Tuesday, August 25, 2015
The Damage Already Done By Trump
Here's an ABC story about how some states have been taking steps to prevent people like Donald Trump from eventually running as a third-party candidate if they want to first appear on the ballot as a Republican. I think it's good for the states to do that sort of thing. But one of the dangers of a campaign like Trump's is that it can so easily be replaced by another movement of a similar nature. The longer Trump is in the race, the more committed some of his supporters are likely to become to notions like the alleged corruption of the Republican leadership and the supposed unacceptability of all of Trump's rivals. Even if Trump were to leave the race without running as a third-party candidate, his campaign has already created an environment that makes it much easier for somebody like Trump, even if not Trump himself, to get significant support as an anti-Republican third-party candidate. Even if that candidate were to get as little as, say, half a percentage point or one percent, that could easily be enough to give the election to the Democrats. Trump's campaign and his irrational supporters have already done a lot of damage, even if Trump were to drop out tomorrow and never run as a third-party candidate. Maybe there won't be a significant anti-Republican third-party candidate in 2016. But the risk should never have been taken by starting or supporting a campaign like Trump's.
The Oedipus effect
I'm going to wade into shark-infested waters of racial politics.
i) The liberal establishment has a vested interest in not solving social dysfunctions. That's a source of power. That's a voting block.
ii) Some Christians, usually white Christians (in my experience) advocate a colorblind policy. I agree with that in one respect. I think the justice system ought to be colorblind: equal justice under the law.
There are, however, people who disagree with that. They believe in distributive justice–a la John Rawls. They think inequality is inherently unjust. Not merely inequality of opportunity, but inequality of outcome. If there's social equality, that must be due to systemic racism.
iii) A common contention is that due to past discrimination, it is necessary to have equalizing policies which offset past inequalities. "Level the playing-field."
One problem I have with that framework is that it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. If a people-group is routinely typecast as the victim, there's a temptation to play the part. It perpetuates a cycle of failure when people perform according to script. The script conditions them to views themselves in self-defeating terms. That, in turn, affects how they behave. They make it come true.
The narrative about slavery and Jim Crow functions like an oracle of doom that predisposes people to be losers, in the self-fulfilling belief the system is stacked against them. The result is fatalistic. We need to break the vicious cycle of that self-fulfilling malediction.
iv) In my somewhat limited experience, black evangelicals diagnose the problem is the same way as secular academics and pundits. That includes the white privilege trope.
But if you insist on casting the issue in terms of privilege, it would be more accurate, and less aggravating, to frame it in terms of social class rather than ethnicity. There are people who come from privileged backgrounds. But that's an essentially socioeconomic category, not a racial or ethnic category.
Now, the socioeconomic category can often overlap with the racial or ethnic category, but that's incidental to the "privileged" component, for anyone of any race or ethnicity can either have a privileged or underprivileged background.
To routinely frame "privilege" in racial or ethnic terms is both inaccurate and counterproductive. Because it's inaccurate, it provokes justified resentment.
If fact, you can turn that around. What about black privilege?
v) In my reading, the black commentariat is paranoid about the police. I realize that's an incendiary way of putting it, but I say it because I think it's true.
When a black "suspect" is shot, they jump to the conclusion that the police must be guilty of wrongdoing. That's not my own position.
I don't think there's any general presumption one way or the other. I don't assume, in advance of the facts, that when that happens, either side was innocent or guilty. I don't prejudge which is more likely.
Sometimes the "suspect" had it coming. Sometimes the "suspect" was innocent. Sometimes the police overreacted. Sometimes the police were thugs.
On the one hand there's a lot of bona fide criminality in the black community. On the other hand, police abuse is underreported. And I think a fair percentage of police are bandits with badges.
Let's be clear on what I mean: I don't think it's paranoid for black individuals to be nervous around the police. I don't think it's paranoid for them to be nervous if they sense they are being tailed by police. That's both understandable and justifiable. But I don't think the police are out to get blacks.
But by the same token, they don't know what feels like to be a white driver when the lights are flashing in his rearview mirror. When you deal with the police, it's a gamble:
vi) Apropos (v), the black commentariat says white folks like me just don't know what it's like to be black. That's a truism. But it cuts both ways. They don't know what it's like to be white.
Whites are harassed by the police, too. Whites are shot by the police, too.
That doesn't register with the black commentariat. They just assume if it happened to a white guy, that's an isolated incident, or he had it coming. They don't consider the possibility that we have a larger pattern of oppressive policing.
vii) Apropos (vi), it's my impression that police are apt to profile young men, especially young men who dress and act like gang-bangers. That's the case whether you're black, white, Asian, or Latino. That's the demographic group that's most likely to be hassled by the police.
viii) It wouldn't surprise me if there's a growing generation gap concerning popular perception of law enforcement. The older generation was raised to respect the police. Regard the police as trusted public servants. It's my impression that the younger generation is becoming more critical of law enforcement. The traditional deference is on the wane.
v) I think one reason the black commentariat so often frames the issue in terms of white privilege, and discounts examples of police brutality against white "suspects," is that so long as whites are in the majority, that's ipso facto "privileged".
