bad breath, religion is to blame for halitosis. It's a fun game, but not really an argument.

Despite Hitchens entertaining style, his book quickly becomes tedious. If you are the sort of person who thinks it very clever to respond to, say, an argument defending the role of religious believers in a pluralistic society by shouting, "What about the Crusades?", you will be nodding along with Hitchens in emphatic agreement. If you find such ad historiam arguments tedious, you will be simply nodding off.

Page after page, Hitchens piles one outrage upon another. So convinced is he of the rightness of his conclusion -- "religion poisons everything" -- that he does not blanch from the most breathtaking rearrangements of the facts and terms of debate. With an apparently straight face he excuses the evils of secular regimes, by blaming the Catholic Church for Nazism and classifying North Korea's communist regime as a religious cult.

What then does Hitchens propose as the antidote to the poison of religion? He opts for scientific materialism, the banality of which he tries to hide behind such -- dare we say it? -- "pious" invocations about the sense of wonder induced by photographs taken by the Hubble Telescope. It's like saying that the ultimate questions of life and death that religion grapples with can be set aside by watching the sunset.

Hitchens inhabits a flat world, devoid of the spirit even broadly understood, and thinks that he can see farther, not realizing that he has razed all the interesting features of the landscape. It is a literally parenthetical comment that exposes the barrenness of Hitchens worldview: "Charles Darwin was born in 1809, on the very same day as Abraham Lincoln, and there is no doubt as to which of them has proved to be the greater 'emancipator.'"

Only in world stripped of all that is distinctively human would Darwin's theories about the evolution of finch beaks provide greater emancipation for the human spirit than Lincoln's sublime words about human dignity, sacrifice and the better angels of our nature. On balance, Lincoln on our destiny is a better bet for a humane world than Darwin on our origins.

"Religion has run out of justifications," Hitchens concludes. "Thanks to the telescope and the microscope, it no longer offers an explanation of anything important." Hitchens is not unlike the zealots he assails, which explains how an obviously intelligent man could write something so embarrassingly stupid.

Here are some unimportant questions for which a microscope is rather unhelpful in answering: Why are we here? Why is there something instead of nothing? What is the purpose of human existence? Hitchens is so fascinated with what he can see in the skies or in the laboratory that he is blind to the world in which men actually live. Perhaps he thinks that without religion there would be more peace, wisdom and beauty in a world dominated by politics, science, entertainment and industry. There is no evidence for that claim whatsoever, and good reason to believe that such a flat world would be more brutal to live in.

God has no place in the world Hitchens wants, but nobody else has ever lived there either.

http://www.canada.com/components/print.aspx?id=bffaef89-eefb-44fe-aa39-cdfdd7b11cd5

Kallistos Ware Contradicts Orthodox

In another thread, I gave some further examples of Eastern Orthodox disagreement about the Old Testament canon. Orthodox has responded by ignoring much of what I cited, distorting other portions, and making a series of unsupported assertions. Contrary to what he argued earlier, he's now claiming that all Eastern Orthodox agree with a canon advocated by a seventeenth century synod. In the thread linked above, Orthodox writes:

"There is no chance that the Orthodox church would ever remove from its canon the books that all the Church have agreed on as canonical. Those are the books which can be found listed by the Synod of Jerusalem"

And:

"I'm not 'appealing' to the synod, I'm just pointing out the list of books from the synod because Jason continues to claim I havn't given him a list of books that all Orthodoxy accept. This is a convenient place to find a list."

And:

"The purpose of a synod is to state the faith in a clear fashion. It is binding to the extent that the Church accepts it. Much of the synod was accepted by the whole church, and to that extent it is binding."

Notice that Orthodox claims that all Eastern Orthodox agree with the canon in question. He was asked for documentation, and here's what he told us:

"If you want to know the Tradition, join the Church. We do not claim the Tradition is always written down."

In that thread, I explained why such a response is unreasonable. But what I want to address here is Orthodox's claim that all Eastern Orthodox accept the canon in question.

