Rauser's spooftexting

According to Randal Rauser:

Many Christians assume that God loves all people. This is hardly surprising since scripture declares that God loves all creation (John 3:16-17) and desires to see all people saved (1 Tim.2:4; 2 Pe.3:9).

i) Since Rauser denies the inerrancy of Scripture, why is he prooftexting his position? According to him, the Bible frequently misrepresents God’s character. Frequently misattributes actions to God. So even if we grant his interpretation, what presumption is there that these passages accurately reflect God’s true intentions?

ii) How does Jn 3:16 teach the omnibenevolence of God? Isn’t that promise restricted to believers only–a rather small subset of humanity at large?

iii) Apropos (ii), why would an omnibenevolent God even require faith? If he were really omnibenevolent, wouldn’t he create a physically pleasant afterlife for unbelievers? Why could they not spend eternity on a tropical paradise, forever ignoring God–if they so choose?

iv) Is kosmos synonymous with “creation” in Jn 3:16-17? No. As one commentator explains:

Some argue that the term ‘world’ here simply has neutral connotations—the created human world. But the characteristic use of ‘the world’ (ho kosmos) elsewhere in the narrative is with negative overtones—the world in its alienation from and hostility to its creator’s purposes. It makes better sense in a soteriological context to see the latter notion as in view. God loves that which has become hostile to God. The force is not, then, that the world is so vast that it takes a great deal of love to embrace it, but rather that the world has become so alienated from God that it takes an exceedingly great kind of love to love it at all. A. Lincoln, The Gospel According to St. John, 154.

This meaning is attested in standard Greek lexicons, viz. BDAG, EDNT.

iv) 2 Pet 3:9 doesn’t denote all human beings.

God’s patience with his own people delaying the final judgment to give them the opportunity of repentance, provides at least a partial answer to the problem of eschatological delay…The author remains close to his Jewish source, for in Jewish though it was usually for the sake of the repentance of his own people that God delayed judgment. R. Bauckham, Jude, 2 Peter, 312-13.

v) 1 Tim 2:4 doesn’t denote all human beings:

The purpose of the reference to ‘all people,’ which continues the theme of the universality in this passage, is sometimes misconstrued. The reference is made mainly with the Pauline mission to the Gentiles in mind (v7). But the reason behind Paul’s justification of this universal mission is almost certainly the false teaching, with its Torah-centered approach to life that included either an exclusivist bent or a downplaying of the Gentile mission…Paul’s focus is on building a people of God who incorporate all people regardless of ethnic, social, or economic backgrounds. P. Towner, The Letters to Timothy and Titus, 177-78.

It may be that they [the false teachers] were consumed with genealogies because they restricted salvation along certain ethnic lines (1 Tim 1:4)…When Paul says that God desires all to be saved (1 Tim 2:4), and that Christ was the ransom for all (1 Tim 2:6), he may be responding to some who excluded Gentiles from salvation for genealogical reasons…Titus 2:11 should be interpreted along similar lines…Paul counters Jewish teachers (Tit 1:10,14-15; 3:9) who construct genealogies to exclude some from salvation. T. Schreiner, Paul, Apostle of God’s Glory in Christ, 184-85.

Back to Rauser:

Indeed, the notion that God is loving to all, a doctrine known among theologians by the fancy name “omnibenevolence”, would qualify for many as a basic axiom, a starting point for all further theological reflection.

According to a Catholic philosopher, that’s actually a theological innovation:

http://branemrys.blogspot.com/2011/07/omnibenevolence.html

As such, it may be surprising to discover that theologians within the Calvinist tradition reject the doctrine of divine omnibenevolence.

If Rauser were intellectually serious, he’d interact with Paul Helm’s essay “Can God Love the World?” in chap. 8 of Nothing Greater, Nothing Better.

The other position stakes out a more unambiguous position by declaring without qualification that God does not love those he does not save; indeed, he hates them.

The love/hate lingo is a carryover from Mal 1:2-3. It’s a Hebrew idiom for select/reject. A hyperbolic rhetorical contrast.

