Is TAG viable?

I was asked to comment on this article:

https://philarchive.org/archive/BKEVTV

I just skimmed his article, so maybe my cursory impressions fail to do it justice. That said:

1. Seems to me that Békefi fails to adequately interact with critics of Stroud, or with Stroud's own reformulations, viz.

https://ndpr.nd.edu/news/the-possibility-of-philosophical-understanding-reflections-on-the-thought-of-barry-stroud/

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/transcendental-arguments/#ObjTraArg

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/transcendental-arguments/#ResObj

https://www.iep.utm.edu/trans-ar/#H4

https://www.iep.utm.edu/trans-ar/#H6

2. I find Békefi's treatment too scattershot, abstract, and generic. He tries to cover too much ground. 

Transcendental arguments are a family of arguments. I doubt it's meaningful to try to evaluate them in general. Rather, I think they must be assessed on a case-by-case basis depending on the particular X they claim to be a necessary condition for the possibility of Y. 

3. Since there's nothing in philosophy that goes unchallenged, I think it's unnecessary that a transcendent argument should have a major premise that no philosopher questions or denies. That's just not how philosophy works. And it makes the success of transcendent arguments hostage to opponents who are, by definition, the most unreasonable. Why should that be the standard of comparison?

I think it would be wiser to recast transcendental arguments as dilemmas. They demonstrate the ethical, epistemological, or metaphysical cost of denying certain things. They needn't be rationally coercive in the sense of compelling the opponent to say uncle. If an opponent responds to a dilemma by accepting one horn of the dilemma, and if that commits him to radical skepticism or nihilism, that's a successful dilemma because it's exposed how extreme, irrational and/or nihilistic the non-Christian opponent is. That in itself is a very useful exercise. It demonstrates the starkness of the alternatives. 

4. Although orthodox Christianity requires the existence of a physical universe, some theistic proofs can be adapted to a Matrix-type scenario. 

5. I think it's probably best to use transcendental arguments as part of a cumulative case strategy for proving the Christian faith, rather than a silver bullet. Reality is complex. 

6. The Christian faith is a combination of necessary truths and contingent truths. I don't think historical events can be proven a priori. 

7. What kinds of things should furnish a major premise for TAG? Candidates include:

i) Abstract objects like possible worlds, laws of logic, and mathematical truths. James Anderson and Greg Welty have been doing yeoman work in that field.

ii) The Trinity

It may not be possible to construct a philosophical argument that specifically demonstrates the Trinity. There are, however, general aspects of the Trinity that may be more amendable to philosophical demonstration:

a) The ontological priority of mind over matter and energy. 

b) Reality as ultimately complex rather than simple

c) Interpersonality

iii) Predestination

It's not coincidental that Van Til was a Calvinist. If everything happens according to the master plan of a benevolent, omniscient, and omnipotent agent, then everything happens for a reason. The alternative is to interject a destabilizing and decoherent principle of cosmic surdity. We have that in freewill theism and secular alternatives. Where events happen either by blind chance or blind necessity.

iv) Divine revelation

Quine has discussed how our scientific description of the world greatly outstrips the meager input from our five senses. Is it enough to have raw input? Or do we require an authoritative interpretation from a source outside ourselves? To take a comparison, it's like the difference between seeing a strange light in the night sky crash, and hearing (or watching) a TV newscast announce that an Air Force jet crashed. If all you had to go by was what you saw (heard, and felt), that would be open to multiple interpretations. Having an authoritative explanation outside the purview of the observer is necessary to arrive at the right interpretation. 

Eschatological overcrowding

This is a sequel to my previous post:

http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2018/02/hilberts-hotel.html

1. A prima facie problem with biblical eschatology is the specter of eschatological overcrowding. What's the optimum population for human life on earth? If you total the saints on judgment day, will there be enough room for them on earth? And not just acreage, but paradisiacal conditions. I've discussed this before, but I'll approach it from another angle.

2. A critic would say this just demonstrates that Scripture was written by shortsighted, uninspired authors. But other issues aside, that doesn't work. Supposing Bible writers thought the boundaries of the world approximated the Middle East or the Roman Empire, that would furnish much less space to squeeze all the saints into. It's not as if our modern sense of modern geography aggravates the problem. To the contrary, our modern sense of scale diminishes the problem. 

3. There are basically two kinds of biblical predictions about the final state feeding into this issue:

i) Resurrection passages

These are passages about the general resurrection, resurrection of the just, and/or resurrection of Christ. They imply or presume that the final state will be an embodied or reembodied state. And a physical body requires a physical environment. 

Although a few of these passages have figurative or surreal elements (e.g. Ezk 37), in the main they're representational descriptions. That's reinforced by the fact that the resurrection of Christ is the template for the resurrection of the just. That supplies a very literal frame of reference. 

ii) Golden age passages

These are passages that depict the future world in terms of a new Eden, New Exodus, and/or New Jerusalem. They're specifically terrestrial in orientation. Earthly. 

That said, I think the terms of fulfillment for type-(ii) passages is far more flexible than for type-(i) passages. Just in general, long-range Bible prophecies employ stock, provincial, anachronistic imagery. They depict the future in terms of the past or present. They're adapted to the historical horizon of the original audience.

They depict the future world in terms reminiscent of the ancient Near East or Roman Empire. The geography and technology of that time and place. For instance, take Isaiah's golden age oracles in Isa 11:6-9 or Isa 66:20. That reflects ancient Near Eastern livestock and fauna. If Isaiah was a native of the Amazon river basin or Montana, different fauna would illustrate the age to come.

When I read Bible prophecies about the world to come, I automatically make mental adjustments for the fact that God accommodated the blinkered perspective of the original audience in that regard. Since I don't assume that in the world to come, everybody will live in the Middle East and get around on horses and camels and mules, I don't assume that the physical life in the world to come is necessarily confined to planet earth. 

