Craig on the unreached

Freewill theists typically believe in universal atonement and universal sufficient/prevenient grace. However, exposure to the Gospel isn't universal in this life. Freewill theists have different strategies for finessing that tension. 

William Lane Craig resorts to the creative conjecture that God uses middle knowledge to instantiate a feasible world in which none of the unreached would believe the Gospel if given the chance. For instance:

I’ve argued further that it’s at least possible that God has so providentially ordered the world that any person who would believe in the Gospel if he heard it will be born at a time and place in history at which he does hear it. Thus, no one is lost because of historical or geographical accident. 

https://www.reasonablefaith.org/question-answer/P20/did-god-overlook-china

God in His providence has so arranged the world that those who would respond to the Gospel if they heard it, do hear it. The sovereign God has so ordered human history that as the Gospel spreads out from first century Palestine, He places people in its path who would believe it if they heard it. Once the Gospel reaches a people, God providentially places there persons who He knew would respond to it if they heard it. In His love and mercy, God ensures that no one who would believe the Gospel if he heard it is born at a time and place in history where he fails to hear it. Those who do not respond to God's general revelation in nature and conscience and never hear the Gospel would not respond to it if they did hear it. Hence, no one is lost because of historical or geographical accident. Anyone who wants or even would want to be saved will be saved.

https://www.reasonablefaith.org/writings/popular-writings/christianity-other-faiths/how-can-christ-be-the-only-way-to-god/

In the past, I've noted some basic problems with this, even on Craig's own grounds. But now I'd like to make a different point:

It's hard to see how his explanation accounts for the distribution-pattern in church history. For most of church history, Christians are bunched in the western hemisphere. By Craig's logic, that means Caucasians are, or at least used to be, more receptive to the Gospel than the Japanese, or Indian tribes in North and South America, or Pacific Islanders, &c. So many people-groups weren't evangelized for centuries because they were unreceptive to the Gospel–unlike Caucasians? 

Europeans were evangelized while pre-Columbian indians were left in darkness...until the Conquistadors. And then, for some odd reason, post-Columbian Indian tribes are more receptive to the Gospel than their forebears. 

Arabs were evangelized, but then you had the Muslim conquest, so the reason that Arabs during the Muslim era are generally unreached is because they are unreceptive to the Gospel, unlike their more open-minded ancestors. Really?

Now we see Christianity expanding in sub-Saharan Africa, the Far East, and even the Middle East, because, for some odd reason, this generation is more receptive to the Gospel, unlike their ill-disposed ancestors. How do disparities in the chronological and geographical distribution of the Gospel coincide with the receptivity of different ethnicities, or the same ethnicities at different times? Why is the distribution-pattern color-coded? And why does it alternate? 

Presumably, as a freewill theist, he doesn't believe that some people-groups are inherently more receptive to the Gospel than others. So the correlation can't be pegged to that, can it?

So what's the differential factor? Cultural hostility to the Gospel? But it's not as if Viking culture (to take one example) was more welcoming to Christian missionaries than Confucian culture, is it? The initial challenge is always for Christianity to secure a foothold. 

The Westboro cult and Acts17

James White's outfit has a new contributor by the name of Ryan. I'll make a few comments about his post, attacking Acts17:

http://www.aomin.org/aoblog/2018/06/11/bricks-of-salt-in-the-hands-of-believers/

1. Ryan says:

I also think Acts17Apologetics knows that lines were crossed. Regarding a church in Florida that David Wood was scheduled to visit, he revealed some of his personal thoughts prior to the visit from the YouTube video–

Gosh, I hope they haven’t seen Islamicize Me because they’re going to get mad.

David, if you didn’t cross any lines, then why did you think the church would be mad?

How does the fact that some people get mad or might get mad at something entail that the individual they're mad at crossed the line? People got mad at OT prophets. People got mad at the Apostles. People got mad at Jesus. 

In addition, different Christians have different sensibilities. Some Christians have scruples that others do not. 

2. Borrowing Doug Wilson's "boundary between satire and scurrility", Ryan implies that the Islamicize Me video series is scurrilous. It's unclear what, exactly Ryan is alleging inasmuch as the word has more than one sense.

i) Related definitions of the word include "low buffoonery", "coarse, gross, obscene." Yet on that definition, some parts of the Bible are "scurrilous", but presumably, Ryan doesn't mean to say the Bible is scurrilous.

ii) Another definition is "humorously insulting", but that's pretty mild. Is it always wrong to be humorously insulting? And in reference to what? People? Ideas? Isn't Scripture sometimes humorously insulting? 

iii) Another definition is "libelous, slanderous, defamatory, expressing unfair or false criticism intended to damage someone's reputation".

