I recently came across the following rendering of chapter 32 of First Clement. This is Maxwell Staniforth's translation, edited by Andrew Louth. Notice that Staniforth expresses Clement of Rome's sentiments by adding the qualifier "alone" to faith:
"Similarly we also, who by His will have been called in Christ Jesus, are not justified by ourselves or our own wisdom or understanding or godliness, nor by such deeds as we have done in holiness of heart, but by that faith through which alone Almighty God has justified all men since the beginning of time." (Early Christian Writings [New York, New York: Penguin Books, 1987], 36)
For my argument that Clement was affirming faith alone in a Protestant sense, see the thread here, including the comments section.
Tuesday, August 25, 2015
Monday, August 24, 2015
Personal identity and going bald
While his response drew a healthy applause from the audience, I felt a little disappointed. I know those who just want us to get over race issues will use Carson’s remarks as ammunition in the race relations discussion. I anticipate people responding like, “Look, one of your own just said we should move past it, so what’s the big deal?” I do not doubt Dr. Carson’s sincerity for a second, but his response was incomplete at best. Here is why:
Skin Colors and Hair Textures
The color of our skin and texture of our hair does matter, because every shade of skin and every hair texture displays the creative brilliance of almighty God. Our ethnic distinctions exist for the glory of God. We see in John’s glorious visions people from every nation, tribe, and language worshiping around the throne of God. These distinctions were God’s idea, and for the glory of his great name.
Trying to simply get past race denies the image of God reflected within ethnic diversity.
https://www.raanetwork.org/why-ben-carson-got-it-wrong/
Honestly, this is both silly and confused:
i) How important is my hair to my identity? If I'm a middle-aged man who's going bald, should that trigger an identity crisis?
It's important to know that God numbers the hair on our heads. But surely hair is pretty incidental to my core identity.
ii) This isn't really about race but history and narrative. About whether people are defined, not by race, but by American history and a racial narrative. Are people today defined by the actions of people who lived 150 years ago (give or take)? Are you a prisoner of the past? Are you trapped in collective memories?
Has the Comforter come?
This is a sequel to my previous post:
This blog recently received a reply which I would like to address specifically. It comes from a blogger called Triablogue.
Actually, it comes from a blog called Triablogue. At the bottom it is states that it was posted by Steve.
The blogger (aremonstrant) took umbrage at my post:
I would just like to say, I’m surprised it took this long for an unsympathetic Calvinist to turn up and gloat at this post.
He's overreacting to something I didn't say or imply.
I was expecting it a lot earlier to be honest.
Actually, I learned about it from SEA::
A blogger from A Remonstrant’s Ramblings (whose abandonment from traditional Christian faith is regretful) presents a devastating critique of Calvinist Derek Rishmawy’s comments regarding why God would unconditionally elect some and not others in the former’s post: “To Tu Quoque or Not to Tu Quoque?“
http://evangelicalarminians.org/this-week-in-arminianism-31/
Back to aremonstrant:
Regarding i) it’s a real shame such “compelling” evidence appears to be so uncompelling even to very sincere truth-seekers! But then the typical Calvinist reply to this is to suggest such people are not really sincere in their searching for God which is, of course, a classic ad hominem.
He's overreacting to something I didn't say or imply. He stereotypes Calvinists. He imputes to me something I didn't suggest, then accuses me of ad hominem based entirely on his own imputation.
This blogger may feel there is compelling evidence for such activity but I wonder what he/she would list? Patterns in toast, funny feelings, weird dreams, that one person survived a plane crash when the other 244 passengers died, things which could be mere coincidence, or appeals to what we cannot yet explain?
i) There's a range of well-attested phenomenon, viz. miracles, answered prayer, premonitions, crisis apparitions, terminal lucidity, possession/exorcism.
ii) In the nature of the case, this is underreported because most examples happen to people who aren't famous. Their experience never makes it into the history books. There are, however, examples throughout church history. Consider patristic testimony to contemporary miracles:
Consider firsthand testimony to the miracles of St. Bernard, cf. Benedicta Ward, "Miracles in the Middle Ages," Graham H. Twelftree (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Miracles. Cambridge Up 149 (2011).
Consider evidence of historic Protestant miracles:
Consider evidence of "Catholic" miracles:
Consider evidence of contemporary miracles in collections like:
Craig Keener, Miracles: The Credibility of the New Testament Accounts, 2 vols.
Rex Gardner, Healing Miracles: A Doctor Investigates
That's just scratching the surface.
I think the confession that such activity is “perplexing” is an admission that the case is maybe not as compelling as he/she first thought!
That confounds two distinct issues: the fact that the pattern is perplexing doesn't mean it's random in a naturalistic sense. Even if the general pattern seems to be somewhat haphazard, that doesn't mean specific examples are random. They often have very opportune relevance and significance to the parties concerned.
I would have thought that any careful reader of my post would have noticed, my concern was not with the character of God as described in classic Christian theism. It was not about whether God is ‘nice’ or not in human terms. That had nothing whatsoever to do with my deconversion. My only expectations were for a relationship with God the kind of which the New Testament describes and Calvinists and Arminians see that pretty much the same I’d say. But of course I can see why this blogger has chosen to distort it this way.
Let's compare what he said in his deconversion post to something he said in another post:
There was no sense of companionship, friendship, or experience of the one called “the comforter” in the New Testament. And if there is to be absolutely no relational value in being a Christian then I seriously question the value of believing it...The companionship which the New Testament appears to talk about was simply not there. So what is the point of all this noetic belief if that’s all my Christianity is (was)? What kind of God has no relational component to offer in this life?