And why does he hate them? I will argue in a subsequent post that the reasons are arbitrary. That is, he could just as easily have loved those he hates and hated those he loves as hated those he hates and loved those he loves. That, I would submit, is a deeply disturbing implication, both theologically and pastorally.

An alternate history doesn’t have the same set of people. An alternate history has different genealogies as well as different tradeoffs.  

Hubner's dissimulation

Jamin Hubner has done a couple of recent posts. Among other things, he says:

But seriously, can you imagine if our judgments on people’s character and the reliability of their work was based solely on the reading of other people‘s opinions of them?...it. I don’t have to consult secondary sources on the work since I’m one to produce them.

That's simply a lie–which he keeps repeating ad nauseam. In addition to book reviews I've also cited Burge's op-ed pieces in Sojourners. That's Burge in his own words. And this is in the public domain:

http://sojo.net/biography/24181/blog

No matter who or what group uses a particular source, that does not determine its truthfulness. The truth is true whether its used or abused, understood or misunderstood, popular or unpopular, etc.

i) That's fine if you already know that your source is truthful. But we generally turn to sources when we lack firsthand knowledge of the event. So the source is our source of information. In that case it would be credulous not to consider the quality of the source.

ii) A reporter's preexisting reputation is certainly germane to evaluating his credibility. Take Joseph Smith. The fact that he had a preexisting reputation as a charlatan (e.g. dabbled in the occult) rightly figures in how we evaluate his testimony.

We have to ask in situations like these: how does the author intend the source to be used? Since Tur (and Hays, who made the original accusation about Burge’s work being pro-Hamas) have not even read the original source themselves, they are incapable of even knowing what the author’s intention really is.

That's the fallacy of question-framing, where you act is if there's only one correct way of broaching the issue. But aside from book reviews, if Burge has also tipped his hand in other sources, you don't have to read his book to know his position. You can just as well get that from other things he's written.

All of this is a distraction from the truth and the main concerns that I’ve tried and contiually try to raise: whether or not “Israel” today is the “Israel” of OT...

A red herring–since I haven't used that argument.

...regardless of its continual cover-up of the ethnic cleansing of Palestine.

Which begs the question.

Moreover, if Israel is engaged in a campaign of “ethic cleaning,” then it’s certainly a very inefficient campaign.

If there is some hidden pro-terrorist agenda behind this Wheaton NT professor’s work that we should know about, then perhaps that should be demonstrated before going any further.

A straw man. Obviously Burge doesn't see it that way. That's the nature of dupery. If you knew you were being duped, you wouldn't be a dupe.

But do any of these “reviews” (which I have looked at) really establish through adequate facts and documentation that this college professor is intentionally helping terrorists (a “shill for Hamas” promoting pro-Hamas “propaganda”) through his work or otherwise?

Notice the equivocation. Burge doesn't regard them as "terrorists," but as victims. He sees their response as self-defense.

Either Jamin is consciously caricaturing the objections or else he's so wrapped up in self-justification that he can't think clearly.

I’ve read the book! I know what’s in it.

And how is his vouching for the book different than a reviewer?

The burden of proof is to demonstrate that so-called pro-Hamas’ propaganda actually is pro-Hamas propaganda – if that’s what all of this is really about. (For me, it’s obviously more than that, esp. since I know that Burge’s assertions can/could have been substantiated by a number of other sources, as Burge says nothing profoundly new in the larger scheme of things.

i) Yes, he can cite other sources. For instance, he recently cited a thesis which contained supporting material like a video of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. Seems to me that's a decidedly suspect source of information.

ii) Conversely, I've cited counterevidence. For instance:

http://www.danielpipes.org/8025/the-year-the-arabs-discovered-palestine

http://www.victorhanson.com/articles/thornton121511PF.html

That’s why I ignored this tangent on sources and sought to address the underlying presuppositions behind Hays’ violent reaction by asking him 3 simple questions, all three of which Hays (to my knowledge) has not to this day answered himself.

Like a lawyer asking "simple" questions.

(Oh, and I did just notice that this ‘Hamas Shill’ and Hamas ‘propagandist’ just wrote a new book endorsed by Craig Blomberg, Marshall, Longenecker and others).

So he's saying we should judge a book by hearsay?