I think the fulfillment of eschatological prophecies is generally analogous rather than univocal. If it's about future modernity, we need to do some mental updating.

4. I'd add that people vary widely in their idea of paradise. Some people are urbanites by choice. Others prefer a more bucolic existence. Some people love to live on the coast while others prefer mountains or deserts. Some people are very attached to their birthplace. And if you went a forward or backward a hundred years, their birthplace would lose its nostalgia, because it would be so different.

Some people fall in love with a particular place. Some people have wanderlust. They like to travel the world and live in different places. 

Many people have a customized notion of paradise, not a generic, once-size-fits-all notion. Of course, I'm not saying the final state necessarily mirrors the "dream home" of every saint. But it wouldn't surprise me if the final state is more varied than traditional representations. 

Maybe the reality of the final state is grounded in a multiverse. It takes omnipotence no more effort to create a multiverse than planet earth. The multiverse is Hilbert's Hotel in concrete. 

Preexistent future

There's some dispute as to whether the B-theory of time is deterministic. On the face of it, if the future already exists, then that excludes alternate timelines forking off in different directions from the present. That interval has been filled. That slot has been taken. It seems symmetrical with the accidental necessity of the past. If it's now the case that the future is already in place, then that's fixed. A fait accompli. It's already happened–just not in the present. 

That doesn't necessarily mean it's deterministic in the sense that the past causes the future. But however the future eventuated, that's now over and done with. Someone in the present has yet to experience that preexistent future, but it's already played out. 

Paul Helm has championed the B-theory of time, mainly as a model for creation by a timeless God. A fringe benefit might seem to be how it dovetails with Reformed "determinism".

However, we need to be careful about that. Reformed predestination and providence isn't based on a particular theory of time. And that might actually be inconsistent with what makes the future determinate according to Calvinism.

Assuming that there's a sense in which the B-theory of time makes the future determinate (see above), that's based on the metaphysics of time rather than a divine plan. It could be random. 

In Calvinism, the future is determinate in the way a movie plot is determinate. The director has scripted the story in his mind. It has dramatic logic. 

But that doesn't mean things had to happen in that particular sequence. Indeed, it's quite flexible. In God's imagination, the present could fork off in different directions. It's just that God picks one of those hypothetical trajectories to actualize. What makes it determinate isn't that a particular series of events had to go together, but that God chose to instantiate that particular plot. God can imagine alternate endings, but he didn't reify those counterfactuals. 

Prince Ali, fabulous he, Ali Ababwa!

Steve pointed me to this excerpt from The Cambridge Companion to Miracles (pp 194-195):

There are many examples of such 'marvellous' happenings. Perhaps the most famous contemporary guru associated with the miraculous is Sathya Sai Baba. Sai Baba was born in 1926 to a poor family in Andhra Pradesh and his life is surrounded by devotees bearing witness to his miraculous powers. He claims to be a reincarnation of the saint Sai Baba of Shirdi (d. 1918) and also to be an incarnation (avatara) of Shiva and Shakti. His career has been of increasing claims to divinity supported by a large organization and thousands of devoted followers. At the heart of his teachings is the idea that we are all God and that the difference between him and others is that he has realized this. He advocates what he regards as the universal human values of truth (satya), right conduct (dharma), non-violence (ahimsa), love of God and world (prema) and peace (santi). He also teaches the unity of world religions and service to humanity.³¹ These teachings, which are typical of Hinduism after the nineteenth century, are accompanied by miraculous events and Sai Baba demonstrating miraculous powers. The most important of these is materializations of objects such as watches, necklaces, rings and gold ornaments. Of particular importance is the manifestation of ash (vibhuti) from his finger tips, although other substances are also said to be produced such as red powder for tilak marks, turmeric powder, sweets, fruit, holy water and Siva lingas. Ash is sacred to Siva and, significantly, the term vibhuti is used synonymously with siddhi. He is also attributed with powers of clairvoyance, levitation and appearing in two places at once, or bilocation. One of the most recent claims to a miracle by Sai Baba was in 2006 when he told his devotees that he would appear in the moon. The large crowd that gathered were disappointed because of the overcast weather.³² Sai Baba does not appear to perform healing miracles.

The important point is that Sai Baba is said to perform miracles as a sign of his divinity. These manifestations are taken to be evidence for his claims by devotees and evidence of his fraudulence by his critics and rationalists. There is much controversy surrounding Sai Baba. On the one hand there is good work funded bythe Sai Baba centre or ashram and many positive claims have been made about the transformative effect of the guru on people's lives; yet on the other he has borne the brunt of negative criticism that his 'miracles' are in fact sleight-of-hand³³ and accusations of sexual abuse and even complicity in murder.³⁴ With Sai Baba we have a curious mix of a traditional yogic understanding of powers, as attested in yoga literature, in a very modern context with a Western understanding of miracles. Sai Baba himself would seem to be aware of this context and speaks to both Hindu tradition and Western belief in miracles as the disruption of material causation.

[Notes]

³¹See Lawrence A. Babb, ‘Sathya Sai Baba’s Magic’, Anthropological Quarterly 56 (1983), 116–24. Also idem, Redemptive Encounters: Three Modern Styles in the Hindu Tradition (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1986). For a general survey of his life see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sathya_Sai_Baba

³²http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sathya_Sai_Baba

³³Erlendur Haraldsson, Modern Miracles: An Investigative Report on Psychic Phenomena Associated with Sathya Sai Baba (New York: Fawcett, 1997).

³⁴David Bailey, A Journey to Love (Prasanthi Nilayam: Sri Sathya Sai Towers Hotels Pvt. Ltd, 1997).

Just a few brief comments for now:

1. Sai Baba claims to be a kind of savior. An enlightened one. Of course, it's quite possible he's a fraud, per above.

2. However, if Sai Baba is truly performing "miracles", then (from the Bible's perspective) he's a false prophet or an antichrist. The Bible warned us against false prophets and false messiahs (e.g. Deut 13:1-5, Mk 13:21-23).