Notice, first of all, that the previous thread I've linked to already cites multiple sources, including Eastern Orthodox sources, denying what Orthodox is affirming. But since Orthodox keeps ignoring or distorting the books I cite, let's try an online source, a source Orthodox himself has cited before. The Eastern Orthodox bishop Kallistos Ware wrote:

"The Hebrew version of the Old Testament contains thirty-nine books. The Septuagint contains in addition ten further books, not present in the Hebrew, which are known in the Orthodox Church as the ‘Deutero-Canonical Books’ (3 Esdras; Tobit; Judith; 1, 2, and 3 Maccabees; Wisdom of Solomon; Ecclesiasticus; Baruch; Letter of Jeremias. In the west these books are often called the ‘Apocrypha’). These were declared by the Councils of Jassy (1642) and Jerusalem (1672) to be ‘genuine parts of Scripture;’ most Orthodox scholars at the present day, however, following the opinion of Athanasius and Jerome, consider that the Deutero-Canonical Books, although part of the Bible, stand on a lower footing than the rest of the Old Testament."

Notice that Ware contrasts the canon of the synod Orthodox is appealing to with the position of "most Orthodox scholars". Ware goes on to mention Athanasius and Jerome. Those men didn't just argue that books like 3 Maccabees are scripture, but less significant than other books of scripture. Rather, they denied that those books are scripture as that term is commonly defined. Orthodox has repeatedly argued against the position of Jerome, so he can't now claim that Jerome agreed with him, if he's to be consistent.

Note, also, that Ware refers to what most Eastern Orthodox scholars believe. If most believe one thing, while a minority believe something else, then it would be incorrect to claim that all agree on the issue.

But why be concerned with Ware's opinion when we can go to a higher authority, like Orthodox? Here's what Orthodox wrote in a thread last month:

"The Churches will stick to their respective canons until such time as the Holy Spirit leads it to make adjustments. Just like in the early church. The important thing is to be in the actual Church that the apostles founded, believing the apostolic teachings. That there are discrepencies in the canon is of no more concern to us than it was for the first four hundred years of Christendom."

Contrast that assessment with Orthodox's recent claims about how all Orthodox agree about the canon of the synod of Jerusalem. It doesn't seem that he was as concerned to put forward an image of Eastern Orthodox unity on this issue a month ago as he is today.

Though Orthodox can't defend everything he's argued on this subject, he might try to defend some of it by arguing that he didn't cite the synod of Jerusalem as representative of everybody's full canon. Rather, he cited it as representative of books that all Eastern Orthodox accept, even if some Eastern Orthodox add one or more books to that canon. But such an argument would still be contradicted by the sources I've cited (The Blackwell Dictionary Of Eastern Christianity, Kallistos Ware, etc.). And if Orthodox was citing the synod of Jerusalem in such a manner, then he wasn't sufficiently addressing the issues he was being asked about. I asked him for a listing of his canon and to tell us where Eastern Orthodoxy infallibly gave him that canon. I also explained that since he considers Protestant disagreements about what is and isn't scripture unacceptable, then he should conclude the same about Eastern Orthodox disagreements about what is and isn't scripture and what is and isn't Tradition. To respond by citing a canon that some Eastern Orthodox consider incomplete would fail to overcome my objections to Orthodox's position. All Eastern Orthodox agree about the canonicity of the Pentateuch, but it wouldn't make sense to cite such agreement in response to what I was arguing. If agreement over part of the canon is accompanied by disagreement over another part, then there is no elimination of canonical disagreements by means of a full canon defined infallibly by the church.

Orthodox Must Be Losing The Debate

In previous discussions, Orthodox has claimed that when people like Steve Hays criticize his character or behavior, it means that he (Orthodox) must be winning the debate. We don't accept that reasoning, but let's apply Orthodox's own standards to one of his latest posts. In a recent reply to Gene Bridges, Orthodox writes:

"Are you deaf?"

And:

"Jason asked for a list. I could have cut and paste the list here, but I didn't want to fill up the blog just because Jason is too lazy to look it up himself."

And:

"You've got a severe comprehension problem as you cannot distinguish between the present and past tenses."

And:

"Go back to junior high school English."

Judging by his own standards, Orthodox must be losing the debate.

Sola Touchstonia

First off, I note that Touchstone responded to my last comment, but didn't bother to respond to Peter's (see here; BTW, these responses are worth reading, too). I surmise the reason is because Peter's response, as usual, has entirely overwhelmed Touchstone!

Now, if only I could present the truth as clearly and as intelligently as Peter does, maybe I could frighten Touchstone away, too. But since I lack Peter's incisive intellect, I'll just have to hobble along and do what I can.

Touchstone said:

How does one decide what is "rightly exegeted" and what is not, Patric, so that we may understand what is "orthodox" in your view. Without a way to determine who has "rightly exegeted" and who has not, your definition is useless.