Jamin continues to suffer from lack of responsible mentoring.

Sloppy philosophers

Eric Reitan says:

Tuesday, December 20, 2011 at 6:00pm

Here is, for me, the big problem: God’s preordaining some sinners for reprobation is supposed to reflect God’s justice, which tempers His mercy and love (or the other way around?). The idea is that sin is such an intolerable affront to God’s holiness and majesty that divine justice demands that it be repudiated. And so God casts some sinners away forever as a display of His just wrath against sin, even as he elects others for salvation to display His mercy and benevolence.

 

The problem is this: In casting sinners away from His presence, He casts them away from the only thing that (according to the very theology underlying this theory) can overcome sin. Thus, God guarantees that this intolerable affront to His majest continues eternally in the souls of the damned. In short, the view essentially amounts to this: sin is so terrible that God decisively acts to guarantee that this intolerable thing continue in all its intolerability forever and ever. “What you’re doing is so inconceivably unacceptable that I am going to make absolutely sure that there is no way for you to ever stop doing it!”

 

And making sure that this intolerable affront to His holiness never stops is supposed to be God’s justifying reason for not electing all, and so for truncating the scope of his benevolence? Is that a coherent understanding of divine justice?

 

I think a variant of this problem obtains not only for Calvinists, but for any adherents to that understanding of hell according to which the God-justifying purpose for damnation is to justly punish sin. It is not a problem for those understandings of hell more like C.S. Lewis’s, in which damnation is a regrettable outcome of divine respect for the free choices of rational creatures.

 

But if I go on, I’ll end up summarizing John’s and my entire book in a blog comment, and then no one will buy it even when it comes out in the affordable paperback version…

http://randalrauser.com/2011/12/does-god-hate-those-he-does-not-save/

i) First off, I’d like to thank Reitan for sparing us the need to read his book. Given the quality of his summarized argument, it would be poor stewardship of time and money to invest in the book.

ii) I’d also like to make a general observation: in theory, philosophers ought to be more logical than folks who lack formal training in philosophy. A large part of philosophy involves spotting fallacious arguments.

Yet, in practice, philosophers frequently use their training to retroactively justify their prejudice. This is often the case in political philosophy, but it spills over into other branches. They use their training to rationalize positions they didn’t arrive at rationally. Reason in the service of emotion.

iii) As for Reitan’s argument (such as it is), he tries to contrive an artificial dilemma by casting the issue in terms of tolerance. As he frames it, the Calvinist God tolerates the intolerable. Hence, Reformed theism is self-contradictory.

iv) But he’s burning a straw man. In Calvinism, “sin” is not “intolerable” to God. “Sinners” are not intolerable to God.

What’s “intolerable” (if you wish to put it that way, which may not be the best way to put it) isn’t sin, but injustice. Isn’t sin, but allowing sin to go unpunished. What’s “unacceptable” isn’t the existence of sinners, but justice denied. Sooner or later, the scales of justice must be righted.

It not a question of “overcoming” sin, but exposing sin for what it is, then meting out a suitable punishment. That, in turn, reveals the moral character of evil–for the punishment fits the crime.

v) Put another way, in Reformed theodicy, evil is “acceptable” to God as a means, but not as an end. Evil has an instrumental value in God’s plan.

Something can be evil in its own right, but also be a source of good. The Crucifixion is a paradigm-example.

vi) Finally, Reitan is a universalist, to that’s his underlying objection to Calvinism.

Did Matthew And Luke Think They Were Writing History?

Amy-Jill Levine recently wrote an editorial about Christmas for the Washington Post. She makes no effort to interact with the counterarguments to her position. Her article is largely about the allegedly unhistorical genre of the infancy narratives. See my post on that subject here.

Why does a New Testament scholar like Levine put forward a view that's so contrary to the historical evidence? And why is the public so easily misled by arguments like Levine's and so poorly prepared to argue against her position?