However, that oversimplifies the nature of majorities. For instance, although whites are still in the majority, that doesn't mean conservative voters are in the majority. Just look at the last two presidential cycles. The minority experience isn't exclusively ethnic or racial. It can break along ideological lines. Conservative voters don't represent the dominant culture. Conversely, a coalition of special interests groups can add up to a majority voting block.
"Bad Jesus"
1. Recently, apostate atheist Hector Avalos published The Bad Jesus. Last night I listened to his 2-part interview on the Inquisitive Minds podcast.
Even without reading his book, you get can a feel for the argument by perusing the table of contents:
Contents
1. Introduction
Basic Elements of the Argument
2. The Unloving Jesus: What’s New Is Old
Loving the Enemy in the Ancient Near East
Love Can Entail Violence
The Golden Rule: Love as Tactical
The Parochialism of New Testament Ethics
3. The Hateful Jesus: Luke 14.26
Jesus Commands Hate
Expressing Preference
Hate as a Motive for Divorce
The Statistics of Hate and Love
The Semantic Logic of Love and Hate
4. The Violent Jesus
Matthew 10.34-37: Jesus’ Violent Purpose
Matthew 5.38-42: Don’t Victimize Me, Please
Matthew. 26.48-56: Non-Interference with Planned Violence
John 2.15: Whipping up Pacifism
Acts 9: Jesus Assaults Saul
5. The Suicidal Jesus: The Violent Atonement
Jesus as a Willing Sacrificial Victim
Mark 10.45: Self-Sacrifice as a Ransom
Sacrifice as Service: Transformation or Denial?
2 Corinthians 5.18: Anselm Unrefuted
René Girard: Sacrificing Apologetics
6. The Imperialist Jesus: We’re All God’s Slaves
Rethinking ‘Anti-Imperialism’
Selective Anti-Imperialism
The Benign Rhetoric of Imperialism
Christ as Emperor
The Kingdom of God as an Empire
7. The Anti-Jewish Jesus: Socio-Rhetorical Criticism as Apologetics
Abuse Me, Please: Luke T. Johnson’s Apologetics
When is Anti-Judaism not Anti-Judaism?
When Did Christian Anti-Judaism Begin?
8. The Uneconomic Jesus as Enemy of the Poor
Jesus as Radical Egalitarian
The Fragrance of Poverty
Sermon on the Mount of Debts and Merits
9. The Misogynistic Jesus: Christian Feminism as Male Ancestor Worship
Mark 7//Matthew 15: The Misogynistic Jesus
Mark 10//Matthew 19: Divorcing Equality
The Womanless Twelve Apostles
The Last Supper: Guess Who’s Not Coming to Dinner
The Egalitarian Golden Age under Jesus
10. The Anti-Disabled Jesus: Less than Fully Human
Disability Studies
John 5 and 9: Redeeming Jesus
The Ethics of Punctuation
Paralyzed by Sin
11. The Magically Anti-Medical Jesus
Miracles, Not Magic?
The Naturalistic Jesus
Psychosomatic Ethics
12. The Eco-Hostile Jesus
Mark 5: Animal Rights and Deviled Ham
Luke 22 and Matthew 8: Sacrificing Animal Rights
Matthew 21: Fig-uratively Speaking
Mark 13: Eschatological Eco-Destruction
13. The Anti-Biblical Jesus: Missed Interpretations
Mel and Jesus: The Hypocrisy of New Testament Ethics
Mark 2:23-28: Jesus as Biblically Illiterate
Matthew 19: Jesus Adds his Own Twist on Divorce
Isaiah 6:9-10: Integrating Extrabiblical Materials
14. Conclusion
The Ethics of New Testament Ethics
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i) The basic strategy is clear. He cites examples which, based on his own interpretation, show that Jesus held views that are politically incorrect. That makes Jesus "bad."
Of course, the conclusion only follows if you think the views of the Western secular elite c. 2015 supply the standard of comparison.
ii) Hence, Jesus is "eco-hostile" because he was responsible for pigs drowning and a fig tree withering. Once again, that only makes Jesus "bad" if you share the views of Peter Singer and radical environmentalists.
iii) The two examples he cites here create a quandary for his position. Both examples involve the supernatural, which Avalos denies. So he doesn't think Jesus really transferred evils spirits from the demoniac to a herd of pigs. Likewise, he doesn't think Jesus really caused a fig tree to miraculously wither. From his standpoint, that's fictional or mythological.
