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. 

My Take on White v. Wood

Note: There has been an addendum added to this post at the end.

I’ve been discussing the White/Wood Controversy on Facebook, and one of my friends mentioned he thought it would be a good idea to write something more in depth about it.  Before beginning, I want to give a little bit of background.

In the early part of the 2000s, I was a channel regular at #Prosapologian, James White’s IRC.  In fact, for some time I was an Op there, and it’s even where I got my website name of CalvinDude, since that was my chat handle there.  White very definitely blessed me with his ministry through some formative parts of my life.  It was through White that I was first introduced to presuppositionalism, and in fact I believe it was after one of his Dividing Line broadcasts that I heard of, so sought out and listened to, the Bahnsen/Stein debate on the Existence of God and later picked up Bahnsen’s book, Always Ready: Directions For Defending the Faith.

There were really only two topics that White and I ever disagreed on in the channel.  The first was paedobaptism (since White is a Reformed Baptist and I am a Presbyterian).  The second, ironically enough, has some bearing on the current dispute because it was about what type of language is permissible for Christians to use.  To his credit, White has remained consistent on that from the time we had our discussion up until today.  But then, so have I, so fundamentally we’re still going to disagree on that part.  That said, I have continued to follow White off and on and watch several of his Dividing Line episodes each year (I sadly lack the time to watch all of them).

It is also through White that I first heard about David Wood.  And soon after, Wood debated John Loftus who, back when I was first contributing to Triablogue, was a frequent foil.  It was also around this time that Wood was unjustly arrested in Dearborn at the Arab Festival, along with Nabeel Qureshi and others, which introduced me to the full ministry of Acts 17 Apologetics.

In short, then, I’ve followed White for about 15 years now, and I’ve followed Wood for about 8.  I’ve learned a lot from both of them and believe both are genuine brothers in the LORD.  But when it comes to the controversy, I do have to say that I very strongly believe the evidence backs David Wood.  This isn’t to say that White’s objections have no merit, nor that they do not need to be responded to.  In fact, I applaud White for two things in his critique: one, for wanting to remain Biblically consistent; and two, for his intense desire for the Gospel to be proclaimed.  The disagreement I have is that I believe that Wood satisfies both of those requirements, whereas White clearly does not believe that to be the case.

Islamicize Me!

This is a sequel to my post on the "Islamicize Me":

http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2018/06/muslim-mockumentaries.html

I've now watched White's two responses to that series. I also watched the long ramshackle response by Wood, Vocab Malone, and Jon McCray.

Thomistic classical theism

http://jbtsonline.org/review-of-all-that-is-in-god-evangelical-theology-and-the-challenge-of-classical-christian-theism-by-james-e-dolezal/

https://medium.com/@jaredoliphint/a-delayed-take-on-dolezals-all-that-is-in-god-a1e6dde1f8b9

Apparent to whom?

1. Traditionally, young-earth creationists espouse apparent age, although nowadays I think "mature creation" is the preferred appellation, and Jonathan Sarfati, for one, repudiates the concept of apparent age. 

2. By definition, "apparent" is relative. Apparent to whom? Is there an appearance that's uniform to everyone? Consider some candidates:

i) God

ii) Angels

iii) Prescientific observers

iv) Scientific observers

From God's viewpoint, does the world appear to be older than it really is? Is that question even meaningful in relation to God? 

How old did the Grand Canyon appear to pre-Columbian Indians in the region? How does that appearance compare to a conventional geologist? 

3. Apropos (2), when we affirm or deny apparent age, who's the normative observer? Whose viewpoint sets the standard? 

If you think apparent age is true, in relation to whom is it true? If you think apparent age is false, in relation to whom is it false? Is it true or false depending on how it appears to a scientific observer? A prescientific observer? To the Creator? To the Archangel Michael?

4. The dispute over apparent age is not about present-day appearances but what lies behind appearances–the process that caused the present-day appearance. Not about what you see, not about the present, but about an inferred past. 

5. To a great extent, the appearance of nature is cyclical. That caught the attention of Ecclesiastes, three thousand years ago. 

But what's the apparent age of a cyclical process? There's a sense in which a circle is timeless, because periodicity is indefinitely repeatable. You walk into a room and glance at the second hand of the clock. It moves around the dial in a clockwise direction. If you went into the room a day before, a week before, a day later, a week later, you'd see the second hand doing the same thing. So when it did start moving? From the present, you can't reconstruct when the second hand began moving. It has no implied chronology. Maybe the clock began ticking yesterday, or last year, or ten years ago. Someone wound it up, but when? There's no clue.

