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 Full of Non Sequiturs, October 15, 2011

By 

John G. Burford IV

Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?)

This review is from: Why I Am Not a Christian: Four Conclusive Reasons to Reject the Faith (Paperback)

Let me preface this review by stating that I am currently going through a crisis of faith. I was raised a Christian but I'm now in my senior year at Princeton and am currently going through the phase where I have to stop believing things because I grew up believing them and start believing them for my own reasons. 

The whole "you just have to have faith" thing always seemed to be a copout, so I've been reading with an open mind a bunch of books and online articles on apologetics and atheism in an attempt to find the truth. Persuasive arguments exist for both sides, but this book is not one of them.

The first thing that struck me about this book is how obnoxious Dr. Carrier is. That doesn't necessarily mean his arguments are bad, but it did put me off. When he describes himself as a "world-renowned atheist", continually refers to his own work as incredibly important and well-written, and then plays the victim while simultaneously casting all Christians as ignorant and intolerant buffoons, it came across as very unprofessional and hypocritical.

But that wasn't why I didn't like the book. The reasons I didn't like the book were that it basically revolved around "God doesn't do things the way I would, so he doesn't exist" and he either didn't mention contradictory evidence/arguments at all or grossly oversimplified them. 

For instance, take his argument about how God allows evil, and therefore he doesn't exist. While he briefly brings up the "free will" counter-argument, his analysis is very simplistic and has a huge hole. Namely, that if God interfered every time we were about to do something bad, we wouldn't have free will at all. Freedom to only choose the right choice is not free will. And good can't exist without evil, just like the concept of light makes no sense without the concept of darkness. Under Carrier's God, we'd be like calculators: programmed to only give the right answer.

Or take his "God doesn't call me up and tell me exactly what to do in every situation, therefore he doesn't exist" argument. There's no mention whatsoever of C.S. Lewis's argument that our consciences are in fact God speaking to us, even though Carrier actually quotes Mere Christianity elsewhere in the book. 

Or take his refutation of the "The universe is fine-tuned for life" argument. He claims that the Universe is actually very inhospitable to life (black holes, vacuum, etc.) without even a mention that the scientific chances of a universe that permits life at all are about 1 out of 10^500 (let alone intelligent life), and that the current scientific theories to explain why ours does permit life (bubble universes, many worlds interpretation, etc.) all have big holes in them and have no data to support them.

Basically, it seemed like Carrier's default strategy is to make up a few analogies, conclude that Christianity is ad hoc, and then never even mention the counter-arguments that would frame Christianity as not only viable, but the logical choice. That wouldn't require that he recognize that these arguments are good ones: he could still set them up and refute them a la Quentin Smith. But to not even mention them or grossly misstate them is just bad.

I'm sure that Dr. Carrier has more elaborate and sophisticated reasons for being an atheist than are presented in this short, condensed book. But to me, Carrier's reasons for atheism as articulated here are no more persuasive than a Christian who claims that God exists "because the Bible told me so."

p.s. I found it very ironic that Carrier holds up the Big Bang Theory as a prime example of the triumph of an atheist, scientific worldview when in fact the Big Bang Theory was proposed by a Belgian priest. It also failed to find mainstream acceptance for decades because the predominantly atheist scientific community of the time thought that it was much more theistic than the previously popular steady-state model and refused to give it credence.

http://www.amazon.com/review/R2VEJ8UN7VR838/ref=cm_cr_pr_perm?ie=UTF8&ASIN=1456588850&nodeID=&tag=&linkCode=

 Thats it?, January 11, 2012

By 

Mr Garmon

This review is from: Why I Am Not a Christian: Four Conclusive Reasons to Reject the Faith (Paperback)

This book was hard to stomach from the start. Ive read Carrier's blog from time to time and heard him speak so Im fully aware of how intelligent he is. However, right on page two he states:"Ive become something of a world renowned atheist...Just google my name and youll see what I mean." 