As for Jesus incinerating the earth when he returns, Sodom and Gomorrah were population centers. It wasn't firebombing nature, but targeting sinners. Smart bombs.
And even if (ex hypothesi), Jesus were to incinerate the earth, that would be resetting the clock. Like terraforming.
Finally, Avalos doesn't actually believe Jesus will do that.
iv) He interprets the healings naturalistically, as psychosomatic cures. But at best, that explanation is only plausible for certain kinds of medical conditions.
v) Sometimes his allegations depend on absurd interpretations. He has a tin-ear for hyperbole in Lk 14:26.
vi) Sometimes his allegations are inconsistent with secular ethics. For instance, even if you say the atonement of Christ was suicidal, secular ethics doesn't consider suicide to be inherently wrong, much less altruistic suicide. Hume considered the taboo against suicide to be superstitious.
2. In his interview, Avalos made the following claims:
i) When historians study figures like Herod, Alexander the Great, and Augustus Caesar, they consider the good and the bad. But when they study Jesus, he can do no wrong. They defend his ethical superiority. That's because they filter him through the lens of Chalcedon and Nicea. They treat him as divine rather than human. They continue to employ a "religionist" agenda. That's despite their claim to study him as a historical figure.
ii) Likewise, that's in spite of the fact that many things Jesus said and did are antithetical to many of the ethical norms we hold to today as good.
iii) If you interpret the Sermon on the Mount in the context of the Olivet Discourse, Mt 5 is a case of deferred violence rather than nonviolence.
iv) Jesus is eco-hostile. He's guilty of "anthropocentric" ethics because he cares more about human beings than animals.
Likewise, at the day of judgment, he will destroy the biosphere. The day of judgement is like the judgment on Sodom and Gomorrah on a global scale.
v) Jesus was anti-Jewish. That's not at odds with his Jewish identity. Jews can speak against other Jews. Consider the intra-Jewish polemics in Isaiah, or Jewish sects like Qumran. Some Jewish sects accuse other Jews of not being the true Israel. So Jesus could be guilty of "ethnic slurs," like Jn 8:44.
vi) Some scholars defend Jesus by denying that he said some of the things attributed to him in the Gospels. But that's circular. That's only supposing Jesus couldn't say that. But the scholars have no independent corroboration for what he could or couldn't say.
vii) Apropos (vi), Avalos is not a Jesus mythicist or a Jesus historicist, but Jesus agnostic. We don't have enough data to know whether there was such a person as is described in the Gospels.
Avalos calls himself an empiricist. We don't have anything from Jesus' time. Nothing contemporary. Our sources date from the 2C and beyond. Since we don't have the "original Jesus," we can't tell how representative our sources are. We lack that standard of comparison.
viii) Modern morality is based on empathy. That's an evolutionary survival mechanism. It makes you care about others. It's not based on rewards.
ix) Some critics of Christianity like Richard Dawkins and Sam Harris speak outside their field of expertise. They aren't Bible scholars, and that hurts their case.
3. Let's run back through his interview and assess his claims:
i) What if Jesus really is different? What if Jesus really is divine?
Avalos erects a false dichotomy between Jesus as a divine figure and the study of Jesus as a historical figure. But if Jesus is God Incarnate, then that's a historical event. A real life. Avalos begs the question.
ii) I agree with him that, considered light of eschatological justice, Jesus was not a pacifist. The Sermon on the Mount is indeed a case of deferred violence.
But that's only morally problematic if you think violence is intrinsically wrong. How can Avalos hope to justify that claim?
iii) Even on evolutionary ethics, man is the apex predator. Likewise, animals typically care about members of their own species rather than other species. So Avalos can't justify animal rights on a secular basis.
And to say anthropocentric ethics is wrong begs the question against Christian ethics.
Moreover, Avalos is disingenuous. He is spouting radical chic nonsense that he himself doesn't take seriously. He wouldn't hesitate to kill an animal to feed or protect himself–if it came to that.
iv) Since Avalos isn't Jewish, why is he so judgmental concerning intramural disputes about who is the true Israel? That's none of his business.
Consider intramural wars in atheism concerning who best represents atheism?
He disregards the fact that in Jn 8:44, Jesus is turning the allegation of the critics back on themselves.
v) I agree with him that scholars have no objective basis for distinguishing authentic words and deeds of Jesus from inauthentic words and deeds of Jesus in the canonical Gospels.
vi) To claim that our sources for Jesus date from the 2C at the earliest is bizarre.
It's unclear what he means by "contemporary" or "from Jesus' time." Does he mean anything written after the death of Jesus is unoriginal? That only something written about him during his lifetime could be original?
