Peter S. Williams website

Peter S. Williams launched a new website about a month ago.

Clueless Obamabots

Surprise! Surprise!

http://www.mercurynews.com/nation-world/ci_24248486/obamacares-winners-and-losers-bay-area

One reason Obama voters are caught off-guard is because of our adversarial culture. It's not as if voters weren't warned about the consequences of Obamacare. But many voters prejudge a position by who said it. A Democrat will automatically tune out what a Republican or conservative pundit or libertarian or Tea Partier says. They don't listen to the argument. Anything someone on the "wrong side" says is discounted in advance. 

That's why many Obama supporters suddenly find themselves blind-sided by the easily foreseeable consequences of Obamacare. Because the "wrong" people predicted this, they didn't pay any attention. 

And, of course, this isn't confined to politics. The same mentality, often with the same sides, takes place in the debate over religion. You can ignore anything a Christian "fundamentalist" says before he opens his mouth. 

There's a word for that: prejudice. 

The Ninth Gate

Because we're coming up on Halloween, there are lots of horror films on TV this month. I watched most of The Ninth Gate last night, although I bailed before the end. I've seen it before. 

Polanski is a talented director, so it's a quality film with some masterful brushstrokes. Excellent cast. Classy settings. That said, the film is something of a dud. It begins somewhat promisingly, but never catches on, and the ending is anticlimactic. Maybe Polanski has lost his touch. It's certainly no match for Rosemary's Baby.

The basic premise of the plot involves the pursuit of a book (actually, three editions of the same book) that's ghostwritten by the devil. To the one who owns a copy and can decrypt the message, the book promises worldly success. A variant on the Faustian bargain.

Although the basic idea has some dramatic potential, there'd be a more interesting way to develop that theme. Say there's a book "inspired" by the devil. Throughout the centuries, power-hungry men and women pursue the book. They travel to far-flung places to track it down. They murder to steal the book. All because the book promises its owner worldly success. 

Only there's a catch. You will go mad if you read the book. The book passes through many hands. Each owner was widely successful and powerful. Yet each owner became insane as his mind was drawn into the labyrinth of the book's fiendish symbolism and numerology. Owner's lose their way, and lose their minds, in their effort to break the code. The code is a trap. A lure.

Although The Ninth Gate is fictional, there are real candidates for books inspired by the devil. Automatic writing is a prima facie case. It's possible that automatic writing as a natural psychological explanation. But given how it typically takes place in an occult setting, that certainly invites a demonic interpretation.

Swedenborg is another example. Swedenborg was a notable apostate: the son of a Lutheran bishop. Swedenborg himself was a brilliant man of polymathic interests. 

However, in his early fifties, he says he engaged in astral travel to heaven and hell, where he communicated with angels, demons, and ghosts. He wrote voluminously about his encounters. 

I don't know if he was possessed, mentally ill, or both. Certainly possession results in mental illness. If he was possessed, then this would be another case of diabolically inspired literature. 

Jonathan Livingston Seagull, a New Age blockbuster by Richard Bach, is another example.

To take a final example, in his Occult ABC, Lutheran exorcist Kurt Koch has a section on the apocryphal Sixth and Seven Book of Moses. To judge by his description, this is a book containing magic imprecations. How to curse your enemy. According to him, the spells work. But, of course, the owner pays a terrible price, for he himself comes under a terrible spell. 

I notice that in googling the title, there are copies floating around the internet. Needless to say, I never read it, since it's reputedly a very dangerous book to read. I mention this as a warning to the curious. Even though The Ninth Gate is fictional, it has real-world counterparts. Literature "inspired" by the dark side, which–if you own it and read it–will have disastrous effects on you and those around you. 

The KJV

http://www.stufffundieslike.com/2013/10/just-following-the-bible/



 

Meyer contra Marshall 2

"To Build New Animals, No New Genetic Information Needed? More in Reply in Charles Marshall" by Stephen Meyer.

Meyer contra Marshall 1

"When Theory Trumps Observation: Responding to Charles Marshall's Review of Darwin's Doubt" by Stephen Meyer.

