Thursday, June 14, 2012
Kruger vs Ratzinger: The Show So Far
In my last
several posts, I’ve noted a few things, which I’d like to summarize and clarify
here. I’ve noted that the Roman Catholic concept of “Apostolic Succession” was
not present as a “tradition” “from the beginning”. Rather, Hans Von
Campenhausen has also established that in formulating the principle of “apostolic
succession”, the 2nd century church at Rome relied on, actually
borrowed, a Gnostic concept which had been in place in the “philosophical
schools of thought” for some time.
I’ve also
noted that this
account is not disputed by Ratzinger. In fact, he affirms it. He says, “We
see quite clearly here how in fact succession is equal to tradition: succession
is holding fast to the apostolic word, just as tradition means the continuing
existence of authorized witnesses”
But
Ratzinger here relies on a “bait-and-switch”.
Ratzinger speaks of the word διαδοχἡ, which signified both “tradition” and
“succession”. And he builds his case upon this word. However, this word is not
found in the New Testament. The New Testament concept, found in Paul’s teaching
on the “content” of the “apostolic tradition” (“παράδοσιν”, 2 Thess 3:6, for
example), is frequently simply “switched” with the same concept.
So now, whereas
for Paul, the “tradition” referred to “the content” of the teaching, by the
middle of the second century, the concept of “‘who’ was handing along the
content” rather came to the forefront. And it is this second century concept
upon which Rome bases its current “authority”. Paul’s first century concept,
that the actual message was what was most important.
Here,
Ratzinger says, while von Campenhausen may have been correct about διαδοχἡ (successio/traditio) being a 2nd
century concept, he is in “error” if he thinks that “a later and thus secondary
theology of successio/traditio” was “preceded
by a biblical theology” (25). In Ratzinger’s argument, this plays itself out in
his statement:
This open situation of the existence of
recognized New Testament writings without the existence of any New Testament
principle of Scripture or any clear notion of the canon lasted until well in
the second century—right into the middle of the period of the conflict with
Gnosticism. Before the idea of a “canon” of New Testament Scripture had been
formulated, the Church had already developed a different concept of what was
canonical; she had as her Scripture the Old Testament but this Scripture needed
a canon of New Testament interpretation, which the Church saw as existing in
the traditio guaranteed by the successio (Ratzinger, 25-26).
That was
from his 1961 article, which, conceptually, was reproduced in the 1994 “Catechism
of the Catholic Church”:
83 The
Tradition here in question comes from the apostles and hands on what they
received from Jesus’ teaching and example and what they learned from the Holy
Spirit. The first generation of Christians did not yet have a written
New Testament, and the New Testament itself demonstrates the process of living
Tradition [emphasis added].
In the
heavily footnoted CCC, this paragraph, interestingly, has no footnote, and as
best as I can tell, this language comes right from Ratzinger.
In my next
couple of blog posts, I’d like to spend some time clarifying some of these
definitions further – the concept of an oral, “apostolic tradition” which was
written down in the New Testament, as well as the development of “ecclesiastical
traditions”, which, like Ratzinger’s concept of διαδοχἡ, which was added later,
in the 2nd century.
* * *
This concept
of whether “a biblical theology” came prior to this second century concept of “successio/traditio”,
of course, is clarified, with a great deal of evidence, by Michael Kruger in
his work Canon
Revisited. But this isn’t the only element that’s in place. What Rome
offers in place of “a written New Testament” is “the process of living
Tradition”, which, in today’s language, means “the Magisterium du jour” gets to make up things as it goes. That
is a concept that is far, far away from even what was meant by successio/traditio in the second century.
I’ll get
into this in greater detail next time.
Wednesday, June 13, 2012
The mind/body problem
I’m going to comment on some statements in this post:
Scientific evidence shows that consciousness and personality are highly dependent upon the brain. Nothing mental happens without something physical happening.
That’s a very demanding claim. Do we have anything approaching evidence for a one-to-one correspondence between mental events and brain events? For instance, brain scans are sometimes cited as evidence, but that seems to be quite ambivalent:
That strongly implies that the mind cannot exist independently of physical arrangements of matter. In other words, we do not have a soul. And this is exactly what we would expect if naturalism is true.
