Shooting themselves in the foot

Here is another way of putting my point. The reply I have been considering, which skeptical theists might make in response to the charge that their skeptical theses undermine ordinary moral deliberation and action, is that “what is wrong for a person depends only on what… she knows” (McBreyer 2010)—or at least, what she thinks she knows. But the divine determinist thinks she knows something that those not committed to divine determinism do not think they know: and that is, that God has determined every event that occurs in the world. But then, this additional knowledge must factor into the divine determinist’s moral deliberation. The divine determinist must reason that if some horrific evil was divinely determined, then it was necessary for some greater good. But then, it must have been good, all things considered, that such an evil occurred. And so it would have been bad, all things considered, if someone had prevented its occurrence. So, no one should have prevented its occurrence. Leigh C. Vicens, Divine Determinism: A Critical Consideration. PhD. diss. University of Wisconsin-Madison (2012), 240-41.

What's ironic about this objection is how it overlooks a parallel objection: 

The freewill theist must reason that if some horrific evil was divinely permitted, then it was necessary for some greater good. But then, it must have been good, all things considered, that such an evil occurred. And so it would have been bad, all things considered, if someone had prevented its occurrence. So, no one should have prevented its occurrence.

IQ, abortion, and euthanasia

Peter Singer's argument for infanticide and euthanizing the senile and developmentally disabled is that IQ ranges along a continuum according to maturity and species. According to him, some higher animals are smarter than newborn babies, the senile, or developmentally disabled. Of course, that's a horrendous justification for infanticide and euthanasia, even if it were true. But in addition, here's a challenge to his operating assumption:

And what is rationality? Let us begin to try to answer this question by considering another question asked by the philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein: "We say that a dog is afraid his master will beat him; but not, he is affraid his master will beat him tomorrow. Why not?" The beginning of the answer to this question is that the idea expressed by the word "tomorrow" is wholly foreign to the mental world of the dog.

This idea…is well expressed by a bit of verse by W. V. Quine:

The unrefined and sluggish mind

Of Homo javanensis

Could only treat of things concrete

And present to the senses.

A rational being is a being that can do the following:

Represent to itself complex states of affairs, including non-actual states of affairs, that are strikingly remote from its present sense-perceptions. For instance…finding new ways to dispose of the refuse that feeds the rats that carry the flees that are infected with the bacterium that cause the plague. It can believe that certain states of affairs are actual and that others are non-actual. It can desire that certain states of affairs be actual and others non-actual…("I am trying to imagine what our life will be like if we really go ahead and have a child")…It can sort states of affairs into the categories of "probable" and "improbable"…It can devise plans of action that draw on its beliefs about which states of affairs are actual and non-actual and probable and improbable…It is capable of recognizing other beings as having all these capacities, and it is capable of communicating to those that do facts and orders and questions related to states of affairs it represents to itself…

Rationality marks a great divide, a discontinuity between humanity and the beasts. It is wrong to suppose that there is something apes and elephants and beavers have a little of, and we have more of, and that as a consequence, we are rational and they are not. 

It is not that we are "more intelligent" than, say, apes, and that that is why we are rational and apes are not–as Alice is able to solve word-analogy problems and spatial-relation problems faster than Alfred because she is more intelligent…We may indeed be more intelligent than apes; indeed I suppose we are. But if so, that is not why we are rational and apes are not. If there is a connection, it goes the other way: we are more intelligent than apes because we are rational and therefore have more use for intelligence-for intelligence, if it is anything, is the ability to manipulate mental representations of states of affairs in various useful ways, and we have a lot more, and a lot more complex, representations to manipulate than apes do….Human beings who are of subnormal intelligence owing to injuries or generic defects do not have minds at all like the minds of apes, any more than apes of subnormal intelligence have minds like the minds of elephants or beavers. Rather, they have human minds that are of diminished capacity in respect of dealing with the demands of life in a human community. P. van Inwagen, Metaphysics (Westview Press, 4th ed., 2015), 184-86.

Marian apparitions and heaven tourism

There's a striking parallel between Fatima, Lourdes, Heaven is for Real: A Little Boy's Astounding Story of His Trip to Heaven and Back, and The Boy Who Came Back From Heaven: A True Story. 

I've detailed my views on heaven-and-back stories about children before, so I won't repeat myself in this post:

http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2014/01/heaven-is-for-real.html

http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2014/04/is-heaven-is-for-real-hoax.html

What all these accounts share in common is stories about children (e.g. Todd Burpo, Alex Malarkey, Bernadette Soubirous, Lucia dos Santos, Jacinta and Francisco Marto) who claim to have numinous encounters. The Catholic and Protestant accounts are strikingly similar in that regard. I'd add that a common theme in the case of the Catholic stories is the Immaculate Conception. 