Prophetic science

Here's one objection which unbelievers sometimes raise to the Bible: if the Bible was truly inspired, it ought to contain examples of prophetic science. God should inspire some Bible writers to make scientifically prescient observations. That would prove the Bible is divinely inspired. Instead, the Bible doesn't say anything over and above what ancient writers would normally know, or not know, given their prescientific outlook.

i) One problem with this objection is that it diverts attention away from actual evidence for the Bible by demanding a different kind of evidence. 

ii) It also overlooks the argument from prophecy. If the argument from prophecy is sound, then that's evidence of something which goes beyond what ancient writers could naturally know. 

iii) But let's address the objection head-on. The objection runs afoul of time-travel paradoxes. In one familiar version, a time-traveler goes back into the past. He inadvertently gives people back then a preview of some scientific discovery or technological breakthrough, thereby kickstarting the scientific development of the ancient civilization. However, giving them advance knowledge of modern science changes the future. His action generates a different timeline, which replaces the previous timeline. But in that event, did the future he came from ever exist? An atheist who faults the Bible for lacking prophetic science is implicated in the same retrocausal incoherence. 

“Even the media will get tired of supporting a pope who needs them too much”

The Sandro Magister article that I linked to below also contains a commentary from Professor Pietro De Marco of the University of Florence and at the faculty of theology of central Italy.

It’s a polite, scholarly (in demeanor) and thoughtful criticism of this pope’s efforts. Here are a couple of snippets:

In conscience I must break with the courtly choir, composed of all-too-familiar secular and ecclesiastical names, which for months has accompanied the public statements of pope Jorge Mario Bergoglio. It is the choir of those who celebrate the “new” of the pope knowing that it is not such, and are silent about the true “innovations,” when they are embarrassing. For this reason, I am constrained to point out some of the reiterated approximations into which the spontaneous and captivating eloquence of Francis has fallen….

Design and the universe

"Design and the Universe" looks like a useful resource.

Pope Francis, the Thoroughly “Postmodern” Pope, Sweeps Augustine, the Inquisition, and 15 centuries of Roman Policy Under the Rug

This image of Pope Francis
posted by "Livius" on FreeRepublic

Sandro Magister, the Italian journalist (and a conservative Roman Catholic) has been offering a running commentary on “Pope Francis” that seems to be lamenting that Pope Bergoglio is actually a postmodern in sheep’s clothing.

You’ve heard the phrase “50 is the new 30”. Well, Bergoglio may be taking a page out of the book of a great American “great communicator”, Ronald Reagan, and going over the heads of everyone who might want to “interpret” the papal message and make certain that it conforms to “Roman Catholic Teaching”. In doing so, he is simply sweeping under the rug some 1500 years-worth of Roman Catholic policy.

The “papal interview” is the new “papal encyclical”

ROME, October 7, 2013 - As the days go by, the two interviews of Pope Francis with the Jesuit Antonio Spadaro, director of “La Civiltà Cattolica," and with the atheist professor Eugenio Scalfari, founder of the leading Italian secular newspaper, “la Repubblica," appear more and more as milestones of the beginning of his pontificate.

In them Jorge Mario Bergoglio declares his inspiring principles, tells how he sees the current state of the Church, indicates his priorities, enunciates his program.

Interestingly, while “Pope Francis” may be able to “go over the heads” of his own handlers, he can’t avoid the “infallible interpreters” among the Internet apologists, who continue to want to tell us “what he really means”.

Magister is not one of those who agrees that what “Pope Francis” is saying is completely harmless to the Roman Catholic cause:

Giant killer hornets!

I'm going to comment on a post by Alan Kurschner:

http://www.alankurschner.com/2013/10/04/giant-killer-hornets-a-type-of-eschatological-judgment/

Unlike Alan, I'm an oatmeal amil, so I interpret Revelation more symbolically than he does. For instance, I think the apocalyptic genre uses imaginary hybrids. That said, let's play along with his argument.

i) I agree with Alan that we shouldn't discount more "fantastic" interpretations on rationalistic or scientific grounds. For one thing, supernaturalism is a dominant feature of Revelation, with angels, demons, God, and Satan. The major players clearly have resources at their disposal that exceed nature.

ii) Prophecy raises the hermeneutical challenge of how to depict the distant future to the prophet's contemporaries. Now, up until the 19C, I don't think it made much difference. But once electricity was harnessed, the world began to look very different. So that raises the question of how we'd expect an ancient seer to depict advanced military technology. Assuming that he depicts the future in terms of what's familiar to his audience, the actual referents may be less recognizable. 

iii) Alan is citing the example of a scary, but naturally occurring organism. But to extend his argument, the monsters in Revelation needn't be naturally occurring organisms. They could be weaponized organisms, enhanced by bioengineering. In principle that could involve genetic engineering. Or it could involve robotic prosthetics. Cybernetic organisms (cyborgs) that combine organic and mechanical components, viz. bioelectronics. 

iv) Moreover, if we continue to extend the analogy, the monsters needn't even be organic. A seer might be depicting a predator drone as a giant hornet because an organic monster would be more intelligible to his ancient audience than an armed UAV.  The seer is using an organic analogue for a hitch machine. 