Well, according to eliminative materialism, what we’d expect if naturalism is true is that we don’t even have mental states:
So Jeff is playing with matches in a gas station.
But if theism is true, then our minds should not depend on our brains for their existence; we should have souls.
Christian theology has different theories of the soul. For instance, the soul in Thomism is quite different from the soul in Augustinianism.
Michael Tooley has summarized the evidence as follows:
First, when an individuals brain is directly stimulated and put into a certain physical state, this causes the person to have a corresponding experience.
A corresponding experience of what?
From TV shows I’ve seen, you have neurosurgeons operate on fully conscious patients (since the brain can’t feel pain), and solicit feedback from the patient as the surgeon is operating on his brain. To me, that seems dualistic.
Second, certain injuries to the brain make it impossible for a person to have any mental states at all. Third, other injuries to the brain destroy various mental capacities. Which capacity is destroyed is tied directly to the particular region of the brain that was damaged.
Jeff is using a computer to communicate with the outside world. He’s also using a compute to learn about the outside world. Conversely, his computer allows other people to contact Jeff. So it’s a two-way street.
If Jeff’s modem were damaged, he’d be sealed off from the world in that respect. But that would just mean the medium or conduit was blocked.
Fourth, when we examine the mental capacities of animals, they become more complex as their brains become more complex. And fifth, within any given species, the development of mental capacities is correlated with the development of neurons in the brain.
Isn’t it really that simple or direct? Let’s take a few examples. In my observation, little dogs can be smarter than dogs 10, 15, 20 times their size. The bigger dogs have bigger brains, yet they’re dumber than the smaller dogs. Do the smaller dogs have more complex brains?
On a related note, some dog breeds are smarter than others. But does that correlate with canine brain capacity?
Social insects do very ingenuous things. If social insects were the size of chimpanzees (a scary thought!), it would be tempting to attribute their ingenuity to their brainpower.
Likewise, predatory insects mimic the behavior of predatory mammals. Stalking their prey. Or ambush predators. When wolves, lions, leopards, and Cape hunting dogs do this sort of thing, it’s tempting to chalk that up to their mammalian brainpower.
But that explanation won’t work for insects. You may say it’s due to “instinct,” but that’s just a verbal placeholder. It doesn’t really explain anything. At most, it pushes the issue back a step. Where is this “instinct” stored in the nervous system of an insect? How does the nervous system of an insect have the capacity to store such complex information?
I don’t deny that souls and brains affect each other in subtle, intricate ways. But it seems to me that Jeff is appealing to half-truths. Ignoring counterevidence and oversimplifying the interrelationship.
The Old Jamestown Church and “Continuing” Anglicans
Some folks are attracted to a “liturgical” style of worship,
and for those who are, I’d recommend a look at “Continuing” Anglicans. These
are mostly traditional folks, and some of them even
adhere to a more Calvinist type of theology.
“The Old Jamestown Church” blog is by an old friend who has
been around the block a few times. He remains anonymous (I think) here, so I’ll
respect his privacy. But I wanted to give him a link and an opportunity to tell you what he’s all about:
The
Old Jamestown Church is to be a blog about the hows, whos, whys, whats,
whens and wheres of Traditional or "Continuing" Anglicanism.
Much of what you will read here will be devoted to an "apology" of
sorts, explaining to you why, if you are a conservative Christian in this day
of ecclesial chaos, theological pluralism and liturgical insanity, you should
seriously consider joining a Traditional Anglican Church. The blog is written
by an "embryo parson" (see the movie Cold Comfort Farm) in theAnglican Catholic
Church, which is to say someone who is possibly headed for at least the
diaconate and maybe the priesthood. Your blogger is theologically educated,
long in the tooth, has been through several schools of hard knocks, but is arguably none
the wiser. That said, he does manage to hammer out a cogent argument every now
and again, and hopes to posit a few of such here.