Let's sketch a skeptical explanation. Although children are quite capable of lying, it's not always that simple. Children indulge in innocent make-believe. 

Suppose they initially spin a tall tale which they don't expect anyone to believe. And much of the time, adults discount stories like this. 

But sometimes, for whatever reason, they are taken seriously. The stories take on a life of their own as adults report what the children said. 

That puts a child in a situation he didn't anticipate, and which he lacks the maturity to handle. Suddenly he (or she) is the center of attention. That makes it psychologically much more difficult for the child to voluntarily retract the story if it was a lark. Adults have now put the child in a position where he (or she) is under pressure to live up to their expectations. It's exhilarating to have all that favorable attention showered on them. At that point the kids don't wish to let anyone down. Eventually, Alex Malarkey screwed up the courage to recant his sensational claims. But it's really hard to back down at that point. 

I'd add that this can dramatically advance their social standing. For instance, Lucia dos Santos was venerated as the mouthpiece of Mary. She had the ear of popes. Indeed, she had leverage over popes. That's heady for someone who started out as nobody.  

This is not to deny that some kids may have heavenly NDEs, see angelic or dominical apparitions, &c. But unless there's corroborative evidence, outside observers can't differentiate fantasy from reality in the regard. 

I'd also add that this goes to the distinction between public  and private revelation. Absent corroborative evidence, there's no obligation for a second party to credit the purported experience of the alleged witness. It's generally prudent to withhold judgment, unless you personally know the witness and can vouch for their bona fides.  

Is there a Santa clause?

Recently, in response to a question, I got into a debate over Santa Claus. It's striking how emotionally invested both sides can be in this debate. I don't think the Santa Claus mythos is a big deal one way or the other, but it raises some significant, perennial questions about parental duties and Catholic morality: 

Parents who do this certainly mean well, but they do not do well, because lying is always wrong. Not always gravely wrong, to be sure, but still wrong. That is bad enough. But there is also the bad lesson that children are apt to derive from this practice, even if the parents do not intend to teach it – namely, the immoral principle that lying is acceptable if it leads to good consequences. There is also the damage done to a child’s trust in his parents’ word. “What else might they be lying about? What about all this religion stuff?”

http://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2010/11/there-is-no-santa-clause.html

Hays

i) Feser's objection depends in part on the assumption that lying is universally wrong. And that's certainly an issue worth discussing. That, however, is a separate argument, because it turns on a general principle. "Lying" about Santa is wrong because lying about anything is wrong. "Lying" about Santa is just a special case of that general prohibition. 

If that's the basis of the objection to the Santa mythos, then we should shift the debate to whether lying is absolutely wrong.

ii) Notice that Feser's logic precludes any form of espionage involving spies who assume a false identity. That's how radical his position is. We're not allowed to send agents into a hostile country who pretend to be someone they're not. 

iii) Then there's his pragmatic objection. But that cuts both ways. What if your parents are Hindu or Buddhist or Muslim or secular humanists? Is it not beneficial in that context for kids to doubt the wisdom of their parents?

I strongly believe that Christian parents should not lie to their children about the existence of a supernatural, all-knowing being who is watching them and holding them morally accountable. Once they find out that you have lied to them about Santa’s existence, how can doubts not also arise that you have been wrong as well in telling them that God exists? Maybe the whole Christmas story is a myth which thinking adults should outgrow.

https://www.reasonablefaith.org/question-answer/P90/should-parents-let-their-children-believe-in-santa-claus

Gagnon on mythicism

Robert A. J. Gagnon

It is a shame that the WashPost decided to compound deep insensitivity with deep ignorance in retweeting on Christmas day a 2014 op-ed by the self-professed "polyamorist" Raphael Lataster, “Did historical Jesus really exist? The evidence just doesn’t add up," Yes, there is the evidence from the late first-century Jewish historian Josephus (minus later Christian editing) and early second-century Roman historianTacitus, among other extrabiblical sources (as the writer of this article points out). Yet there is so much more.

No one would knowingly create a life of Jesus that would lead to one's martyrdom. James (Jacob), one of Jesus' younger brothers, would not have died a martyr's death as head of the church in Jerusalem for a brother whom he made up. Simon (Peter/Cephas), surnamed by Jesus "rock" for being the first human to confess Jesus' messiahship, also would not have suffered martyrdom if in fact he had made up the figure of Jesus. The same applies to all other disciples of Jesus who claimed to have known him during his earthly ministry and suffered for their proclamation of Jesus as Christ. No one profited materially from such a hoax. Deprivations in food, clothing, and shelter, along with persecution, were the common lot of Jesus' followers. The idea of a massive conspiracy, with little or no self-gain and everything to lose, never buckling under the weight of fraud, is ridiculous.