3. Sai Baba's "signs and wonders" are more reminiscent of Jannes and Jambres and Simon Magus (e.g. ash from his fingertips, materializations of objects) than biblical miracles performed by true prophets like Moses, Joshua, Elijah, Elisha, etc. In a sense, Sai Baba's miracles are cheap parlor tricks or small potatoes compared to parting the Red Sea or the walls of Jericho falling down or even creating a gnat. Maybe a better way to put it is: I suspect there's a point at which Sai Baba would have to say "this is the finger of God".

4. Although Jesus and the prophets of the Bible performed signs and wonders, they didn't rely solely on signs and wonders to verify their claims (e.g. John 4:48).

5. If Sai Baba is performing bona fide miracles, albeit false miracles from the vantage point of Christianity, then that undermines atheist claims that miracles are impossible, that there's nothing more than the physical or natural realm. These atheists posit a universal negative against miracles and the supernatural, but if Sai Baba isn't some charlatan, then these atheists are felled at one stroke.

Atheists like Stephen Braude might argue "miracles" are possible within the natural realm. Perhaps humans have seldomly tapped abilities which may seem preternatural, but which are entirely explicable on naturalistic grounds. If so, that depends on their specific arguments and whether Sai Baba's miraculous powers can be accounted for given their specific arguments. For instance, telekinesis could explain levitation, but how could it explain materialization or bilocation?

Here I opened wide the door, darkness there and nothing more

A militant atheist writes:

AND it is also vital that Christians are educated on the evidence-based reasons why non-Christians are confident that Christianity isn't true. The real question about faith is, does the Christian have markers in place that would let them know that their faith has been misplaced.

Steve responded:

And what would lower [your] confidence level that Christianity isn't true? On a scale of 1-100...

Back to the militant atheist:

Steve Hays thank you for asking. I get asked this question a lot and my answer is always that if someone prayed for my paralyzed sister in the name of Jesus (can only move her eyes and mouth, she's on a feeding tube due to MS) and I see her immediately jumped up and was healed (with the accompanying regaining of muscles mass). My confidence that Christianity is true would rise from below 1% to over 90%. I still wouldn't be certain but my confidence would be very high. What would lower your confidence Christianity is true Steve?

To which I said:

Why does it have to be your sister? Why not someone else's sister? Or brother? Or mother or father? And so on. It's not as if your family is the only family in the entire world let alone throughout history.

Militant atheist:

Because I know the situation with my sister first hand, have see the deterioration first hand over many many years. I have seen the feeding tube with my own eyes. I have tested the fact that she is completely paralyzed myself. I've seen the 50 lbs of muscle mass disappear. Now if you Patrick, were to pray for my sister in Jesus' name and she jumped out of bed and ran around ... I don't care how big a skeptic one is, this would increase my confidence. Wouldn't that be an absolutely amazing thing to see?

Me:

all this proves is you have an unreasonably high standard. That's fine, I suppose, you're allowed to have whatever standards you want for yourself. However, let's not pretend that's a reasonable standard in general.

Militant atheist redux:

Patrick Chan yes you are right, I do have high standards. I disagree with unreasonable however. I think your standards to believe in Hinduism would be as high as mine for Christianity.

Me part deux:

Why not just have the same standard for everything? Why not just use reason, logic, evidence, and so on to evaluate any claim (whether about Hinduism or Christianity or whatever else)?

I say you have unreasonably high standards because you will only accept a "miracle" if it's your sister. Even though I'm sure you've met a lot of other sick people. Even though I'm sure you have at least heard of other sick people and have no good reason to doubt these stories (say) from your friends, from doctors, etc. That's your prerogative to be so picky about the evidence that you will only grant the evidence if your sister is healed. But that's not a reasonable standard.

Hi, it's me again:

As far as documented miracle claims (attested by physicians), here are a couple of examples posted on a weblog:

https://epistleofdude.wordpress.com/2018/02/06/from-strength-to-strength/

https://epistleofdude.wordpress.com/2018/01/19/healing-miracles/

Militant atheist at the gates:

thanks for this. I'm reading it now, but can you do me a favor? You read it as well, but picture this couple as East Indian and Hindu. Then let's read it together with out collective skeptical hats.

ok I finished reading the article. Now Patrick, if you can imagine this couple as East Indian, and both them and the doctor Hindus, what doubts would you have about this article?

Moi:

I don't see what their race has anything to do with it.

Anyway, these are real world examples. I'd be happy to read an "East Indian and Hindu" example that's attested by physicians too.

El ateo militante:

One of the best ways to lower bias is to remove one's desire for it to be true. This is why I am asking for Patrick to imagine this same scenario but for a Hindu couple.

Right back at me:

1. This shows your own bias toward me because you assume I have a "desire for it to be true". However, what makes you think I have a "desire for it to be true"? I never said or implied I did.

2. Besides, my desire for something to be true or false is immaterial to the evidence for the case itself.

3. Also, this cuts both ways. What if you have a "desire" for it to be false?

4. Finally, why pretend like this is a different case than the case presented before us? Why not just take the case as it is? There's no need for hypotheticals or imagings when there's a real actual case before us. If you have a similar case from an "East Indian" and "Hindu" that's attested by physicians, then go ahead and post it, and I'll read it and evaluate it. Just evaluate it on a case by case basis. That's normally how reasonable people operate.

Old atheist is new atheist:

ok. I just wanted to make sure there was no bias from either side. Now are you willing to express any doubts about the article you posted?

Sacré bleu:

I don't grant there's no bias on either side. You're obviously a militant atheist.

Springtime for Facebook and atheism:

do you have any doubts at all about that article?

Ma va:

Here's a better point as the person noted in the weblog post: "The Vanderhoofs and the physicians are presently alive so presumably anyone can contact the parties for more information if they are interested."