Well, Touchston, er, I mean, Touchstone, as we have pointed out to you time and time again, the Bible is the inspired Word of God. That's the starting point for Christians -- among whom, I might remind you, you profess to belong.

But, stepping away from the Bible for a second, how do you interpret any piece of writing? How do you go about this sort of thing? I suppose there are several possible points of departure. For example, you could start by looking at the genre of a work. A poem is to be understood differently than a novel which in turn is to be understood differently than a work of history. The Bible itself has 66 books which contains genres as diverse as poetry, proverbs, historical narrative, etc. Not to mention subgenres within those genres.

Also, you could keep in mind that the goal of interpretation is to understand a particular book as the original author intended it to be understood by the original target audience.

You could use what you know of the historical background and the cultural milieu of the book in question to aid you in understanding it.

You could google "Grammatico-Historical method" and read up on it.

You could take a look at something like D.A. Carson's Exegetical Fallacies.

And you could use your reason and logic. Or, wait a sec, I totally forgot: you've abandoned using reason and logic in your capitulation to post-modernism. My bad!

Anyway, the broader point I'm trying to make is that the Bible dictates how we interpret it; we do not dictate the way we interpret the Bible. (I realize this is overly simplistic, but I am talking to a simpleton, after all, and making do as best I can.)

If you can't brook that, it's no problem for me. You are your own pope, and you define your own orthodoxy -- you are a canon unto yourself.

Hm, I wonder where I've heard this before? Oh, that's right: from Roman Catholic critics of the Protestant position on sola scriptura.

But I thought Touchstone was a Protestant?

Ah, yes he is! As he says here:

And just so we're clear, I'm not a Catholic, or an Eastern Orthodox. I'm a Protestant, which makes me a pope unto myself just like you. I am the top-most earthly authority on what the Bible says to me. I can delegate whatever interepretational responsibilites to whatever theologians, denominations or snake oil salesman apologists I'd like, but it's still delegation. I begin with the authority, and ultimately retain it; if I don't think denomination XYZ is "rightly exegeting", I look elsewhere for "right exegesis", asserting myself as the final earthly authority on what Scripture says.

So if Touchstone is his own pope, and if what the Bible teaches is adjudicated at the court of Touchstone, then ultimately Touchstone sits in judgment over Scripture itself. Welcome to sola Touchstonia! All hail Pope Touchstone! He is Touchstone, and on this rock, Christ will build his church! Touchstone finally lives up to his name.

Hey, but don't think I'm somehow knocking him. I mean, judging by Touchstone's own standard (there is no other!), at least sola Touchstonia has the merit of being more post-modern (it's all about Touchstone) than Touchstone's previous position, that is, when he was espousing sola ecclesia:

It [doctrine] isn't orthodox because of it's [sic] age or historical status, but, as I've [Touchstone] said several times now, because it represents the formal consensus of the catholic episcopate.

A Friendly Critique of the Cameron and Comfort vs. Rational Responders Debate Part I

INTRODUCTION

Both pop-evangelical culture and the skeptical internet community are discussing the recent debate held between participants Ray Comfort and Kirk Cameron versus “Kelly” and “Brian Sapient” of the Rational Response Squad. As of today (5-12-07), no comments have been offered regarding the debate from the ministry of Comfort and Cameron, but the Rational Responders have proclaimed that they believe themselves have been victorious over Christian Theism. We will get to the issue of their supposed “victory” in light of Comfort and Cameron’s performance later in this series, but it is more imperative that we first begin by turning our attention to something that Cameron and Comfort said before the debate,

"Perhaps you think that anyone who says he can prove the existence of God is a dreamer . . . we can prove that God exists, scientifically, absolutely, without mentioning faith or even the Bible,” said Comfort and Cameron. “Do you find that hard to believe? Then watch the debate.”

I already commented on this statement two weeks before the debate occurred and so what is said here will be somewhat re-worked material with the necessary post-debate commentary and observations. It is important at the outset of this critique to provide a disclaimer stating that I have no personal angst against Ray Comfort, Kirk Cameron, and The Way of the Master ministries. Instead, I and others in our church body have benefited from their respective ministries in the past and truly appreciate their efforts at building the Kingdom of God through the use and application of law in evangelism. However, although I truly appreciate their ministries, it is imperative that we provide an examination of (I) their proposed apologetic methodology and then (II) provide a helpful criticism regarding their use of classical apologetic argumentation in light of various challenges presented to them by the Rational Responders.