Christians love to use the father analogy for God. But what father would do that to his child especially if he has all the means to be alongside them at that moment? Certainly no decent father would distance himself at such a time. I cannot bring myself to believe in a God who is so clearly absent at the moment I needed him most.
https://aremonstrantsramblings.wordpress.com/2015/04/11/my-journey-away-from-christianity/
Compare that to how he contrasted Arminian theism with Reformed theism:
I am sometimes asked why I am not a Calvinist. I thought about writing my own blog on this issue but two factors made it seem unnecessary to do so. One is because I have previously given some reasons why I reject Calvinism back in my previous blog called ‘Coherent Calvinism? A response to Mike Ovey’. Second is because, in recent months, I have both begun reading, and saw this lecture by, the Arminian philosopher and theologian Jerry Walls. Since Walls explains why he is not a Calvinist so well in this lecture, in my opinion, there is really no need for me to do a worse job explaining it. Therefore, if this is a question you like to think about I here recommend both his lecture and the notes I made whilst watching it underneath. The notes summarize his main points and I have also recorded all quotations made by him in his power point.
1. God truly loves all persons.
2. Truly to love someone is to desire their well being and to promote their true flourishing as much as you can.
3. The well being and true flourishing of all persons is to be found in a right relationship with God, a saving relationship in which we love and obey him.
When love is subordinated to will, then the fatherhood of God, which is emphasized in the Trinity… takes a back seat to the image of God as King or Ruler.
Before God was King, he was Father, and his fatherhood is more ultimate than his kingship. Kingship speaks of his relationship to his creation. He reigns and will reign over it all. But fatherhood speaks of a relationship within the very nature of God that was there before he spoke anything into existence. In the bosom of eternity, before there was time or space or humanity, the second person of the triune Godhead called the first person of the Trinity not Lord, but Father.”
https://aremonstrantsramblings.wordpress.com/2013/11/23/whats-wrong-with-calvinism/
Observe how he frames Arminian theism in contrast to Reformed theism. Notice how that parallels the description of his disillusionment when his theological expectations were disappointed.
This blogger must also think there cannot be evangelical Arminians since the God of evangelical Arminianism is far from “softhearted” as they usually adhere to the doctrine of punishment after death and they hold to the judgement described as being done by God in the Bible. But this oft-used parody of the God of Arminianism is just that.
That's another example of his overreacting to something I didn't say or imply. Yes, there are evangelical Arminians like John and Charles Wesley, Craig Keener, John Oswalt, Douglas Stuart, &c.
This Calvinist almost wants to boast of the seemingly horrid kind of God he/she believes in! It’s almost as if the more horrible God appears to us the better he must be!
I'm just saying it's more realistic. If there is a God, then frankly he's fairly hard-nosed. Just look at the kind of world we live in. And it hasn't changed from OT times.
My thanks to the person blogging for pointing out that the world is a harsh place. That is a very welcome reminder. Having been in daily chronic pain for almost two years I needed to be reminded of that just in case I had forgotten.
He's the one who indicated that his experience was at odds with his theology.
This kind of response from a Calvinist reveals, I think, their very fatalistic approach to apologetics and relationships. This blogger must think that his/her total lack of empathy can have no adverse affect whatsoever. After all, should I change my mind it will have everything to do with God and nothing to do with him or her.
One last observation I would make is that the responses from Arminians has always been one of sympathy but responses from Calvinists have been mixed. A few have been sympathetic but there have been a few who have either completely ignored me or been really very cold in their response (both online and in person). I suppose those are the ones who are being more consistent in displaying what the Calvinist God is like? The love of the Christ they believe in is shining through. Well done to them!
i) Naturally Arminians are concerned with an Arminian blogger goes off the reservation. That's simply theological partisanship.
ii) For all he knows, I might be very sympathetic to much of what he said. I didn't go into that because I don't care to make public statements about my personal experience, including the experience of some close relatives. In their private life, many Christians suffer.
But he chose to go public about his experience, and how that led him away from the Christian faith. So that does invite public scrutiny.
The Evans/Singer Debate On Jesus' Messiahship
Craig Evans (a New Testament scholar) and Tovia Singer (a rabbi) debated the topic "Is Jesus the Promised Jewish Messiah?" on November 8, 2014. I want to make several comments about Singer's portion of the debate. The time references in parentheses below are hour and minute markers taken from the video on the page linked above.
Sunday, August 23, 2015
"When your Muslim coach prays"
I'm going to comment on an article by apostate atheist Hector Avalos:
Imagine yourself as the Christian parent of a student-athlete, and the new men’s basketball coach at your university announces that his Muslim faith will be an important part of his strategy.
This, ladies and gentlemen, is what is known as a false dichotomy. His entire article is predicated on that false dichotomy:
i) We should simply deport Muslims, like they are doing in Norway. Muslims reject our social contract. They reject the Bill of Rights. They foment domestic terrorism. They don't belong here. They don't believe in our system of gov't.
ii) Don't college basketball teams have more than one coach?
iii) What about chaplains?
iv) What about sending your kid to a Christian college?
The prayers, by the way, are voluntary. But the coach will take prayer requests only in the name of Allah, not Jesus, because the latter is not Allah.
Why should I ask the coach to pray for me? As I Christian, I can pray directly to Jesus. The coach is not my spiritual mediator. If my coach is Muslim, I should pray for him–not vice versa.
Prayers will be performed by prostrating yourself with your forehead to the ground, and facing Mecca. The coach does this five times a day, but players don’t have to do it that way. It’s voluntary, you see.