Looks like someone needs a big tall glass of calm-down juice! If Carrier is such a big deal then people will find out on their own, there's no need to bring out the marching band. 

In the first chapter Carrier attempts to argue that if God did indeed exist, He wouldn't be so hidden. But, how does Carrier attack this problem? Does he show that divine hiddenness is logically incompatible with the concept of God? Nope. He simply asserts that God should or shouldn't do things a certain way. However, since Carrier isnt omniscient(although its possible he might think so) then he cant claim to know how God should or shouldn't do things. God can see how things will turn out, Richard cannot. Carrier claims that if only God had made the gospel more clear then there would be no dispute that Christianity was true. Does he mean the gospel that says Jesus died for our sins and wants to bridge the gap between us and God? Seems pretty clear to me. 

Carrier's second chapter argues that if God exists then He has shown himself to be powerless. This argument contains more of the same. Carrier says over and over that if he were God then he would do things differently. Carrier says if he were God he would "turn all guns and bombs into flowers."(p18) Well that solves it! Nevermind the fact that by doing this God would be restraining us, but what Carrier doesn't realize is that we're not God's pets! He's not obligated to cater to us and make us feel warm and fuzzy. The Christian point of life is not to be happy but rather to have a relationship with God. Just think of raising children. Is your job as a parent to spoil them and cater to their every need? Of course not, unless you want them to grow up as selfish little brats who take advantage of everyone. Lastly, Carrier forgets that evil and suffering help us appreciate good. Just as darkness helps us appreciate the light. 

The third chapter is laughable. Carrier's argument is that even though the Bible claims that belief in Jesus saves, there is no evidence for this. He claims that "They cannot show a single believer in Jesus actually enjoying eternal life." (p28) Well gee Richard, since we're on THIS side of death, its a little hard to be able to gain evidence for the other side. Please disregard my earlier comment about Carrier being intelligent. 

The final chapter is Carrier's attempted refutation of the fine-tuning argument. He tries to illuminate the fact that our universe is an extremely hostile place and that a God would not have created it in this state. However, God did not create us to inhabit the universe but rather to inhabit this specific planet. So, in my opinion, the hostility of this universe is not an adequate reason to reject Christianity. 

You would think a "world renowned atheist" could muster up better assertions, or at least better arguments to support them. If these are the best reasons Carrier can come up with to defend his disbelief in the Christian God, then Im afraid his position is not warranted.

http://www.amazon.com/review/R1E84WLPLEOOYK/ref=cm_cr_pr_perm?ie=UTF8&ASIN=1456588850&nodeID=&tag=&linkCode=

The Ninth Circuit’s Attack on Self Government

http://www.nationalreview.com/blogs/print/290467

Union with Christ

http://reformedforum.org/ctc200/

"900 bases in 130 countries"

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/fact-checker/post/ron-pauls-strange-claim-about-bases-and-troops-overseas/2012/02/08/gIQApZpqzQ_print.html

The Socratic method

This is an odd attack on Calvinism:

http://www.voxday.blogspot.com/2012/02/exploring-evasions.html

It’s striking how many Arminians think the theological options boil down to Calvinism or Arminianism. Although divine foreknowledge is a Reformed essential, it’s hardly a Reformed distinctive. This is not unique to Calvinism.

It is, however, true that Calvinism can ground divine foreknowledge in a way that freewill theism cannot.

The short answer to Vox’s challenge is that God employs leading questions. There’s nothing deceptive about the Socratic method.

Taking God’s word at “face value” includes rhetorical conventions. Vox is like Lt. Commander Data, who’s blindsided by idiomatic speech.

God predestines debates between himself and men like Moses and Abraham. It’s a learning experience for the human participant–the way some parents stage debates with their kids to teach them how to think through issues. 

