The subject recently came up on Paul Manata's Facebook page. Here's a discussion of the issue that took place several years ago. The principles addressed there are applicable to scripture interpretation in general, including other cases in which people often appeal to how scripture was interpreted in antiquity (John 6:53, Titus 3:5, etc.).
You can find an archive of many of our posts on baptismal issues here. On eucharistic issues, see here.
Saturday, January 03, 2015
Die Juden sind unser Unglück!
This post is about Josh Alcorn. But before I get to that I have a general observation:
I) Never before have unbelievers been so culturally dominant. Yet despite the enormous strides they've made under Obama, they are in a state of chronic rage. And the target of their rage is Christians. They exhibit this pathological antipathy towards Christians, as if all social ills are traceable to Christians. Frankly, it's the mirror image of how Germans blamed all their problems on the Jews: "Die Juden sind unser Unglück!" Some of these folks will find out the hard way what it's like to live under a secular regime.
ii) Obvious, Alcorn struggled with being a normal boy. However, Alcorn would never have been a successful girl or successful woman. "Accepting" him "just as he was" would not have given him a happy life. Hard as it was for him to be a boy, he was never cut out to be a woman.
Biology matters. Male body. Male brain. Male hormones. Male DNA. That's not imaginary.
iii) I suspect our urban, hitech culture makes it harder for some, maybe many, boys to get in touch with their manhood. I'm not suggesting that you should put a boy like Alcorn on the hockey team or football team. He's too psychologically fragile for that.
But imagine a century or so ago a boy like Josh hunting, chopping wood, riding horses. I expect that would be good for boys like him. Indeed, good for boys in general.
iv) We can't let the suicide threat keep parents from parenting. Imagine a drug-addicted son or daughter who threatens suicide unless their parents allow them to shoot up at home or even demand that their parents subside their habit.
Imagine a budding psychopath who likes to torture small animals in the basement. He threatens suicide if his parents take him to a psychologist. What about a teenage daughter who threatens suicide unless her parents allow her boyfriend to move into her bedroom.
v) In a fallen world, there are just some things we can't fix. For some people, life will always been more of a struggle.
vi) By the way, he was not a "transgender teen." He was a teenage boy–really a young man. He was clearly disturbed, but let's not dehumanize him by calling him a "transgender teen."
There are people who suffer from boanthropy. That doesn't make them bovines. And treating them like bovines doesn't help. They merit our sympathy, but not our endorsement.
Friday, January 02, 2015
Vos on the descent into hell
Personally speaking, I agree with Grudem on this issue. However, here's a useful comparison and contrast for those who care:
http://feedingonchrist.com/jesus-descend-hell/
http://feedingonchrist.com/jesus-descend-hell/
All the gnus that's fit to print
I'm going to post some comments I left at Michael Kruger's blog in response to Eichenwald and other gnu atheist commenters:
I think some commenters miss the point of Kruger’s critical review when they dismiss it as a “waste of time.” I doubt that Dr. Kruger is attempting to persuade Eichenwald or the Newsweek editors that they are mistaken. That’s not his objective or target audience.
Rather, he’s writing this for the benefit of fellow Christians–as well as non-Christian lurkers who may be unaware of the other side of the argument.
Likewise, the point is at issue is not how many people happen to read Newsweek. Rather, this Newsweek article is representative of stock objections to the historical Jesus. So Kruger’s rebuttal is generally relevant to those kinds of objections, which unbelievers recycle ad nauseum.
Christian parents are naive if they think these sort of objections can be safely ignored. Many kids raised in evangelical churches lose their faith when they go to college or read a book by an atheist because they were not forearmed to deal with these objections.
Doggy couples
Increasingly, there are couples who have cats and dogs instead of kids. That's not because one partner is infertile, or because they are postponing kids until they achieve financial security. Instead, they never intend to have kids, even though they are physically and financially able to start a family.
I can't help thinking to myself that this is a way of never having to grow up emotionally or psychologically. Raising kids is a maturing experience in a way that having dogs is not. Kids are demanding and challenging in a way that dogs are not.
But beyond that, I wonder if what motivates some of them is the subliminal or in some case conscious denial of their mortality. Having kids reminds you of your own mortality. To some extent, having kids is a way of reliving your childhood. You do with them or for them what your parents did with you or for you. You see them doing what you used to do at that age. They get into the same arguments with you that you had with your own parents.
Due to family resemblance, you can literally see a part of yourself in your kids. A reminder of what you looked like at that age. If fact, they reach the age you were when you had them.