"I'm a Mormon" campaign

http://blogs.standard.net/the-political-surf/2011/10/11/100-plus-years-ago-charles-w-penrose-also-explained-why-he-is-a-mormon/

The “Three Wise Men” or Magi of Matthew 2:1-6

http://www.craigkeener.com/the-three-wise-men-or-magi-of-matthew-21-6/

Rivers of Living Water in John 7:37-38

http://www.craigkeener.com/rivers-of-living-water-in-john-737-38/

Historical Facts About the Birth of Jesus — Luke 2:1-14

http://www.craigkeener.com/historical-facts-about-the-birth-of-jesus-—-luke-21-14/

On the eve of Iowa

I’ve said a lot about the individual candidates. Let’s take stock one more time.

Gingrich

Like Data and Lore, there are two of him: good Gingrich and bad Gingrich. Like The Three Faces of Eve, you never know which personality will emerge.

Good Gingrich is the iconoclast who challenges the conventional wisdom. Who questions a false premise. Who shakes up the establishment. Examples of good Gingrich are his positions on the federal judiciary and the so-called Palestinians.

Bad Gingrich is the pundit who contradicts himself because he talks too much, because he’s seduced by academic fads, because he lacks an ideological center. The political precession of the equinoxes.

Perry

I think Perry has good instincts. I think he’d be better than Romney. But on national and international issues, he comes across as a psychic or faith-healer who lost his earpiece. That blank look when he can't hear the backstage advisor whispering his cues.

Romney

Romney and Gingrich are a study in contrasts. Gingrich has a disturbing capacity to self-destruct.

But I prefer him to Romney. He had more of a conservative core than Romney–who has none.

Romney is less likely than Gingrich to implode. That’s both a strength and a weakness. He’s timid, cautious. Plays it safe.

The downside of being risk-averse is that he doesn’t generate any excitement. He’s so predictable and scripted. It’s like the difference between live TV (where anything can happen), and prerecorded TV–which edits out the flubs.

Romney would handle himself well in a debate with Obama. Smooth, affable, unflappable.

But is that enough? Wouldn’t that makes it sound like a discussion between two reasonable men? We need a candidate who can draw blood in a debate with Obama.

Enter Gingrich. Gingrich is scrappy. A street-fighter. He’d try to destroy Obama in debate. If he succeeded (and he has the ability to pull it off), Obama would stagger out of the debate like a battered boxer. I think that would be far more damaging to Obama’s image than a gentlemanly debate between Obama and Romney.

Ron Paul

I actually like some of his proposals. For instance, he wants to ax the departments of energy, housing and urban development, commerce, interior, and education. He also wants to let young workers opt out of Social Security and shift Medicaid and Food Stamps to states in the form of block grants.

Great ideas!

But therein lies the problem. Those actions require Congressional authorization. He’s been serving in Congress on-and-off since the mid-70s. If these proposals were doable, why hasn’t he done it by now?

Even when he’s right, he’s ineffectual. If all I cared about was ideological purity, Bachmann would be preferable to Ron.

Santorum

He’s my favorite candidate. I do think he needs to recalibrate his position on foreign policy. Nation-building was a bust. You can’t keep pouring resources down a bottomless drain. You need to show tangible results. Measurable progress.

The imperial judiciary

http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/print/286355

Want Growth? Try Stable Tax Policy

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204791104577110152436029914.html

The Lord of Non-Contradiction: An Argument for God from Logic

http://www.proginosko.com/docs/The_Lord_of_Non-Contradiction.pdf

Ron Paul is a CIA plant!

Until today I was planning to vote for Ron Paul, cuz he’s the only real conservative in the race, you know. He’s the true Constitutionalist. The true Federalist.

But then I made a shocking discovery. Recently, Ron Paul let slip his true, covert identity:

There's been a coup, have you heard? It's the CIA coup. The CIA runs everything, they run the military. They're the ones who are over there lobbing missiles and bombs on countries. ... And of course the CIA is every bit as secretive as the Federal Reserve. ... And yet think of the harm they have done since they were established [after] World War II. They are a government unto themselves. They're in businesses, in drug businesses, they take out dictators ... We need to take out the CIA.

http://www.lewrockwell.com/paul/paul632.html

That’s right–Ron Paul is a stoolpigeon for the CIA. If the CIA runs everything, after staging a coup d’etat, then that must mean the CIA put him up to it. His presidential campaign is just a front organization, run out of Langley. And, of course, Gen. Petraeus is the current DCI. Connect the dots.