Yes, it's voluntary.
The coach proudly displays a Quran everywhere he goes, including on the team bus. He was raised reading it, and he would like you, as his student-athlete, to read that wonderful book, as well.
Actually, there's something to be said for reading the Koran, just as we might read Mein Kampf or the Communist Manifesto.
The coach has won many games by integrating Islam into the team. Islam also worked for Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Muhammad Ali, and so there is actual scientific proof that serving Allah makes you a winner.
Muhammad Ali has Parkinson's disease. Abdul-Jabbar has migraines, leukemia, and cardiovascular disease. Is Islam a Faustian bargain?
But now you feel coerced to follow the coach’s religious preferences for fear that you may not advance as a player.
Merely Feel coerced. Not that you actually are coerced.
And what happens if you are a non-believer, but your coach preaches that faith is fundamental to life? No religious preference is listed by 27.5 percent of the college freshmen who started last fall, according to a recent major survey.
Imagine excluding 27.5 percent of potential recruits who may not see any particular faith as suitable for their lives. Imagine non-Christian students, who may be talented, but don’t want to play for a coach that is perceived as imposing a favored faith on players.
Merely perceived to practice favoritism.
So Avalos is telling us unbelievers are so intellectually weak and impressionable that they cave into mere feelings of coercion or mere perceptions of favoritism.
Jimmy Carter and Eric Liddell
Jimmy Carter has brain cancer. Carter is pushing 91. Let's compare and contrast his life with someone else who died of brain cancer at the age of 43. Who did more with less time?
Chestnuts roasting on an open fire
There's a blogger who attacks Calvinism from time to time. That's hardly surprising coming from an Arminian blogger. However, he recently defected from the Christian faith. Here's part of what he said:
So why does God not speak to someone crying out, literally, in such pain and desperation? What is the value of God talking to all these people who are well when the sick are ignored? I don’t want to broaden this into an argument so much as express my experience so I will ignore the broader questions for now. In my most desperate moments of physical and mental agony, depression, and loneliness God was not there. I was rescued from suicidal thoughts by my family and a very good psychologist. I know some Christians will assert that he was there (in some sense behind it all) but I am afraid he was not there in any proper or real sense of that term for me. So perhaps God doesn’t continually chat with these other Christians either and they are projecting onto God what their conscious mind expresses? But even if that is the case that helps very little since God is still silent. It just makes it even more painful to realize that huge numbers of Christians are deluding themselves into thinking God is talking with them continuously when in fact he is not. The companionship which the New Testament appears to talk about was simply not there. So what is the point of all this noetic belief if that’s all my Christianity is (was)? What kind of God has no relational component to offer in this life?
Christians love to use the father analogy for God. But what father would do that to his child especially if he has all the means to be alongside them at that moment? Certainly no decent father would distance himself at such a time. I cannot bring myself to believe in a God who is so clearly absent at the moment I needed him most. (And don’t get me started on the ‘Footprints’ poem!!) If the Christian God does exist and he does communicate with people then my spiritual antenna (as one of my Christian friends put it) is clearly broken.
What I do know is that if my son was in unbearable pain and desperation and was sitting begging for me to comfort him in such a moment of desperation, and it were in my power to comfort him, I would!
https://aremonstrantsramblings.wordpress.com/2015/04/11/my-journey-away-from-christianity/
i) I think there's extensive, compelling evidence for a God who is active in human affairs. But the pattern of God's activity is perplexing.
ii) Suppose, for the sake of argument, that the God of Arminian theism is nicer than the God of Reformed theism. Problem is, having a nice God on paper doesn't make real life any nicer.
You can say all the warm and winsome things about God that Arminians are wont to say. You can contrast that with the "stern" God of Calvinism. But as this erstwhile Arminian blogger discovered from painful personal experience, the loving, fatherly "relational" God of Arminian theology is a paper God. A God that only exists in the mind of the Arminian. A verbal construct. You can say the Calvinist God is harsh or "morally monstrous." You can contrast the Calvinist God with what you deem to be the superior character of the Arminian God. But switching from Calvinism to Arminianism doesn't make the world any different. Believing in a nicer God doesn't make the world a kinder gentler place than believing in a "harsh" God. Does nothing to sand off the jagged edges.
In the Arminian lodge, you have hot chocolate and chestnuts roasting on an open fire. But when you have to get up and go outside, the dark arctic bast slaps you in the face. The world you must live in everyday is just the same whether you're Arminian or Calvinist. Believing in a softhearted God does nothing to soften the world. It changes nothing. The toasty, climate-controlled environment of Arminian theology doesn't survive exposure to the elements. It fosters expectations that are dashed by brutal experience. The glib, fact-free bromides of a Jerry Walls didn't prepare him for his ordeal. Reality is unforgiving.
Proving first principles
I'll make another comment on Beisner's case for Carkian apologetics:
Given the centrality of the Bible in Clarkian epistemology, how do Clarkians know and/or show that the Bible is, in fact, the word of God? How do they establish their axiom or first principle?
1. The Bible claims to be God-breathed.
2. All explanations of the claim other than its truth are untenable.
3. All attempts to refute the claim by pointing to specific errors in the Bible fail.
4. Therefore we are justified in believing that the Bible is true and God-breathed.
Beisner doesn't explain why a Clarkian should accept the self-witness of the Bible, but reject the self-witness or the Koran or Swedenborg's Arcana Cœlestia.
(2) for the truthfulness of the Bible. But he would remind us that particular premises–which are the most that can be established by historical evidence–cannot validly yield universal conclusions, and that therefore the proper use of historical evidence is not to prove that the Bible is the Word of God but to disprove allegations of errors in it.