Take a father who played football in junior high or high school. Now he's in the bleachers, watching his son. He swells with pride. Yet there's a twinge of wistful recollection. Time is passing him by. That was you, just twenty years ago. That's now forever behind you.
It's like training your replacement. You must move out before they can move up.
You see the lifecycle repeating itself. You're just one car-length of ahead of your kids, and your parents (if they're still alive) are just one car-length ahead of you–approaching the dark tunnel of death.
From a secular standpoint, that's unnerving. Having dogs and cats doesn't remind you of your long-lost youth the way raising kids does. You were never a puppy or a kitten. So you don't see the grim reaper gaining on you in the rearview mirror by having pets.
It's understandable if godless couples avoid that depressing, fearful prospect by substituting pets for kids.
G.K. Beale Lectures on iTunes
It’s a strongly exegetical treatment, and he emphasizes the “inaugurated” components of the Old Testament’s “last days” all throughout the New Testament. Beale stresses that Christ has a “back story” that extends all through the entire sweep of the Old Testament back to Adam, what he calls “the Old Testament background”.
The book may be found here: G.K. Beale, A New Testament Biblical Theology: The Unfolding of the Old Testament in the New, (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic ©2011).
Thursday, January 01, 2015
Do we have a duty to protect terrorists?
Critics of "torture" typically alleged that supporters of "torture" defend "torture" on utilitarian or consequentialist grounds. Let's briefly consider this argument for "torture":
In this case study there is also a substantial moral justification for torture, albeit one that many moral absolutists do not find compelling. Consider the following points: (1) The police reasonably believe that torturing the terrorist will probably save thousands of innocent lives; (2) the police know that there is no other way to save those lives; (3) the threat to life is more or less imminent; (4) the thousands about to be murdered are innocent—the terrorist has no good, let alone decisive, justificatory moral reason for murdering them; (5) the terrorist is known to be (jointly with the other terrorists) morally responsible for planning, transporting, and arming the nuclear device and, if it explodes, he will be (jointly with the other terrorists) morally responsible for the murder of thousands.
In addition to the above set of moral considerations, consider the following points. The terrorist is culpable on two counts. Firstly, the terrorist is forcing the police to choose between two evils, namely, torturing the terrorist or allowing thousands of lives to be lost. Were the terrorist to do what he ought to do, namely, disclose the location of the ticking bomb, the police could refrain from torturing him. This would be true of the terrorist, even if he were not actively participating in the bombing project. Secondly, the terrorist is in the process of completing his (jointly undertaken) action of murdering thousands of innocent people. He has already undertaken his individual actions of, say, transporting and arming the nuclear device; he has performed these individual actions (in the context of other individual actions performed by the other members of the terrorist cell) in order to realise the end (shared by the other members of the cell) of murdering thousands of Londoners. In refusing to disclose the location of the device the terrorist is preventing the police from preventing him from completing his (joint) action of murdering thousands of innocent people.[14] To this extent the terrorist is in a different situation from a bystander who happens to know where the bomb is planted but will not reveal its whereabouts, and in a different situation from someone who might have inadvertently put life at risk (Miller (2005); Hill (2007)).
In particular, it is difficult to see how torturing (but not killing) the guilty terrorist and saving the lives of thousands could be morally worse than refraining from torturing him and allowing him to murder thousands—torturing the terrorist is a temporary infringement of his autonomy, whereas his detonating of the nuclear device is a permanent violation of the autonomy of thousands.
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/torture/#CasStuTerTicBom
Seems to me that this is not an essentially utilitarian or consequentialist argument. The argument isn't based primarily on results or the end justifying the means. Rather, it draws two key distinctions:
i) It distinguishes between guilt and innocence. By his murderous intent, the terrorist has forfeited the prima facie right not to be harmed. Conversely, his targets are innocent civilians.
ii) It distinguishes between lesser and greater harm. Temporary harm and permanent harm. The degree of unjust harm inflicted on the innocent.
In sum, it frames the issue as a choice between temporarily harming a culpable party and permanently harming an innocent party–by failure to take the necessary means to protect the innocent party.
Now, a critic could still object to the argument on other grounds, but I don't see that the argument is reducible to consequentialism, utilitarianism, or the end-justifies-the-means. The innocent party has a right not to suffer harm at the hands of the guilty party. It's morally relevant who suffers the consequences. Moreover, the innocent party has the right not to suffer greater harm to protect the guilty party from suffering lesser harm. These distinctions respect intrinsic justice.
i) Does a terrorist have a right to commit mass murder against Americans?
ii) Assuming that it’s immoral to murder Americans, does a terrorist have a moral right to withhold information (e.g. time, place, operatives) about a plot to murder Americans?