Speak loudly and carry a foam baseball bat

http://www.catholicvote.org/discuss/index.php?p=25177

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/27705755/ns/us_news-faith/t/priest-no-communion-obama-supporters/

HT: David Gadbois

Operation Blitzkrieg

http://dailycaller.com/2012/02/03/ron-paul-campaign-denies-white-supremacist-ties-alleged-by-anonymous/?print=1

Déjà vu

Kevin De Young recently did a post on “10 reasons to believe in a historical Adam.” It drew predictable criticism from the usual quarters.

BTW, we’re glimpsing an Alice in Wonderland sort of world when it’s controversial for a minister to defend Bible history. Shouldn’t it be controversial for a minister to deny Bible history? But somewhere along the line, certain segments of evangelicalism fell through the rabbit hole.

Anyway, I wish to make a different point. The basic objection to the historicity of the Gen 2 is that it’s not possible for a single breeding pair to account for the current size and genetic diversity of the human population.

Now, I’ve discussed this before, so I won’t repeat myself. Instead, I want to make a different observation. One of the running themes of Scripture is lack of faith in what God can do.

One stock example concerns God’s promise to bless barren women with sons (e.g. Isaac, John the Baptist).

Another paradigm-case is the Exodus-generation. Even though God miraculously delivered them from Egypt and miraculously sustained them in the Sinai, the Exodus-generation could never bring itself to believe that God was able to provide for them. It’s as if they suffered amnesia every time God performed a miracle. For this reason, they were condemned to wander in the wilderness until they died, as punishment for their persistent infidelity.

This is also a running theme in the Gospels. Sometimes this involves the opponents of Christ. Even in the teeth of visible, undeniable miracles, they refuse to believe in him.

But it also afflicts the disciples. They are “slow to believe.” Of “little faith.”

So when I hear professing Christians assure me that Gen 2 is impossible, I can’t help thinking that I’ve heard all that before. It has a very familiar ring to it. Isn’t that the attitude of all those unbelieving Israelites who perished in the wilderness? 

Who Wrote the Gospels?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gldvim1yjYM&feature=youtu.be 

Inebriated atheism

You Can Now Pre-Order My Revised Book

By John W. Loftus at 2/07/2012

Click here: Why I Became an Atheist: A Former Preacher Rejects Christianity.It has 540 pages (not 480). It's such a massive revision my publisher is treating it as a new book.

http://debunkingchristianity.blogspot.com/2012/02/you-can-now-pre-order-my-revised-book.html

It's instructive to compare this with something else Loftus recently said:

January 6, 2012 at 8:05 am  John W. Loftus

Some people on my Facebook page know that my wife and I separated on August 1. We split what little money we had and she took the car. Out of my half I had to buy another one. She moved to an apartment in Ft. Wayne near her mother. Three weeks later I filed for divorce. On November 8th it was final. I wasn’t happy about this at all. It devastated me. I couldn’t eat and some nights I drank myself to sleep. And yet during this time I edited the chapters of my revised book, Why I Became an Atheist, and I finished co-writing the debate book God or Godless, with Dr. Randal Rauser. I also kept blogging and responding to emails as respectfully as I could, but my heart wasn’t in it. I was short with people at times. I tried to find and state some reasons why I’m still important when my own world was crashing in on me. I was going through the motions, after all, life still goes on.

http://tinyurl.com/86nx3zq

Question: Is someone who’s drinking himself to sleep and just going through the motions in the emotional and intellectual condition to be arguing against Christianity? What quality of analysis do you expect in that state of mind? 

Did They Really Exist? A Biblical and Scientific Defence of Adam and Eve

http://apologeticsuk.blogspot.com/2012/02/did-they-really-exist-biblical-and.html

Gospel harmonization

The most obvious example of this mistake appears in fundamentalist “harmonizations” of Gospel contradictions: they think they have “rebutted” the conclusion that the Gospels are contradicting each other if they can think of “any” possible way to harmonize the accounts, developing a fanciful “just so” story that makes everything fit, by assuming a hundred things not in evidence. But that ignores the fact that that account is actually extremely improbable. That Matthew is deliberately contradicting Mark because he is arguing against Mark is vastly more probable than that Matthew and Mark are correctly describing exactly the same events. Thus, the fact that the latter is “possible” is irrelevant to what we should conclude.

http://debunkingchristianity.blogspot.com/2012/02/interview-with-richard-carrier-about.html

i) There are numerous problems with Carrier’s objection, but for now I’ll focus on a faulty assumption. Frequently, Gospel writers aren’t describing a single event. Rather, it’s not uncommon for Gospel writers to simultaneously describe at least two events.