If so, that's extremely arbitrary. For instance, a younger contemporary can write about an older contemporary after he died. A son or daughter can write about his late father or mother. He needn't write about them when they were still alive for his account to original.
Oral history and living memory can be reliable decades after the event. Likewise, a historian can make use of firsthand accounts, even if the historian was not, himself, a firsthand observer. In addition, the sources can be much earlier than the history or biography that incorporates the sources.
Finally, do our sources of information for historical figures like Alexander the Great date from the time of Alexander?
vii) Hector's skepticism generates a dilemma for his critique. He can only say the historical Jesus was bad if he knows what the historical Jesus said and did. If, however, he considers the canonical Gospels to be historically untrustworthy, then he's in no position to evaluate the ethics of the historical Jesus.
At best, he's evaluating the ethics of a fictional character. But what does that accomplish?
If your aim is to attack Christianity, the way to do that is not to attack the ethics of Jesus, but to attack the historicity of Jesus, and especially the divinity of Jesus.
If Jesus was either a fictionally character or a merely human historical figure, then his moral teaching has no authority. Proving his teaching to be morally flawed would be superfluous. For the only reason Christians venerate his teaching is because they venerate his person as God Incarnate.
Conversely, would Avalos attack the morality of Jesus if he thought Jesus really was God Incarnate? So the whole elaborate exercise is a misguided.
viii) To make evolutionary ethics the standard of comparison is futile. To begin with, even if you accept naturalistic evolutionary psychology, that would only account for the origin of our moral sentiments. It would explain why we have instinctive feelings about right and wrong. But that wouldn't mean our moral instincts correspond to moral facts. To the contrary, our moral instincts would the byproduct of mindless, amoral evolutionary conditioning. Our sense of right and wrong would be arbitrary.
Even if, for the sake of argument, we grant his evolutionary narrative, natural selection doesn't foster universal empathy. Throughout human history, there's a double standard: empathy is reserved for members of your in-group. By contrast, there are no inhibitions on what you do to members of the out-group.
There's a tension between altruism and self-interest. In case of conflict, do you save yourself at the expense of others, or save others at your own expense? Does the survival mechanism apply to the individual or the population?
Even if evolution programmed humans to be altruistic, once we become aware of our programming, we can override our programming. It's just a form of brainwashing. It only works so long as you don't know that you were brainwashed.
Unless Avalos has an objective standard to evaluate the ethics of Jesus, his critique is systematically tendentious. And he can't very well mount an internal critique of Jesus' ethics. He can't attack the ethics of Christ on Christian grounds, for the ethics of Christ are normative for Christian ethics.
Faith Alone In First Clement
I recently came across the following rendering of chapter 32 of First Clement. This is Maxwell Staniforth's translation, edited by Andrew Louth. Notice that Staniforth expresses Clement of Rome's sentiments by adding the qualifier "alone" to faith:
"Similarly we also, who by His will have been called in Christ Jesus, are not justified by ourselves or our own wisdom or understanding or godliness, nor by such deeds as we have done in holiness of heart, but by that faith through which alone Almighty God has justified all men since the beginning of time." (Early Christian Writings [New York, New York: Penguin Books, 1987], 36)
For my argument that Clement was affirming faith alone in a Protestant sense, see the thread here, including the comments section.
"Similarly we also, who by His will have been called in Christ Jesus, are not justified by ourselves or our own wisdom or understanding or godliness, nor by such deeds as we have done in holiness of heart, but by that faith through which alone Almighty God has justified all men since the beginning of time." (Early Christian Writings [New York, New York: Penguin Books, 1987], 36)
For my argument that Clement was affirming faith alone in a Protestant sense, see the thread here, including the comments section.
Monday, August 24, 2015
Personal identity and going bald
While his response drew a healthy applause from the audience, I felt a little disappointed. I know those who just want us to get over race issues will use Carson’s remarks as ammunition in the race relations discussion. I anticipate people responding like, “Look, one of your own just said we should move past it, so what’s the big deal?” I do not doubt Dr. Carson’s sincerity for a second, but his response was incomplete at best. Here is why:
Skin Colors and Hair Textures
The color of our skin and texture of our hair does matter, because every shade of skin and every hair texture displays the creative brilliance of almighty God. Our ethnic distinctions exist for the glory of God. We see in John’s glorious visions people from every nation, tribe, and language worshiping around the throne of God. These distinctions were God’s idea, and for the glory of his great name.
Trying to simply get past race denies the image of God reflected within ethnic diversity.
https://www.raanetwork.org/why-ben-carson-got-it-wrong/
Honestly, this is both silly and confused:
i) How important is my hair to my identity? If I'm a middle-aged man who's going bald, should that trigger an identity crisis?