No doubt Acts17 intends to damage Muhammad's reputation. However, that's only slanderous if it amounts to unfair or false criticism. Is it Ryan's contention that the Hadith don't command or commend what Acts17 depicts? If Muhammad commands or commends the behavior which Acts17 parodies, how is that slanderous or defamatory? To the contrary, if that's accurate, then it would be self-incriminating for Muslims to accuse Acts17 of scurrility. For in that event, what's scurrilous isn't Islamicize Me but the Hadith. Is it now the official position of Alpha and Omega Ministries that speaking ill of Muhammad is scurrilous? 

3. On the heels of accusing Acts17 of scurrility, Ryan says:

There’s very little difference in the degree of offense and the justifications being used by Acts17Apologetics and Westboro Baptist Church. In fact, Westboro could probably learn a thing or two from the Islamicize Me and the James White Controversy video and bolster their defense by employing the same justification.

How ironic. What could be more scurrilous than comparing Acts17 to the Westboro cult! In what respect is there "very little difference in the degree of offense and the justifications being used by Acts17Apologetics and Westboro Baptist Church"? Ryan doesn't begin to spell that out. Let's run through some possibilities:

4. Methodological moral equivalence

i) Perhaps Ryan means that Acts17 and the Westboro cult employ the same methods. Let's temporarily grant that postulate for discussion purposes. Even if two groups use the same methods, that would only make them methodologically morally equivalent if their methods are intrinsically good or evil. Suppose two groups both torture children. That makes them methodologically morally equivalent. 

ii) However, methodological equivalence doesn't entail methodological moral equivalence. Suppose an armed burglar breaks into a house. The owner is home. The owner is armed. The owner shoots intruder in self-defense. Both owner and burglar are methodologically equivalent inasmuch as both men have guns. But that doesn't' make them methodologically morally equivalent. The intruder is an assailant. He's in the wrong. So even if, for argument's sake, Acts17 and the Westboro cult use the same methods, that doesn't ipso facto make them morally equivalent.  

iii) But do Acts17 and the Westboro cult use the same methods? On the one hand, Acts17 is producing videos that simulate behavior commanded or commended in the Hadith. On the other hand, the Westboro cult pickets funerals with placards like "God hates fags", "Semper fi fags," and "Thank God for dead soldiers."

How do those reflect the same methods and tactics? Can Ryan explain?

5. Substantive moral equivalence

i) Perhaps Ryan means Acts17 and the Westboro cult are substantively morally equivalent. Let's take some examples of the Westboro cult:

Marine Lance Corporal Matthew A. Snyder was killed in Iraq on March 3, 2006. His father, Albert Snyder, filed a lawsuit in June 2006 against Westboro Baptist Church and several of its members ("Defendants") after members of the church went to Maryland to picket his son's funeral in a protest against homosexuality. The Defendants were not present at the funeral, but carried signs with messages such as "God Hates the USA," "America is doomed," "Fag troops," "You're going to hell," "God hates you," "Semper fi fags," and "Thank God for dead soldiers."

https://epic.org/amicus/snyder/

Westboro Baptist Church in Topeka, Kansas, announced today that they plan to protest the funeral of a 9-year-old girl murdered during Saturday's shooting rampage in Tucson.

http://www.phoenixnewtimes.com/news/westboro-baptist-church-to-protest-funeral-of-9-year-old-girl-murdered-in-tucson-shooting-hells-angels-to-the-rescue-6654233

Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting victims (2012): A day after 20-year-old Adam Lanza killed 20 Newtown, Conn., first-graders, six school workers, his mother and himself on Dec. 14, 2012, church members took to social media claiming that they would picket the vigil for victims of the mass killing.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation-now/2014/03/21/westboro-baptist-church-pickets-funerals/6688951/

How is that substantively akin to what Acts17 is doing? Murdered grade elementary school students aren't morally responsible for the homosexual culture. Marines aren't responsible for the Don't Ask, Don't Tell policy. That was an act of Congress. There's no presumption that Marines are homosexual. To the contrary, we can safely presume that the Marines are overwhelmingly straight. 

Conversely, Acts17 is exposing people to what Islam actually represents, in its authoritative founding documents. In terms of substance, how is that remotely like what the Westboro cult does? These reflect two radically different causes. 