As you can imagine, this was very disillusioning to me. Ron Paul was my last best hope, but now I learn he’s an apparatchik who takes his marching orders from Gen. Petraeus. 

I'd like to say more, but as I peer out the window I see a military caravan approaching my house. Apache choppers are hovering overhead. 

Ron Paul's chimerical federalism

Ron Paul thinks social issues should the province of the states rather than the federal gov’t. Yet this is obviously nearsighted. What it overlooks is the fact that, as things currently stand, a red state can only be as red as a federal judge with blue state values will allow it to be. Moving from Massachusetts to Texas is ultimately no escape. As long as the federal judiciary has the final say on social policy, federalism is a dead letter.

He’d like to curtail the jurisdiction of the federal judiciary in some matters, yet–needless to say–any law curtailing the jurisdiction of the courts would itself be subject to judicial review. You don’t have to be as bright as a tree full of owls to figure that out. It happens on a regular basis. What Congress proposes, SCOTUS disposes. How long does it take a 12-term Congressman to pick up on that?

In theory, there are at least two ways to readdress that problem. One is to challenge the principle of judicial review. Due to institutional inertia, this has become an unquestioned axiom, yet the question can always be reopened. For instance:

http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/print/229672

http://www.firstthings.com/article/2008/11/001-how-the-court-became-supreme-41

http://www.firstthings.com/article/2007/01/marshall-marbury-and-judicial-supremacy-11

Another alternative is Gingrich’s “Jeffersonian” proposal:

http://www.newt.org/sites/newt.org/files/Courts.pdf

i) Now, I’m not a legal expert, so I don’t necessarily vouch for this strategy. My point is simply that people tend to take the status quo for granted. But that’s something we should be prepared to reexamine.

ii) Some critics act as if this were a fascist coup d’etat. But to my knowledge, Gingrich is not suggesting that the President exercise dictatorial power over the judiciary. Rather, he’s suggesting that Congress pass a law.

iii) The federal judiciary is already politicized. Unfortunately, the federal judiciary has all the benefits of the two elective branches without the accountability. But as long as the judiciary is politicized, why should it be exempt from the same level of scrutiny and accountability as the Executive and the Legislative branches?

iv) State judges are elected officials. They have to face the voters. So there’s no antecedent reason why the federal judiciary should be insulated from the will of the electorate, expressed through the two representative branches of government. If that’s not incompatible with the independence of state judiciaries, why is that incompatible with the independence of the federal judiciary?

v) Some critics are also aghast at the suggestion that judges should have to explain their decisions. Why not? If their decisions are defensible, why shouldn’t they be prepared to defend them?

A basic problem with judicial elites, like any elites, is that they rarely have to play by the same rules as they impose on others.  If they were forced to play by the same rules, it would be a disincentive to their going rogue.

v) One potential objection is that this tactic cuts both ways. Depending on whose in power, both Democrats and Republicans can do it. However, I don’t think that’s a very formidable objection:

vi) To begin with, so what if Scalia or Roberts or Alito had to go before Congress and explain their legal opinion on a particular case? Aren’t they more than capable of arguing for their interpretation? And it would be good for the general public to hear how fine conservative legal minds arrive at their position.

Conversely, if Judge John Jones had to explain his reasoning in the Dover case (to take one example), that would expose the ugly underbelly of judicial activism.

vii) Likewise, the reason that liberals take refuge in the courts is because their social engineering schemes lack sufficient popular support to get through Congress. So I don’t assume that if Republicans could abolish renegade courts, Democrats would have the same success. If liberal initiatives were that popular to begin with, they wouldn’t need judicial activism in the first place.

An Interview With Craig Keener On Miracles

Michael Brown just interviewed Craig Keener on his recent book about the historicity of miracles.

NEWT FOR SCOTUS?

http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2011/12/newt-for-scotus.php

Gone to their reward

Doug Wilson on what an atheistic universe entails.

For Wilson's thoughts on Hitchens, see this post, which in addition refers back to his Christianity Today post.

