"The damnable thing about damnation"

Apostate atheist-cum-philosophy prof Keith Parsons attempted to respond to an Amazon reviewer:

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/secularoutpost/2016/10/04/the-damnable-thing-about-damnation/

As it turns out, the reviewer copy/pasted some criticisms that I raised in chap. 10 of: 

https://calvindude.org/ebooks/stevehays/The-End-of-Infidelity.pdf

As a result, Parsons is actually responding to me. Not that his replies are very responsive. 

In chapter ten, Parsons assails the traditional doctrine of hell. One basic problem is that he quotes a few passages of Scripture, which he doesn’t bother to exegete. He simply takes his interpretation for granted, then builds on that presumptive interpretation. His entire objection to hell is predicated on the torture chamber model of hell. Without that presupposition, his case collapses. Yet he fails to defend his key interpretation.

I address my critique to the concept of hell as it was defended by some of the most influential and orthodox of Christian theologians and church “fathers,” such as Tertullian, Aquinas, Jerome, Augustine, Peter Lombard, and Jonathan Edwards. The “torture chamber” model of hell, as featured prominently in Dante’s Inferno and innumerable depictions of the last judgment by Christian artists, was, and remains, a prominent element of Christian eschatology. 

The problem is if he equates attacking their concept of hell with the Biblical concept of hell. 

What about my interpretation of scripture? I cannot be guilty of giving an erroneous interpretation since I give none at all. I quote some of the more lurid NT passages about postmortem punishment (Mark 9: 47-48; Rev. 20:10; Rev. 20:15; and Luke 16: 22-24) and note that, though the images of an eternal punitive hell might look like “sick men’s dreams,” as Hume put it, these doctrines were “…thought out with careful deliberation and based upon scriptural authority. (p. 237)” 

Either the "lurid" passages are literal or figurative. If figurative, the next question is what the imagery stands for. 

In other words, the theorists of hell could and did appeal to scriptural authority in support of their claims. Therefore, it is their interpretations of those scriptures that I took for granted, not my own (which, again, I never offered).

Which is the problem. Parsons fails to distinguish the history of reception from what the text meant. Imagine if I critique Hume's argument against miracles based on Doug Geivett's interpretation of Hume. Suppose it's a solid critique given that interpretation. But unless my critique is based on an accurate interpretation of Hume, I have failed to critique Hume's position. Why is it so hard for a philosopher prof. like Parsons to grasp that elementary distinction?

Sure, Parsons can "take their interpretation for granted," but then, if you disagree with their interpretation, his case against hell collapses since he never bothered to show that their interpretation matches the meaning of Scripture. Was it his intention to let Scripture off the hook? His real target was subsequent theological developments and ecclesiastical traditions? 

BTW, I've discussed the Biblical imagery of hell in more detail here:

http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2012/10/images-of-hell.html

For that matter, consider all the things we would have done wrong if we thought we could get away with it. That’s culpable, too…

So, you are subject to punishment not just for the sins you actually do commit but for the ones you would have committed had you been given the opportunity. In other words, you are punished for the sins you commit not just in the actual world but in other possible worlds as well. So, if there is a possible world in which you fornicate with [insert favorite sex symbol here] then that is punishable too. Wow. It seems a bit unfair though that you have to suffer the punishment without getting the fun. 

His response is to ridicule the notion of counterfactual punishment rather than refute the notion of counterfactual punishment. So his response is intellectually frivolous. What makes him think that's a ridiculous notion? 

Suppose a dyslexic suicide bomber intends to murder as many Jewish kids as he can at the local yeshiva grade school. Only he mentally reverses the numbers on the address and ends up walking into a police station instead. He's shot dead before he can denote his Shaheed jacket. Although he failed to achieve his mission, is he not culpable for planning and attempting to implement his plot to murder Jewish kids? Isn't criminal intent culpable in itself? Isn't conspiracy to commit murder blameworthy? The fact that he accidentally bungled his homicidal mission isn't exculpatory, is it? Is Parsons so ethically and intellectually shallow that he doesn't think there's a serious issue at stake?

Take another example: there are people who never commit atrocities, but if they happened to be alive at a time and place where they could get away with it, they'd commit atrocities. There are many historical examples in which the breakdown in civil order gives some people license or cover to commit heinous acts they would not commit if that was punishable. The only thing that deters them is fear of reprisal. They are psychos just spoiling for an opportunity. Shouldn't divine justice take that into account? 

He objects to the duration of hell for “finite” sins. But it’s not as if sinners are merely punished for discrete sins. A sinner does what a sinner is. Sins are just the expression of the sinner’s underlying character.Passage of time doesn’t make the guilty guiltless. Once you do something wrong, it will always be the case that you did something wrong. Your culpability doesn’t have an automatic expiration date. You’re just as guilty a year later as you were a moment later. Only redemption can atone for sin.Sinners don’t cease to be sinners when they go to hell. To the contrary, they become even more sinful in hell, since they lose all self-restraint in hell.

At any rate, if it is fair to punish you for your character, then your character must have been freely chosen, right? I mean, if your character is determined by events beyond your control, such as genes and environment, then punishing you for your character would be like punishing you for having gallstones. But if we choose our characters, are we not back with being punished for our “discrete sins,” choosing our bad characters in this case? If it takes bad character to choose to have a bad character, then we seem to be headed for an infinite regress. Or is it enough if there is some possible world where we do have the freedom to choose our characters, and in that world we choose bad ones?As does William Lane Craig, Alex C. affirms that sinners continue to sin after being condemned to hell. This supposedly justifies the continuing punishment of the damned. But do the damned have free will? Alex C. seems to indicate that they do not since he says that they lose all self-restraint. If the damned have no free will, then in what sense can they sin? If they are being punished for the bad characters they developed in life, then we are right back with the question of the fairness of continuing punishment for past sins, not current ones. Or maybe the damned are being punished for the sins they would commit if, counterfactually, they had free will. On the other hand, if the damned do have freedom of will, cannot they exercise that freedom to curtail or greatly reduce their sinfulness, and so no longer deserve the punishments of hell? Alas, Alex C. gives us no grounds for deciding these questions.

i) Notice, first of all, that Parsons fails to even address the fact that mere lapse of time is not exculpatory. 

ii) Apparently, Parsons believes libertarian freedom is a necessary condition of moral responsibility. But, of course, that's hotly contested in philosophy, so why is the onus on me to disprove his operating assumption? Indeed, many of his fellow atheists subscribe to physical determinism. 

iii) Moreover, counterfactual culpability would still be possible on freewill theism. 