It's important to know that God numbers the hair on our heads. But surely hair is pretty incidental to my core identity.
ii) This isn't really about race but history and narrative. About whether people are defined, not by race, but by American history and a racial narrative. Are people today defined by the actions of people who lived 150 years ago (give or take)? Are you a prisoner of the past? Are you trapped in collective memories?
Has the Comforter come?
This is a sequel to my previous post:
This blog recently received a reply which I would like to address specifically. It comes from a blogger called Triablogue.
Actually, it comes from a blog called Triablogue. At the bottom it is states that it was posted by Steve.
The blogger (aremonstrant) took umbrage at my post:
I would just like to say, I’m surprised it took this long for an unsympathetic Calvinist to turn up and gloat at this post.
He's overreacting to something I didn't say or imply.
I was expecting it a lot earlier to be honest.
Actually, I learned about it from SEA::
A blogger from A Remonstrant’s Ramblings (whose abandonment from traditional Christian faith is regretful) presents a devastating critique of Calvinist Derek Rishmawy’s comments regarding why God would unconditionally elect some and not others in the former’s post: “To Tu Quoque or Not to Tu Quoque?“
http://evangelicalarminians.org/this-week-in-arminianism-31/
Back to aremonstrant:
Regarding i) it’s a real shame such “compelling” evidence appears to be so uncompelling even to very sincere truth-seekers! But then the typical Calvinist reply to this is to suggest such people are not really sincere in their searching for God which is, of course, a classic ad hominem.
He's overreacting to something I didn't say or imply. He stereotypes Calvinists. He imputes to me something I didn't suggest, then accuses me of ad hominem based entirely on his own imputation.
This blogger may feel there is compelling evidence for such activity but I wonder what he/she would list? Patterns in toast, funny feelings, weird dreams, that one person survived a plane crash when the other 244 passengers died, things which could be mere coincidence, or appeals to what we cannot yet explain?
i) There's a range of well-attested phenomenon, viz. miracles, answered prayer, premonitions, crisis apparitions, terminal lucidity, possession/exorcism.
ii) In the nature of the case, this is underreported because most examples happen to people who aren't famous. Their experience never makes it into the history books. There are, however, examples throughout church history. Consider patristic testimony to contemporary miracles:
Consider firsthand testimony to the miracles of St. Bernard, cf. Benedicta Ward, "Miracles in the Middle Ages," Graham H. Twelftree (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Miracles. Cambridge Up 149 (2011).
Consider evidence of historic Protestant miracles:
Consider evidence of "Catholic" miracles:
Consider evidence of contemporary miracles in collections like:
Craig Keener, Miracles: The Credibility of the New Testament Accounts, 2 vols.
Rex Gardner, Healing Miracles: A Doctor Investigates
That's just scratching the surface.
I think the confession that such activity is “perplexing” is an admission that the case is maybe not as compelling as he/she first thought!
That confounds two distinct issues: the fact that the pattern is perplexing doesn't mean it's random in a naturalistic sense. Even if the general pattern seems to be somewhat haphazard, that doesn't mean specific examples are random. They often have very opportune relevance and significance to the parties concerned.
I would have thought that any careful reader of my post would have noticed, my concern was not with the character of God as described in classic Christian theism. It was not about whether God is ‘nice’ or not in human terms. That had nothing whatsoever to do with my deconversion. My only expectations were for a relationship with God the kind of which the New Testament describes and Calvinists and Arminians see that pretty much the same I’d say. But of course I can see why this blogger has chosen to distort it this way.
Let's compare what he said in his deconversion post to something he said in another post:
There was no sense of companionship, friendship, or experience of the one called “the comforter” in the New Testament. And if there is to be absolutely no relational value in being a Christian then I seriously question the value of believing it...The companionship which the New Testament appears to talk about was simply not there. So what is the point of all this noetic belief if that’s all my Christianity is (was)? What kind of God has no relational component to offer in this life?
Christians love to use the father analogy for God. But what father would do that to his child especially if he has all the means to be alongside them at that moment? Certainly no decent father would distance himself at such a time. I cannot bring myself to believe in a God who is so clearly absent at the moment I needed him most.
https://aremonstrantsramblings.wordpress.com/2015/04/11/my-journey-away-from-christianity/
Compare that to how he contrasted Arminian theism with Reformed theism:
I am sometimes asked why I am not a Calvinist. I thought about writing my own blog on this issue but two factors made it seem unnecessary to do so. One is because I have previously given some reasons why I reject Calvinism back in my previous blog called ‘Coherent Calvinism? A response to Mike Ovey’. Second is because, in recent months, I have both begun reading, and saw this lecture by, the Arminian philosopher and theologian Jerry Walls. Since Walls explains why he is not a Calvinist so well in this lecture, in my opinion, there is really no need for me to do a worse job explaining it. Therefore, if this is a question you like to think about I here recommend both his lecture and the notes I made whilst watching it underneath. The notes summarize his main points and I have also recorded all quotations made by him in his power point.