So historical evidence doesn't provide positive evidence for the claims of Scripture. Rather, it merely cancels putative evidence to the contrary.
(3) Indeed, fulfilled prophecy is an example of the logical consistency of the whole Bible. If the Bible contained prophecies that went finally unfulfilled (and we could know of some such because their time horizons have expired), that would entail internal contradiction in the Bible and would be inconsistent with its self- description as the Word of God. But fulfilled prophecies illustrate the Bible’s consistency.
So fulfilled prophecy doesn't provide positive evidence for the claims of Scripture. It merely illustrates the "consistency" of Scripture. Inconsistency would falsify the claims of Scripture, but consistency falls short of validating the claims of Scripture. Inconsistency would be positive counterevidence, but consistency is consistent with either truth or falsehood. Neutral.
But if Beisner doesn't think historical evidence, the argument from prophecy, or the argument from miracles furnishes positive evidence for the claims of Scripture, then what's left? He appeals to the witness of the Spirit (WCF 1.5). And up to a point I think that's a legitimate appeal. However:
i) That's not a distinctive of Clarkian epistemology. Different apologetic methodologies can include the witness of the Spirit. Indeed, that's a type of argument from religious experience.
ii) That appeal would only work for defensive apologetics, not offensive apologetics. Since unbelievers lack that experience, it can't be evidence for them.
So how would a Clarkian apologist reason with an unbeliever? In typical Clarkian epistemology, there are only two kinds of beliefs: knowledge and unjustified opinion. If, however, the witness of the Spirit is the only way we can know that the Bible is the word of God, if all other lines of evidence reduce to unjustified opinion, then how does a Clarkian apologist enable the unbeliever to bridge the chasm?
Crosslinguistic influence
Yet this is not the whole truth of the matter. We do assert that God, that is, the whole Godhead, is one person…. In other words, we are bound to maintain the identity of the attributes of God with the being of God in order to avoid the specter of brute fact.”
…Over against all other beings, that is over against created beings, we must therefore hold that God’s being presents an absolute numerical identity. And even within the the ontological Trinity we must maintain that God is numerically one. He is one person. We we say that we believe in a personal God we do not merely mean that we believe in a God to whom the adjective “personality” may be attached. God is not an essence that has personality; He is absolute personality. Yet, within the being of the one person we are permitted and compelled by Scripture to make the distinction between a specific or generic type of being, and three personal subsistences.
—Cornelius Van Til, An Introduction to Systematic Theology (1971).
i) This wasn't Van Til's finest hour. It's a bad way of making a good point. The basic point, I take it, is that the Triune God isn't three persons stuck onto an impersonal essence. Rather, God is personal through-and-through.
However, Van Til's formulation, as it stands, is contradictory and unorthodox.
ii) So what was Van Til thinking? What did he put it that way? And is it possible to gives his statement a coherent, orthodox sense?
This may be a case of crosslinguistic influence. To begin with, English was not Van Til's first language.
An example of crosslinguistic influence is the fact that the sense of some NT words is based, not on secular Greek, but on OT Hebrew filtered through the LXX. What David Hill calls Greek words with Hebrew meanings.
By the same token, it's possible that Van Til is using "person" in the sense of "hypostasis. That's a standard term in Trinitarian usage. And it's a flexible term, because it can mean both "person" and "substance."
Suppose we were to substitute "hypostasis" for "person" in Van Til's statement. Suppose Van Til said "God is one hypostasis and three hypostases."
That could mean "God is one substance and three persons." That's both coherent and orthodox.
If he's using the same word with the same intended sense throughout, then the statement is contradictory and unorthodox. If, however, he's using the same word with alternating senses, then the statement could be logically consistent and theologically orthodox.
It doesn't really work in idiomatic English. It only succeeds on the assumption that he's using "person" as a synonym for "hypostasis."
Saturday, August 22, 2015
Clark's hammer
I'm going to comment on part of this:
Unlike Van Tilian presuppositionalism, classical presuppositionalism will not argue, “God exists, therefore God exists.” It will not argue, “The Bible is the Word of God, therefore the Bible is the Word of God.”
Can Beisner quote examples of Van Til, Frame, Bahnsen, David Byron, James Anderson et al. who actually argue in that fashion, or is that Beisner's caricature?
Instead, classical presuppositionalism affirms that logic, or reason (terms it considers synonymous), is simply the structure of God’s thought…
Are reason and logic synonymous? Consider modus ponens:
If P, then Q. P. Therefore, Q.
Is that synonymous with reason? Isn't modus ponens just an abstract rule of logical inference? It's purely general. It has no specific factual content. That, of course, is part of what makes it useful. You can plug so many different things into the formula.
But isn't there more to divine reason than fact-free laws of logic? For instance, doesn't God know all truths of fact? Particular facts about the actual world–as well as possible worlds?