That may be why there were medieval and ancient debates over the eternity of the world. Circular action is timeless in a way that linear action is not. Sheer repetition. 

6. Finally, it's striking how the extremes of naturalistic evolution and young-earth creationism can meet. Both sides draw a contrast between appearance and reality: 

Biology is the study of complicated things that give the appearance of having been designed for a purpose. 

Richard Dawkins, The Blind Watchmaker, p1. 

[Mature creation] a theory that God created many things in a mature form (fulfilling function at the moment of creation), thus appearing as if they had developed when they had not. 

Kurt Wise, Faith, Form and Time, p282.

What does it mean to "have a personal relationship" with Jesus?

1. What does it mean to have a "personal relationship" with Jesus? Traditionally, I think that stands in contrast to dead formalism and liturgical churches. In contrast to the notion that salvation is mediated through priesthood and sacraments. You don't experience God directly but indirectly via rites and rituals. 

In addition, it stands in contrast to salvation or fellowship with God as an essentially corporate rather than individual experience. It's your membership in the group that confers salvation or percolates fellowship with God. Once again, you don't experience God directly but indirectly through the "community of faith". 

But ironically, "having a personal relationship" with Jesus is apt to replace one formulaic piety with another formulaic piety. Still ritualistic–just a different set of rituals, viz. the altar call, sinner's prayer.

2. Here's another perspective:

When I think back to the “ethos” of that American evangelicalism of the 1950s and 1960s one thing stands out to me as mostly missing in contemporary American evangelicalism—a fervent, passionate experience of intimacy with Jesus. Maybe that wasn’t true of all evangelicals, but it seemed so to me. Everywhere I turned in that evangelical world the one thing that stood out above all else was Jesus as not only lord and savior but also as friend.

“Friendship with Jesus, fellowship divine. O what blessed sweet communion, Jesus is a friend of mine” and “He’s a faithful friend, such a faithful friend; I can count on him, to the very end….” I could go on and on and on with the songs we sang in church (especially on Sunday evenings) and at YFC “rallies” and at summer “Bible camp” and that I heard on Christian radio which was always the background noise in our home—with my stepmother singing along or humming the songs to herself.

Jesus was a living presence in our home and the center of attention in every church service. People talked about Jesus a lot when they sat around tables in the church fellowship hall. “How is it between you and Jesus?” was a frequent question—especially if someone had a “downcast countenance.” Testimonies of Jesus’s faithful friendship and help in times of trouble and need were frequent. “Jesus will walk with me down through life’s valley; Jesus will walk with me over life’s plane…if he goes with me I shall not complain” and “Where Jesus is, ‘tis heaven there….”

Although I could not see him with my physical eyes, I knew Jesus was among us and with me—all the time and everywhere. And his presence was one of love and compassion as well as disappointment when I sinned.

The ideal of that possibly lost evangelical Christianity was something beyond discipleship; it was real friendship with Jesus. Discipleship was part of that. But above discipleship was friendship, intimacy, close fellowship, presence of Jesus in the day-to-day rhythms of life. I will dare to say that without something like this friendship with Jesus, discipleship is just duty and drudgery.

Where has that experience gone? I’m not talking about in my own personal life; I still experience it—even if I find it mostly absent in contemporary church life. But I have trouble noticing it as an emphasis in contemporary American evangelical life. It seems that we have put Jesus up on a pedestal which is not bad, of course, but does he ever come down? Do we encourage children and youth especially to experience him as living, dynamic, compassionate, guiding, comforting presence in daily life?

One aspect of that Jesus-centered evangelical Christianity was an emphasis on the name of Jesus. “Jesus is the sweetest name I know” and “Precious name, O how sweet, hope of earth and joy of heaven, precious name….” 

For some of you out there this all sounds foreign and strange, even weird. I understand that and yet I don’t—if you consider yourself evangelical in any sense of the word...Some will consider this sentimental clap-trap and that doesn’t bother me—anymore.