1. God truly loves all persons.
2. Truly to love someone is to desire their well being and to promote their true flourishing as much as you can.
3. The well being and true flourishing of all persons is to be found in a right relationship with God, a saving relationship in which we love and obey him.
When love is subordinated to will, then the fatherhood of God, which is emphasized in the Trinity… takes a back seat to the image of God as King or Ruler.
Before God was King, he was Father, and his fatherhood is more ultimate than his kingship. Kingship speaks of his relationship to his creation. He reigns and will reign over it all. But fatherhood speaks of a relationship within the very nature of God that was there before he spoke anything into existence. In the bosom of eternity, before there was time or space or humanity, the second person of the triune Godhead called the first person of the Trinity not Lord, but Father.”
https://aremonstrantsramblings.wordpress.com/2013/11/23/whats-wrong-with-calvinism/
Observe how he frames Arminian theism in contrast to Reformed theism. Notice how that parallels the description of his disillusionment when his theological expectations were disappointed.
This blogger must also think there cannot be evangelical Arminians since the God of evangelical Arminianism is far from “softhearted” as they usually adhere to the doctrine of punishment after death and they hold to the judgement described as being done by God in the Bible. But this oft-used parody of the God of Arminianism is just that.
That's another example of his overreacting to something I didn't say or imply. Yes, there are evangelical Arminians like John and Charles Wesley, Craig Keener, John Oswalt, Douglas Stuart, &c.
This Calvinist almost wants to boast of the seemingly horrid kind of God he/she believes in! It’s almost as if the more horrible God appears to us the better he must be!
I'm just saying it's more realistic. If there is a God, then frankly he's fairly hard-nosed. Just look at the kind of world we live in. And it hasn't changed from OT times.
My thanks to the person blogging for pointing out that the world is a harsh place. That is a very welcome reminder. Having been in daily chronic pain for almost two years I needed to be reminded of that just in case I had forgotten.
He's the one who indicated that his experience was at odds with his theology.
This kind of response from a Calvinist reveals, I think, their very fatalistic approach to apologetics and relationships. This blogger must think that his/her total lack of empathy can have no adverse affect whatsoever. After all, should I change my mind it will have everything to do with God and nothing to do with him or her.
One last observation I would make is that the responses from Arminians has always been one of sympathy but responses from Calvinists have been mixed. A few have been sympathetic but there have been a few who have either completely ignored me or been really very cold in their response (both online and in person). I suppose those are the ones who are being more consistent in displaying what the Calvinist God is like? The love of the Christ they believe in is shining through. Well done to them!
i) Naturally Arminians are concerned with an Arminian blogger goes off the reservation. That's simply theological partisanship.
ii) For all he knows, I might be very sympathetic to much of what he said. I didn't go into that because I don't care to make public statements about my personal experience, including the experience of some close relatives. In their private life, many Christians suffer.
But he chose to go public about his experience, and how that led him away from the Christian faith. So that does invite public scrutiny.
The Evans/Singer Debate On Jesus' Messiahship
Craig Evans (a New Testament scholar) and Tovia Singer (a rabbi) debated the topic "Is Jesus the Promised Jewish Messiah?" on November 8, 2014. I want to make several comments about Singer's portion of the debate. The time references in parentheses below are hour and minute markers taken from the video on the page linked above.
Sunday, August 23, 2015
"When your Muslim coach prays"
I'm going to comment on an article by apostate atheist Hector Avalos:
Imagine yourself as the Christian parent of a student-athlete, and the new men’s basketball coach at your university announces that his Muslim faith will be an important part of his strategy.
This, ladies and gentlemen, is what is known as a false dichotomy. His entire article is predicated on that false dichotomy:
i) We should simply deport Muslims, like they are doing in Norway. Muslims reject our social contract. They reject the Bill of Rights. They foment domestic terrorism. They don't belong here. They don't believe in our system of gov't.
ii) Don't college basketball teams have more than one coach?
iii) What about chaplains?
iv) What about sending your kid to a Christian college?
The prayers, by the way, are voluntary. But the coach will take prayer requests only in the name of Allah, not Jesus, because the latter is not Allah.
Why should I ask the coach to pray for me? As I Christian, I can pray directly to Jesus. The coach is not my spiritual mediator. If my coach is Muslim, I should pray for him–not vice versa.
Prayers will be performed by prostrating yourself with your forehead to the ground, and facing Mecca. The coach does this five times a day, but players don’t have to do it that way. It’s voluntary, you see.