If, however, Acts17 and the Westboro cult aren't substantively alike or methodologically alike, then what's the level at which Ryan's comparison operates? "The degree of offense"? Many unbelievers are offended by the Bible.  Does that mean there’s very little difference in the degree of offense between the Bible and the Westboro cult? 

Even if that were the case, everyone is not entitled to be offended. It's wrong to be offended by some things. 

Even if two groups use similar justifications, that can't be detached from the nature of the cause. It isn't simply the nature of the justification or purported justification, but the nature of the cause that makes a morally salient difference. Is Ryan unable to grasp that elementary distinction?

More than meets the eye

i) A trope we find in some scifi and horror flicks is vampires, werewolves, and extraterrestrials who can pass for humans. Except when they transform on a full moon, werewolves are indistinguishable from humans. Vampires have no vital signs, but they look human on the outside, even if they work the graveyard shift. Alien invaders transfer their minds to human bodies to use as vehicles. 

So these beings blend into the human population undetected. Humans see what's on the outside, but they can't discern what's on the inside. 

When, however, a werewolf meet another werewolf, they instantly recognize each other. Werewolves, vampires, and aliens can sense one of their own kind. 

In the Gospels, demons instantly recognize the underlying identity of Jesus (e.g. Mk 1:23-25,34; 3:11; 5:7). Although Jesus is human, he's more than human. But his deity is not an empirical property. Some of his actions signify his deity, but it can't be physically sensed.

Yet when demons encounter him, there's instant recognition since fallen angels and the Son of God all hail from the spiritual realm.  

ii) And this indicates why, in these passages, "Son of God" can't be merely legal, in the sense that David was God's adoptive son, and Jesus is the heir of David, for there's nothing about a legal status that's discernible or observable. A legal status is ascriptive. There's no evidence just from encountering the individual. 

Instead, the demons pick up on something deeper. Intangible. Something on a different wavelength entirely. The presence of their Creator Incarnate. And it's very threatening to them. Analogous to humans who experience theophanies. 

Angels are telepaths. Minds coming into contact with other minds. They have direct awareness of who Jesus is. 

As Lee Irons put it, not merely a “son of David kind of Messiah” but a “Son of God kind of Messiah.”

Proleptic forgiveness

i) Is suicide ipso facto damnable? One argument for that contention is that if suicide is forgivable, then that implies postmortem forgiveness. To be forgiven, God must forgive him after the fact. After he died. 

However, that inference only follows if you think God is a timebound agent who must wait until after a Christian commits suicide to forgive him. But if God knows the future, then God can forgive some sins before they were committed. Proleptic forgiveness. 

ii) There's also the general issue of whether a born-again Christian can lose his salvation. If salvation is inamissable, then suicide isn't ipso facto damnable. 

Suicide and burial

Here's another example of how the One True Church® has reversed itself on a fundamental issue:

A canonical sign of this pastoral approach is the universal understanding of 1983 CIC 1184 § 3 to allow ecclesiastical funerals to be accorded those committing suicide, a change from 1917 CIC 1240 § 1, n. 3, that expressly prohibited such funerals (although the older law was applied more leniently than it read). 

https://canonlawblog.wordpress.com/2013/01/14/canonical-consequences-for-suicide/

Why is there so much evil in the world?

http://www.proginosko.com/2018/06/why-is-there-evil-in-the-world-and-so-much-of-it/

What Constitutes "Crude Joking"?

One of the passages that was used to critique Wood, Malone, and McCray is Ephesians 5:4, which reads “Let there be no filthiness nor foolish talk nor crude joking, which are out of place, but instead let there be thanksgiving.” From the responses to Wood that I’ve seen, this verse has been applied specifically to two videos.  First is his video on the proper way to urinate in Islam, and secondly on the infamous breastfeeding video.  But does this passage address either of those?

One big problem that I have seen is that very few people are taking the time to actually define what “crude joking” would entail.  Dr. White used the definition of “vulgar speech, and indecent talk” when discussing it in his second video (see: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2hSIA0hzMwk&feature=youtu.be&t=58m35s).  The problem is that this simply moves the question back a step: What constitutes “vulgar speech” or “indecent talk”?  Unfortunately, Dr. White does not go into details on this.  Instead, he transitions immediately into the pragmatism discussion and takes for granted that everyone agrees with him what is vulgar and what is indecent.

Here’s the problem.  Is the vulgar defined culturally, or is it defined Biblically?  Is indecency defined culturally or Biblically?  I would argue that it cannot be defined culturally, and here’s proof: I do not find any of the videos to be vulgar or indecent.  I do not say this to be polemical, I say this because it’s my honest assessment.  Can you prove me wrong?