That's not how I interpret Revelation. And this goes well beyond exegesis. But it can't be ruled out. 

"We are both atheists"

I contend that we are both atheists. I just believe in one fewer god than you do. When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours. 

This will be a sequel to my previous post:

http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2013/10/one-fewer-god.html

In that post I offered one interpretation of his statement. I glossed it to mean monotheists reject polytheism for essentially the same reasons as atheists reject monotheism. On that interpretation, the comparison operates at this level: atheism is to monotheism as monotheism is to polytheism.

I then showed why that comparison was false. Let's try one more time. Perhaps Roberts isn't making a general comparison between monotheism and polytheism. Perhaps, instead, his comparison operates on a case-by-case basis. Maybe he's saying something like, When you understand why you (e.g. a Christian) dismiss Allah or Thor, you will I understand why I dismiss Jesus. 

Does his comparison work at that level?

i) To dismiss Zeus or Thor as individual divine claimants is misleading. That's not why monotheists dismiss Zeus or Thor. Although these are individual "gods," they belong to a polytheistic package, as members members of a pagan pantheon. In this framework, each "god" is just a special case of polytheism in general. Monotheists dismiss specific claimants because they categorically reject polytheism. They reject theogonies. It's a topdown argument. Zeus and Thor belong to a class of polytheistic deities. If you dismiss polytheism in toto, you thereby dismiss all members of that class. 

In that event, the argument from analogy collapses back into a general comparison between monotheism and polytheism.  

ii) But perhaps the comparison is not between monotheistic gods and polytheistic gods, but between rival monotheistic gods. Perhaps Roberts is saying he dismisses all monotheistic gods for the same reason that adherents of one monotheistic faith dismiss the deity of a competing monotheistic faith. Does his argument go through on that interpretation?

iii) To begin with, that restrictive interpretation is implausible. For his original claim referred to "all the other possible gods." If, in fact, his statement is actual confined to the subset of monotheistic deities, then that radically contracts the scope of the original claim. Yet the appeal of his statement lay in its simple universality. Dismissing all "gods" at one stroke.

iv) But let's play along with the restrictive interpretation. One problem is the paucity of candidates for monotheism. The big three are Islam, Christianity, and Judaism. 

Perhaps we might include the Bhāgavat school of Hinduism. That's hard to say. Hinduism has fuzzy boundaries. 

Among historical religions, very few are truly monotheistic. 

v) It depends on how we define Judaism. If we identify Judaism with OT theism, then Christians believe in Yahweh.

If, on the other hand, we identify Judaism with the Kabbalah, then that's more philosophical.  

vi) Why do Christians reject Allah? Well, one reason is because they regard Muhammad as false prophet. That's in part because the Koran contradicts the Bible. 

Do atheists dismiss Allah because the Koran contradicts the Bible? No. But in that case, Roberts' argument from analogy is invalidated by a crucial disanalogy. 

vii) We also need to distinguish between historical monotheism and philosophical monotheism. As long as philosophical monotheism presents a concept of God that's consistent with Christian theism (to take one example), then Christians don't dismiss that idea of God. 

But suppose Christians reject a philosophical version of monotheism because the details of that particular construct conflict with Christian theism. Is that why atheists reject philosophical monotheism? No. 

Atheists don't treat Christian monotheism as the standard of comparison. They don't regard Christian theism as the true frame of reference, to which philosophical monotheism must correspond to be acceptable. So, once again, Roberts' argument from analogy is invalidated by a crucial disanalogy. 

Worldview Apologetics

Prof. James Anderson gave a series of lectures at Matthews Orthodox Presbyterian Church on "Worldview Apologetics" last year:

1. Worldview Foundations. (Handout).

2. Worldview Evaluation, Worldview Evangelism. (Handout).

3. Naturalism. (Handout).

4. Postmodernism. (Handout).

5. New Age Spirituality (Unavailable). (Handout).

6. Mormonism. (Handout).

7. Islam. (Handout).

8. Pluralism. (Handout).

9. Moralistic Therapeutic Deism. (Handout).

10. Roman Catholicism. (Handout).

He likewise has a forthcoming book titled What's Your Worldview?: An Interactive Approach to Life's Big Questions.