1. The Bible claims to be God-breathed.
2. All explanations of the claim other than its truth are untenable.
3. All attempts to refute the claim by pointing to specific errors in the Bible fail.
4. Therefore we are justified in believing that the Bible is true and God-breathed.
Consider the argument piece by piece. First, the Bible claims to be God-breathed. To note this is not to argue in a circle; it is merely to set aside the hypothetical objection that we are claiming for the Bible what it does not claim for itself. It would after all be rather gratuitous to claim that the Bible was the Word of God if it did not claim to be. “There is no reason for making assertions beyond those that can validly be inferred from the statements of the Bible,” Clark writes. “. . . What the Bible claims about itself is an essential part of the argument. The Christian is well within the boundaries of logic to insist that the first reason for believing in the inspiration of the Bible is that it makes this claim.” Clark cites, among other passages that (explicitly or implicitly) make this claim, 2 Timothy 3:16, John 10:35, 2 Peter 1:20, 21, Romans 3:2, Matthew 11:9-15, Romans 16:25-27, and Ephesians 3:4-5.
i) An obvious gap in Beisner's argument is that books like Matthew, Luke, and Acts don't claim to be inspired.
ii) Perhaps Beisner would try to close the gap by claiming that they are covered by categorical statements like 2 Tim 3:16. That, however, only pushes the question back a step: if Matthew is Scripture, then Matthew is inspired. But how does Beisner determine that Matthew is Scripture? How does he determine that 2 Tim 3:16 includes Matthew in the scope of its claim?
Provided the Protestant canon of Scripture, suppose Beisner's argument goes through. But how, given Clarkian epistemology, does he determine the canon in the first place? Consider Clarkian demotion of historical evidence and probabilistic reasoning. In making a case for the canon, how does Beisner avoid the methodology of evidentialism?
Second, all explanations of the claim other than its truth are untenable. Consider three possible alternative explanations. One is that the claim is only occasional and accidental and therefore should not be taken seriously. But a careful inspection of the Biblical data, e.g., as done by Louis Gaussen in his Theopneustia (published in translation as The Divine Inspiration of the Bible) or by Benjamin B. Warfield in The Inspiration and Authority of the Bible, demonstrates that the claim is pervasive and crucial to much of the rest of the program of Scripture. It is therefore not accidental and cannot be trivialized or ignored. A second is that the claim is one among many by writers whose other claims provide good grounds for skepticism about their credibility, and therefore the claim lacks a priori credibility. Yet a careful examination of the writings indicates the opposite: that the writers were highly credible on other matters and made this claim in complete awareness of what they were saying, and therefore that the claim’s falsehood is unlikely a priori. A third is that though some other Bible characters might have made the claim, either Jesus did not make it or, if He did, He made it only in accommodation to the prevailing views of his contemporaries, and since Jesus is the most important character in the Bible, His failure to make the claim renders the claim unlikely. But again, careful inspection of the data indicate that Jesus did make the claim, that He did not do it merely as an accommodation to His contemporaries’ prevailing views (Indeed, He was quite in the habit of contradicting prevailing views that He considered wrong!), and that He made the claim in full self-awareness. Therefore, if the claim is false, it becomes an evidence against Jesus’ credibility. Yet Jesus’ credibility is otherwise impeccable. Therefore Jesus’ credibility gives His claim a priori credibility. Perhaps there are other alternative explanations that need examination, and in the appropriate context that could be done. But for the sake of illustrating the method, the consideration of these three is sufficient. If there are four and only four possible explanations of a phenomenon (in this case a claim), and if three of them can be shown untenable, then it follows that the fourth is to be affirmed. Thus, it follows from the failure of alternative explanations of the Bible’s claim to be the Word of God that the Bible is in fact what it claims to be: the Word of God.
Notice the repeated appeal to "credibility." But how is that essentially different from the probabilistic methodology of classical, evidentialist, and cumulative-case apologetics?
Third, all attempts to refute the claim by pointing to specific errors in the Bible fail. A study of individual examples of alleged contradictions in the Bible, such as John W. Haley’s Alleged Discrepancies of the Bible, demonstrates that none of the allegations proves true. Similarly, a study of individual examples of alleged historical inaccuracies in the Bible, such as we find in Gleason Archer’s Encyclopedia of Bible Difficulties, demonstrates that none of those allegations proves true.
Once again, doesn't that boil down to probabilistic reasoning? Doesn't that appeal to things like archeological corroboration? How does that distinguish his position from classical, evidentialist, and cumulative-case apologetics?
Fourth, therefore we are justified in believing that the Bible is true and God-breathed. This follows from the first three premises, and the argument is noncircular.
Even if that's the case, isn't that basically inference-to-the-best explanation? But doesn't that fall well below the exacting standards of Clarikian epistemology?
Frame's presuppositionalism
I'm going to comment on part of this:
In general, Beisner's analysis suffers from the hermeneutic of suspicion. He is so hostile to Van Tilian apologetics that he always assumes the worst interpretation of Frame's statement.
One wonders why Frame capitulates to epistemological relativism with the qualifier “for Christians, faith governs reasoning.” Does faith not govern reasoning for non-Christians? Or, is it true for Christians that faith governs everyone’s reasoning, but not true for non- Christians? Certainly Frame believes neither of these. Yet his statement implies one or the other. But presumably this is to be explained as a careless expression.
I take Frame to mean Christians acknowledge the authority of revelation whereas unbelievers do not. For Christians, revelation consciously governs their reasoning, whereas unbelievers consciously reject revelation, or they are simply ignorant of revelation.
Frame has an aggravating habit of qualifying what he says but not defining the qualifiers. For instance, he writes over and over again (not only in this essay but also elsewhere) of “human reason” and “human logic”–a habit that he shares with Van Til. “The content of faith, Scripture,” Frame tells us, “may transcend reason in these two senses: (1) it cannot be proved by human reason alone; (2) it contains mysteries, even apparent contradictions, that cannot be fully resolved by human logic. . . .”20 But what purpose does that modifier, human, serve in these statements? Is there some other reason or logic that is not human? Perhaps Frame means not reason or logic in the abstract but the attempt at reasoning by particular persons–though if that is what he means, we might plead with him to say so. But what is reason or logic other than the way God’s mind thinks? The logic humans use includes the law of contradiction; does Frame have in mind some logic that excludes it, a logic that he would describe as “nonhuman logic”? Would that even be logic? Until Frame specifies the axioms of a nonhuman logic, or of a nonhuman reason, his qualifying reason and logic with human is meaningless.