Harald Hefter, February 2005
Prof. Dr. med. Dr. rer. nat. Harald Hefter
Medical Director, Department of Neurology,
University Hospital Düsseldorf, Germany
http://www.uniklinik-duesseldorf.de/unternehmen/kliniken/klinik-fuer-neurologie/mitarbeiter/prof-dr-med-dr-rer-nat-harald-hefter/

Devin Zimmerman, M.D., February 2005
South Bend Neurology, South Bend, Indiana
http://www.sjmed.com/devin-zimmerman-md

The atheist strikes back:

Patrick Chan hopefully I can express my doubt in a way that you won't become defensive. He was diagnosed with Myoclonus, extreme fatigue and poor short-term memory. He was treated with Dival Sodium. He got better. The dosage was reduced. He still suffered from a major lack of memory of the time of his stay in the clinic.

Return of the me:

Actually, that's completely mistaken. Both physicians state he was diagnosed with Creutzfeld Jakob Disease (CJD). For all intents and purposes CJD is a fatal disease.

Don't believe me? Just Google. For example:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creutzfeldt–Jakob_disease

In addition, myoclonus is a symptom of CJD. Mycolonus is not the disease itself.

Atheist misadventures in debating:

you could be right, but in the article you posted, no where does it say he was diagnosed with CJD. It just says the existence of the new version of the Creutzfeld-Jakob-Disease was very likely.

Quoth the doctor, evermore:

"Our American colleagues joined our suspected diagnosis [of CJD] and also waived on brain biopsy probably due to the clear clinical picture and the very poor prognosis."

Atheism: into darkness:

Patrick Chan correct, it says suspected diagnosis.

Sense and sensibility:

It also says "due to the clear clinical picture". In other words, the neurologists were quite certain it was CJD based on the clinical picture. A brain biopsy would've been overkill. In any case, I cited the contact information of the physicians above. You could contact them and ask them yourself.

In addition, a brain biopsy at that point would've arguably lacked compassion given how rapidly the patient was deteriorating.

This atheist's logic has become ill:

yes, and it got better with a simple drug.

Requiem for an atheistic dream:

There's no curative treatment for CJD. The drug (Depakote aka valproic acid) is an anticonvulsant. It's meant for symptomatic relief of his myoclonus or muscle spasms (myoclonus is a symptom or sign of CJD). It's to palliate the patient as he deteriorates so that he doesn't suffer as much as he dies.

If you don't believe me, read this from Harvard Med:

"CJD cannot be cured, but some of the symptoms can be treated. Narcotics may be used to relieve pain, and anticonvulsant drugs, such as clonazepam (Klonopin) and valproic acid (Depacon, Depakene, Depakote), may be used for muscle spasms. Research studies are looking into other drugs that may be helpful."

https://www.health.harvard.edu/mind-and-mood/creutzfeldt-jakob-disease-cjd

Retorted atheism:

ok. But you're assuming he had CJD to being with. Like I said, that is not clear from the article, and misdiagnosis happen all the time. What we do know, is he got better at the same time he took a simple drug. Now it could be god that worked slowly over 1.5 years, or maybe it was the drug. Which is more likely to you?

Me, finis:

As I said, you're free to contact the neurologists yourself if you doubt their clinical acumen and judgment and ask them for their rationale and reasoning for why they "misdiagnosed" CJD in this patient.

Hilbert's Hotel

Supralapsarian Calvinism is sometimes classified as a felix culpa theology. Conversely, you have atheists who say, Why did God create Satan, knowing what would happen? 

Suppose Adam and Eve never fell. What would the world be like? Would it be better, worse, or both better and worse?

Minimally, Adam's posterity wouldn't die of old age. Perhaps, if Adam and Eve ate from the tree of life, their immortality would be transmitted to their posterity. Or perhaps their posterity would need to eat from the tree of life. Or perhaps, as they colonized the earth, they'd take seeds from the tree of life and plant it elsewhere. 

Or maybe God would simply confer immortality on Adam's posterity, apart from the tree of life. It's unlikely that fruit from the tree of life had chemical properties that conveyed biological immortality. How is that naturally possible? Rather, it's more likely that God simply attached a blessing to that object. 

In theory, Adam's posterity might still be vulnerable to death by causes other than senescence. Perhaps God might providentially protect them from death by other causes. Or perhaps God would let them die, but miraculously restore them to life.

It seems unlikely that an intermediate state would exist in an unfallen world. In a fallen world, the intermediate state exists because people die at different times over the millennia, but at the Parousia, death will cease, and all the dead will restored to life all at once. (According to amil eschatology. Premil eschatology is more complex, but the net effect will be the same.)

But in an unfallen world, there wouldn't be that cutoff. So there wouldn't be any point in people dying, then passing into an intermediate state. 

The upshot is that in an unfallen world, the human race would continue to reproduce until it reached an optimum population level. In theory, that might be confined to the garden of Eden. If so, that would be a small population.

Or perhaps Adam's posterity would outgrow the garden and proceed to colonize the more hospitable regions of the globe. But to avoid the detrimental effects of overpopulation (e.g. famine, starvation), it would have to plateau. Suppose at that point God made the women infertile. 

Reproduction would terminate with a stable, unchanging population. However many generations of Adam's posterity until it hit the optimum population threshold. That would be the last generation. Frozen in place. Further procreation would be unnecessary to maintain a replacement rate, since no one would die–or if they died, they'd be restored to life. 

That would be a good world. Better in some respects than a fallen world. However, the overall population would be far smaller. An absolutely static, invariant population.

One fringe benefit of mortality is that it frees up time and space for far more humans to exist. Some of them are hellbound but some of them are heavenbound. Yet the heavenbound humans wouldn't exist in a world where there's a final generation once reproduction reaches the optimum population size. There's no more room for additional generations. The cutoff comes early in human history.