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/rogereolson/2018/06/is-the-evangelical-christianity-of-my-youth-gone/

The problem with that paradigm is twofold:

i) This isn't actually experiencing the presence of Jesus in your life from day to day. Rather, it's make-believe. A conditioned feeling by constantly hearing and singing music about having a personal relationship with Jesus. The lyrics are an ersatz substitute for the experience. There's a fundamental difference between singing about an experience and having the experience you sing about. That's a way to cultivate the feeling that Jesus is present, but it's a psychological projection. Constantly telling yourself that's the case. 

ii) In addition, what many Christians actually experience is the apparent absence of God, especially in time of crisis. They desperately pray for divine intervention, but nothing happens. A piety based on hymns and choruses about having an intimate relationship with Jesus when that's put to the test during a personal ordeal. It's spiritually hazardous because it fosters a false expectation. What's there when the music stops? What's there to back up the lyrics? While the music promises a tangible presence, there's nothing tangible to fall back on when the edifying lyrics collide with unedifying reality. 

I'm not saying God never intervenes. In addition, what may seem pointless at the time, what may seem like divine abandonment at the time, can take on providential significance in retrospect. But the kind of gauzy spirituality that Olson hankers for can set up Christians for a crisis of faith when the promised experience amounts to a broken promise. Sometimes devotional music promises too much but delivers too little. 

3. Here's another viewpoint:

And then you have community. Community is incredibly important and then you have – like in so many faiths, you have a shared sociology. You have a shared history and so there are many elements that go into the Jewish worldview. Now in the Jewish religion, there are really only two major parts to it. It’s actually simple. One is belief and the other is practice. Now for a lot of evangelicals, a lot of Christians, belief is always the most important thing. And when we think about practice, we think about living out the gospel in the way that we treat one another, the way we treat the poor, the way we are stewards of our stuff, and et cetera. Jewish people, that’s not exactly what Jewish people mean by practice. You have belief, which has to do with your view of God, man, the future, the Bible, everything else, but most Jewish people done spend a lot of time on that. It’s not emphasized really in Judaism.

The question is how do they feel personally. Even though we are part of the people of God, if they’re adherent to the Jewish religion in some form, you don’t think about that as much. You don’t think about your personal relationship with God and you think about your corporate relationship with God. But Jewish people do not believe we need to get saved because there’s nothing wrong with our being born the first time. It sounds like a little bit of John 3 there and so this is really critical. A lot of Christians have a completely missed understanding of why Jewish people keep the law. Jewish people do not keep the law to get saved. Jewish people keep the law out of joy and out of a desire to simply be obedient. And you even have the understanding you’re gonna get forgiven for things you didn’t get forgiven of before, but it’s not for personal salvation. 

https://voice.dts.edu/tablepodcast/judaism/

i) That definitely sharpens the contrast. If you think that you, as an individual, are at risk of damnation, then it's all-important to get right with God. In that case it's crucial that God be concerned with individuals; that God be concerned with what's going on in your life. Does God care you? Does he care about what happens to you? Well, if you're not in danger, there's nothing to worry about. The particular becomes urgent when your destiny is riding on how God views you and you view him. 

ii) And even apart from eternal salvation, people often find themselves at a crossroads where they're very isolated and vulnerable. For years they've be coasting, when it suddenly hits them how terribly alone they really are and always were. It finally caught up with them. The world is indifferent. People pass out of their lives. It's all so transient. When people feel lost, the question of whether there's a God, a God who takes an interest in individuals, becomes paramount.  

Reign of terror

"Is Jordan Peterson on a Suicide Mission?" by Grayson Quay.

Robert George on Masterpiece Cake ruling

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/04/opinion/supreme-court-masterpiece-cake-colorado.html

I'd note that so-called civil rights commissions should be abolished. These are despotic organizations that subvert representative democracy. They function as an autonomous fourth branch of gov't, unanswerable to the electorate or citizen review.   

A Response To Anita Gregory's Doctoral Thesis On Enfield

Abbreviations

JSPR = Journal of the Society for Psychical Research

SPR = Society for Psychical Research

THIH = Guy Playfair, This House Is Haunted (United States: White Crow Books, 2011)

For the background to this post and an explanation of why her thesis is important, see here. You can download the thesis here after registering with the site. I'll be responding to her thesis in hyphenated sections. If you aren't interested in the topic covered in one section, you can move on to another by following the hyphens. You can also use the Ctrl F feature on your keyboard to find what you're looking for.