Yes, it's voluntary.
The coach proudly displays a Quran everywhere he goes, including on the team bus. He was raised reading it, and he would like you, as his student-athlete, to read that wonderful book, as well.
Actually, there's something to be said for reading the Koran, just as we might read Mein Kampf or the Communist Manifesto.
The coach has won many games by integrating Islam into the team. Islam also worked for Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Muhammad Ali, and so there is actual scientific proof that serving Allah makes you a winner.
Muhammad Ali has Parkinson's disease. Abdul-Jabbar has migraines, leukemia, and cardiovascular disease. Is Islam a Faustian bargain?
But now you feel coerced to follow the coach’s religious preferences for fear that you may not advance as a player.
Merely Feel coerced. Not that you actually are coerced.
And what happens if you are a non-believer, but your coach preaches that faith is fundamental to life? No religious preference is listed by 27.5 percent of the college freshmen who started last fall, according to a recent major survey.
Imagine excluding 27.5 percent of potential recruits who may not see any particular faith as suitable for their lives. Imagine non-Christian students, who may be talented, but don’t want to play for a coach that is perceived as imposing a favored faith on players.
Merely perceived to practice favoritism.
So Avalos is telling us unbelievers are so intellectually weak and impressionable that they cave into mere feelings of coercion or mere perceptions of favoritism.
Jimmy Carter and Eric Liddell
Jimmy Carter has brain cancer. Carter is pushing 91. Let's compare and contrast his life with someone else who died of brain cancer at the age of 43. Who did more with less time?
Chestnuts roasting on an open fire
There's a blogger who attacks Calvinism from time to time. That's hardly surprising coming from an Arminian blogger. However, he recently defected from the Christian faith. Here's part of what he said:
So why does God not speak to someone crying out, literally, in such pain and desperation? What is the value of God talking to all these people who are well when the sick are ignored? I don’t want to broaden this into an argument so much as express my experience so I will ignore the broader questions for now. In my most desperate moments of physical and mental agony, depression, and loneliness God was not there. I was rescued from suicidal thoughts by my family and a very good psychologist. I know some Christians will assert that he was there (in some sense behind it all) but I am afraid he was not there in any proper or real sense of that term for me. So perhaps God doesn’t continually chat with these other Christians either and they are projecting onto God what their conscious mind expresses? But even if that is the case that helps very little since God is still silent. It just makes it even more painful to realize that huge numbers of Christians are deluding themselves into thinking God is talking with them continuously when in fact he is not. The companionship which the New Testament appears to talk about was simply not there. So what is the point of all this noetic belief if that’s all my Christianity is (was)? What kind of God has no relational component to offer in this life?
Christians love to use the father analogy for God. But what father would do that to his child especially if he has all the means to be alongside them at that moment? Certainly no decent father would distance himself at such a time. I cannot bring myself to believe in a God who is so clearly absent at the moment I needed him most. (And don’t get me started on the ‘Footprints’ poem!!) If the Christian God does exist and he does communicate with people then my spiritual antenna (as one of my Christian friends put it) is clearly broken.
What I do know is that if my son was in unbearable pain and desperation and was sitting begging for me to comfort him in such a moment of desperation, and it were in my power to comfort him, I would!
https://aremonstrantsramblings.wordpress.com/2015/04/11/my-journey-away-from-christianity/
i) I think there's extensive, compelling evidence for a God who is active in human affairs. But the pattern of God's activity is perplexing.
ii) Suppose, for the sake of argument, that the God of Arminian theism is nicer than the God of Reformed theism. Problem is, having a nice God on paper doesn't make real life any nicer.
You can say all the warm and winsome things about God that Arminians are wont to say. You can contrast that with the "stern" God of Calvinism. But as this erstwhile Arminian blogger discovered from painful personal experience, the loving, fatherly "relational" God of Arminian theology is a paper God. A God that only exists in the mind of the Arminian. A verbal construct. You can say the Calvinist God is harsh or "morally monstrous." You can contrast the Calvinist God with what you deem to be the superior character of the Arminian God. But switching from Calvinism to Arminianism doesn't make the world any different. Believing in a nicer God doesn't make the world a kinder gentler place than believing in a "harsh" God. Does nothing to sand off the jagged edges.
In the Arminian lodge, you have hot chocolate and chestnuts roasting on an open fire. But when you have to get up and go outside, the dark arctic bast slaps you in the face. The world you must live in everyday is just the same whether you're Arminian or Calvinist. Believing in a softhearted God does nothing to soften the world. It changes nothing. The toasty, climate-controlled environment of Arminian theology doesn't survive exposure to the elements. It fosters expectations that are dashed by brutal experience. The glib, fact-free bromides of a Jerry Walls didn't prepare him for his ordeal. Reality is unforgiving.