In one respect, a fallen world is worse because it contains hellbound individuals. But that's offset by the greater number of heavenbound individuals, since they don't have to coexist at the same time and place. Because they exist diachronically rather than synchronically in the same place, procreation can continue indefinitely. 

God might still decree a terminus, but it will be very far out compared to an unfallen world. The cumulative population will be vastly larger. Eventually, they all exist simultaneously, but not at the same location. 

Heaven is more capacious than Hilbert's Hotel. Never runs out of guest rooms. Always a vacancy! 

Hanky panky express

https://energeticprocession.wordpress.com/2018/02/13/what-the-water-gave-me/#more-3956

Luke's nativity account

1. At the bottom of this post I'm going to reproduce an essay about Richard Bauckham. He's unduly skeptical, but still has some useful info. If we date Luke's Gospel to the late 50s or thereabouts, then I don't see why Mary couldn't be a direct source, since she may well have been a teenager when she bore Jesus. Barring that, Luke might well have access to informant like James and Jude, who'd have family lore at their fingertips.

2. An objection to Mary as one of Luke's informants is that Luke doesn't mention the flight to Egypt. Also, Lk 2:39 is pretty abrupt if Luke was aware of the intervening events. There are three potential explanations for the omission:

i) Luke doesn't report the flight to Egypt because Mary wasn't an informant

ii) Luke doesn't report the flight to Egypt even though Mary was an informant because she didn't tell him about it

iii) Even though Mary told him about it, Luke had some reason not to include it

Let's run back through these:

(i) is possible. However, assuming the historicity of the Lucan nativity anecdotes, Mary is naturally the ultimate source of information. However, this could be mediated through the siblings of Jesus. But if so, that still doesn't explain the omission of this particular incident, given the other nativity anecdotes.

(ii) When I look back on my late relatives, it's striking how little they said about their past. It usually came down to a handful of stock anecdotes which they periodically repeated. Although they had detailed recollections of their life, they rarely talked about most of what happened to them, including important things. You could get more information if you questioned them, but it takes some background information to know what to ask. 

Or they might volunteer something if a conversation happened to prompt them to relate an incident from their past. One time when we took my grandmother to church, they had a period where parishioners could mention something that happened to them that week. My grandmother seized the occasion to discuss her conversion experience. Not only was that the first time I ever heard her tell that story, even though I knew her well, that was the first time my mother heard her tell that story. My grandmother was in her mid-80s at the time, yet this is the first time she had occasion to mention that in my mother's presence. People can keep very significant things to themselves most of the time. 

In addition, as one Synoptic scholar said to me, one has to be careful on insisting what events a person might raise. Since Luke had already made clear that the family was from Galilee, there was little reason to mention the flight to Egypt. They just eventually ended up living in their homeland.

(iii) Perhaps Luke didn't include it because the flight into Egypt is politically sensitive. It raises questions about the Roman administration of Palestine. That's not a problem for Matthew's Jewish audience, but if Luke's Gospel is addressed to a Roman official, then Luke might wish to avoid opening that can of worms. 

How biblical is Molinism, finis

http://www.proginosko.com/2018/02/how-biblical-is-molinism-part-6/

Not in my backyard

http://www.theamericanconservative.com/dreher/no-shthole-people-please-rich-liberals/

The Catholic contraceptive taboo

I'm going to comment on a longish defense of Rome's position on contraception by a Catholic philosophy prof. (Christopher M. Brown) at UT Martin:

https://arcdigital.media/want-to-live-the-good-life-then-dont-use-contraception-93c47b0c06fd

One of the problems with natural law arguments against "artificial" contraception is that such arguments don't originate in natural law principles, but in Catholic dogma. Natural law appeals are then scrambled after the fact to retroactively justify Rome's position. 

There are striking parallels between arguments for transgenderism and arguments for the Catholic ban on contraception. Both resort to artificial distinctions and dichotomies. 

Given the hand he dealt himself, I think Brown plays that hand about as well as can be done, but there's only so much you can do with a losing hand.  

Jesus or Allah?

http://journal.rts.edu/review/no-god-one-allah-jesus-former-muslim-investigates-evidence-islam-christianity/

Bailey's Middle Eastern Approach to the Gospels

http://jgrchj.net/volume13/JGRChJ13-2_Keener.pdf

Is life a comedy or tragedy?

http://thinktheology.co.uk/blog/article/human_tragedy_or_divine_comedy

http://speaklife.org.uk/2017/05/04/tep158/

Sisyphus

A perfect image of meaninglessness, of the kind we are seeking, is found in the ancient myth of Sisyphus. Sisyphus, it will be remembered, betrayed divine secrets to mortals, and for this he was condemned by the gods to roll a stone to the top of a hill, the stone then immediately rolled back down, again to be pushed to the top by Sisyphus, to roll down once more, and so on again and again, forever. Now in this we have the picture of meaningless, pointless toil, of a meaningless existence that is absolutely never redeemed. It is not even redeemed by a death that, if it were to accomplish nothing more, would at least bring that idiotic cycle to a close…Nothing ever comes of what he is doing, except simply more of the same…a repetitious, cyclic activity that never comes to anything.

Now let us ask: Which of these pictures does life in fact resemble? And let us not begin with our own ives, for here both our prejudices and wishes are great, but with the life in general that we share with the rest of creation. We shall find, I think, that it all has a certain pattern, and that this pattern is by now easily recognized. 

We can begin anywhere, only saving human existence for our last consideration. We can, for example, begin with any animal. It does not matter where we begin, because the result is going to be exactly the same.