Tuesday, June 12, 2012
The Secular Bathhouse
Over at the Secular Bathhouse…I mean, Secular Outpost, Jeff Lowder has been crusading for homosexual rights. Most recently he plugged an interview from a source euphemistically called think4yourself.
What’s odd about this is the disconnect between Jeff’s advocacy for homosexual rights and his evolutionary philosophy. He said:
On Darwinian naturalism, the mixture of moral goodness and moral badness we find in Homo sapiens is easy to explain. The Darwinian naturalist explanation for our overwhelming tendency towards self-centered behavior is obvious. Kin altruism is also easy to explain: behaviors that promote the survival and reproduction of my kin make it more probable that my genes will be inherited by future generations. Non-kin altruism is weaker than kin altruism and also absent more often than kin altruism. Given that kin altruism exists, this pattern or distribution is exactly what we would expect on Darwinian naturalism.
But according to that paradigm, homosexual behavior would be a case of “moral badness,” inasmuch as homosexuality fails to promote the survival and reproduction of the human species, for homosexuals don’t pass along their genes. By the same token, homosexual behavior undermines kin altruism.
Given Jeff’s devotion to evolutionary psychology and the logical implications of evolutionary ethics, shouldn’t he support discriminatory policies against homosexuality?
"Unfriendly theism"
Over at The Secular Outpost, Jeff Lower has been posting various things to buff up the public image of atheists. He uses terms like “bigotry,” “hypocrisy,” “unfriendly theism,” “prejudice,” and “stereotyping” to characterize Americans in general and Christians or “theists” in particular who don’t “trust” atheists.
This insinuates that ignorance is the only reason people distrust atheists. Well, let’s take a concrete reason why I distrust atheists, especially in the public policy sphere:
PT: One of the aspects of your philosophy that is most galling to some people is that you don't view human life as sacred. According to you, since a person in a vegetative coma is a being without self-awareness, he or she should be accorded fewer rights than a fully-aware chimpanzee. Needless to say, you've enraged a bunch of religious and disabled folk.
PS: But you really have to question human superiority What justifies the things we do to animals? What justifies keeping a person in a vegetative coma alive? There are two basic views that support cruelty to animals: either you accept the Aristotelian view that the universe has a purpose and the less rational are here to serve the more rational, or you believe the Judeo-Christian view that God has given us dominion over the world. But once you get away from those two worldviews, there just isn't a basis for drawing a sharp moral boundary between us and them.
Singer has drawn the lines very logically and clearly. My distrust isn’t “prejudicial” or “bigoted.” I’m not “stereotyping” atheists. Rather, I giving my informed opinion. I’m getting this straight from the horse’s mouth.
Tribute to Phil Johnson
Phil Johnson is dousing Pyromaniacs. Well, not exactly. Frank and Dan will keep the Menorah alight.
1. To my knowledge, Phil was the first figure of note to plug Triablogue.
2. And for several years thereafter, most of Triablogue’s crossover traffic came from Pyromaniacs. So Phil has been a generous benefactor. Melchizedek to my Abraham. The greater blessing the lesser.
3. Years ago, he and I had a spirited debate over evangelical cobelligerance. Despite the disagreement, Phil was never petty or punitive about it. He continued to give Triablogue a prominent shout-out on his blogroll.
4. Phil has a great sense of humor. Anyone who’s read Pecadillo’s sadly intermittent blog will appreciate where the rich vein of satirical humor comes from. Hereditary talent.
Darwinian bedtime stories
Jeff Lowder has emerged from a long hibernation to promote the glorious cause of godlessness. Perhaps he felt the "new atheists," and their strident wannabes, were giving atheism a black eye. Whatever the reason, I’m going to comment on this post:
http://secularoutpost.infidels.org/2012/06/argument-from-self-centeredness-and.html
Humans are effectively self-centered; our tendency to behave in self-centered ways is usually much stronger than any tendency to behave in selfless ways. These selfless or altruistic behaviors can be divided into two types: kin altruism and non-kin altruism.