I. Examining a Proposed and Flawed Apologetic Methodology

Problem # 1: We do not prove the existence of the God of Christianity by first giving up Christianity.

Again, let me review what Comfort and Cameron have said,

"Perhaps you think that anyone who says he can prove the existence of God is a dreamer . . . we can prove that God exists, scientifically, absolutely, without mentioning faith or even the Bible,” said Comfort and Cameron . . . .” [1] [Bolded emphasis mine]

For Comfort and Cameron to declare that they intended to employ this type of apologetic method is irreverent, dishonoring to Christ and is downright sinful. Greg Bahnsen rightly said,

“Neutrality in scholarship, apologetics, or schooling is both impossible and immoral. No man can serve two masters, and thus one must choose to ground his intellectual efforts in Christ or in his own autonomous reason; there is no middle ground between these two authorities. Neutrality would erase the distinctiveness of the Christian position and muffle the antithesis between godly and ungodly thinking. A Christian who strives to be neutral not only denies the Lordship of Christ in knowledge and loses his solid ground in reasoning, he also unwittingly endorses assumptions which are hostile to his faith.”[2]

1. As mentioned with Dr. Bahnsen’s comment above, the apologetic methodology Comfort and Cameron employed is sinful because (1) it assumes that unbelievers have the ability to correctly examine, interpret, and come to the proper conclusions about hard evidence apart from special revelation, thus giving heed to their sinful autonomy versus calling them to repentance for it. (2) They verbally announced that they would defend the existence of “God” without any mention of “faith or even the Bible”,[3] and as a result, one of the traditional arguments that they sought to use (i.e., the teleological argument per the “Portrait assumes a painter” argument by Comfort) actually backfired on them somewhat as seen in Sapient’s rebuttal period. The classical arguments for the existence of God, in their traditional form, do not defend the existence of the Christian God but only an extremely nebulous concept of a “god” that could just as well be Zoroaster, Zeus, Allah, or one of the infinite numbers of supposed gods presupposed by the theosis doctrine of Mormonism. Worse yet, this “god” wouldn’t have to necessarily be theistic, especially since Comfort and Cameron would not have been able to make any reference to their “faith”, had they adhered to their original debate challenge. Such a god(s) could merely be super-intelligent extraterrestrials that created advanced life and seeded the planet earth in the distant past. As a result, had they adhered to a purely evidential-scientific apologetic approach in this debate (which they did not) they would have willingly avoided (per their own words) doing the very thing that they as Christians are commanded to do, namely, to “earnestly contend for the faith (versus giving it up) once for all handed down to the saints” (Jude 3), and “sanctify Christ as Lord in your hearts”. However, as Cornelius Van Til has noted, the defense of the Christian worldview must necessarily have as its foundation the self-attesting Christ of Scripture. There is simply no other way of appropriately and biblically providing a rationale for the hope that abides in you (Col. 2:3; 1 Peter 3:15).

There was much ado in this debate about appealing to general revelation to prove the existence of God, (i.e., where there is a painting there must be a painter), but such a generic and non-specific approach fails both biblically and philosophically.

2. Biblically: General revelation (as per Romans 1) does not prove the existence of some nebulous concept of a god, but proves that the ton theon (“the God” cf. Rom. 1:21 in Greek) of Scripture exists and that the unbeliever already intuitively knows that He exists and thus needs no “proving” as it were:

Romans 1:19-21 because that which is known about God is evident within them; for God made it evident to them. ²⁰ For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made, so that they are without excuse. ²¹ For even though they knew God, they did not honor Him as God or give thanks, but they became futile in their speculations, and their foolish heart was darkened..

Paul says that the creation reveals God’s existence, eternal power, and divine nature, and wrath against suppressors of said truth (Romans 1:18-20). His primary point in Romans 1 is not that unbelievers are ignorant of God’s existence and simply need to be educated via the traditional proofs and historical evidences, but that unbelievers do already in fact know about God and will intuitively recognize His creative power in nature. However, as God-haters, they will sinfully suppress the truth and knowledge that they already have about Him and as a result, they will be judged for it, regardless of their lack of special revelation. Of course, general revelation does not show man the way of salvation, the Trinitarian nature of God, and other necessary doctrinal truths, but it does show the Christian that every unbeliever has enough knowledge to damn him, but not always enough to save him, hence the need for missionaries (Rom. 10:14-17).