Thus, for example, there are caves in New Zealand, deep and dark, whose floors are quiet pools and whose walls and ceilings are covered with soft light. As one gazes in wonder in the stillness of these caves it seems that the Creator has reproduced there in microcosm the heavens themselves, until one scarcely remembers the enclosing presence of the walls. As one looks more closely, however, the scene is explained. Each dot of light identifies an ugly worm, whose luminous tail is meant to attract insects from the surrounding darkness. As from time to time one of these insects draws near it becomes engaged in a sticky thread lowered by the worm, and is eaten. This goes on month after month, the blind worm lying there in the barren stillness waiting to entrap an occasional bit of nourishment that will only sustain it to another bit of nourishment until…Until what? What great thing awaits all this long and repetitious effort and makes it worthwhile? Really nothing. The larva just transforms itself finally to a tiny winged adult that lacks even mouth parts to feed and lives only a day or two. These adults, as soon as they have mated and laid eggs, are themselves caught in the threads and are devoured by the cannibalistic worms, often without having ventured into the day, the only point to their existence having now been fulfilled. This has been going on for millions of years, and to no end other than that the same meaningless cycle may continue for another millions of years.

All living things present essentially the same spectacle. The larva of a certain cicada burrows in the darkness of the earth for seventeen years, through season after season, to emerge finally, into the daylight for a brief flight, lay its eggs, and die–this all to repeat itself during the next seventeen years, and so on to eternity. Robert Taylor, "The Meaning of Life," E. Klemke & S. Cahn, eds. The Meaning of Life: A Reader (Oxford, 3rd. ed., 2008), chap. 12. 

That's reminiscent of the famous opening to Ecclesiastes. That narrator was an existentialist 3000 years ago. 

This has seemed to many human observers to be the very model of absurdity, an utterly pointless existence…The best response to this argument is that it projects human needs and sensibilities onto other species. The human observer simply does not have the  salmon's point of view. Joel Feinberg, "Absurd Self-Fulfillment," E. Klemke & S. Cahn, eds. The Meaning of Life: A Reader (Oxford, 3rd. ed., 2008), 163-64.

i) There's an element of truth to Feinberg's observation. Atheists who contend that a good God wouldn't create a world characterized by predation commit that fallacy. Animals don't share the viewpoint of the human observer, who's aghast at the law of the jungle. 

ii) But in another respect, Feinberg misses the point. The comparison is based on dramatic irony: the fact that human observers are aware of something that insects and other animals–even higher animals–are not. And from a secular standpoint, we're chained to the same Sisyphean predicament as other organisms. 

iii) From a Christian standpoint, there are similarities as well as differences. There's a robotic repetition to the lifecycle of plants and animals. If there was nothing behind it, no benevolent intelligence, then universal nihilism would reign. Likewise, if humans suffer the same fate. If we make our replacements, then pass into oblivion. 

iv) From a Christian standpoint, the cycles of nature illustrate boundless divine ingenuity–as well as benevolence, by providing a stable environment in which humans can live and flourish. And they furnish a point of contest. We share many things in common with animals. Yet God has set us apart by the gift of consciousness and immortality. Animals are ephemeral in a way humans are not. Animals are a means to an end, whereas humans are an end in themselves.  

Why contraception is not immoral

https://arcdigital.media/contraception-is-not-immoral-8289a08cf7f4

Men on strike

i) I'm going to make a few anecdotal observations about feminism. I believe there's increasing evidence that many men have given up on marriage. Feminism isn't entirely to blame for this. Before women's lib, there was still lots of marital unhappiness. Unrequited love. The Sorrows of Young Werther and all that. In a fallen world, longing, rejection, and domestic malaise are inevitable. However, feminism has exacerbated those problems.

ii) It's my impression that as a rule, men are easier to please than women. Take two examples. I've spoken with beauticians who say women customers are tougher customers than men. Harder to satisfy. Harder to get it right. 

Likewise, take the cliche of the wife who's always nagging her husband to fix things or make improvements around the house on the weekend.

iii) Some professional women are offended by professional men who marry down. Offended that men are so easily satisfied in a wife. Offended that men aren't more finicky when it comes to picking a mate. To them, that means the man isn't treating the woman as an equal. 

This, however, reflects a fundamental misunderstanding of normal male psychology. Or a refusal to even attempt to understand normal male psychology.

Many men thrive on competition. However, they like to compete with other…men. 

They don't view their wife or prospective wife as a colleague. They're not looking for a woman to play that role. They're not looking to a woman to be interchangeable with a man in that regard. In some cases they may enjoy a good argument with a female colleague, or interviewer, or lawyer from the opposing firm, but that's at work. 

Although they enjoy competition, they don't want marriage to be another competitive arena. When they come home, they want to put the battlefield behind them and just relax. Let down. Home is supposed to be an escape. 

They don't want to be in a performance situation 24/7. They want some down time. To interject a competitive dynamic into marriage is the very thing they wish to avoid. That's something they look for in a man, not a woman. A woman is supposed to be different. If she's not different, what's the point of having a long-term relationship with a woman in the first place? 

Throughout the week, they test their mettle against other men. They aren't hankering to test their mettle against their wife. 

We all want a place to go where we're just accepted. Where we don't have to prove ourselves to anyone. Among other things, family is supposed to be a retreat. I don't have to impress you. I can just be myself. And I'll return the favor. 

Cosmic theater of the absurd

I'm going to comment on some statements by Thomas Nagel, in. E. Klemke & S. Cahn, eds. The Meaning of Life: A Reader (Oxford, 3rd. ed., 2008), chap. 13. 

Most people feel on occasion that life is absurd, and some feel it vividly and continually. Yet the reasons usually offered in defense of this conviction are patently inadequate; they could not really explain why life is absurd. Why then do they provide a natural expression for the sense that it is? 

Consider some examples. It is often remarked that nothing we do now will matter in a million years. But if that is true, then by the same token, nothing that will be the case in a million years matters now. In particular, it does not matter now that in a million years nothing we do now will matter. Moreover, even if what we did now were going to matter in a million years, how could that keep our present concerns from being absurd? If their mattering now is not enough to accomplish that, how would it help if they mattered a million years from now? 

Whether what we do now will matter in a million years could make the crucial difference only if its mattering in a million years depended on its mattering, period. But then to deny that whatever happens now will matter in a million years is to beg the question against its mattering, period; for in that sense one cannot know that it will not matter in a million years whether (for example) someone now is happy or miserable, without knowing that it does not matter, period.