If it’s wrong to murder Americans, then it’s wrong to conspire to murder Americans. And it’s wrong to withhold information regarding the murderous conspiracy. Wrong to withhold information which would help authorities thwart the plot.
iii) Do the authorities have a duty to protect Americans against mass murder?
iv) Do the authorities have right (and duty) to obtain information about an impending terrorist attack from a captured terrorist?
Assuming they have a duty to protect Americans, then isn’t (iv) part of their duty?
v) If it’s a choice between hurting (i.e. coercing) the terrorist to obtain actionable intel, or allowing the terrorist to hurt (i.e. murder) innocent Americans, where does our duty lie? Should we protect the terrorist or protect the innocent targets of the plot?
One the one hand you “traumatize” the terrorist. So maybe he has nightmares for the rest of his life. Big deal. Why should terrorism be a risk-free occupation?
On the other hand, you save the lives of, let’s say, dozens of innocent men, women, and children. Is the priority to protect the terrorist from harm or the innocent from harm?
vi) A captured terrorist is always at liberty to volunteer what he knows. Coercion is only applied if he refuses to divulge what he knows. Absent an adequate motivation, he may have no incentive to say anything at all.
A terrorist informant has information which we have a right to know. Since he won’t volunteer that information, we have a right to squeeze it out of him.
We shouldn’t employ gratuitously harsh methods to obtain the information. If we can coax the information out of him by kinder, gentler methods, fine. But if he will only divulge what he knows under duress, then we have a right to put him under duress.
It’s no different, in principle, than interrogating a murder suspect. Yes, he may lie to the homicide detectives. But if he gives them a false lead, and they follow up on the lead, they will find out that it’s a false lead. That he lied. They can then go back and question him again.
If, on the other hand, it’s true, then they will have ways of corroborating its veracity. In which case they will know something they didn’t otherwise know.
If a terrorist says something, there are ways to either verify or falsify his statement. But if he’s allowed to keep mum, you can never test it one way or the other.
The Geneva accords are predicated on reciprocity. The Geneva accords distinguish between lawful and unlawful combatants in order to reward those who abide by the laws of warfare while penalizing those who flout the laws of warfare. If such protections are extended to unlawful combatants, then that removes any incentive to ever abide by the laws of warfare.
Molinism and 1 Cor 10:13
Freewill theists quote 1 Cor 10:13 as a prooftext for libertarian freedom (i.e. freedom to do otherwise). Cashing this out in PAP terms, there are possible worlds in which Christians resist said temptations and possible worlds in which Christians succumb to said temptations. And Christians have the metaphysical ability to access either alternative.
Moreover, in my experience, freewill theists say this refers, not to especially grievous sins, like apostasy or transgressions conducive to apostasy, but sinning in general.
Assuming that's an accurate exposition of their position, here's the rub:
According to Molinism, not all possible worlds are feasible worlds. Feasible worlds are a subset of possible worlds. God can only instantiate feasible worlds. And which possible worlds are feasible is beyond his control.
In that event, how can God make good on the universal promise to Christians in 1 Cor 10:13 to always provide an alternative to sinning? How can God ensure that for every temptation, a feasible world is always available where a Christian resists that particular temptation?
We're talking about all the daily temptations that every Christian past and future faces. There has to be a supply of feasible worlds to match that situation in each and every case, where the Christian does not give in to temptation.
Also, isn't this a general problem for the Molinist take on conditional and counterfactual statements in Scripture?
Perhaps a Molinist would stipulate that God got very lucky. But isn't that ad hoc?
When defending God's omnibenevolence, they say feasible worlds constrain what God is able to do.
When defending 1 Cor 10:13, are they allowed to make a U-turn?
Does the supply of feasible worlds expand or contract depending on the exigent needs of the Molinist theory at any given time?
Ex nihilo nihil fit
One presupposition of cosmological arguments for God's existence is the axiom that nothing comes from nothing.
Unsurprisingly, in order to attack cosmological arguments, some atheists deny the axiom.
However, to deny the axiom is to deny causality. If something can come from nothing, then you have uncaused effects.
But that instantly dissolves many things that atheists typically hold dear, like induction, the uniformity of nature, and scientific explanation.
Wednesday, December 31, 2014
Dispatches from the other One True Church®
The other One True Church® is having a hard time making up its mind:
I'm waiting for the Mormon hierarchy to break new ground by advocating polygamous same-sex marriage
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