Parsons objects to credal requirement. However, no one goes to hell for disbelieving in Jesus. Disbelief is an aggravating factor. But the hellbound are already lost. Refusing the gospel isn’t what renders them damnable.In Christian theology, nobody can be saved unless he knows and accepts the gospel. This doesn’t mean nobody can be damned unless he knows and rejects the gospel. Rather, to be lost is the default condition of sinners. To be lost is not a result of spurning the gospel. To the contrary, it’s because sinners are lost in the first place that they desperately need to be saved.If a drowning swimmer refuses the lifeline, that’s not why he drowns. He’s already drowning. The lifeline was his opportunity to avoid drowning.

Alex C. says that “Refusing the Gospel is not what renders them [the hellbound] damnable.” This seems to say that refusing the Gospel is not sufficient for damnation. But further down he says, “In Christian theology, nobody can be saved unless he knows and accepts the gospel.” The way to symbolize “Nobody can be saved unless he knows and accepts the Gospel” would be ~(∃x) [◊Sx & ~(Kxg & Axg)] which is equivalent to (x) [~(Kxg & Axg] → ~◊Sx]. But salvation and damnation are the only two possibilities, so ~◊Sx → Dx, where Dx is “x is damned.” So, (x) [~(Kxg & Axg) → Dx] by hypothetical syllogism, so not knowing and accepting the gospel is sufficient for being damned. Hence, Alex C. seems to contradict himself.

It's odd that Parsons is unable to draw a rudimentary distinction. To say no one can be saved apart from faith in Christ doesn't entail that someone is damned because they fail to believe in Christ. Those are not convertible propositions. That oversimplifies the comparison. Suppose a convicted murder is offered a stay of execution, but refuses the offer. Is he put to death because he refused the stay of execution? That's a misleading way of putting it. It's not as if refusing a stay of execution is, in itself, a capital offense. Rather, the capital offense was the underlying murder. He is punished for committing murder, not for refusing a stay of execution. 

Perhaps, though, he would admit that nonbelief is sufficient for damnation, but his point is that other things are also sufficient, and that, in fact, sinners are already damned by those other things before they decide not to accept the Gospel. But I never denied that other things might be sufficient for damnation. My complaint rather was that belief is necessary for salvation. 

But if they are already damnable for other things before they refuse the Gospel, then they are not entitled to forgiveness in the first place. It is hardly unjust if they suffer damnation for things they did apart from that additional consideration. Moreover, their very refusal is insolent. 

Salvation is denied those who do not accept certain propositions. For this condition to be fair and reasonable it must be the case that those required propositions are so obviously and undeniably true that no rational person can fail to believe them when they are given a fair and unbiased hearing. 

As an atheist, Parsons will naturally deny Christianity is "so obviously and undeniably true that no rational person can fail to believe them when they are given a fair and unbiased hearing." That just means he's judging Christianity from the viewpoint of an atheist. But that involves a much larger debate. 

Evangelicals and voting

https://thearcmag.com/evangelicals-and-voting-86dd406056e4#.ksnxdrha6

Synopsis of Why Should I Believe in Christianity?

The inestimable James Anderson has posted a chapter-by-chapter synopsis of his new book, Why Should I Believe in Christianity?

http://www.proginosko.com/2016/10/why-should-i-believe-christianity/

Accidental beliefs

I'd like to respond to one of Spencer Toy's objection from another angle:

This I think truly exposes the fatal flaw of the Calvinist’s embrace of Divine determinism. As William Lane Craig has stated, once a person embraces determinism of any sort a strange vertigo sets in. One very well may believe true things, but only because they’ve already been determined to believe those things just as much as their opponents have been determined to believe false things. In such a system, nothing can be rationally affirmed. 

http://crossexamined.org/open-question-presuppositionalists/

It isn't clear what Toy is attempting to argue. He says that if someone has been determined to believe true things while someone else has been determined to believe false things, then nothing can be rationally affirmed. But he doesn't spell out why that's the case. He puts the emphasis on determinism, but he fails to explain how that's germane.

For instance, suppose we changed this to: "Someone may accidentally believe true things just as much as their opponents may accidentally believe false things." How would that change Toy's conclusion, and why? If your beliefs are the result of chance rather than determinism, why isn't that a reason to be skeptical?

Perhaps this is what Toy is trying to get at: if each side is determined to believe what they do, then they can't tell which side is right and which side is wrong. And in that event, nothing can be rationally affirmed. If that's what he's gesturing at, I'd say a few things:

i) What's the warrant for rationally affirming something? What about if I can point to evidence for my belief? Or give reasonable explanations for my belief? In many situations, that's the best that can be expected. We don't have apodictic proofs for most of our beliefs, including many important beliefs. Certainly evidential apologetics, which Toy espouses, doesn't demand that.

ii) If I can't know that I'm mistaken, does it follow that nothing can be rationally affirmed? Take memories. We are hugely dependent on memory. Yet memory is fallible. In many cases, if I misremember something, I can't detect my mistake–because memory is all I have to go on. Although in some cases I may have access to independent information that enables me to corroborate or correct my memories, in many cases, the memory is all I have. Does it follow that nothing can be rationally affirmed on the basis if memory, just because there are instances in which I can't tell if I'm mistaken? Given our tremendous reliance on memory, that would entail a devastating degree of skepticism. 

What’s Wrong With Jerry Walls’ Argument Against Calvinism

http://www.proginosko.com/2016/10/whats-wrong-with-jerry-walls-argument-against-calvinism/#more-2767

Does much learning make you mad?

http://ecclesiam.com/2016/10/madness-of-learning/

Hillary's alternate reality

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cCtA23u0iM8

"A modest proposal"

I will comment on this article:

http://blog.perspectivesjournal.org/2016/10/03/a-modest-proposal-to-conservative-evangelicals/

For the record, I know you from the inside out. I’m not only a historian of evangelicalism, I’m also a child of it: born and raised, and then born again. I “asked Jesus into my heart” when I was a kid. I memorized large portions of the Bible. I spent time as a homeschooler, and in the 1990s I had a life-sized photograph of Ronald Reagan on my dorm wall at Bible school.

Since that doesn't correspond to my own background, it would be best for Gloege to avoid stereotyping his target audience. It's presumptuous and often inaccurate.