Proving first principles
I'll make another comment on Beisner's case for Carkian apologetics:
Given the centrality of the Bible in Clarkian epistemology, how do Clarkians know and/or show that the Bible is, in fact, the word of God? How do they establish their axiom or first principle?
1. The Bible claims to be God-breathed.
2. All explanations of the claim other than its truth are untenable.
3. All attempts to refute the claim by pointing to specific errors in the Bible fail.
4. Therefore we are justified in believing that the Bible is true and God-breathed.
Beisner doesn't explain why a Clarkian should accept the self-witness of the Bible, but reject the self-witness or the Koran or Swedenborg's Arcana Cœlestia.
(2) for the truthfulness of the Bible. But he would remind us that particular premises–which are the most that can be established by historical evidence–cannot validly yield universal conclusions, and that therefore the proper use of historical evidence is not to prove that the Bible is the Word of God but to disprove allegations of errors in it.
So historical evidence doesn't provide positive evidence for the claims of Scripture. Rather, it merely cancels putative evidence to the contrary.
(3) Indeed, fulfilled prophecy is an example of the logical consistency of the whole Bible. If the Bible contained prophecies that went finally unfulfilled (and we could know of some such because their time horizons have expired), that would entail internal contradiction in the Bible and would be inconsistent with its self- description as the Word of God. But fulfilled prophecies illustrate the Bible’s consistency.
So fulfilled prophecy doesn't provide positive evidence for the claims of Scripture. It merely illustrates the "consistency" of Scripture. Inconsistency would falsify the claims of Scripture, but consistency falls short of validating the claims of Scripture. Inconsistency would be positive counterevidence, but consistency is consistent with either truth or falsehood. Neutral.
But if Beisner doesn't think historical evidence, the argument from prophecy, or the argument from miracles furnishes positive evidence for the claims of Scripture, then what's left? He appeals to the witness of the Spirit (WCF 1.5). And up to a point I think that's a legitimate appeal. However:
i) That's not a distinctive of Clarkian epistemology. Different apologetic methodologies can include the witness of the Spirit. Indeed, that's a type of argument from religious experience.
ii) That appeal would only work for defensive apologetics, not offensive apologetics. Since unbelievers lack that experience, it can't be evidence for them.
So how would a Clarkian apologist reason with an unbeliever? In typical Clarkian epistemology, there are only two kinds of beliefs: knowledge and unjustified opinion. If, however, the witness of the Spirit is the only way we can know that the Bible is the word of God, if all other lines of evidence reduce to unjustified opinion, then how does a Clarkian apologist enable the unbeliever to bridge the chasm?
Crosslinguistic influence
Yet this is not the whole truth of the matter. We do assert that God, that is, the whole Godhead, is one person…. In other words, we are bound to maintain the identity of the attributes of God with the being of God in order to avoid the specter of brute fact.”
…Over against all other beings, that is over against created beings, we must therefore hold that God’s being presents an absolute numerical identity. And even within the the ontological Trinity we must maintain that God is numerically one. He is one person. We we say that we believe in a personal God we do not merely mean that we believe in a God to whom the adjective “personality” may be attached. God is not an essence that has personality; He is absolute personality. Yet, within the being of the one person we are permitted and compelled by Scripture to make the distinction between a specific or generic type of being, and three personal subsistences.
—Cornelius Van Til, An Introduction to Systematic Theology (1971).
i) This wasn't Van Til's finest hour. It's a bad way of making a good point. The basic point, I take it, is that the Triune God isn't three persons stuck onto an impersonal essence. Rather, God is personal through-and-through.
However, Van Til's formulation, as it stands, is contradictory and unorthodox.
ii) So what was Van Til thinking? What did he put it that way? And is it possible to gives his statement a coherent, orthodox sense?
This may be a case of crosslinguistic influence. To begin with, English was not Van Til's first language.
An example of crosslinguistic influence is the fact that the sense of some NT words is based, not on secular Greek, but on OT Hebrew filtered through the LXX. What David Hill calls Greek words with Hebrew meanings.
By the same token, it's possible that Van Til is using "person" in the sense of "hypostasis. That's a standard term in Trinitarian usage. And it's a flexible term, because it can mean both "person" and "substance."
Suppose we were to substitute "hypostasis" for "person" in Van Til's statement. Suppose Van Til said "God is one hypostasis and three hypostases."
That could mean "God is one substance and three persons." That's both coherent and orthodox.
If he's using the same word with the same intended sense throughout, then the statement is contradictory and unorthodox. If, however, he's using the same word with alternating senses, then the statement could be logically consistent and theologically orthodox.
It doesn't really work in idiomatic English. It only succeeds on the assumption that he's using "person" as a synonym for "hypostasis."
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