For instance, Gospel writers often describe an event in the life of Jesus in terms designed to evoke a similar event in the OT. So the narrative is descriptive of two events rather than one. These are actually two different, but similar events.

So the description doesn’t single out one event. Rather, the description is a comparative description. Hence, the language must be flexible enough to cover two different events. It directly depicts one event, but indirectly depicts another event. Directly depicts one event in terms of another event–borrowing OT language to draw a parallel.  In language and imagery evocative of another, comparable event. Like a montage, in which one image is superimposed on another.

ii) But this isn’t confined to literary allusions to the OT. For instance, there are studied parallels in the way Luke describes the nativity accounts of Jesus and John the Baptist. At the same time, Luke is drawing parallels to accentuate the differences. That Jesus is greater than John.

iii) This is narrative technique. Instead of directly editorializing about the significance of an event, the narrator will implicitly comment on the nature of the event by using descriptive language that obliquely compares (or contrasts) one event with another event. 

In this way the narrator can convey more than he explicitly says through indirect, allusive cues to the attentive reader. Juxtaposing two events generates a symbolic relation, where one event symbolizes another­–in varying degrees.

iv) This is also a source of dramatic irony. For instance, you may have a record of a dialogue between Jesus and his opponents. However, the narrator, writing after the fact, depicts the event in terms alluding to OT precedent. This makes the reader aware of a larger, unsuspected dimension to the event than Jesus’ opponents were cognizant of at the time the event took place. The reader knows something they don’t. The reader is in a position to understand what they misunderstand.

v) Likewise, Gospel writers sometimes summarize analogous events in the life of Christ under a common narrative description.

vi) Bible writers also use stock language to narrate events. As such, the language isn’t meant to be exactly descriptive.  Rather, the linguistic formulation may be conventional or idiomatic.

Carrier’s objection is grossly simplistic. 

30 lashes with a wet noodle

At the time of writing, Catholic bishops in America are denouncing the Obama administration’s policy that requires Catholic institutions to provide health insurance which covers sterilization, artificial contraception, and the morning-after pill.

The policy was formulated by HHS secretary Kathleen Sabelius. It’s supported by Nancy Pelosi.

But here’s the catch: Sebelius is Catholic. Pelosi is Catholic. Vice President Biden is Catholic.

What’s the point of having a hierarchical accountability system in which the laity is accountable to the episcopate if bishops refuse to hold the laity accountable? The bishops are like permissive indulgent parents who complain about their misbehaving kids, but never do anything to them. The bishops are ninnies rather than nannies.

Krishna & Christ: part 7

Prof. Win Corduan has been doing a series on Krishna and Christ.

We've already posted part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4, part 5, and part 6.

Here is part 7.

Blind shepherds

Notice how the Catholic bishops are now complaining about the consequences of a policy that they themselves lobbied for. What does it say about spiritual leaders who are that nearsighted?

Posted by: Hugh Hewitt at 5:24 PM

 

I will discuss the outrageous assault on religious liberty launched by the president on every Catholic institution in the country with both men, and I will also be asking my callers why Mitt Romney's statement on "the very poor" --a contrived controversy-- got so much more attention than the very real outrage that is President Obama's demand that every Catholic institution shut down or buckle under to the pro-choice absolutists in charge of his policy in this area.  For background on the Obama demand, see Los Angeles Archbishop Gomez's First Things article or Phoenix Bishop Olmsted's letter on the subject or Philadelphia Archbishop Chaput's comments on the new regulations.