So, here’s my question, and I want you to answer it honestly. What matters more to you: making abortion illegal or reducing the number of procedures that occur each year?

i) Beware of giving "honest" answers loaded questions. Questions that oversimplify the issues. Questions that pose false dichotomies.

ii) It's not as if Christians currently have a viable choice between reducing the number of abortions per year and outlawing abortion. At present, it isn't politically feasible to ban abortion across the board. And that seems unlikely to change in the foreseeable future. So we're attempting to restrict abortion in various ways. Gloege's alternatives are artificial. That's not even in the cards. 

iii) To set this up as a choice between reducing abortions and restricting abortions is prejudicial. Those are not opposing strategies. Legal restrictions on abortion reduce abortions. 

Or let me put it another way. Which is the better society: one in which abortions are illegal and punished when they occur (because they will), or one in which the surgical procedure is legal, but largely unnecessary?

i) That's ambiguous. If push comes to shove, the priority is saving babies rather than punishing wrongdoers. In a sense, that's "better".

ii) However, a society that refuses to punish wrongdoers is an unjust society. In another sense, that's worse.

We already know how to decrease the abortion rate: make contraception easy to access. 

We already have easy access to contraception. 

Several studies have noted that the majority of women seeking abortions earn less than the poverty level (that’s about $16,000 annually for a family of two). In fact, while the abortion rate has dropped at other income levels, it has increased among those in poverty.

That evades the question of why they are poor. To my knowledge, that's because they tend to be single moms and high school dropouts. 

We could easily go further. Why not advocate for a basic income (something arch-conservative economist Milton Freedman suggested years ago)? 

Isn't that just a euphemism for welfare queens? 

And throw in a few condoms.

How does Gloege propose to make men use condoms if they don't want to? 

Are we afraid anti-poverty programs will create dependent people? Afraid it will be too expensive? Afraid free birth control will lead to increased sexual activity outside of a committed relationship? We can argue about all that if you want. But let’s hold off. 

Just remember: we are talking about reducing abortions. And abortion, you regularly tell me, is no different from murdering innocent children. 

Think about that for a second.

i) I don't need Gloege to tell me to "think about that for a second," as if that's a brand-new thought. He needs to avoid patronizing his target audience.

ii) A culture of dependence is a hotbed for murder. Consider the homicide rates in Chicago. Welfare contributes to the disintegration of the black family. Women don't need to marry. Women don't need a male breadwinner. And it lets fathers off the hook. The taxpayer picks up the tab. 

Fatherless boys are at much higher risk of juvenile delinquency, including murder. Gloege's "modest proposal" reinforces a vicious cycle. 

Shouldn’t we be willing to pay any price?

Actually, no. Policies that bankrupt the country hurt everyone–except the ruling class–including children. Likewise, we shouldn't create a totalitarian state. That's bad for everyone–except the ruling class.

Now tell me: do you really believe what you say? If so, isn’t preventing a holocaust worth a compromise in social or economic policy?

i) That begs the question of whether his "modest proposal" would prevent a holocaust. 

ii) His proposal amounts to extortion. It's like a bank heist gone bad. The robber takes hostages. Threatens to kill them unless $10 million is wired to a Cayman account his name and he is flown by private jet to a country without an extradition treaty. Obviously, we can't give in to extortion. Not because we don't value the lives of the hostages, but because rewarding extortion fuels ever more extortion.

iii) Likewise, if women figure out that they can use the threat of abortion as a bargaining chip to demand goodies, where does that end? What if they demand that the gov't build them a McMansion? Domestic servants? A Mercedes? 

Our last pro-life president launched a war because of a hunch about some aluminum tubes. It cost trillions of dollars and thousands of lives. Why not spend something to fight poverty and perhaps reduce abortion in the process?

That's a brainless liberal trope. To begin with, using bad examples doesn't prove anything.

National defense is a necessity, not a luxury. You spend what it takes. We can debate how much we need to spend on national defense. We can debate military priorities. We can debate foreign policy. But military spending isn't optional. You have to allocate adequate funds for national defense. So it isn't comparable to the welfare state. 

I also ask because the pro-life movement has been working on outlawing abortion for, what, thirty-five or forty years now? How’s that going?

i) That's circular. It would be going better were it not for people like Gloege.

ii) The "war on poverty" has been going on for fifty years now. Ever since LBJ's Great Society programs. How's that going? 

Look, I know you are suspicious of Planned Parenthood. You think it’s a business (it’s not) whose “profitability” relies on abortion services (it’s actually only a small part of what they do).

Like the sting videos? 

I get it; I know Margaret Sanger was in the eugenics movement and said some things. I don’t know, maybe she was a baby Christian or something. (Kidding, sorry, bad joke.)

Does he think that makes a productive contribution to the discussion?

How about this: if Planned Parenthood opposes anti-poverty programs to save its “abortion business,” I’ll join your fight to have it completely defunded. And I’ll admit you were right all along.

More extortion.

Meanwhile, I simply can’t shake the suspicion that the pro-life movement is more interested in controlling women’s bodies than it is in preserving life. And, yes, I know this is a longstanding canard of the pro-choice movement. And I know you’ll insist you are sincerely concerned about life. I know, because that was me back in the day.But if you really, truly, believe that a fertilized egg is equal to an infant, then you need to prove it.

i) I have nothing to prove to the likes of Gloege. His approval is not my standard of comparison. I'm under no obligation to convince him of my pure motives. He's nobody to me. 

ii) Moreover, he's framed the issue in a way that systematically begs the question. It's not incumbent on me to play his game when he uses marked cards. 

Because when you repeatedly oppose programs that reduce abortions, it makes it look like your concern for “life” is a convenient cover for “control.”

i) He hasn't even tried to demonstrate that welfare and other social programs reduce abortion.

ii) He ignores the role of private charities. 

iii) If he thinks that's a convenient cover for "control," he needs to provide an argument to justify his conspiratorial suspicions. So he thinks prolifers oppose abortion to control women? Is that it?

Keep in mind that childcare often involves men as well as women. Take child support payments. What do prolifers get out of "controlling" women? If their motives are underhanded, you'd expect men to desert the prolife movement since many men prefer sex with no strings attached. Promiscuous men support abortion. 

So, let’s settle the question once and for all. What is your end goal?

One goal is to reduce the murder rate in general (see above).