And so, Paul’s commentary in Romans 1:18-22 shows that all unbelievers know intuitively that God exists and that this knowledge is sufficient in and of itself to condemn them to hell. The knowledge that they possess intuitively consists in His wondrous power in creation and their moral responsibility to Him (Rom. 1:19-21). The strange theories that they concoct about the origin of the universe and man serves as further corroborating evidence that they are truth suppressors hell-bent on escaping their own moral culpability (Rom. 1:22-23). Comfort and Cameron already know this and have spoken and written about it. However, for them to proposition for a debate by giving the atheist the very thing that the word of God denies him (namely, autonomous neutrality) is to deny what Paul clearly teaches about unbelievers as outlined in Romans chapter 1.

In part II, I will provide some helpful, constructive criticism regarding the debate proper, so that we can learn how not to do apologetics.

---

[1] http://www.cbn.com/cbnnews/152669.aspx

[2] Greg Bahnsen, Always Ready: Directions for Defending the Faith, (Nagadoches, TX, 1996), 51.

[3] http://www.cbn.com/cbnnews/152669.aspx

Arkeology 101

Aside from the creation account, the flood account is the event in Scripture most often targeted for scientific objections. Normally, this all-out assault isn’t limited to the flood account, but is bound up with a more general offensive directed at flood geology. What are we to make of this?

1.Local or global?

For some reason, critics direct most of their fire at the specter of a global flood. Why is that?

i) Some or many come out of a fundamentalist background. So this is their point of reference.

ii) To their own way of thinking, a global flood presents an easier target.

iii) Perhaps they also feel that young-earth creationism represents a more potent social force or political threat than old-earth creationism or theistic evolution—although, with the rise of the ID movement—any level of religiosity is coming under attack.

2. Flood or flood geology?

For some reason, those who criticize the flood account generally bundle their attack on the flood with a larger attack on flood geology. Why is that?

i) They think it’s easier to attack the flood by linking it to flood geology.

ii) Since they regard both the flood and flood geology as equally erroneous, they don’t bother to distinguish their objections.

But (1)-(2) need to be challenged.

i) As a matter of intellectual honesty, if you claim to be disproving the Bible, or some portion thereof, then the onus is on you come up with your own interpretation of Scripture. What is the best interpretation of the Biblical account?

You cannot merely depend on the interpretation offered by the opposing side, for their position is only as good as their interpretation. Even if you succeeded in disproving their position, that would not, of itself, disprove the Bible. In order to show that the Bible is incorrect, you would first need to show that their interpretation is correct, and then show that the Bible, correctly interpreted (by them), is incorrect.

ii) Likewise, disproving flood geology is not the same thing as disproving the flood. Flood geology is an exegetical and scientific construct. It intersects with Scripture, but it’s not restricted to the witness of Scripture. Hence, even if you succeeded in disproving flood geology (and there’s more than one version), that would not, of itself, disprove the Bible. To pull that off, you would have to show that you are disproving those elements of flood geology which are grounded in the correct interpretation of Scripture. Critics of the flood take far too many shortcuts.

3.Bronze Age literature.

People who disbelieve the flood tell us that this account is bound to be unscientific because it’s reported in bronze-age literature. It was written by authors or redactors who didn’t know any better.

And yet, when they mount an attack on the flood account, or flood geology, they typically construe the exegetical data in a highly anachronistic fashion. What are the standard arguments for the global interpretation? There are two basic lines of evidence:

i) The flood account employs universal quantifiers (“every,” “all”) with certain nouns.

a) At this point, the unconscious instinct of a contemporary reader is to transfer these expressions to his modern image of the world. But there’s nothing literal about that interpretation. For the reader isn’t really taking these expressions at face-value. Rather, he takes the quantifiers literally, yet when he transfers them to his own mental picture of the world, what he ends up with is not a literal interpretation of the text, but a hybrid, acontextual interpretation in which his own picture of the world supplies the object. He’s kept the quantifiers intact, but swapped in a different referent.

If, however, you’re going to take a bronze age approach, then you need to ask yourself what the narrative landmarks would conjure up to the original audience. What was their internal map? How big did they think the world was?

Indeed, we have some examples of ANE cartography, such as the Mappa Mundi and the Sargon Geography. Cf. W. Horowitz, Mesopotamian Geography (Eisenbrauns 1998).