The church would not have made up a crucified Messiah since the crucifixion posed a problem for the church's faith, a problem that it sought to explain in various ways (including atonement models). The idea of a suffering Messiah was not a standard expectation in early Judaism. Suffering and death suggested failure, not success, in a messianic mission. Yes, the church could go back to their OT Scriptures and gain comprehension through Isaiah 53 and Psalm texts speaking of a suffering righteous one, but only as an after-the-fact search for comprehension, not as an anticipated expectation for God's anointed one. The Gospels themselves speak of the despair of the disciples immediately following his crucifixion, which is exactly the historical outcome one would expect.

Moreover, no Jew would have created a Messiah who grew up in an obscure town in Galilee ("can anything good come out of Nazareth?"). The baptism of Jesus at the hands of John the Baptizer (certainly a historical figure, as attested by Josephus) suggests the superiority of John over Jesus, a problem that the Gospel writers sought to explain and minimize. They wouldn't have created such problems if Jesus had been a figure of their own imagination.

Some of the hard teachings of Jesus, including his unparalleled rejection of divorce and remarriage-after-divorce, required moderation and explanation. They were also based on a singular recognition of unique authority. What other Jew would claim the power to amend unilaterally the constitution of Israel? The universal route for authority in Judaism was derived: So-and-so appealed to so-and-so and on it went as far back as one could push it, hopefully at least to great figures in the Restoration after exile. The distinctive use of "amen" not as a responsive, confirming particle but rather as an introduction to Jesus sayings violated every prior norm, where instead of tracing his teaching to earlier sages Jesus in effect confirmed his own sayings as self-authenticating and in need of no one else's confirmation.

Declaring one's self Lord of the Sabbath and forgiving sins that were not committed against one's own self were other elements of the early church's testimony about Jesus that raised the question of which Jews would imaginatively create a human with such authority. Such claims generated offense and made the Jerusalem church subject to persecution at the hands of fellow Jews. The messianic claims of the early church not only earned the ire of fellow Jews but also brought the wrath of Roman authorities who were rightly suspicious of such a seditious threat to the emperor's claim of ultimate authority. Why would the church bring upon itself the wrath of the world through its own creation?

Along with the absence of any expectation of a crucified Messiah was the absence of an expectation of a resurrected Messiah. If one were going to make up a resurrection out of whole cloth, one wouldn't buttress it by appealing to female witnesses to an enigmatic figure at an empty tomb in the place of Jesus' body and to appearances by Jesus. The testimony of female witnesses would be regarded as unreliable because of their sex. Then somehow 500 people at one time would have to be made to see this made-up resurrected figure or at least collectively lie about it.

Why would a self-professed zealous Pharisee such as Paul give up subservience to the very Law of Moses that he excelled in and abandon his persecution of the church, all for extraordinary daily deprivation and persecution around the Mediterranean Basin were he not convinced of the historical reality of this figure now raised from the dead? Paul's call-conversion was within a few years of Jesus' death. By his own testimony he met with Cephas (Peter) and the Lord's brother James (Jacob) after three years and then again a little over a decade after that with these two and with John. He was certainly convinced of their truthfulness. Indeed, even when he had been persecuting the church he did not question the historical existence of Jesus.

The very shape of the Gospel stories and sayings conforms to what we would expect of traditions transmitted orally and preserved for decades by followers of a given teacher: sayings in easily memorizable form (e.g., parallelismus membrorum), self-contained pericopes independent of a larger narrative, with all the variations across transmission lines that would accrue from an original nucleus. An example would be the story of Jesus' distance healing of the mortally-ill, Capernaum-located "boy" of an official (Matt 8:5-13 // Luke 7:1-10; John 4:46b-53), which, while exhibiting significant variation (ethnicity and office of the supplicant, precise nature of the malady, questions about whether the supplicant meets Jesus directly and initiates a request for distance healing, the identity of the "boy" as a son or slave) shows significant points of agreement between two obviously independent sources: the reconstructed "Q" original behind Matthew's and Luke's versions and the story in the Johannine Signs Source.

No, it creates far fewer historical problems and requires much less faith to acknowledge the historical reality of the figure of Jesus than to posit the non-existence of the man from Nazareth.