Let me put it this way: because you are sincerely concerned about life, why not simply work for free access to birth control and anti-poverty efforts and then see what happens.

i) We've already seen what happens. Tried and failed. Repeatedly.

ii) If "poor" women can afford cellphones and cable TV, why not contraception?

iii) What about deadbeat dads? Before we make taxpayers pick up the tab for someone else's child, shouldn't our priority be making parents raise their own kids? 

iv) That also means giving fathers a stake in the process, like joint-custody. 

If you can’t stomach more federal programs or higher taxes, I suppose I understand.

i) Gov't doesn't have any money of its own. It comes from wage-earners. Gloege acts as though people who work hard don't actually need the money they make to live on. Yet many people life paycheck to paycheck. 

ii) When you keep raising taxes, you produce an economic death spiral. Businesses become less profitable. They must pay their employees less. That, in turn, lowers tax revenue. 

iii) Social obligations are concentric. I have a greater obligation to my wife than to your wife. I have a greater obligation to my elderly parents than to your elderly parents. It's not hypocritical to prioritize caring for my own dependents. And if more people did that, it would be better for everyone concerned. 

If an elementary school catches on fire, I will rescue my own kid first. That's not that the other kids are intrinsically less valuable. But my primary duty is to my own kid. After I get him out of harm's way, I may refocus on saving other kids. Mind you, I still have to be careful about risking my own life because I have dependents to support.

It's not hypocritical to simultaneously oppose abortion while opposing social policies that threaten my financial ability to care for my wife, kids, or elderly parents. It is not hypocritical to care about the wellbeing of strangers, or protecting the innocent, even if there are limits to how far I'd go. If I see a teenager drowning in a river, and I'm a strong swimmer, I have a prima facia obligation to save him. If, however, the river is infested with crocodiles, I might not risk it. That doesn't mean I think his life is worthless. But I may have multiple social obligations, including prior obligations. If I'm the sole caregiver for an elderly parent, I must avoid hazardous activities that would endanger my parent. In balancing different duties, higher duties take precedence. I can care what happens to a stranger without taking a bullet for him. Charity comes in degree. 

Maybe, in the end, we both believe abortion is simply a medical procedure with a touch of moral ambiguity. 

That certainly shows you where Gloege is coming from. 

An open question to presuppositionalists

I'm going to comment on an article by a guest contributor to Frank Turek's website:

http://crossexamined.org/open-question-presuppositionalists/

It is my understanding that according to the Calvinistic interpretation of Scripture, human reasoning is so totally depraved that any effort to understand or believe the Gospel is futile. 

That's inaccurate. It combines two different claims in one statement. These need to be distinguished:

i) The unregenerate cannot believe the Gospel

ii) The unregenerate cannot understand the Gospel

Calvinism affirms (i) but denies (ii). According to Calvinism, the unregenerate are able to understand the Gospel. The impediment to the Gospel isn't primarily intellectual, but ethical. They are unreceptive to the truth of the Gospel. 

Unless and until the Holy Spirit regenerates the reprobate mind, a person will continue to suppress the truth regardless of how well it is articulated or argued for.

True, but we need to distinguish between a capacity to understand and a willingness to believe what one understands. They reject it because they understand it, and it rubs them the wrong way (e.g. Jn 3:19).

That's not just a Calvinist distinction. This is corroborated by experience. It's very common for people to reject unwelcome truths out of hand. People tend to accept what they are predisposed to accept and reject what they are predisposed to reject. We see this all the time in the culture wars.

In addition, the Calvinistic view of God’s sovereignty entails that God causally ordains all things that come to pass.

I don't know what Toy means by "causally ordains". What does "causally" add to "ordain"? What does "ordain" add to causally?

It would be clearer to say that God predestines or predetermines whatever happens. Or, if you wish to use causal language, we could recast that in counterfactual terms: nothing happens unless God planned for that to happen. 

There is no sense in which God merely “permits” things to occur. 

There is a sense in which God permits things to happen. God permits what he doesn't prevent. 

It is true, though, that God doesn't merely permit things to occur.

Everything that comes to pass, to include the unbelief of the reprobate, comes to pass because in so happening God will bring the most glory to Himself.

The notion that God does things to "bring glory to himself" is often misstated or misconstrued. God doesn't do anything for his own benefit. God has nothing to gain by what happens in the world. Events reveal the glory of God, but they don't add to God's glory. Rather, God does things for the benefit of the elect.

Here in lies a problem I don’t believe the Presuppositionalist will be able to get out of.

We'll see about that.

Still, while an understanding of this may lead to a Calvinist carefully weighing the decisions he makes in the future, he still must acknowledge that all events in the past have occurred the way they did due to the Sovereign Decree of God.

True. However, let's forestall a common confusion. As even an arch freewill theist like William Hasker:

Before going into the arguments for determinism, it is necessary to remove some misconceptions about the determinist position. To begin with, it must be emphasized most strongly that determinists do not deny that people make choices…Furthermore, the experience of choosing–of seeing alternatives, weighting their desirability and finally making up one’s mind–is not any different whether one is a libertarian or a determinist. For while determinists believe that there are sufficient conditions which will govern their choices, they do not know at the time when they are making a decision what those determinants are or how they will decide as a result of them. So, like everyone else, they simply have to make up their own minds. The difference between libertarian and determinist lies in the interpretation of the experience of choice, not in the experience itself, W. Hasker, Metaphysics, 37.

Determinism involves what lies behind the decision-making process. Often unconscious factors. 

This being said, I would like you to consider someone like Dr. Frank Turek who is not a Calvinist and uses the Classical Apologetics method. Based on the admission of Reformed theologians themselves, it seems to me that a Calvinist has to believe that ultimately the reason that Dr. Turek is in error regarding God’s Sovereignty and the proper apologetic method is because God has not granted it to him to understand these things.

True. Of course, the same dynamic applies within Calvinism. For instance, some Calvinists affirm the eternal generation of the Son while other Calvinist disaffirm the eternal generation of the Son. They can't both be right. God predestined that one Calvinist would be right about that while another Calvinist would be wrong about that.

Just as the reprobate man’s fallen reason can never lead him to God, neither can Dr. Turek’s reason lead him to the truth of Reformed theology unless and until the Holy Spirit grants it to him to understand it.

I'm not sure what Toy means by the "Holy Spirit granting it to him to understand it". Calvinists don't have extra information, supplied by the Holy Spirit, that Turek lacks. This is not about regeneration or even illumination. Rather, is about predestination and providence. For instance, God uses social conditioning to cultivate certain beliefs. 