What we say to convey the absurdity of our lives often has to do with space or time…Our lives are mere instants even on a geological time scale, let alone a cosmic one; we will all be dead any minute. But of course none of these evident facts can be what makes life absurd, if it is absurd. For suppose we lived forever; would not a life that is absurd if it lasts seventy years be infinitely absurd if it lasted through eternity?

i) It isn't clear to me if Nagel thinks these are different reasons or variations on the same basic reason. 

It's true that a life that's intrinsically absurd if it lasts seventy years will still be absurd if it lasted through eternity. This, however, doesn't mean that how, whether, or when something ends is irrelevant to its absurd or meaningful status. For instance, some movies and TV dramas have a plot that's initially and deliberately puzzling. The point is to stimulate the viewer's curiosity. The plot intentionally raises more questions than it answers. At that stage of the plot, multiple interpretations are possible. If the plot is well-crafted, it will eventually tie up the loose ends, in logical, yet unexpected ways, with clever, surprising plot twists. 

If, however, the series is canceled before the director has time to develop the various plotlines and bring them to culmination, then the series would be absurd. The abortive ending didn't allow the plot to achieve its telos. 

Or take a composer who dies in the middle of a composition. The musical fragment is tantalizing, but absurd because we don't know where it's going. 

By the same token, the future is not irrelevant to whether a human life has significance in the present. Any cutoff may be arbitrary. Any termination may frustrate its telos. 

ii) This also goes to the distinction between temporal ends and teleological ends. If the pattern lies in the whole rather than the parts, then a teleological end may be temporally unending. Take a flower garden as it passes through the four seasons. Because that's a cyclical process, there's no logical starting-point or end-point. You can break into the cycle at any point in the cycle. You can visit the garden at any time of year. Spring and fall may be the prettiest. Sometimes summer is just as pretty. Winter is more austere, but a necessary preparation for spring. 

If, by the same token, the significance of a human life lies in the whole, in the overall pattern, then oblivion may nullify its value. But this also goes to the difference between secular and Christian anthropology. From a secular standpoint, human life doesn't exist for a reason. It just so happens that life is cyclical. Life evolved in such a way that once you reach sexual maturity, create and raise offspring, you've outlived your usefulness. You created your replacements. You dwindle and die. It's just repetition for repetition's sake–the byproduct of a mindless, mechanical process. 

From a Christian standpoint, by contrast, the lifecycle is somewhat artificial. We're created for eternity. Although that generally includes a family life, that doesn't exhaust human destiny. God is a storyteller with infinite imagination. He never runs out of good ideas. The plot continues to unfold…forever. 

Since justifications must come to an end somewhere, nothing is gained by denying that they end where they appear to, within life…

That simply begs the question. In fairness, this was an early essay (1971). He wrote it in his mid-30s. In his mid-70s, he expressed dissatisfaction with atheism (Mind & Cosmos).

It would be different if we could not step back and reflect on the process, but were merely led from impulse to impulse without self-consciousness. But human beings do not act solely on impulse…Each of us lives his own life–lives within himself twenty-four hours a day. What else is he supposed to do–live someone else's life? Yet humans have the special capacity to step back and survey themselves, and the lives to which they are committed…they can view it sub specie aeternitatis…We see ourselves from the outside.

That's the conundrum for atheists. According to naturalistic evolution, we're the only animals smart enough to realize the absurdity of human existence. We lack the blissful ignorance of other animals in that regard. Our intellect is our curse, because we're just smart enough to be conscious of our utter irrelevance. Like a cruel hoax which the universe played on us. That's our great discovery. 

Extragalactic creators

In this post I'm going to interact with Robert Nozick's contention that even if there is a God, the value of human existence isn't conferred by God. I believe Nozick was a secular Jew:

One prevalent view, less so today than previously, is that the meaning of life or people's existence is connected with God's will, with his design or plan for them. Put roughly, people's meaning is to be found and realized in fulfilling the role allotted to them by God. If a superior being designed and created people for a purpose, in accordance with a plan for them, the particular purpose he had for them would be what people are for. 

First, we should ask whether any and every role would provide meaning and purpose to human lives. If our role is to supply CO2 to the plants, or to be the equivalent within God's plan of fixing a mildly annoying leaky faucet, would this suffice?…Clearly, what is desired is that we be important; having merely some role or other in God's plan does not suffice. The purpose God has for us must place us at or near the center of things, of his intentions and goals. Moreover, merely playing some role in a central purpose of God's is not sufficient–the role itself must be a central or important one. 

Indeed, we want more than an important role in an important purpose; the role itself should be positive, perhaps even exalted. If the cosmic role of human beings was to provide a negative lesson to some others ("Don't act like them") or to provide needed food for passing intergalactic travelers who were important, this would not suit our aspirations…

There are two ways we individually or collectively could be included in God's plan. First, our fulfilling our role might depend upon our acting in a certain way, upon our choices or cooperation; second, our role might not depend at all upon our actions or choices–willy-nilly we shall serve…About the first way we can ask why we should act to fulfill God's plan, and about both ways we can ask why fitting God's plan gives meaning to our existence. That God is good (but also sometimes angry?) shows that would be good to carry out his plan. (Even then, perhaps, it need not be good for us–mightn't the good overall plan involve sacrificing us for some greater good?) Yet how does doing good provide meaning?

How can playing a role in God's plan give one's life meaning? What makes this a meaning-giving process? It is not merely that some being created us with a purpose in mind. If some extragalatic civilization created us with a purpose in mind, would that by itself provide meaning to our lives? Nor would things be changed if they created us so that we also had a feeling of indebtedness and a feeling that something was asked of us. It seems it is not enough that God have some purpose for us–his purpose itself must be meaningful. If it were sufficient merely to play some role in some external purpose, then you could give meaning to your life by fitting it to my plans or to your parents' purpose in having you. In these instances, however, one immediately questions the meaningfulness of the other people's purposes. How do God's purposes differ from ours so as to be guaranteed meaningfulness and and importance? 