Yes, there is some other reason that is not human. For instance, there is angelic reason. More to the point, there's divine reason. God's reason is timeless, infinite, and infallible. Man's reason is temporal, finite, and fallible.
Likewise, there's a difference between "the way God's mind thinks" and human systems of logic. Human systems of logic reflect the human understanding of logic, and that evolves. Consider developments in logic in the 19C and 20C.
Does Beisner believe Skolem's Paradox is the way God's mind thinks?
I suspect Beisner's antipathy to Frame's distinctions and qualifications goes back to the Clark Controversy. Is it possible for the human understanding of logic to correspond to God's understanding of logic to a degree sufficient that human's can distinguish truth from falsehood? I guess that's what Beisner is getting at. He thinks distinguishing human reason or human logic from divine reason results in skepticism. That may be a legitimate objection to how Van Til formulated his opposition to Clark. However, Beisner is not getting that from Frame's statement.
Consider Frame’s statement that “[We] should present the biblical God, not merely as the conclusion to an argument, but as the one who makes argument possible.” The apodosis (second half) of the sentence is not properly parallel to the protasis (first half). After reading that we should present God not merely as the conclusion to an argument, we expect to read that we should present Him as the axiom (starting point) of an argument. That is, the first clause focuses on the parts of an argument, not the conditions for one. But Frame tacitly turns from the parts of an argument to a statement about the conditions under which argument can occur. God is not merely the conclusion of an argument, but “the one who makes argument possible.” Now of course the classical or evidential or cumulative case apologist will agree that had God not existed, or had God existed but never created anything, or had God created only nonrational things or only rational things that never erred, no argument could have taken place (unless of course God argued with Himself–in which case the god that existed would not be the God of the Bible). But that is surely not the point Frame wants to make…we might also wonder why, instead of writing the nonparallel sentence “[We] should present the biblical God, not merely as the conclusion to an argument, but as the one who makes argument possible” Frame did not write, “We should present the biblical God, not merely as the conclusion to an argument, but as the major premise as well.” That would balance protasis and apodosis, and it would be precisely what Frame believes. It would be unfair to assume that Frame avoided that clarity because it made the absurdity of his position too obvious, but it is not unfair to notice that the imprecision has the effect of hiding the position’s absurdity, regardless of intent.
I think Beisner misses Frame's point. Frame isn't trying to create a symmetry between the protasis and the apodosis. Rather, he's making the deeper point that if God didn't exist, there'd be no basis for rational argumentation in the first place. God is the source of human rationality. God is the source of necessary truths as well as contingent truths. God's nature is the foundation of logic. This would stand in contrast, to, say, secular Platonic realism.
It is precisely these challenges that apologetics must answer, and merely reasserting the opposite is no answer, it is again a petitio principi, an argument in a circle. There are more logic problems in them, but my primary purpose in citing these paragraphs was to point out the ambiguity of Frame’s conceding that “There is a kind of circularity here, but the circularity is not vicious.” The careless reader might think that Frame then goes on to define the “kind of circularity” he has in mind. But aside from denying that it is vicious (that is, that it is logically fallacious)–in which he is simply mistaken–Frame never does say what this “kind of circularity” actually is or how an argument can be circular but not vicious. He descends to the same ambiguity when he writes, as I cited once already, “But are we not still forced to say, ‘God exists (presupposition), therefore God exists (conclusion),’ and isn’t that argument clearly circular? Yes, in a way. But that is unavoidable for any system, any worldview” and “One cannot argue for an ultimate standard by appealing to a different standard. That would be inconsistent. [para] So there is a kind of circle here. But even this circle, as I indicated earlier, is linear in a sense.”
i) To begin with, there's a sense in which circular reasoning is a necessary condition of a valid argument. To be valid, the conclusion must be implicit or contained in the premises.
ii) Likewise, there's a sense in which many sound arguments beg the question. That's because a sound argument presumes the truth of the premises. A sound argument is not an argument for the truth of the premises, but for the truth of the conclusion. It takes the truth of the premises for granted. That's an unproven presupposition of the syllogism. In that respect, a sound argument assumes what it needs to prove. Given the truth of the premises, the conclusion is true–but unless you grant the truth of the premise, to claim the argument is sound begs the question.
iii) So what makes some arguments viciously circular and other arguments virtuously circular? There are at least two possible considerations:
a) If the truth of the premise is not in dispute, then the argument doesn't beg the question. Keep in mind that's person-variable.
b) In a deductive syllogism, the premises are reasons in support of the conclusion. They are intended to warrant the conclusion. So there's supposed to be some logical progression from premises to conclusion. If, however, the conclusion is essentially a restatement of the premises, then all it's done is to reassert the same claim. A disguised, repeated, unjustified assertion.
iv) Truth claims are ultimately circular. An appeal to reason presumes the reliability of reason. An appeal to memory presumes the reliability of memory. An appeal to testimony presumes the reliability of testimony. An appeal to observation presumes the reliability of observation. An appeal to Scripture presumes the reliability of Scripture.
Circular reasoning in that sense doesn't ipso facto mean the appeal is arbitrary. These may be necessary preconditions of knowledge. The alternative is global skepticism–which is self-refuting. Mind you, that, in itself, is a tacit appeal to reason.