If Dr. Turek persists in his error, he does so only because God has sovereignly determined before the foundation of the world that he would be in error…

True. Again, though, predestination is different from the distinctive work of the Holy Spirit. 

...for through Dr. Turek’s theological errors God will bring the most glory to Himself. 

Theological error can be a  foil for theological truth. It provides a contrastive background. 

In other words, you can REASON from the text.

Calvinism doesn't deny that people can reason from the text of Scripture. 

Of course our human reasoning is fallen. That’s why the Holy Spirit has to reveal the truth to us. I can know that my exegesis is correct because I begin epistemologically with God. Having put my faith in God thanks to the Holy Spirit’s regeneration, I can be confident that God has revealed the truth to me.

There may be some lay Calvinists who put it that way, but that's confused. 

i) The Holy Spirit doesn't reveal the true interpretation of Scripture to a reader. At most, sanctification can make a reader more receptive to what Scripture says. 

ii) "Beginning epistemologically with God" is about the justification of knowledge. Epistemic justification. That's a separate issue from exegesis. 

BTW, many lay Arminians say the Holy Spirit reveals the true interpretation of Scripture. That's a part of folk evangelicalism. 

But if that’s the case how could you ever confidently know that anything you believe is true? I suspect you’ll say because God has revealed it to you, but that would just be arguing in a circle. You just admitted that if God wants someone to be in error then they will certainly be in error, including me and including you! How can you know that what God has revealed to you isn’t an error so that He can bring more glory to Himself by your being incorrect?

That's analogous to the Cartesian Demon. If, however, that's a problem for Calvinists, then that's no less a problem for freewill theists. Toy said "Here in lies a problem I don’t believe the Presuppositionalist will be able to get out of." But once you float hypotheticals like that, everyone is in the same boat. Toy could say that conclusion only follows from Calvinism, and he rejects Calvinism, but that's "arguing in a circle", for if God wants Toy to be in error about freewill theism, then Toy has no independent frame of reference to see the error of his ways. So his objection either proves too little or too much. 

I have asked this question to Calvinists before and never received an answer with any more substance than, “You just don’t understand Calvinism!” or “It’s more diamond shaped than that!”

Depends on who you're asking. If I wanted to understand open theism, I wouldn't ask a roommate who happens to be an open theist. Rather, I'd read books by noted exponents of open theism like William Hasker and Alan Rhoda. If I wanted to understand Arminianism, I wouldn't ask a layman who attends a Wesleyan church. Rather, I'd read books and articles by noted exponents of Arminianism like Thomas McCall and I. H. Marshall.

This I think truly exposes the fatal flaw of the Calvinist’s embrace of Divine determinism.

Notice that Toy is raising an a priori objection to Calvinism. Even if the Bible clearly taught Calvinism, Toy will reject the witness of Scripture because he thinks Calvinism suffers from a "fatal flaw". 

As William Lane Craig has stated, once a person embraces determinism of any sort a strange vertigo sets in. One very well may believe true things, but only because they’ve already been determined to believe those things just as much as their opponents have been determined to believe false things. In such a system, nothing can be rationally affirmed.

i) That's a popular philosophical blunder. Determinism doesn't make beliefs ipso facto irrational. If beliefs are determined by an unreliable belief-forming process, that would make them irrational–but if beliefs are determined by a reliable belief-forming process, that would make them rational. Determinism alone is neutral on the rationality of beliefs. Even an eminent freewill theist like Swinburne concedes that fact:

It has been argued that any argument for determinism would be self-defeating. For suppose a scientist discovers an apparently cogent argument for determinism. He will conclude that he has been caused to believe that his argument is cogent. But when we discover of people that they are caused to hold beliefs—e.g. as a result of the way they were educated, or of subjection to drugs—we do not regard them as having a rationally justified belief. To be rational in adopting a belief we have to do so freely, i.e. uncaused, the argument goes. So no one can ever be justified in believing determinism to be true. For one who believes determinism to be true must believe his belief to be caused and so unjustified. (There is a statement of this argument, subsequently retracted, by J. B. S. Haldane in his Possible Worlds, Chatto and Windus, London, 1930, p. 209. For references to other statements of it, including one by Epicurus, and discussion thereof, see K. R. Popper and J. C. Eccles, The Self and its Brain, Springer, New York, 1977, pp. 75 ff.) This argument has, I believe, no force at all. The mere fact that our beliefs are caused is no grounds for holding them unjustified. Exactly the reverse. I argued in Chapter 7 ["Beliefs"] that to the extent that we regarded them as uncaused or self-chosen, we could not regard our beliefs as moulded by the facts and so likely to be true. The point is rather that if we see some belief to be caused by a totally irrelevant factor (e.g. a belief that I now am being persecuted being caused by something irrelevant in my upbringing) then we rightly regard it as unjustified. But a belief that determinism is true could be both caused and justified, if caused by relevant factors, e.g. hearing relevant arguments. Richard Swinburne, The Evolution of the Soul (revised edition) (OUP, 1997), p. 233, fn. 2.

ii) Moreover, Toy fails to consider the alternative. If beliefs are the result of indeterminism, then true beliefs are accidentally true. Whether I believe truth or falsehood comes down to luck of the draw. 

I know that there is more to be discussed, but I don’t believe it is helpful at this point to simply appeal to the Scriptures that a Calvinist would use to defend their view of Divine determinism. Doing so would presume that you are engaging in proper exegesis, which can’t be the case if you are relying on fallen reasoning capabilities…

That's a popular misconception of Calvinism. Calvinism doesn't deny that readers can use reason to engage in proper exegesis. Not only can the regenerate use reason to engage in proper exegesis, but the unregenerate can use reason to engage in proper exegesis. Some secular Bible scholars interpret the Bible more accurately than some Christians. 

…and can’t be rationally affirmed if you are relying on God to have revealed the truth to you.

Again, I don't know what Toy means by God revealing the truth to you. Does he mean a propositional disclosure? If so, Calvinism denies that God conveys extra information to Calvinists in particular or the regenerate in general. 

Simply put, it is impossible to begin epistemologically outside oneself. 

True, but that's distinct from warranted belief. Epistemic justification can certainly include criteria that are external to oneself. Indeed, that's a hallmark of evidentialism–which Toy espouses.

Unless we assume that our reasoning capabilities are generally reliable, arguments about any topic can’t go anywhere.

That piggybacks on Toy's persistent misconception of Calvinism. It's a systematic error that vitiates his entire analysis. 