BTW, it looks like his "Collision" debate with Hitchens is available on YouTube: The "Collision" documentary is available to watch on YouTube:

The Inspiration and Authority of Scripture

http://davidgpeterson.com/biblical-theology/the-inspiration-and-authority-of-scripture/

Hebrews and Assurance

http://davidgpeterson.com/hebrews/hebrews-and-assurance/

The Sufficiency of Scripture

http://davidgpeterson.com/biblical-theology/the-sufficiency-of-scripture/

Fireproofing Roger Olson

Recently I laid down some rules of thumb by which I will decide which reader comments I will post and which I will not. I will not post comments by persons who come here only to argue, heckle or try to embarrass me (or someone else). This is a forum for dialogue. I will never post comments that engage in ridicule or intentional misrepresentation of others’ views.

 

Fortunately, following those rules of thumb has worked to calm things down quite a bit. Some of the more aggressive Calvinists who came here only to heckle me or insist that I respond to a certain critic, etc., have gone away after I have declined to post their comments. For the most part, the discussion here has improved dramatically.

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/rogereolson/2011/12/a-quick-comment-about-discussion-here/

In the interests of Christian brotherhood, I’d like to take up a collection for Roger Olson. He can’t stand the heat. He suffers from third-degree burns whenever Calvinists mount arguments against his Arminian objections to Reformed theology.

So let’s pool our resources to buy him a fireman’s uniform. Asbestos lined jacket. Fire-resistant boots, gloves, and helmet. 

Ron Paul on Israel

http://washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/columnists/2011/12/dont-support-ron-paul-just-send-message/2003776

Is Craig a fideist?

William Lane Craig’s recent answer to a question is getting some buzz in the blogosphere:

http://www.reasonablefaith.org/site/PageServer?pagename=q_and_a

His answer raises the issue of whether he’s a fideist. On the face of it, it seems absurd to suggest that Craig is a fideist. Few men have done as much or more to argue for their faith.

Still, a hostile critic might say that’s deceptive. In his heart of hearts, Craig is a fideist who merely exploits reason and evidence to rationalize his fideism, to make his fideism more outwardly respectable, to snare unsuspecting converts. So it’s just a charade or calculated ploy.

Of course, that’s the least charitable interpretation of his motives. In this post I’m less concerned with dissecting Craig’s position than addressing the issue at a more general level.

One way of testing a position is to assume it’s true for the sake of argument, then consider what the evidence would look like in that event. If true, what does the position entail? If true, what’s consistent or inconsistent with that position?

A fair-minded atheist should conduct that exercise. If he refuses, then he’s not a fair-minded atheist.

Suppose you’re an atheist. You don’t believe in the Holy Spirit. Still, in order to evaluate Craig’s claim, you should grant his premise for the sake of argument and then consider the consequences of that postulate.

The Holy Spirit is a person of the Godhead. Omniscient, omnipotent, and so on.

If the Holy Spirit exists, is he able to instill in Christians an unfalsifiable faith in Christianity? Can the Holy Spirit create that mental state in Christians? Off-hand, I can’t think of any antecedent objection to that possibility.

Assuming that he could do that, would he do that? Beyond the abstract possibility, is that a plausible suggestion–given the premise?

Well, most Christians in church history don’t have access to reams of corroborative evidence. Likewise, most Christians in church history don’t have the aptitude to formulate rigorous arguments for the faith. So it’s not improbable that if the Holy Spirit exists, he’d give Christians a degree of conviction that’s not dependent on their brilliance or erudition.

In order to reject that appeal, an atheist would have to disprove the existence of the Holy Spirit, or demonstrate that his existence is unlikely. So an atheist can’t justifiably dismiss Craig’s appeal to the self-authenticating witness of the Spirit out-of-hand. He’d have to go back a step and successfully challenge the operating premise. For unless he knows or has good reason to believe there is no Holy Spirit, then he can’t presume that Craig’s appeal special pleading.