Andy Bannister interview

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HmRGhxnbDu0&feature=share

"Our Lady of Fatima"

About 10 years ago I did a long post on Fatima, with special reference to the "miracle of the sun":

http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2007/01/miracle-of-sun.html

Now I'd like to revisit the issue of Fatima, with special reference to the purported Marian apparitions:

i) I don't have antecedent objections to angelic apparitions, apparitions of the dead, or visions of Jesus in church history. In a sense I don't object to "saintly apparitions". However, by that I mean, not individuals canonized by the church of Rome, by crisis apparitions in which a departed Christian might appear to a friend or relative who's going through an ordeal to lend strategic, timely encouragement at a critical juncture in his life. 

ii) I don't have antecedent objections to children experiencing God in miraculous ways. But by the same token, children are less reliable witnesses than adults. Children are suggestible, impressionable. Less able to distinguish imagination from reality. 

iii) In addition, there's a difference between firsthand experience and secondhand information. Suppose you say you had a private supernatural experience. If in fact you did, then you're warranted in believing what happened to you. But an outside observer can't vouch for your purported experience, even if it happened, since he didn't experience what you did. 

Mind you, we rightly believe many things on the basis of secondhand information. I'm not suggesting there's anything wrong with that. And sometimes secondhand information from multiple independent sources is more reliable than one firsthand experience. 

But in general, I don't have the same epistemic duty to believe your reported observation than I have to believe my own observations. I'm not necessarily obligated to believe you. 

Indeed, there are situations in which I'm obligated not to believe a secondhand account. For instance, Muhammad, Swedenborg, Joseph Smith, and Lucia dos Santos all report supernatural encounters, yet they can't all be right, although they can all be wrong.  

iv) I admit that I rule out Marian apparitions as a matter of principle. I don't think Mary would appear to people because that usurps devotion to Jesus. Indeed, the Fatima cult is a classic example of Mary supplanting Jesus in the hearts of Catholic devotees. 

A Catholic might object that I suffer from unfalsifiable skepticism regarding Marian apparitions. No kind of evidence would convince me otherwise.

In a sense that's true, but keep in mind that there's conflicting prima facie evidence. I can't be equally and simultaneously open to the reputed revelations Muhammad, Swedenborg, Joseph Smith, and Lucia dos Santos. Even if I wanted to believe all these reports, they involve contradictory messages by competing religious claimants. I can't be equally and simultaneously open to contrary lines of prima facie evidence. At the level of opposing reports, unfalsifiable skepticism is inevitable because it isn't even possible to credit all of them. 

Of course, that doesn't mean we should discount all reports of supernatural encounters. But it does mean we must bring certain criteria to bear when sifting the putative evidence. And that includes theological criteria (e.g. Deut 13:1-5). 

v) In my experience, Catholic apologists treat Fatima as a package. Now, from what I've read, the "miracle of the sun" was a well-attested event. I'm prepared to credit that event. Of course, there's still the question of how to interpret that phenomenon. 

By contrasted, the purported angelic and Marian apparitions which preceded that event are not nearly so well-attested. I believe the primary source material consists of newspaper reports, interviews with Lucia and her two cousins, and Lucia's memoirs. And from what I've read, Lucia's memoirs contain key details that are missing from recorded interviews and newspaper reports.

But in that event, some of the central claims narrow down to a single conduit: the testimony of Lucia. To my knowledge, there's no independent corroboration for many of her claims. 

vi) In addition, she wrote this down years after the fact. Yet the claims include Marian prophecies. Oracles of doom. 

But even if Mary actually spoke to Lucia, unless Lucia was blessed with verbatim recall, what we're getting isn't a statement in Mary's own words, but in Lucia's own words. Suppose Lucia remembered the gist of what Mary said. Yet when reporting what Mary told her, Lucia must put that in her own words, paraphrasing the ideas. That's even assuming Mary actually appeared to the three children.

vii) There's also the vexed question of how you'd verify a Marian apparition even if you had direct experience of a putative Marian apparition. Suppose you have an encounter that's unmistakably supernatural. An apparition that's recognizably the Mary of traditional Catholic art. As if she stepped right out of a Raphael painting. Suppose she has a nimbic aura and identifies herself as the mother of Jesus.

But once we grant the realm of the supernatural, there are other candidates who could presumably impersonate Mary. What about a malevolent ghost or fallen angel? Catholics might regard that as sacrilegious, but once again, reported numinous encounters are hardly confined to Mary. How do Catholics assess the claims of Muhammad, Swedenborg, and Joseph Smith? 

viii) It's interesting to compare purported Marian apparitions with purported dominican apparitions in that regard. Unlike Mary, Jesus, by virtue of his divine mind, as direct telepathic access to whoever he might appear to. He can make his identity known in a way that Mary cannot.

ix) If we take the reports at face value, Mary is quite the linguist. She speaks so many different foreign languages, depending on the audience. Does she speak foreign languages with an Aramaic accent? 