Friday, August 21, 2015
Christian tatts
23 “When you come into the land and plant any kind of tree for food, then you shall regard its fruit as forbidden. Three years it shall be forbidden to you; it must not be eaten. 24 And in the fourth year all its fruit shall be holy, an offering of praise to the Lord. 25 But in the fifth year you may eat of its fruit, to increase its yield for you: I am the Lord your God.26 “You shall not eat any flesh with the blood in it. You shall not interpret omens or tell fortunes. 27 You shall not round off the hair on your temples or mar the edges of your beard. 28 You shall not make any cuts on your body for the dead or tattoo yourselves: I am the Lord (Lev 19:23-28).
Based on Lev 19:28, some Christians are opposed to tattoos and body-piercing.
However, as you can see from the larger context, Lev 19 contains a number of commands and prohibitions which Christians ignore. This goes to the perennial issue of how much OT law carries over into the new covenant.
One facile solution is to say that all this is mooted by the new covenant. But that's too simple and radical. Take the prohibition against divination in v26b.
Because Leviticus is a part of the Mosaic covenant, and has a particular emphasis on cultic holiness, there's no presumption that Levitical commands and prohibitions extend into the new covenant. But that doesn't mean we're free to dismiss any and all Levitical injunctions without due consideration.
It isn't necessary inconsistent to obey some Levitical injunctions and disregard others. For it depends on whether there are different principles connecting various injunctions, and whether some of those principles were temporary while other principles are permanent. Consistency would be measured, not by consistently obeying or ignoring all the injunctions, but consistency with the principle that some share in common.
Why are some of these activities forbidden in the first place? In the case of body-piercing, it's not a general prohibition. Rather, it specifies the motivation: body-piercing as a mourning ceremony for the dead (cf. Deut 14:16). That's also the principle which underlies the prohibition about cutting hair and beards (cf. Deut 14:1).
Strictly speaking, the prohibition against body-piercing contradicts the prohibition against Exod 21:6 & Deut 15:17. So the prohibition is not absolute, even according to the Mosaic covenant.
At the same time, because God made the body (Gen 1:26-28), OT ethics would be opposed to mutilation. That would violate the integrity of the body. We should avoid disfiguring the body through dramatic body-modification. It is, in part, a question of degree.
The fact that some of these forbidden activities are associated with pagan rites suggests that that's why tattooing (or body-painting) is forbidden in v28. Indeed, one commentator says:
Porter reports that in pagan societies in the ANE worshippers bore marks on their bodies as a sign of being devotees of a particular deity. J. Currid, Leviticus, 260-61.
If so, the prohibition is not general or absolute, but in reference to tattooing your body as a sign that you belong to the cult of a pagan deity. He (or she) is your patron god (or goddess). It is not tattooing, per se, but the intent, that's forbidden.
In addition, some of these activities are forbidden, not merely because they are adventitiously associated with pagan practice. Rather, due to syncretism among ancient Israelites, these activities indicate conscious participation in heathen rites. They are deliberately imitating their pagan neighbors. The action is meant to be an act of religious devotion to a heathen deity. Apart from that illicit motivation, it might be innocent.
Finally, there can be the danger of emulating unbelievers just to fit in. To be with it. To be accepted.
But with these caveats in mind, I don't think Lev 19:18 represents a timeless prohibition against tattoos. Indeed, tattoos can sometimes be countercultural, rather than a mark of cultural assimilation. Christian tattoos can be both a witness and a statement of separation from the prevailing social mores.
The illegal immigration dilemma
Ben Shapiro has a useful summary and analysis of Trump's immigration plan:
I'll make a few ancillary observations:
i) There's a basic difference between a serious plan and a serious man. The plan merits serious consideration. That doesn't mean Trump is serious about the plan. So we need to separate the man from the plan.
ii) Apparently, the plan was basically ghostwritten by Jeff Sessions. Unlike Trump, Sessions takes the issue seriously.
iii) At this juncture in American history, immigration reform presents a dilemma. If, one the one hand, you allow a growing voting block to go unchallenged, it will become too powerful to oppose. If, on the other hand, the voting block already has that much clout, then a direct challenge will consign you to political oblivion for the foreseeable future.
One question is whether we've already passed that tipping point. It is too late to roll back the status quo? Can a national candidate win if he snubs that voting block?
iv) Even if that's the case, one partial solution would be to delegate major aspects of the issue to the states. Some red states could take a hardline position on illegal immigration. Blue states which pandered to illegal immigrants would decline economically, while red states would become economically stronger.
Even if it's not viable for a national candidate to take a hardline position on illegal immigration (and I'm not saying that for a fact), candidates in some red states could still run and win on that issue.
v) In addition, illegal immigration is such a multifaceted issue that even if a comprehensive hardline national policy is politically infeasible, some national provisions would still be feasible. It's not as if it must either be wholly up to the Federal gov't or wholly up to the discretion of state and local gov'ts.
vi) Finally, Democrat social policies hurt minorities. Conservatives need to engage minority communities on the fact that Democrat policies are harmful to the long-term interests of minority communities.
Thursday, August 20, 2015
Satyricon
This is in response to Alan Kurschner's post about the myth that Trump is unelectable. It's unclear to me what kind of Trump opponent Alan is responding to.
i) My objection to Trump is not that he's unelectable. Now, one objection to Trump is that if he either ran as an independent or the GOP nominee, he'd make it more likely that Hillary would win.
That, however, is not the only objection. What's objectionable is not merely the specter of Hillary winning, but the specter of Trump winning.