Refusing to use genderless pronouns

http://www.cbc.ca/radio/asithappens/as-it-happens-friday-edition-1.3786140/i-m-not-a-bigot-meet-the-u-of-t-prof-who-refuses-to-use-genderless-pronouns-1.3786144

Adventures in transgenderism

http://nypost.com/2016/09/29/transgender-babysitter-takes-plea-deal-for-killing-toddler/

Beware of aging atheists and cessationists

Atheists inveigh about the dangers of Christianity while cessationists inveigh against the dangers of Pentecostalism. Ah, but what about the dangers of atheism and cessationism? Consider Cardinal Alba, in John Carpenter's Vampires (1998), who betrayed vampire hunter Jack Crow:

Cardinal Alba: From your expression, I assume you couldn't understand my presence here. I'm sorry to disillusion you, Jack. As one grows old, as death approaches, we begin to question... our fate. And I found mine lacking. "Is there a god? Is there a heaven?" I can no longer answer this for certain. I've witnessed no miracles, had no visions, and the prospect of death terrifies me. I've realized I've only one... alternative, and I made a bargain. With the devil if you wish. 

That's correct, Jack and I can live with that. After I have given what Valek wants, he will fulfill our bargain. And I will be transformed into one of his... new children. It's beautiful, isn't it? Eternal Life... Immortality... can change your heart.

You better not turn your back on John MacArthur. He's 77. Or Richard Dawkins. He's 75. If they panic, they might switch sides and cut a deal with a master vampire! 

Here's a checklist of symptoms in case your friendly cessationist or atheist doesn't seem to be his old self anymore: 

• Stops smiling to conceal his long sharp incisors 

• Sudden change in college major from Accounting to Phlebotomy

• Harping on the Eucharist as real blood

• Switches to the night shift

• Spontaneous combustion when exposed to sunlight

• Avoids mirrors

• Garlic bread induces anaphylactic shock

• Exsanguinated cows in the neighborhood

• Aversion to the Latin Mass. (Vatican II was a godsend for vamps)

Bubbleboy cessationism

There are roughly two types of arguments for cessationism. On the one hand, they attempt to defend their position from Scripture. On they other hand, they point to the many quacks, scammers, and heretics in the charismatic movement. 

I daresay most cessationists espouse cessationism for the simple reason that they never had a personal experience that falsified their cessationism. But, ironically, that can leave them vulnerable to the quacks, scammers, and heretics in the charismatic movement. 

It's like the proverbial bubbleboy who has no resistance to disease. If a cessationist has an experience that falsifies his cessationism, he has no immunity or resistance to the quacks, scammers, and heretics in the charismatic movement because cessationist theology was his immune system. Take that away and he has no antibodies to protect him from airborne pathogens in the charismatic movement.   

It's like kids raised in anti-intellectual, fundy churches who lose their hereditary faith the moment that comes in contact with atheism or secular science. They are intellectually defenseless because they never cultivated reasons for their hereditary faith.

Over the years I've run across several credible reports of premonitory dreams. I wasn't investigating the subject. In some cases it's something I happened to read about on an unrelated subject. Or it's something that trusted friends shared with me.

Given that this is confined to my anecdotal and incidental experience, that suggested the phenomenon is more widespread. If a random sampling turns that up, consider what a more systematic investigation would uncover?

Or to take a different, but related example: years ago I was talking to a cardiologist. A relative of mine had been hospitalized for a heart attack. The cardiologist was a graduate of Yale med school. Somehow the conversation turned to the topic of near-death-experiences. He mentioned that as an intern he had a patient who was a mafia don. The patient had a near-death-experience. That caused the patient to reconsider his career in the mafia. He took it as a warning or second chance to clean up his act.

My point is this: a hardline cessationist has no fallback position. There's no flexibility in his position. That can make him a sucker for the quacks, scammers, and heretics in the charismatic movement if he ever has an experience that falsifies his cessationism.

By contrast, if you've developed a qualified noncessationism position, you can exercise critical discrimination. It doesn't leave you wide open to anything and everything–up to and including the New Age. But if you take an all-or-nothing approach, the alternative to nothing is everything. You have no criteria to winnow the wheat from the chaff. You treat it all as wheat or all as chaff. 

The wind and the flood

And God made a wind blow over the earth, and the waters subsided (Gen 8:1).

1. On the face of it, this explanation is a headscratcher. How could wind cause the flood waters to abate? If anything, this is more puzzling on the global-flood interpretation. If the spherical earth was submerged in water, wind would simply generate continuous wave action.

Flood geologists like Kurt Wise (Faith, Form, and Time), Andrew Snelling (Earth's Catastrophic Past), and Jonathan Sarfati (The Genesis Account), invoke catastrophic plate tectonics as the real mechanism causing the flood waters to subside. But on that view, the wind has no effect on the flood. So that substitutes an entirely different explanation. On that view, the wind has no explanatory value at all. It does no meaningful work. If, however, the text attributes the abatement of the flood waters to the wind, then we should seek an interpretation which takes that seriously. At the very least, that should be a primary cause. 

2. One possible alternative is that it doesn't mean "wind" but "Spirit". Commentators are quick to say 8:1 echoes 1:2. If 8:1 refers to the Spirit of God, then it might mean God miraculously caused the floodwaters to abate. There are, however, some difficulties with that identification:

i) In Gen 1:2, you have a title: "the ruach of God". Gen 8:1 doesn't use that title. So I don't assume these have equivalent referents.

ii) If it was a miracle, it's odd that it still took months for the flood waters to subside.

iii) Since Gen 7:11 cites natural mechanisms as the source of the floodwaters, we might expect, by parity, that the source of their abatement to be a natural mechanism as well.

iv) This isn't the only place in the Pentateuch where God sends wind to perform a providential task. As one commentator notes:

Moses witnessed the might of God's "wind" to induce and chase away a locust plague (Exod 10:13,19) and deliver his people from Egyptian armies at the sea on "dry ground" (Exod 14:21; 15:10). It was with the same "wind" that the Lord provided cal for the vagabond people of the desert (Num 11:31). K. Mathews, Genesis 1:11:26, 384-85. 

That suggests a preternatural force. It isn't strictly natural or supernatural. Rather, it's a natural force that's supernaturally directed. 

3. Yet that leaves unanswered the question of how wind could make the floodwaters recede. The answer depends on how we visualize the flood. Consider a local-flood interpretation: Among other things, rivers serve as drainage mechanisms. In case of torrential rain, they become swollen. As a result, river basis are flood basins.