If you just assert, “Well, to me they are vulgar”, then I’m going to continue to assert, “To me, they are not.”  Who wins this?  Why should I subject my standards to your opinion?

So clearly we need an objective arbiter here, and that is Scripture.  So let me ask the question that matters: Would the Bible find these videos to be vulgar or indecent?

Let us consider the first one, the urination video.  1 Kings 18:27 answers this plainly: “And at noon Elijah mocked them, saying, ‘Cry aloud, for he is a god.  Either he is musing, or he is relieving himself, or he is on a journey, or perhaps he is asleep and must be awakened.’”  Note the key bolded words.  Elijah mocked using bathroom humor about bodily functions.  In fact, the expressions being used there is actually more vulgar than is typically translated.  So I do not think the urination video would be considered “vulgar speech” or “indecent talk” even when used in mockery, under Biblical standards.

But what of the breastfeeding video?  Well, let us actually dig into this and ask why this video would be offensive.  Is it immoral to breastfeed?  Clearly not.  Children do it all the time.  Ah, but perhaps it is immoral for adult men to breastfeed.  Except there is no prohibition against it in the Scripture.

In fact, the Bible has no problem referencing breasts.  Look at Proverbs 5:19 (“Let her breasts fill you at all times with delight”).  More than that, consider Isaiah 66:10-11: “Rejoice with Jerusalem, and be glad for her, all you who love her; rejoice with her in joy, all you who mourn over her; that you may nurse and be satisfied from her consoling breast; that you may drink deeply with delight from her glorious abundance.”

In light of this, how can one be Biblically consistent in claiming that the two most objected-to videos Wood has produced are vulgar or indecent, when the Bible uses the same language?

Consistency is important, and it goes both ways.  Please, show me from the Scripture (allowing Scripture to define its terms) where the videos actually violate the precepts we find there.  If you want to be consistent, please show me the exact link to morality that your moral compass has, so we can see whether or not the offense you see comes from your culture or from the Bible itself.  Absent this, we are imposing extra-biblical rules and regulations upon fellow believers.  And that, my brothers and sisters, violates Romans 14:4.

The crisis of American loneliness

https://arcdigital.media/the-crisis-of-american-loneliness-5ebca3e9a160

Excusing Muhammad

James White posted a rejoinder to Wood et al. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tfTKP7DbrBs

1. I'll begin with a few general observations. White accused them of misrepresenting his position. I'll revisit that allegation, but for now I'd like to make a technical observation. There are two ways to misrepresent someone's position:

i) Misquote

ii) Misinterpret

In the case of (i), you misrepresent what they said by providing an inaccurate summary or paraphrase. That can be intentional or unintentional. In the case of (ii), you may quote them verbatim, but misrepresent what they meant. That, too, can be intentional or unintentional.

To some extent, we're becoming a postliterate society. Reverting to oral culture. Nowadays you can make your own video by talking into a camera, then uploading that onto the internet. And there's nothing inherently wrong with that. However, it makes it very likely that most viewers will summarize or paraphrase what you said rather than combing through the video to find where you said something, then manually transcribing what you said. If, by contrast, you respond in writing, then it's much easier for people to locate what you said and quote you verbatim. They simply copy/paste. In some cases an automated transcript is generated. That's very helpful. The takeaway point is that if you want people to accurately represent what you said, then you need to make it easier for them to quote you by expressing yourself in writing. 

2. White recycles a number of his talking-points which I critiqued in my two previous posts. He simply ignored that. That's his prerogative. But it's a problem for him, not for me, when he ignores counterarguments. That means my objections went unrebutted. 

Simplicity and aseity

He is necessary, self-existent. This means, for example, that God is not composed of elements that are more ultimate, in a logical or metaphysical sense, than he is. 

[Simplicity] denies that God is physically, logically, or metaphysically composite. Non-composition, it is argued, must characterize God inasmuch as every composite is a dependent thing that cannot account for its own existence or essence and stands in need of some composer outside itself. To be composite is to be composed by another and to be dependent upon the parts that enter into the composition. Furthermore, composition signifies the capacity of a thing to change or even be annihilated…no composite entity can be "most absolute" inasmuch as it requires some entity prior to itself to account for the composition and is thus relative to the entity. Also, each composite thing must possess the capacity to come into existence from nonexistence, go out of existence and, in most instances, change while in existence.