You don't have the same issue in the case of purported dominical apparitions, since Jesus, by virtue of his divine mind, is fluent in every dead and living language. Indeed, the Son knew all those languages before any humans spoke them. 

x) By the same token, why are major Marian apparitions confined to Catholic witnesses? Compare that dreams and visions of Jesus by Muslim and Jewish recipients? 

Stargate

9 And when he had said these things, as they were looking on, he was lifted up, and a cloud took him out of their sight. 10 And while they were gazing into heaven as he went, behold, two men stood by them in white robes, 11 and said, “Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking into heaven? This Jesus, who was taken up from you into heaven, will come in the same way as you saw him go into heaven” (Acts 1:9-11). 

I've discussed this before, but I have a few new things to add. 

i) Unbelievers cite this as an example of Biblical error, where the narrator subscribes to a flat-earth, three-story cosmography. 

Readers who construe the passage that way seem to think it depicts Jesus shooting up into heaven like a rocket. He passes out of sight when he passes through a cloud overhead, obscuring the view for ground-based observers. "Heaven" is up in the sky or outer space. 

ii) But that's a misreading of the passage. He doesn't pass through a cloud. Rather, the cloud removes him. 

In context, the "cloud" is a synonym for the Shekinah, viz. the pillar of cloud in the Exodus narratives. Acts is the sequel to Luke, and in Luke's Gospel, we have the same type of imagery: 

34 As he was saying these things, a cloud came and overshadowed them, and they were afraid as they entered the cloud. 35 And a voice came out of the cloud, saying, “This is my Son, my Chosen One; listen to him!” 

Once again, that has reference to the Shekinah, with allusions to cloudy pillar (by day) and fiery pillar (by night). The same phenomenon seen under different lighting conditions.  A theophanic "cloud". 

When we read the Ascension account, we should visualize something like the theophany in Ezk 1, which–from a distance–may have resembled an electrical storm. In Ezekiel, the theophany is a portable throne room. The Shekinah is like a corona ensheathing the enthroned Deity and his angelic sentinels. 

iii) In the Ascension account, the theophanic cloud functions like time portals and interdimensional portals in science fiction lore, which transport someone stepping through them into the past, future, or parallel universe. In this case, it transports Jesus to another realm ("heaven"). 

I'm not saying it's literally an interdimensional portal. I'm just using that analogy to clarify the function. We might also compare it to the Wood between the Worlds in The Chronicles of Narnia. 

iv) There is, though, the intriguing question of Christ's ultimate destination. In standard biblical eschatology, the intermediate state precedes the final state. The intermediate state is a disembodied condition while the final state is a reembodied condition. However, the resurrection of Christ is "anachronistic" in the sense that it foreshadows the resurrection of the just. So where did Jesus go? Presumably he went to a physical place inasmuch as he has a body. But if his resurrection is a foretaste of something that only happens at the Parousia (or thereabouts), then is he all alone?

v) It would be fitting if the much maligned passage in Mt 27:51-53 dovetails with the Ascension. The same question arises: what happened to them after they made their appearance? Perhaps the answer is that Jesus, along with the resurrected saints in Mt 27:51-53, went to the same place–wherever that is. Not here on earth, certainly. And there they remain until the new Eden is inaugurated on earth. 

vi) As a side note, Lk 1:35 using the same theophanic imagery, like the Shekinah suffusing the tabernacle. Figuratively speaking, Mary's womb was akin the tabernacle while prenatal Jesus was akin the Shekinah in the inner sanctum.

But perhaps it's more than rhetorical. Maybe the Shekinah really did overshadow Mary to effect the Incarnation. To miraculously effect the virginal conception. 

Who made God?

Some atheists think they can dismiss cosmological arguments by simply asking, "Who made God?" Here's some observations that are pertinent to that riposte:

All the beings we observe seem to be contingent beings; some of them certainly are. It seems reasonable, therefore, to suppose that the following statement is true: 

There are some contingent beings.

Now if the Principle of Sufficient Reason is correct, there is some explanation of the truth of this statement, some answer to the question "Why are there contingent beings?" But what would an explanation of the existence of contingent beings look like? One possible explanation of this state of affairs is the following:

Something necessarily existent, some necessary being, is in some way responsible for the fact that there are contingent things.