However, this can be magnified by the further fact that torrential rain causes debris to flow downstream. Debris can dam a river when it forms a logjam. That, in turn, causes water to back up, thereby expanding the inundated area upstream. 

It doesn't take much imagination to visualize how a strong wind like a tornado or waterspout could disrupt a logjam, thereby releasing the pent-up waters. If it broke it up entirely, the runoff would be explosive. If it weakened the logjam, it might cause the natural dam to leak. In that event the runoff would be more gradual. 

4. It might be objected that my explanation is speculative. No doubt. However, postulates involving hydroplate theory or catastrophic plate tectonics are speculative. Moreover, my explanation is an extension of the text, whereas attributing the recession of the flood waters to tectonic and seismic activity has no connection to the text, and sets aside what the text says.

If we wish to understand the flood as a real event, then we need to go beyond the text to visualize a more specific scenario, extrapolating from the text to a more detailed reconstruction. That has the limitations of any conjectural reconstruction. My explanation at least has a toehold in the text, by developing explanation that's given in the text–rather than replacing that with something wholly extraneous to the text. 

The Limits of "RINO"

https://thearcmag.com/the-limits-of-rino-b8edcc43cdb7#.6muq4ctt3

“Anti-Catholicism” fueled by Liberal Roman Catholics

Over the weekend, one of my new friends at the Catholic-Protestant Debate group on Facebook posted the following:

Prejudice against the Catholics is "the deepest bias in the history of the American People" - Historian Arthur M. Schlesinger, Sr.

"Catholic baiting is the anti-Semitism of the liberals" - Conservative writer Peter Viereck

Anti-Catholicism is "the most luxuriant, tenacious tradition of paranoiac agitation in American history" - Historian John Higham

Discuss the relative truths revealed by these quotes.

I Google’d the first phrase, and don’t you know, this article from New Oxford Review came up, a review of the work “The New Anti-Catholicism: The Last Acceptable Prejudice”, by Philip Jenkins, Oxford University Press. Perhaps he wanted to pin me (and perhaps others) with a kind of “current manifestation” of the kind of “anti-Catholic bigotry” that “came to America with English colonists”:

Jenkins convincingly demonstrates that modern attempts to blacken the teaching and history of the Catholic Church are related to the contorted rantings of Swift and Foxe in the 1700s, now tricked out in new attire. Jenkins reveals how smears, at one time limited to the Ku Klux Klan’s attempts to play up American fears of “kikes, koons, and katholics,” have now become lucrative sources of revenue for ordinary individuals and companies.

That portion of the story is fleshed out with allusions to NY Governor Al Smith “digging under the Atlantic to Rome” and a 1960 book that “denounced John F. Kennedy, warning that voting a Catholic into the presidency would bring the pope to Washington and destroy American freedoms”.

But the real “anti-Catholicism” that has taken place since 1960 is the result of Vatican II progressives:

Has “Pope Francis” Failed?

Has “Pope Francis” Failed?

Francis has built his popularity at the expense of the church he leads. Those who wish to see a stronger church may have to wait for a different kind of pope. Instead of trying to soften the church’s teaching, such a man would need to speak of the way hard disciplines can lead to freedom. Confronting a hostile age with the strange claims of Catholic faith may not be popular, but over time it may prove more effective. Even Christ was met with the jeers of the crowd.

(Matthew Schmitz, literary editor of “First Things”, sitting in judgment over a pope.)

A Response To Annette Merz On The Infancy Narratives (Part 6)

(Previous parts in the series: part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4, part 5.)

Regarding whether Jesus was a descendant of David, Merz writes:

The evidence is complicated and inconclusive. On the one hand, there is early [post-Easter] evidence for the attribution of Davidic origin to Jesus in the formulaic tradition (Rom 1:3; 2 Tim 2:8), and the title "son of David" is present in Mark (10:47-48). On the other hand, there are once again strong indications that we are dealing with a concept which was absent from or debated in the earliest sources. In the Saying Source Q (which predates Mark), no traces of a Davidic ancestry are to be found. (489)

Merz refers to the evidence as "inconclusive", but elsewhere she tells us that Jesus' Davidic ancestry is "doubtful" (491).

She provides no argument for her reconstruction of the alleged Q source, and she provides no example of a place in Q where we'd expect Davidic ancestry to be mentioned if the author of Q believed in it. Paul doesn't mention Jesus' Davidic ancestry in Philemon. That doesn't prevent Merz from concluding that Paul refers to it in Romans. Authors frequently don't mention things they believe in, often because it's irrelevant to their present context. The vast majority of scholars, including Merz, accept conclusions related to Jesus that aren't found in Q. I've given some examples in previous posts in this series, such as Merz's apparent view that Jesus' brother James was an unbeliever until he thought he saw Jesus risen from the dead. I'm not aware of any reconstruction of Q that would include that material.

Merz continues:

Is the Reformation Over?

http://www.desiringgod.org/articles/has-rome-really-changed-its-tune

While some things have changed with the Roman Catholic Church to bring Catholics and Protestants closer together after five hundred years, many major differences remain to divide them. One approach to this quandary is to minimize the division. For example, it is anticipated that within the next year, Pope Francis will declare that the Reformation is over. Working from the Joint Declaration of the Doctrine of Justification, he will emphasize the agreements achieved on this once divisive doctrine and underscore that the sixteenth century anathemas (condemnations) of Protestants by Catholics and of Catholics by Protestants are removed. Thus, the Reformation will be formally finished.

Tragically, this perspective fails to address the continuing differences between the two traditions. The Catholic Church still holds to untrue doctrines of justification, salvation, authority, transubstantiation, Mary, seven sacraments that are effective ex opere operato, and purgatory. It is not helpful to skirt those issues for the sake of unity in a lowest-common-denominator approach.

While we can agree that much has changed, we must also agree that the Reformation remains unfinished.

Fountains of the deep

One more brief comment:

As to where the extra water came from, the Bible itself refers to its sources: "all the fountains of the deep burst forth, and the windows of the heavens were opened." (Gen.7:11). The atmosphere would not have provided sufficient rain for a massive global Flood. 

http://bylogos.blogspot.com/2016/09/the-flood-and-tidal-waves.html

Yes, the Bible cites two sources for the floodwaters. For liberals, both sources have mythological overtones. The "windows of heaven" alludes to the cosmic sea above the solid dome of the sky while the "fountains of the deep" refers to the primordial abyss.