The purposes parents have when they plan to have children…do not fix the obligations of the child…He is under no obligation to cooperate, he is not owned by his parents even though they made him. Once the child exists, it has certain rights that must be respected (and other rights it can assert when able)…Nor do children owe to their parents whatever they would have conceded in bargaining before conception (supposing this had been possible) in order to come into existence. Since children don't owe their parents everything that leaves their lives still a net plus, why do people owe their ultimate creator and sustainer any more?…We don't cost an omnipotent God anything, there's nothing to pay back to him and so no need to. 

Once you come to feel your existence lacks purpose, there is little you can do…The task required all of my knowledge, skill, intuitive powers, and craftsmanship. It seemed to me that my whole existence until then had been merely a preparation for this creative activity, so completely did it draw upon and focus all of my experience, abilities, and knowledge. I was excited by the task and fulfilled, and when it was completed I rested, untroubled by purposelessness. 

But this contentment was, unfortunately, only temporary. For when I came to think about it, although it had taxed my ingenuity and energy to make the heavens, the earth, and the creatures upon it, what did it all amount to?…For my sole purpose then was to give meaning to my existence…Such questions press me toward the alternative I tremble to contemplate, yet to which I find my thoughts recurring. The option of ending it all…To imagine God himself facing problems about the meaningfulness of his existence forces us to consider how meaning attaches to his purposes…For if it were possible for man and God to shore up each other's meaningfulness in this fashion, why could not two people do this for each other as well? 

Nor will it help us to escalate up a level, and say that if there is a God who has a plan for us, the meaning of our existence consists in finding out what this plan asks of us and has in store for us. 

What is it about God's purposes that makes them meaningful? If our universe were created by a child from some other vast civilization in a parallel universe, if our universe were a toy it had constructed, perhaps out of prefabricated parts, it would not follow that the child's purposes were meaningful. E. Klemke & S. Cahn, eds. The Meaning of Life: A Reader (Oxford, 3rd. ed., 2008), chap. 19. 

1. Nozick fails to distinguish between purpose, gratitude and/or obligation. In some cases they're separable and in some cases they can be combined.

For instance, suppose a country is in a fight for national survival. It sends a special ops unit on a suicide mission. If the unit succeeds, that will turn the tide in the war effort. However, the military doesn't tell the unit that they are going on a suicide mission.

On the one hand, their mission is clearly purposeful. They won't die in vain. Their actions saved their nation. 

On the other hand, the fact that they were used and deceived as expendable pawns means they have no grounds to be grateful or dutiful to their superiors.

In principle, they might still be grateful for the opportunity to save their nation. And they might have knowingly volunteered for a suicide mission, if it had a good chance of success and was pivotal in the fortunes of the war effort. 

ii) A sense of indebtedness is essential to social life. That intuition runs deep. But it's complex.

If a doctor or a lifeguard saves my life, I'm grateful, yet my gratitude is limited by the fact that he was just doing his job. 

If a stranger saves my life, I'm inclined to be more grateful.

If a stranger risks his own life to save mine, I'm even more grateful. 

To take another comparison, teenage boys have been known to perform dumb pranks. Suppose a student squirts water into the locker of another student. Suppose that after the prankster turns around, he sees a security camera trained on that bank of lockers. He's now afraid he'll be expelled.

In panic, he seeks out a classmate who's a computer whiz to hack into the system and delete the incriminated footage. This is a classmate he normally makes fun of as a hopeless nerd. 

Suppose the geeky classmate agrees. The prankster should be grateful for several reasons: 

i) He got out of trouble

ii) He got out of trouble even though he did something wrong

iii) A classmate did him a favor

iv) The classmate who did him a favor wasn't his friend

It's possible to get into trouble even when you did nothing wrong. In that situation, it's a relief to get out of trouble.

If, however, you deserve to be punished, but you're given a second chance, then that's a reason to be grateful. 

Likewise, if someone treats you better than you treated them, if they help you out in a bind, then that's a reason to be grateful–since you're getting better than you deserve.

2. Filial duty is limited for a variety of reasons: Parents are humans just like us. They're just a few steps ahead of us on the lifecycle. But they're not superior beings. Moreover, that's how they came into the world, too. 

3. Are the alien creators intellectually superior or merely technologically superior?

i) Even if they're intellectually superior, they're still finite beings who exist on the same continuum we do. 

ii) More to the point, superior intelligence doesn't imply superior wisdom. 

iii) Furthermore, obligation and gratitude depend on whether a creator is benevolent or malevolent. Take engineers (bionics, genetic engineering) who make a race of supersoldiers. The engineers aren't acting in the interests of the supersoldiers, who are expendable by design. 

4. I don't think the significance of individual human lives depends on being at the center of God's plan or having a central role to play. Rather, it's sufficient that we be occupied by things that are suitable to the nature God has given us. Fixing drippy faucets hardly fulfills our social, emotional, intellectual, and aesthetic capacities. It has to be at the level of our natural endowment and potential. 

5. Nozick's denial notwithstanding, why can't the meaning of our existence consist in discovering God's plan for our lives? For predestinarian traditions, God is like a novelistic who creates the characters, setting, and plot. 

In the case of the elect, although life in a fallen world may be full of anguish, we are buoyed by the hope that eventually the worst will be behind us with nothing but good in store for all eternity. Every day I wake up with that expectation. Another day on the journey towards that destination. So long as I know God has a good plan for my life, then that gives me something to look forward to. Each day has it's surprises. God wrote that role just for me. It's a far more satisfying life than I could improvise on my own. 

6. The specter of a god who creates in order to make his own existence meaningful dovetails with the anthropomorphic god of open theism.