On Darwinian naturalism, the mixture of moral goodness and moral badness we find in Homo sapiens is easy to explain. The Darwinian naturalist explanation for our overwhelming tendency towards self-centered behavior is obvious. Kin altruism is also easy to explain: behaviors that promote the survival and reproduction of my kin make it more probable that my genes will be inherited by future generations. Non-kin altruism is weaker than kin altruism and also absent more often than kin altruism. Given that kin altruism exists, this pattern or distribution is exactly what we would expect on Darwinian naturalism.
This is one of those comfy just-so stories that Darwinians like to tell each other at bedtime. Nice, armchair theories. It’s striking how many atheists, who pride themselves on their scientific outlook, are suckers for pseudoscientific explanations, like evolutionary psychology.
Jeff’s summary is plausible as long as you don’t think about it too hard. Yet it’s child’s play to come up with counterexamples. Let’s consider a few illustrations:
i) On crassly evolutionary terms, a postmenopausal woman has outlived her usefulness. She’s become a consumer rather than a producer. A drag on the system.
So we’d expect natural selection to program kin to abandon wives, mothers, and grandmothers who are past the childbearing years. Yet grown children generally retain an intense lifelong attachment to the mother. Likewise, husbands are often devoted to infertile wives. Men (husbands, sons) will risk their lives to protect infertile women.
ii) Conversely, many men can father kids until the day they die. So we should instinctively value aging fathers more highly than aging mothers. Yet many grown children are closer to their mothers than their fathers.
This stands in contrast to many species, where the mother raises offspring to the point where offspring can provide and fend for itself, after which the bond is dissolved.
iii) On the one hand, it’s not uncommon for blood-brothers to resent each other. Even hate each other. Likewise, some grown children resent or even despise one or both parents. On the other hand, it’s not uncommon for men to be closer to male friends than to their own brothers. Same thing with sisters. So kinship bonds can be weaker than friendship. Indeed, that’s often the case. Hardly exceptional.
iv) And this operates across species. A human being can have a stronger emotional bond with a pet dog or horse than with his parents or siblings. Yet that confers no evolutionary advantage.
v) Kin tend to be intensely protective of a sibling or child who’s deaf, blind, or crippled. Yet that’s a weak link in the chain. Not only may the disabled family member be unable to survive on his own, but resources diverted to protecting and providing for him lower the survivability of his kin-group. So we’d expect natural selection to program kin to abandon physically or mentally defective kids or siblings. And there are no doubt situations where that happens, but that’s hardly the norm.
This stands in stark contrast to the animal kingdom, where sick, aging, or injured members of the herd are left behind, as easy pickings for predators and scavengers.
Jeff is erecting a false dichotomy between self-centeredness and altruism. Because I know what it’s like to be me, I know what my own needs and feelings are. In combination with the fact that humans share a common nature, that forms the basis for compassion or empathy. Using myself as the immediate frame of reference, I can see a fellow human in need, and imagine how I’d feel in his situation. How would I feel if I were in that bind? Wouldn’t I want somebody to help me out? My “self-centered,” first-person perspective enables me to project myself into the situation of another. To extrapolate from my individual, personal experience to the needs and feelings of someone other than myself.On theism, either God created humans directly (special creation) or indirectly (Darwinian theism or theistic evolution). Since God is omnipotent and omniscient, He could create humans without making them inherently self-centered. Since God is morally perfect, He would have good moral reasons for creating altruistic humans. Furthermore, He would not create inherently self-centered humans unless He had a morally sufficient reason for doing so. So given that humans are inherently self-centered, theism entails both that God is not constrained by biological goals like survival and reproduction (and hence does not need to create human beings who are inherently self-centered) and that He had a morally sufficient reason for doing so. And that's a really big coincidence that Darwinian naturalism doesn't need.
1984
Atheists have long been distrusted, in part because they do not believe that a watchful, judging god monitors their behavior. However, in many parts of the world, secular institutions such as police, judges, and courts are also potent sources of social monitoring that encourage prosocial behavior. Reminders of such secular authority could therefore reduce believers’ distrust of atheists.
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