For conservatives, the "windows of heaven" is a figurative expression for rainclouds and rainwater. 

But what about the "fountains of the deep"? Some say that's poetic. Some think that refers to subterranean water. Speaking for myself:

i) The parallelism in Gen 7:11 makes the general point that the deluge had two sources: water above and water below. 

ii) "Fountains of the deep" is a poetic synonym for the ocean. 

iii) The ocean is "below" the earth, not in a subterranean sense, but in the prosaic sense that dry land is generally higher than the sea. Sea level marks the boundary between the surface of the earth, where humans dwell, and the fathomless ocean. 

That interpretation is consistent with my lunar conjecture.

iv) The primary source of coastal flooding is the ocean. My lunar conjecture would ratchet that way up. It could still be wrong, but if so, it's wrong for different reasons.

Progressive pogrom

It's an interesting time to be an orthodox Christian. 

1. The Obama era has emboldened the religious left as well as the secular left. Their theology (if you can call it that) is synchronized with the Zeitgeist. It's striking to see their ferocious enmity for traditional Christian theology. That was epitomized by Elizabeth Barnes (who teaches feminist philosophy at the University of Virginia), when she said:

I hereby declare a party on my wall for progressive Christians sick of seeing their faith tradition co-opted by people who seem unable or unwilling to understand their own cruelty. 

That's unintentionally comical. Progressive Christianity is entirely parasitic on orthodox Christian theology. Progressive Christianity is defined in reaction to orthodox Christianity. Imagine a Muslim complain that he's sick of seeing Christians co-opt Islam. It isn't even possible for orthodox Christians to co-opt the faith tradition of progressive Christians. Rather, progressive Christians are laboring to co-opt Christian tradition, but sterilize it in the process. Orthodox Christian tradition is the frame of reference, not progressive Christianity.  

In point of fact, progressive Christianity cannot be true. If you think traditional Christian theology is bad pious fiction, then, at best, progressive Christianity can only be rewritten pious fiction. Redacting offensive fiction doesn't turn it into nonfiction, but just a different brand of fiction. Indeed, derivative fiction. A fiction of a fiction. Progressive Christianity is a secondary, reactionary movement with no intrinsic identity. 

The enmity of militant atheists towards Christianity at least has a semblance of logicality. Atheism doesn't pretend to be Christian. It labors, as best it can, to avoid theological starting-points. It labors, as best it can, to provide a systematic alternative to a Christian worldview. I don't think atheism is coherent. It has to deny too many essentials. But it's more consistent than progressive Christianity.

Not surprisingly, atheists have as much or more contempt for progressive Christians as orthodox Christian. They may find progressive Christians temporarily useful allies, but once atheists gain the upper hand, progressive Christians will follow orthodox Christians into the gulags. 

It would make more sense if the critics of Richard Swinburne's SCP address were outright atheists like Daniel Dennett, Evan Fales, Theodore Drange, et al. Problem is, Swinburne's critics are progressive Christians. They aren't consistently Christian and they aren't consistently secular. They struggle to stake out a half-baked intellectual compromise. An opportunistic pastiche of ad hoc snippets gleaned from Christianity and secularism. They're in no position to attack orthodox Christianity. They have no independent standard of comparison. 

It's like watching passengers saw off one wing of the airplane they're flying in. It isn't an airplane with two wings, like Christianity. It isn't a missile, like atheism. It isn't a different design. Rather, it's just a mutilated airplane. It will crash. Why do they even maintain the pretense of Christian profession? Why is that still important to them? 

2. Yet we see strenuous efforts on various fronts to unilaterally redraw the lines. For instance, Stan Gundry, Senior Vice President and Publisher at Zondervan Academic and a past president of the ETS, recently said, "Yes, even the question of whether same-sex 'marriages' can be defended biblically," is up for debate at the ETS.

Likewise, and not coincidentally, Zondervan will be releasing a new book in the Counterpoint series. Here's the publisher's description: "Until recently most books fit neatly into two camps: non-affirming books were written by evangelicals and affirming books by non-evangelicals. Today, this divide no longer exists. Recent books written by evangelicals appeal to the authority and inspiration of Scripture as they argue for an affirming view. The question of what the Bible says about homosexuality is now an intra-evangelical discussion."

So by fiat, these are now "intra-evangelical" positions. Increasingly, we see both the secular left and the religious left laying down ultimatums.

3. Yet out of the other side of their mouth they purse their lips when Bible-believers say their views are unchristian. "How dare you presume to say who's Christian and who's not!" But in addition to the fact that progressive Christians are quick to draw exclusionary lines, there's nothing untoward about saying Christianity has boundaries. If it didn't have boundaries, it wouldn't be anything. To be Christian is not to be non-Christian. There must be something to differentiate Christianity. That's just pitifully obvious. 

4. One of the ironies of the animus directed at Swinburne is that it's coming from the religious left, even though it would be very easy to attack him from the religious right. Swinburne is by no means an unreconstructed conservative. There are modernist elements to his own position. In normal times, his critics would either be evangelicals or atheists. He himself is a theological moderate. Even so, he's too center-right for today's progressive Christians. 

Their indignant reaction to Swinburne's "offensive" view that homosexuality is an incurable condition is just bizarre. Isn't that precisely what homosexual activists have been hammering into the public psyche? Homosexuality is hardwired. Immutable. Homosexuals cannot change their orientation. Indeed, California recently passed an unconstitutional law banning reparative therapy. Why is it so unbearable for Swinburne to say exactly what homosexual activists have been screaming for years? Progressive Christians emote and react rather than think. 

5. Then there's the cult of feeling offended. To begin with, if homosexuals are really that emotionally fragile, then that alone is why they can't be trusted with positions of power. They are too unstable and vindictive.  

But in reality, LGBT activists are hardly victims. To the contrary, they are aggressors using victimology to camouflage their militancy. They aren't weak, helpless, and defenseless. Rather, the power elite has issued them a license to kill. They unwittingly demonstrate why it's dangerous to empower them. They shamelessly abuse their power. 

6. This may account for the visceral reaction to Andy Stanley's notorious sermon attacking the foundational status of Scripture. At a time and place when Bible-believing Christians are increasingly threatened, his timing seems like a betrayal. Like signaling to the power elite, "Hey, don't blame me! Don't confuse me with those Bible-thumpers over there. I'm one of the good guys!"