Whats wrong with Pope Francis?

30 years ago, Francis Schaeffer
correctly articulated the relativism
that Pope Francis is espousing.

One of the standard responses that conservative Roman Catholics give, when presented with some of the things that Pope Francis has been saying, is that “nothing he is saying is contrary to Catholic teaching”.

Bringing up the concept of what’s “contrary to Catholic teaching” is an internal, Roman Catholic problem. Arguments can be made, and have been made, (a) that Roman Catholic teaching itself changed significantly in the last 100 years, and that (b) what’s unique about Roman Catholic teaching isn’t even Christianity.

I’m not going to go in that direction at this point. I don’t intend to provide an in-depth analysis of what he’s saying. What I intend to do in this article is to locate what he is saying within a broader, and quite troubling, stream of thought that has been identified by Christian writers over the last 100 years or more.

* * *

J. Gresham Machen identified one of the great evils of our time in his timeless work “Christianity and Liberalism” (Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, ©1923, reprinted 2002):

One fewer god

I contend that we are both atheists. I just believe in one fewer god than you do. When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours. 

This statement is very popular among atheists. To the extent that there's an argument buried in there, it seems to be along these lines:

Monotheists are inconsistent atheists. Monotheists reject polytheism for essentially the same reasons as atheists reject monotheism. The only difference is that atheists are more consistent. They simply take the monotheist objection to polytheism to its logical conclusion. 

An obvious question this raises, although it doesn't seem to occur to atheists who are fond of quoting this statement, is what reasons monotheists actually give for espousing monotheism. Did Stephen Roberts bother to investigate that question before penning his oft-quoted statement? You'd think that would be a logical preliminary step. Let's take some examples.

William Wainwright summarizes an argument by Duns Scotus for divine unicity based on God's total causation of everything else. Wainwright thinks that as it stands, the argument is defective, but he also thinks it can be reformulated to eliminate the defects:

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/monotheism/#ArgGodTotCau

Question: do atheists reject the existence of any God for the same reason Scotus and Wainwright reject the existence of many gods? Surely not. Atheists don't think God causes anything, much less everything. 

Likewise, Wainwright summarizes an argument by Al-Ghazali based on God's omnipotence. Once again, Wainwright thinks that as it stands, the argument is defective, but it can be reformulated to eliminate the defects:

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/monotheism/#ArgOmn

Question: do atheists reject the existence of any God for the same reason Al-Ghazali and Wainwright reject the existence of many gods? Clearly not. After all, that argument is predicated on divine omnipotence. But you can't premise divine omniscience if you don't believe in God. 

Let's take another example. Here's what Calvin says about polytheism:

Hence we must hold, that whosoever adulterates pure religion, (and this must be the case with all who cling to their own views,) make a departure from the one God. No doubt, they will allege that they have a different intention; but it is of little consequence what they intend or persuade themselves to believe, since the Holy Spirit pronounces all to be apostates, who, in the blindness of their minds, substitute demons in the place of God…Paul's declaration remains true, that the wisdom of God was not apprehended by the princes of this world, (1 Cor 2:8). Institutes 1.5.13.

Question: do atheists reject the existence of any God for the same reason Calvin rejects the existence of many gods? Do they attribute atheism to demonic deception and their blinded minds? But perhaps Roberts spoke better than he knew. 

For my follow-up post:

http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2013/10/we-are-both-atheists.html

Obamacare macht frei!

Obamacare reminds me of this scene from an episode ("Reunion") of Harsh Realm:

EXT. LABOR CAMP - DAY

TRACKERs keep a vigilant eye over the new prisoners. 
FIND Hobbes and Pinocchio in line with the others, 
speaking in hushed tones.

HOBBES
What is this place?

PINOCCHIO
Work camp. Forced labor. Prisoners work like slaves, 
down to the bone.

ANGLE ON ASSEMBLY - SLATER

Stands front and center. Eyes scan the prisoner.

SLATER
Observe the fence around you. It is your protection. 
Everything you feared in Harsh Realm no longer 
matters. Because from now on, you are free.

ANGLE ON THE PRISONERS

Scared and beaten. Listening.

RESUME SLATER

As he walks past the assembled prisoners.

SLATER
All your worries about food, water, shelter, they're 
gone. You work here now. And you'll get everything 
you need. considering what's out there, this is 
paradise.

Slater stops, nods to a Tracker who moves towards 
the prisoners.

SLATER
There is a price for freedom. You do your work, you 
respect the rules. Violate the rules, and you will 
be punished.