This is not, of course, a very detailed explanation, but it seems to be a perfectly satisfactory explanation as far as it goes. It is conceivable that someone might object to it on the ground that it "merely pushes the problem of the existence of things back a step." The worry here is something like this: "All right, the necessary being explains the existence of contingent beings, but what explains its existence? Why does it exist?" But to say this is to neglect the fact that a necessary being is a being whose nonexistence is impossible. Thus, for any necessary being, there is by definition a sufficient reason for its existence: there could hardly be a better explanation of the existence of a thing than that its nonexistence is impossible 

As to the fact that the explanation is almost wholly lacking in specifics, we should note that there are few if any explanations that could not be given in greater detail. The explanation could be "filled in" in various ways… P. van Inwagen, Metaphysics, (Westview Press 2015), 160-61.

i) Some atheists might object that to define God as a necessary being begs the question. That's defining God into existence. Truth by definition. 

ii) But that objection is ill-conceived. To begin with, a debate over God's existence is, in the first instance, a debate regarding the idea of God. What does "God" represent? At that stage of the argument there's nothing wrong with a stipulative definition. To define God as a necessary being doesn't mean God necessarily exists, but that if there's a God, he exists of necessity. In other words, this is a statement about the concept of God under review. Whether there's a reality corresponding to that concept is another stage of the argument, but the idea of God is the idea of a necessary being.

And I mean the idea of God in classical theism, since that's the typical target of Western atheists, as well as what their Christian opponents typically defend. Of course, if this was a debate about Hinduism, then the definition would be different.

ii) In addition, this is not an arbitrary principle. What makes contingent entities contingent is their dependence on something else for their existence. It's possible for them not to exist. They didn't always exist, and some of them cease to exist. 

This in turn raises the question of whether it's possible for everything to be contingent, or must there be something necessary to ground contingent entities? Can it be contingency all the way down? Or must there be something which cannot fail to exist that supports everything else?  That, of course, is a hotly contested issue. But whether or not we can prove that possible things require something necessary, that is, at the very least, a reasonable explanation. If there's something necessary on which contingent entities depend, then that's a straightforward explanation for why they exist, since there's nothing in themselves that requires their existence. 

iii) By the same token, it's not unreasonable to think that the explanatory regress must terminate at some point. Indeed, that's a presupposition of science. But the question is where to draw the line. Some stopping-points are arbitrary or premature. My parents are not the ultimate source of my existence, since they have parents, and grandparents. Moreover, their physical existence is contingent, not merely on their parents, but the earth and the universe. 

iv) This eliminates facile counterexamples like Russell's Teapot and "one fewer god". Russell's Teapot, if it existed, would be a contingent object. So it doesn't have the same explanatory power as a necessary being like God. By the same token, heathen deities are contingent beings. 

The day after Christmas

Especially in liturgical churches, there's a big buildup to Christmas. Four Sundays leading up to Christmas Eve. Lots of seasonal hymns, carols, and anthems. Sermons and lectionary readings on that theme. Some churches have Christmas concerts and/or Christmas pageants. Festivities that culminate in a Christmas Eve service, followed by Christmas. 

Any hymns and carols about the day after Christmas? No. A big build up followed by a big let down. Day after Christmas, life returns to normal. Back to humdrum. Vacation ends. Employees return to work. Kids return to school. 

This is due in large part to the fact that Christmas is backward-looking celebration. It commemorates a unique, unrepeatable event. There's only one Jesus, only one Incarnation. 

Although it's all important to remember that pivotal event, where do you go from there? It's about something that happened. What lies behind us, not ahead of us.

Of course, the Incarnation is permanent, and it has unending reverberations. In addition, each new generation discovers the Christmas story anew. What's old is new again for a new audience. 

The message of Christmas is a message of transcendent hope. We're not encased in a snowglobe. The world has a backdoor through which God sends angels. Sometimes departed saints (e.g. Moses, Elijah). 

And, greatest of all, God himself came to us through that backdoor in the person of his Son, and continually comes to us in the person of his Spirit. 

Christmas is repetitious, and over the course of a lifetime, a cradle Christian may attend 80 Christmas services, give or take. Year after year, he participates in that annual celebration. Yet that's a tiny fraction of the thousands of repetitious things we do in the course of a lifetime, day after day, and week after week. 

At first his parents brought him to church. Maybe his grandparents attended. In time they pass away, and he continues to attend in their absence. And he brings his own children to church.

As he passes through the lifecycle, the personal significance of Christmas may evolve. He no longer has parental faith to lean on. Now he must carry on without them, following in the footsteps of those who went before, while he leaves an example for those who come after. 

By contrast, Easter is both backward-looking and forward-looking. Unlike the event which Christmas commemorates, Easter has corporate as well as individual dimension. The Resurrection is a foretaste. The dead in Christ will rise in Christ. 

In that regard, Easter has an ongoing significance in a way that Christmas does not. A more directly future-oriented import, looking ahead to the world that awaits us. 