George Joyce observes, "The real significance of the notion of Ens a se is to deny that God is, like creatures, caused by another. He is conceived as self-existent in the sense of unoriginated'" 

The basic logic is that if God were composed of parts he would, in some sense, depend upon those parts inasmuch as those parts would be indispensable to the explanation of his existence and essence. James E. Dolezal, God without Parts: Divine Simplicity and the Metaphysics of God's Absoluteness (Pickwick 2011), xii, 31-32, 71-72.

1. It's necessary to explicate and disambiguate all the dubious assumptions in the way Dolezal frames the issue.

2. I'll say more about this, but notions of composition, parts, &c. rely on explicit or implicit paradigm-examples. 

3. What does Dolezal mean when he says that God is devoid of "logical" or "metaphysical" composition? One way to unpack this is to deny "real distinctions" in God. 

4. What is a "part"? Parthood is a comparative concept. A part/whole relation.

5. Consider some definitions of parthood:

• Piece of something

• Subdivision 

• Fraction

• Section

• Smaller unit

6. Parthood is typically a quantitative notion.

7. Parthood is typically based on physical objects, especially spatial objects. 

8. Parthood can be extended to a process, like watching a move or hearing a musical performance. Temporal parts as well as spatial parts. 

9. Physical parts are:

i) Contingent

ii) Detachable

iii) Replaceable

iv) Interchangeable

10. Stock examples of composite objects include:

i) A brick wall

ii) A car (auto parts) 

iii) A Swiss watch

11. Sometimes a part of a system is physically separate from the system, viz. the remote on a radio control airplane.  We might say the remote is a functional component rather than a unit it's made of. 

12. One fundamental issue is whether parthood/composition is still meaningful if we attempt to extend that concept to abstract objects (i.e. timeless, spaceless entities). If we try extrapolate from paradigm examples of concrete objects to abstract objects, does the concept become so attenuated that the comparison is vitiated by equivocation? 

Are abstract properties "parts"? Or is that characterization beset by so many qualifications, compared to the original basal examples, that it's too disanalogous to be an applicable category? 

13. Suppose our starting-point is abstract objects rather than concrete objects. Consider some paradigm examples of abstract complexity:

i) The Mandelbrot set

ii) The number Pi

iii) Modus ponens

iv) Reflection symmetries

Their internal complexity doesn't imply a capacity to change, come into being, or pass out of existence. Their constituent elements aren't contingent, detachable/separable, replaceable, interchangeable. So they're not composite objects in the usual sense. Why aren't some abstract objects a better model to illustrate metaphysical complexity? 

14. There's a sense in which Pi "depends" on having a unique decimal expansion. There's a sense in which the Mandelbrot set "depends" on self-similar iterations. There's a sense in which modus ponens "depends" on the elements of the logical formula. But that doesn't generate the same consequences as composite physical objects. They aren't created by adding or combining smaller units to form them. 

15. God would not be God unless he were omnipotent. So doesn't his existence "depend" on his omnipotence? 

16. In Nicene theology, the Father necessarily generates the Son. In that event, not only does the Son's existence "depend" on the Father, but the Father could not exist apart from the Son. That's a dependence-relation. A mutual dependence-relation, even though its asymmetrical. (I myself don't subscribe to eternal generation, but exponents of Thomistic simplicity typically do.) 

17. If God has real internal relations, how does that imply that God is "caused" by his internal relations? Doesn't causation involve contingent relations and temporal relations? 

18. Even if we grant for discussion purposes that God is "composed" of "parts", yet assuming those are divine "parts", then God isn't composed of something "outside" himself. Even in that case, God isn't caused by "another". 

19. Perhaps Dolezal means "other than" in the sense of "lesser than". "Lesser" in the sense of "smaller" elements–smaller in relation to the whole. 

You might say any finite sequence in the decimal expansion of Pi is less than the entire infinite series. And that's a "real distinction" inasmuch as one numerical sequence differs from another. But how is that a problem? Although any particular sequence is a "subdivision" of the whole, that's not contingent or detachable from the whole. You might say a particular iteration of the Mandelbrot set is a "subdivision" of the whole. Infinite self-similar iterations. But that's not contingent or detachable from the whole. Rather, these are static, necessary internal relations.  

20. In addition, the part/whole framework is misleading. Take reflection symmetries. Each image of the "other" contains the whole image. In paired mirror images, it isn't part of the image; rather, the reflection contains the entire image of what it mirrors. 

Assuming I understand Dolezal's position, I find it hopelessly equivocal and confused. It suffers from impoverished conceptual resources.