The Tracker pulls out a gun-like WEAPON. Behind him, 
a TRUSTEE follows, a bedraggled prisoner, 
expressionless with a small circular scar on the3 
center of his forehead. We TILT DOWN from the SCAR to 
a BOWL in the Trustee's hands:

CLOSE ON BOWL

Crawling with small CHROME SCARABS, beetle-like, 
articulated legs and wings, writhing.

RESUME TRACKER

Dips the GUN into the bowl, and SLURP! the gun sucks 
in a SCARAB round, recoiling as it enters. WE FOLLOW 
THE GUN as it RISES out of the bowl.

AND UP to a PRISONER'S HEAD. The Tracker presses the 
barrel up to the base of his SKULL. Pulls the 
trigger. THWACK! -- his head jolts forward. Then back 
--

CLOSE ON PRISONER

His eyes open. He seems okay. To his amazement.

RESUME SLATER

SLATER
Simple security measure. Respect your freedom, and 
you have nothing to be afraid of.

No Bible for Christian Academia?

http://bylogos.blogspot.com/2013/10/no-bible-for-christian-academia.html

I’m Still Not Going Back to the Catholic Church

http://ideas.time.com/2013/09/29/im-still-not-going-back-to-the-catholic-church/print/

Breaking news: Darwin lived!

So, I repeat my point: evolution cannot simply be grafted onto evangelical Christian faith as an add-on, where we can congratulate ourselves on a job well done. This is going to take some work—and a willingness to take theological risk.The cognitive dissonance created by evolution is considerable, and I understand why either avoidance or theological superficiality might be attractive. But in the long run, the price we pay for not doing the hard and necessary synthetic work is high indeed.Ignoring reality or playing theological games won’t do—no matter how unsettling, destabilizing, perhaps frightening such a calling may be.It may be that evolution, and the challenges it presents, will remind us that we are called to trust God, which means we may need to restructure and even abandon the “god” that we have created in our own image. Working through the implications of evolution may remind Christians that trusting God’s goodness is a daily decision, a spiritually fulfilling act of recommitment to surrender to God no matter what.That’s not easy. But if we have learned anything from the saints of the past, it is that surrendering to God each day, whatever we are facing, is not meant to be easy. Taking up that same journey now will add our witness for the benefit of future generations. 

http://www.respectfulconversation.net/ae-conversation/2013/10/2/evangelicalism-and-evolution-are-in-conflict-and-thats-fine.html

I've already commented on some of this, but I'd like to make a few more observations:

i) One of Enns's personal quirks is how he constantly writes as though Darwinism presents a novel challenge to the Christian faith. He acts as if this is 1860. Stunned Christians are staggering around the blast zone in groping efforts to piece together the shards of Biblical theology after Darwin detonated his bombshell a year before. Yet Darwinism was a dominant scientific theory long before Enns was born. Moreover, he's now 52-years-old. When did it suddenly dawn on him that there's a theory called evolution which poses a prima facie challenge to traditional Christian theology? Did this epiphany happen 10 years ago? Sooner? Later? 

Several Christian generations have come and gone since Darwin published his revolutionary book. As far as a theological "synthesis" goes, even if you think "evolution demands true intellectual synthesis," what makes Enns imagine we need a new synthesis? Theistic evolution isn't new. There are preexisting paradigms. 

For instance, after the Vatican initially opposed evolution, it backpedaled. How typical! As a result, you have lots of prominent Catholics who've made peace with evolution, viz., Karl Rahner, Cardinal Dulles, Alexander Pruss, Kenneth Miller, Michael Behe, George Coyne, Stephen Barr, Vincent Torley &c. If Enns is so desperate to synthesize Christian theology with evolution, why doesn't he seek inspiration in one of the extant models? 

ii) As far as the Christian "journey" is concerned, historically and biblically, Christians knew the destination as well as the route–ahead of time. They knew where they were going, and how to get there. 

By contrast, Enns requires Christians to precommit to evolution, precommit to a theological synthesis, before we know the theological consequences of that precommitment. Like the Devil handing us a blank contract: "Just sign here on the bottom line, and I'll fill in the pesky details. Trust me!" 

That's worse than a Faustian bargain. At least Dr. Faustus knew the terms of the diabolical pact going in. Enns is demanding that we take a risk without a risk assessment. Let go of Scripture, then jump off a ledge in the dark. 

iii) What about surrendering to the word of God no matter what rather than surrendering to the theory evolution no matter what? 

Meet the Jesus of History