A serious omission in the traditional church calendar is the absence of a day that celebrates the return of Christ. 

The walk of faith is a lifelong journey over hills and valleys. From the valley, you can't see ahead. Your view is blocked by the next hill. You never know in advance which hill will be the last. As you surmount each new hill, you see from the summit whether there's another hill in the distance, or if you are standing, at long last, on the final hill, as Emanuel's land stretches out before you, just beyond the river of death. 

God, A Tender Shoot

All praise to Thee, eternal Lord,
Clothed in a garb of flesh and blood;
Choosing a manger for Thy throne,
While worlds on worlds are Thine alone.

Once did the skies before Thee bow;
A virgin's arms contain Thee now,
While angels, who in Thee rejoice,
Now listen for Thine infant voice.
(Martin Luther, All Praise To Thee, Eternal Lord)

"a son will be given to us…I will also hold You by the hand and watch over You…He grew up before Him as a tender shoot" (Isaiah 9:6, 42:6, 53:2)

Bart Ehrman's Ridiculous List Of Christmas Facts

In a post earlier today, Bart Ehrman wrote:

As I said in the previous post, it is not that I “believe” in the Christmas story (stories) as a historical event (events). In my judgment the biblical accounts have virtually nothing historical about them, other than that Jesus was born to two lower-class Jewish peasants somewhere in the land of Israel during the reign of Caesar Augustus. Beyond that – I don’t see anything historical in the accounts.

There are dozens of claims about Jesus' childhood in the earliest sources that meet the criterion of multiple attestation. Much of what's said about Jesus' childhood in the earliest sources meets the criterion of embarrassment, meets the criterion of coherence, is corroborated by non-Christian sources, etc. But Ehrman thinks only the small handful of facts he mentions above are historical? The names of the parents aren't historical? The scandalous premarital timing of the pregnancy? The early move to Nazareth, a disreputable city? The fact that Mary had other children after Jesus? What grounds would Ehrman have for rejecting such claims?

Even on more controversial matters, why agree with Ehrman? For example, in a post yesterday, he referred to the Bethlehem birthplace as something he rejects as unhistorical. But see here regarding the evidence for the Bethlehem birthplace, especially the second half of the post here for a summary.

It's common in many skeptical and scholarly circles to make comments like Ehrman's about how little of the infancy narratives is historical. Since what those critics are saying about the infancy narratives is so false and so easily shown to be false, what should we conclude about those critics?

God's sleeper cells

I discussed the problem of unanswered prayer on several occasions. Now I'd like to consider from a different angle.

Of course, from the standpoint of an atheist, Christian explanations for unanswered prayer are special pleading. The real reason prayers go unanswered because there's no God to answer prayer, and apparent answered prayers are just coincidence.

I understand how it looks that way to an outsider, yet the evidence for a prayer-answering God is uncontrovertible.

But here's one reason God doesn't answer every Christian prayer: many prayers request direct divine intervention. Ask God to cut through the red tape.

Problem is there's a balancing act between the theology of the church and the theology of prayer. I don't mean "the church" in a high churchy Roman Catholic, Anglo-Catholic, Eastern Orthodox sense, but garden-variety Christians. 

Oftentimes, God chooses to minister indirectly through the efforts of Christians. Christians can function as mediators in the sense that their charitable efforts bear witness to God's love and grace.

Consider Ernest Gordon, who was an inmate in a Japanese POW camp. At first, the law of the jungle took over. The survival of the fittest among the inmates. But then a Christian revival broke out.

A related example is Eric Liddell, a missionary to China. He had a chance to leave China when the Japanese invaded, but he stayed behind to be with his students. He and they were captured. Imprisoned in a POW camp. And he never left the camp. He died there of brain cancer, after faithfully ministering to his students and other inmates. 

Or the experience of Corrie ten Boom. Those are specular examples, but there are more mundane examples, like a Christian family in which grown children care for elderly, enfeebled parents. Or an elderly Christian couple where one provides for the other, even though both are very diminished. 

If God were to parachute in, in answer to prayer, that would eliminate the opportunity for Christians to minister to other Christians. Although our best efforts are often pitifully inadequate, there is, for that very reason, something beautiful about vessels of clay aiding other vessels of clay. The weak caring for the weaker. When Christians who may have very limited resources summon what little they have to offer, making the most of little.

Catholics mock the "invisible" church, but there's something wonderful about the invisible church. Oftentimes, the church is like a desert that has a barren, lifeless landscape. But appearances are deceptive. It only takes is a flash flood and the next day the desert is bursting into a flower garden. 

Just beneath the desolate surface the ground was teaming with seeds waiting for water. All it takes is a flash flood to explode into life. 