Gingrich’s Past, Our Future

http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/print/286226

Christmas And Immature Liberal Faith

James McGrath writes:

Groothuis on god Is Not Great

http://www.equip.org/articles/god-is-not-great-how-religion-poisons-everything

Death of a Wasted Wordsmith

http://lewrockwell.com/north/north1074.html

Bad company corrupts good morals

http://www.weeklystandard.com/print/articles/company-ron-paul-keeps_613474.html

Libertarian Views Trump His Moral Compass

http://www.weeklystandard.com/print/blogs/iowa-social-conservative-leader-ron-paul-libertarian-views-trump-his-moral-compass_613617.html

No Better Place

http://online.wsj.com/article/best_of_the_web_today.html

Some Gingrich pros and cons

http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/print/286053

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/gingrichs-abortion-contortions/2011/12/19/gIQAcYdQ4O_print.html

God is great

In the wake of Hitchens' death, here's my old review of god is not Great:

http://web.archive.org/web/20080508083824/http://www.chalcedon.edu/articles/article.php?ArticleID=2751

http://www.thephora.net/forum/archive/index.php/t-27384.html

Rejoicing over the death of the wicked

http://enslavedbygrace.com/?p=49

Type 1 atheism

The Type 1 atheist—undoubtedly in the majority these days—takes his inspiration from science and considers himself to be “wised up.” He “sees through” the traditional idealistic teachings of religion, and believes that modern science has proven that human beings are “nothing but” animals with hard-wired synapses put in place by selfish genes, all of which is at bottom just molecules—or atoms, or quarks, or strings, or what have you—in motion.

 

No soul. No free will. No objective standards of right and wrong. Just a bunch of pitiless particles vibrating pointlessly in the primal quantum field.

 

That’s it. That’s what human being really are, according to the Type 1 atheist. And because traditional religion teaches something like the opposite of this—that human beings have a soul (or spirit) endowed with reason, a conscience, and free will, all responsive to objective standards of right and wrong—the Type 1 atheist feels it is his duty to oppose religion in the name of defending the “truth” about human nature.

http://www.thebestschools.org/bestschoolsblog/2011/12/07/kinds-atheists/ 

Peter's denials

http://thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/tgc/2011/12/13/you-asked-are-the-differing-narratives-of-peters-denials-reconcilable/

Denise Sproul

Denise Sproul died today from a recurrence of Acute Myeloid Leukemia. R.C. Sproul Jr. posted this on Facebook:

Why Isn't Messianic Prophecy More Detailed?

I just listened to Greg Koukl's interview with Michael Brown regarding Jesus' fulfillment of Messianic prophecy. An archive of the program should be appearing here sometime later this week. The interview is in the third hour of the December 18, 2011 program.

They didn't go into much depth, but a lot of good points were made. Isaiah's Suffering Servant prophecy in Isaiah 52-53 was discussed more than anything else, but some of the prophecies related to Christmas were discussed as well.

Lost Opportunities At Christmas

Steve Hays recently linked to a good post by Ken Samples about reasons to like the Christmas season. I agree with Samples as far as he goes. But I would add some other points that come to mind, particularly as an apologist.

In contexts like evangelism, apologetics, and teaching theology, the Christmas season gives us opportunities we don't often have:

Commander-in-Sheik

http://www.nationalreview.com/blogs/print/286094

Impotent defiance

If Christopher Hitchens died suddenly from a heart attack, no one would give it a second thought. We all know that we’re going to die someday, but with a terminal cancer patient, both the patient and his acquaintances can see it coming more clearly. Marking the days off the calendar. The dying process is accelerated. 

The moment of death is still unpredictable, but we’re living in the presence of death in a way that’s not the case for someone who gradually dies of old age. It has a sense of imminence. Not hypothetical, but palpable.

Normally we don’t know how close someone is to death until it happens. Like a painted wooden fence that may look new and sturdy on the outside, but is riddled with dry rot. Lean into the rotten fence and it snaps beyond repair.

We’re probably the only creatures who can anticipate our own demise. And being a writer, Hitchens chronicled the inevitable in graphic, arresting, excruciating detail. He was almost an observer at his own funeral. It’s a strange sensation to witness your own disintegration. Like a moviegoer who watches a film in which he sees himself murdered.

Both praying and dying have this in common: they testify to how helpless we are to control what most matters to us. To be wholly at the mercy of someone or something else.