 

The Santorum transcript:

 

HH: Now I want to talk to you about two substantive issues, Senator Santorum. The first are these new regulations from the Obama administration. I read the letter from Archbishop Olmstead of Phoenix on the air. Archbishop Jose Gomez of Los Angeles has written a new article in First Things. It’s shocking, actually, what’s going on. Should this be a centerpiece of whoever the nominee’s campaign is?

 

RS: I talked about it in every speech I’ve given today. And here’s what I said, though, Hugh. I said that I took issue with the Catholic Bishops Conference, because Hugh, you may remember, they embraced Obamacare.

 

HH: Yes.

 

RS: They embraced it and said…here’s what I said to them. Be careful when you have government saying that they can give you rights, that you have a right to health care, and government’s going to give you something, because once you are now dependant on government, they, not only can they take that right away, they can tell you how to exercise that right, and you can either like it or not. And that’s the problem. That’s what the Catholic Bishops Conference didn’t get, that there’s no free lunch here, folks. If you’re going to give people secular power, then they’re going to use it in a secular fashion. And that’s why, you know, I hate to say it, but you know, you had it coming. And it’s time to wake up and realize that government isn’t the answer to the social ills. It’s people of faith, and it’s families, and it’s communities, and it’s charities that need to do this as it has in America so successfully for so long.

http://www.hughhewitt.com/blog/g/f8dc6adb-3471-4882-a15d-fb371ff1f50a

It takes a miracle

http://thinkingmatters.org.nz/2011/12/defending-the-historical-credibility-of-the-gospels-and-acts/

http://thinkingmatters.org.nz/2012/02/why-dont-skeptics-apply-their-standards-of-evidence-to-themselves/

Proposition 8 and Rational Basis

http://parablemania.ektopos.com/archives/2012/02/prop8-rational.html

Santorum Sweeps Missouri, Minnesota, Colorado; Romney Campaign Plays Down Nonbinding Contests

No doubt y’all have already seen this.

The donum superadditum and the doctrine of man: a foundational difference between Protestants and Roman Catholics

This is a slightly edited re-post of a topic I put up at Beggars All some time ago. The topic is relevant to some of the discussions of panentheism, which have been showing up in some of the comments.

At the heart of the differences between Roman Catholics and Protestants, there are key differences understandings, both in terms of their understanding of the doctrine of God, but also of the doctrine of Man.

Peter Escalante has, in the context of a discussion about civil authority, given a fairly succinct overview of one of the key differences. I’m not fully prepared to engage in a discussion of all of this -- it involves different concepts of man, and different consequences in terms of the doctrine of justification. But I’ve been following this excellent discussion, and I wanted to pass it along while it was still fresh in my mind.

It involves Rome’s understanding of the donum superadditum with regard to the state that Adam was in before he fell. Briefly, Protestants say that man, created in the image of God, was “very good,” and when he fell, it resulted in a spiritual death. God’s legal declaration, imputation of righteousness and union with Christ are what’s required to restore man back to his pristine, pre-fall state. Rome, on the other hand, holds that, not only was Adam “very good,” but that he had some “super-added gift of grace”, which made him what he was. (Why God would not have created him “complete”, but “needing some super-added grace, is beyond me). But according to the Roman Catholic paradigm, man lost only this “super-added grace” in the fall, all other things being equal, and it is that “superadded grace” that needs to be restored. Hence the need for an “infusion of grace” in Roman doctrine. [This accounts for the difference in which Calvin described man as “spiritually dead,” and hence “totally inable” or “totally depraved,” whereas Roman Catholics merely believe that man was “impaired” but with an otherwise full capacity to please God with his own grace-assisted works.]