God has seeded parts of the world with Christians who lay dormant until they spring into action when a challenge arises. Like sleeper cells behind enemy lines. They go largely unnoticed by unbelievers, yet God has delegated to them a ministry, to be his lips and ears and hands and feet. 

Nabeel Qureshi never got what he asked for–in this life. Those who prayed for his healing never got what they asked for. Yet they themselves were agents of mercy. A whole network waiting to spontaneously assemble at a moment's notice to shower him, his wife, his parents and sister with encouragement and Christian witness. In a sense, the medium was the answer. 

The Infant King

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6GpqnlFpEvg

Infant Holy, Infant Lowly

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IaqoeCl_jR0

In dulci jubilo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bN4xsXbO-QE

Hodie Christus natus est

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dV-rywl9UBs

Making a case for Christianity

I've read lots of books on and articles on Christian apologetics over the years. I cringe at books entitled The Case for Christianity, as if the fortunes of the Christian faith hang on the success of that apologist in that book. Should we read these books in breathless suspense, turning the pages with white knuckled trepidation as the Christianity teeters in the blanche until the final chapter tips the scales in its favor? It would be preferable if less pretentious titles were used. Especially since many of these books are pitched at a popular level, and therefore skim the issues pro and con.

On a more substantive note, a dissatisfaction I have with many books on Christian apologetics is the narrow range of evidence. The Christian faith arose in a pagan world haunted by ghosts, demons, and witchcraft. In that context, the evidence for Christianity included exorcism, dreams and visions, angelic apparitions as well as apparitions of the dead. And the mission field in many parts of the Third World today parallels that environment. But Western Evangelical apologists from about the Enlightenment up until our own day generally neglect or avoid that dimension. While many treatments are good for what they include, they suffer from a provincial, ethnocentric, First World oversight in what they omit

Likewise, the argument from prophecy is a fixture of traditional Christian apologetics, but there's an unfortunate lacuna between pop apologetic arguments for fulfilled prophecy and scholarly expositions. Constructing good arguments for fulfilled prophecy takes patient detail work. 

Another issue is the gap between evidence for mere theism and evidence for Christian theism. How do we bridge the gap between evidence for theism in general and evidence for Christianity in particular? That's a common complaint, although I think the complaint is often unfair. If Christian theism is true, then that will include components of mere theism. They overlap. 

I frequently argue from Christianity from different angles. If I were to make a systematic case for Christianity, what's a good way to organize the argument? Is there a hierarchal structure, where one thing leads to another in stepwise progression? I think that's someone artificial, because reality is holistic, with overlapping domains. Nevertheless, there is something of a multi-stage argument, even if it's not strictly linear. 

This post takes for granted all the supporting material I've posted over the years. (Jason Engwer has posted lots of pertinent material as well.) The purpose of this post is not to actually lay out all the evidence, but to sketch an apologetic strategy. How to logically arrange the material. 

Back to Eden

10 A river flowed out of Eden to water the garden, and there it divided and became four rivers. 11 The name of the first is the Pishon. It is the one that flowed around the whole land of Havilah, where there is gold. 12 And the gold of that land is good; bdellium and onyx stone are there. 13 The name of the second river is the Gihon. It is the one that flowed around the whole land of Cush. 14 And the name of the third river is the Tigris, which flows east of Assyria. And the fourth river is the Euphrates (Gen 2:10-14). 

24 He drove out the man, and at the east of the garden of Eden he placed the cherubim and a flaming sword that turned every way to guard the way to the tree of life (Gen 3:24). 

I often circle back to certain issues, because they interest me, and because there's always more to be said. One issue concerns the location and landscape of Eden. When we read the account, what should the reader try to visualize?

What's intriguing about Gen 3:24 is the implication that the Garden was enclosed space. There was one way in and one way out. So it wasn't wide open. You couldn't just walk into the Garden from anywhere. There was some kind of natural (?) barrier separating the Garden from the surrounding territory. But what might that be?

One possibility which suggests itself from the account is the river system. Perhaps the Garden was encircled by a meandering, impassable river. A river too wide and deep to wade across or swim across. On that view, the eastern access point was like an isthmus. Depending on whether Eden was near the ocean, it might even be a tidal river that submerged the access point at high tide, leaving it briefly exposed at low tide. That's a simple explanation. 

Another possibility is a river valley, where the surrounding hillside forms a solid boundary, like a brick wall. Or a fluvial island. 

The Deity Of The Servant In Isaiah

Jonathan McLatchie has a good article on the deity of the Servant figure in Isaiah and some of the connections between the Servant Songs and other passages in Isaiah, like Isaiah 9 and 11.