I will never forget seeing my father dead. You know it’s bound to happen, but it’s still shocking to see. Like most sons I still remember him when he was young and strong and I was weak and small. Painful to see the man who’d been my protector and provider when I was little become vulnerable, unsure of himself.

You can see fear in the face of the elderly. The loss of control–of mind, body, or both.

Apparently, Hitchens died a defiant atheist. Yet nothing is more pathetic or transparent than impotent defiance. 

"Three Reasons I Love the Christmas Season"

http://reflectionsbyken.wordpress.com/2011/12/13/three-reasons-i-love-the-christmas-season/

Will I miss him?

I’ve been skimming some Christian obits about Christopher Hitchens. Once oft-repeated phrase that I run across is the sentiment that “I will miss him.”

I wonder what they mean by that. Is this just one of those pro forma pleasantries you’re supposed to utter when somebody dies?

What, exactly, will they miss? Are they alluding to his books? How many people care to read Hostage to History: Cyprus from the Ottomans to Kissinger? Or The Curious Case of the Elgin Marbles? Or No One Left to Lie To: The Triangulations of William Jefferson Clinton? Or The Trial of Henry Kissinger? Or The Missionary Position: Mother Teresa in Theory and Practice? Or A Long Short War: The Postponed Liberation of Iraq?

So much of what he wrote is so dated, ephemeral, provincial.

What does it mean to miss someone? Who do we really miss? Who should we really miss?

We can miss friends and family. Those central, defining relationships. People we personally know and care about. People who mean something to us.

We miss them if they die or move away. In the same vein, it’s also possible to miss a pet dog or horse.

At a more trivial level, we can miss performers or entertainers, viz. singers, actors, songwriters. They are strangers in the sense that we don’t know them personally. Yet we may find them amusing or moving or insightful. If you like Johnny Cash, you miss him because he will never write another song, never sing another song.

Then there are people we miss, not so much for themselves, but because they remind us of a certain time of life, or a favorite place. In my father’s old age the phone rang one day. Turned out to be a girl he knew from Yakima High. She rang him up out of the blue. He hadn’t seen her or heard from her since he graduated from high school, around 1935. After 50 plus years of silence, she picks up the phone can calls him. Why?

Well, I don’t know for sure. She didn’t speak to me. But I can guess. She was at that point of life where she felt lonely. Abandoned. Her best years behind her. Far behind.

I don’t know that she missed him. There may well have been other students she was closer to. Maybe they were already dead. Or maybe she called him because she was able to find him in the phonebook. It’s harder to track down a girl you knew in high school because they generally take their husband’s surname when they marry.

I expect she phoned my dad, not because she missed him, but because he reminded her of her long lost youth. Something tangible to cling to as her life was slipping away.

Part of knowing what’s important in life is knowing what you ought to miss. In many cases we miss something we lost. A person. A place. A time of life. Or we may miss a lost opportunity. Something we never had, wish we had, might have had.

Because Hitchens was a writer, he wrote about his terminal disease. Detailed every stage of the process. His impending demise was naturally significant to him. It was his life, his death.

But that doesn’t make it equally important to anybody else. In my lifetime I’ve seen lots of celebrities come and go. Many of them led vapid, frivolous lives. Washed-up celebrities who frittered away their remaining time doing the talk show circuit–like The Steve Allen Show. It’s all so forgettable.

In a sense, Hitchens was more serious, but he lived for the world, and the world will leave him behind. For a few days the expected eulogies will be duly delivered, then the world will move on as if he never existed. He planted a garden in a forest fire. Time’s wildfire burns all our flowers to ashes.

I don’t miss him. That’s not personal–just the opposite. Famous people die every year. So what? Their fame doesn’t make their life and death more important than anyone else.

When I walk through the cemetery, I never see an epitaph that says, “She was valedictorian.” “She won a Golden Globe award.” “He went to Harvard.” "He was CEO of a fortune 500 company.” “He won the Heisman trophy.” “Voted realtor of the year.” "Best-selling author."

No, it’s usually a variant on “Beloved wife and mother.” Not very original. Not very imaginative. But that’s how they’re remembered.

Live for Christ, die in Christ. That’s all that counts. The rest is compost.