There's no evidence that Trump is any better than Hillary, or Bernie, or Al Gore–or whoever the Democrats ultimately run. Indeed, that's an understatement. There's abundant evidence that Trump is just as bad as Hillary. He's is like the Roman Emperor in Satyricon.
I'm struck by the number of credulous conservatives who let themselves be led by the nose when Trump yanks their chain. Alan says "this is 30,000 people who are concerned that our country is being invaded, and view Trump as someone who will actually do something about it."
Because Trump bought 30,000 gold-plated nose rings for gullible voters who don't know a scam artist when they see it.
ii) I'm also struck by alleged conservatives who are so indignant about the GOP that they throw their weight behind a candidate like Trump. In the name of morality, they pick the most venal candidate in the GOP lineup. Their high-sounding idealism becomes indistinguishable from amoral cynicism. In the name of ideological purity, they pick the debauchee.
It's like saying Marco Rubio is weak on illegal immigration, so let's nominate Pablo Escobar for president! Let's go from bad to worse.
iii) And from a Christian standpoint, what makes illegal immigration the top issue?
Atheism has no brakes
The 7th Planned Parenthood sting video has been released. Here's a summary:
https://stream.org/new-planned-parenthood-video-aborted-babys-heart-still-beating/
https://stream.org/new-planned-parenthood-video-aborted-babys-heart-still-beating/
Thus far I haven't posted much about the PP scandal. That's in part because it's a developing story, and–relatedly–people get tired of the story if you talk about it too often. Their eyes begin to glaze over and they turn the page.
i) In a way, it's hard to know what's left to say about evil when it reaches a certain nadir. The video depicts the vivisection of a premature baby born alive. This is straight out of human experimentation by Nazis on Jews and Japanese on POWs. It's not coincidental that after Josef Mengele skipped the country, he made his living as an abortionist in South America.
ii) In attempting to reason with people on moral issues, there are various strategies. We use analogies. But PP is already a worst-case scenario. If some people are too morally hardened to see the problem, what can you say? It's like trying to appeal to Ted Bundy's conscience. There's nothing there to work with. You have no moral leverage. The lever is broken.
We compare certain modern atrocities to the Nazis. But, of course, some people were Nazis. Devoted Nazis. So that comparison wouldn't work for them.
Imagine the outcry if PP vivisected puppies for spare parts? But many people have already crossed that line. By that I mean, many people care more about puppies than babies. When you describe the video, they just shrug.
We appeal to a sense of empathy. How would you like it if someone did that to you? And, indeed, they wouldn't like it if someone did it to them. But that's only because it happened to them instead of somebody else. In their philosophy, nothing is good or bad in general; it is only good or bad for me.
You might reply that if everybody, or even most folks, had the same attitude, that would not be good for me. But they shrug. That's hypothetical. They don't respond to abstractions. Unless and until it hurts them, they just don't care.
They say the "fetus" is "just a clump of cells." You counter that by that logic, an adult is "just a clump of cells." A bigger clump of cells.
How do they respond? They shrug. Yes, I'm a clump of cells and you're a clump of cells, but the clump of cells you are isn't the clump of cells I am, and I only care about me. I care about a clump of cells if, and only if, that happens to be me. If that happens to be you, then you're out of luck!
In their minds, if not their actions, many Americans have already crossed the same line as the PP employees. How can people commit or countenance such evil?
i) Some people have no conscience. Never did. What they do or refrain from doing is based on what they think they can get away with as well as the approval or disapproval of their peer group.
ii) Some people are initially disturbed, but they get use to it. They become callous. Morally and emotionally inured.
iii) Some people believe the propaganda, just like some Nazis really did view themselves as the master race.
iv) Ultimately I think many Americans have internalized the secular outlook. There is no afterlife. No heaven or hell. So it comes down to getting as much as I can while the getting is good. There is no right and wrong, just winning and losing.
Atheism is a car on a hilltop without a parking brake. The only thing that keeps it from rolling down the hill is the wheel chock of Christian culture. Remove that, and watch what happens. Atheism has no moral brakes. Remove the Christian wheel chock, and unstoppable nihilism ensues.
The myth that Trump is 'unelectable'
http://wkrg.com/2015/08/19/high-demand-could-move-trumps-pep-rally-in-mobile/
I don't see any "electable" RINOs filling stadiums.
This is not your grandaddy's election.
I don't see any "electable" RINOs filling stadiums.
This is not your grandaddy's election.
Is Fiorina a reliable conservative?
I hear Carly Fiorina performed well, which I don’t doubt. She seems to be sharp and articulate, but she’s also a sharp and articulate former Sen. John McCain aid and Jesse Jackson fan, who has sharply and articulately endorsed embryonic stem cell research, the DREAM act granting in-state tuition to illegal immigrants, President Barack Obama’sstimulus, and the Wall Street bailout. She was likewise quite sharp and articulate when she called abortion a “decided issue,” and explained that she would have voted to confirm Sonia Sotomayor, a radical pro-abortion Supreme Court Justice, because she doesn’t believe in imposing a pro-life litmus test on Supreme Court nominees.
So, yes, she is very good at arguing, but the problem is what she’s arguing for, and whether you can trust her to argue for the same thing from one day to the next. Also, there’s the matter of her business record, which includes being the CEO of Hewlett Packard, overseeing it for five years as the company fell apart and lost half of its value and thousands of its employees. She might have a plausible explanation for this unfortunate stain on her resume, but the fact remains that it was very successfully used against her when she was handily beaten during her failed bid for Senate in California.
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