Once you make allowance for the perspectival difference between them and us, then the descriptions could be global from the viewpoint of the original audience, but local from the viewpoint of the modern audience.

b) And this would have other consequences, regarding the number and variety of animals represented on the ark, since they would sample the implied geography of the implied reader, and not the space age generation.

Remember, the unbeliever keeps telling us that Genesis is bronze-age literature. And that, in turn, commits him to ANE cartography, not satellite cartography.

If this is indeed taken to reflect the narrative viewpoint of the flood account, then that alone, at one stroke, undercuts almost all of the stock objections to the feasibility of the account. How did the animals migrate from all over the world? How did they disperse? How were they adapted to the diet and climate aboard the ark? How did they all fit into the ark? How could they be loaded in time? How did eight passengers care for so many animals? How did they multiply and diversify so soon after the flood? What did they eat after the flood? How did marine and freshwater species survive the mixing of seawater and freshwater? How did plants survive? Where did all the water come from? Where did it go? How does a global flood account for various geological phenomena around the world?

I’m not claiming that flood geology can’t answer these questions. I’m only addressing the unbeliever on his own grounds. He is trying to saddle the flood account with a string of complications that do not, in fact, derive from his own view of Genesis. To the contrary, he is holding Genesis to an anachronistic outlook which he has superimposed on the text, despite his stated view that this is bronze-age literature.

And even from a believer’s standpoint, the text would be heard by bronze-age ears.

c) I’d add that while the flood account employs universal expressions, it obviously doesn’t intend these expressions to be taken without any limitation whatsoever, for the same account specifically exempts the occupants on the ark. So these expressions were never meant to be all-encompassing. Their force is explicitly moderated by paradigmatic exception of the ark itself.

d) Unbelievers also think that Scripture uses hyperbolic language from time to time. So when do they take the language literally here, but hyperbolic elsewhere?

ii) Another argument involves an inference from the size of the ark, as well as the depth and duration of the flood. Unlike (i), this isn’t a narrative assertion regarding the extent of the flood, be it local or global, but a possible implication. Yet there are some problems with this inference, especially from an unbeliever’s vantage-point.

a) For some thing, the unbeliever also thinks that Scripture assumes a flat-earth perspective. Indeed, the unbeliever will castigate the flood geologist for abandoning his literalism at this juncture.

I’ve discussed what is wrong with this interpretation on more than one occasion, so I won’t repeat myself here, but suppose, for the sake of argument, that the flood account is written from a flat-earth perspective. If so, then how high could the floodwaters rise or remain? Even if the world is flat, it’s not a fish tank. There are no walls to hold the water in. To the contrary, if the earth were flat, the overflowing water would run off the edge of the earth. It is therefore quite inconsistent, on the one hand, to attribute a flat earth perspective to the narrative, and then, on the other hand, to go on and on about the absurdities involved with floodwaters overtopping Mt. Everest.

b) I’d add that whether or not the duration of the flood is consistent with a local or global flood depends, in part, on what flood mechanism we postulate. The Bible gives two sources: one from the top down, and the other from the bottom up. Rainwater is one source, but the other has reference to some vaguely stated geological phenomenon (“the fountains of the deep”).

Because this reference is so unspecific, and even poetic, it leaves the flood geologist with a pretty free hand regarding what flood mechanism he should postulate.

Depending on what model you use, it would be possible to have a local flood of indefinite duration by simply damming the water supply. Mountains and hills function as natural dikes.

c) As to the ark, it’s true that Noah’s ark, or at least an ark of that size, is unnecessary in case of global flooding. But that’s a rather superficial objection. After all, a global flood is equally unnecessary. God could kill just as many men and animals without resorting to a worldwide deluge. And he could spare a remnant without resorting to an ark.

Many things in Scripture are strictly unnecessary. The kosher laws go well beyond what is necessary. But many things in Scripture have a symbolic value. Why did God bring the flood rather than some other medium of judgment? Because that medium signified a reversal of the creative process: a reversion to the formless void.

The triple-decker design is emblematic of the cosmic temple. So the design is both functional and figural. There is also septunarian numerology in play (e.g. seven days, seven animals).

iii) A local flood would also explain why the ark landed in the Ararat range (Gen 8:4). In a worldwide flood, the ark could have landed in any mountain range around the world. So why did it come down in upper Mesopotamia?

The contextual reason is that that garden of Eden was located somewhere in Mesopotamia (Gen 2:10-14). And the human race was still confined to this general region when the flood struck. So that is where the ark was launched. And that was the vicinity of the flooded region.