Peter describes it this way:

For us, man originally had connatural beatitude, and when he fell, the reduced and superficial participation in that beatitude still possible to him, in an extrinsic way, was what we call temporal felicity or civic righteousness. But for RC, original felicity was a donum superadditum, and the status of original creation was thus left unclear, with at the very least a strong suggestion that much of what we think of as creation is in fact the effect of the Fall- an anti-Hebraic gnosticism which marred the thought of the ancient Greek church (and modern EO), and Rome too, though a more Biblical countertendency was present in the West and finally came into full victory with the Reformation. Given that the RC think of the New Covenant as the restoration of the donum superadditum, its relation to the temporal is ambivalent at best and hostile at worst. But for us, the New Covenant a) disables the heteronomous and unattainable Law which measured our alienation, and b) grants full citizenship in the Kingdom of God, simply by trust in Christ and union with Him. This means that the reality of original beatitude is poured into the forms of the creational order, and slowly transforms it spiritually, until all things shall be made new (emphasis added).

There are many, many concepts tied up in this one little paragraph, and it would take a long time to extract the meaning from them. But the one I want to focus on is that, right from the outset of their understanding of man, Protestants and Catholics differ.

John Fesko, in his Justification: Understanding the Classic Reformed Doctrine, describes this situation with respect to the “donum superadditum”:

It seems as though much of the debate over infused versus imputed righteousness hinges upon the presuppositions of each party. The typical Reformed understanding is that Adam was created upright, or righteous, and that God justified, or declared righteous, the initial creation as well as man in his declaration that everything was “very good” (Gen 1:31). We see the Westminster Larger Catechism echo this point when it states that God created man in “righteousness, and holiness, having the law of God written in their hearts, and the power to fulfill it” (q. 17). By way of contrast, the typical Roman Catholic understanding of Adam’s original state holds to the necessity of infused righteousness. Roman Catholic theologians typically hold to the idea of the donum superadditum (“superadded gift”). Medieval Roman Catholic theologians, for example, argue that the donum superadditum was a part of the original constitution of man, that it represented his original capacity for righteousness. We see then, from the outset, that man in his fallen state required infused righteousness in the form of the donum superadditum. If man requires infused righteousness in the prefall state, then he would most assuredly require it in his sin-fallen but redeemed state. The original state of man, then, is an issue that must feature in any dialogues over the question of imputation (John Fesko “Justification: Understanding the Classic Reformed Doctrine” Phillipsburg: P&R Publishing Company, pg 372.)

Michael Horton, in his Covenant and Salvation: Union with Christ, expands on this concept greatly. “According to the federal theologians, Adam and Eve were never in a state of grace before the fall. Endowed in their creation with all of the requisite gifts for fulfilling God’s eschatological purposes, there was nothing lacking requiring a gracious supplement” (194). If anyone is interested, Horton develops this topic quite extensively, relying on Bavinck’s account.

This is one of the key differences between Protestants and Roman Catholics, and it is one of the distinctions that the Reformers made -- a (very likely unwitting) Roman misunderstanding and accretion that somehow became the law of the land at Trent.

The End Of Infidelity

Last year, John Loftus and some colleagues published a book titled The End Of Christianity (Amherst, New York: Prometheus Books, 2011). The back cover and inside endorsements describe the book as "the sharpest set of intellectual criticisms [of Christianity] found under the cover of a single volume", "tremendously useful", "superb", and "exceedingly well-researched". One endorser claims, "This book should win the game: Christianity, it's strike three and you are out!" Another tells us, "No collection better demonstrates how taking Christianity seriously reveals its all-too-human origin." We're told that "Loftus and his friends annihilate the Christian Goliath".

Steve Hays and I have written an e-book in response, which you can read here, titled The End Of Infidelity. We'd like to thank Peter Pike for editing it. We wouldn't have been able to release it so soon, and it wouldn't be so readable, without Peter's help.

Those of you who haven't read Loftus' book can find an overview of it here. You might want to read each chapter summary on the page I just linked before reading each of our chapter responses.

Steve and I most likely will have more to say about Loftus' book, especially if we get a response from the authors.