Witherington on “Roman but Not Catholic”

Ben Witherington III has started a review series on the work “Roman but Not Catholic”, by Ken Collins and Jerry Walls. The various entries are pithily entitled Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, and Part 4. I’m not sure how far it will go, but here’s what he’s got so far:

Part 1: Keep in mind, “a text, not read in light of its original context, just becomes a pretext for whatever one wants it mean today, and distortion inevitably follows”, and “nothing can be theologically true that is historically false”.

Part 2: This is just a throwaway, introducing the next two sections as contributions by the two authors.

Part 3: Ken Collins outlines his own chapters in the book, 2,3,6,7,9-12,15-19. Topics include Tradition, Scripture, “The Church”, Sacraments, Priesthood (very good!), the papacy, Mary, Justification, and Regeneration, Assurance, and Conversion.

Part 4: Jerry Walls chapters (1,4,5,8,13,14, and 20), “What We Have in Common”, logical challenges to Newman and his theory of Development, dealing specifically with “the Tu Quoque” objection, the claims of the papacy in the light of probabilities of history, popular Roman Catholic apologetics, and also “the World’s Largest Pluralist Denomination”.

This is a work for your pastor – for you if you are a pastor! – or for the book table at your church. You don’t need it until you need it, and then you really will wish you had digested the contents of it while you’re talking to someone who wants to go “home to Rome”. The subject matter is not simple. In some ways, it is all-encompassing of twenty centuries of church history (in this sense, the book itself is pithy), seasoned with Scripture and sound logical argument.

And if you have not yet been to the Amazon site for this book, go there, check out the reviews, comment on them, write one for yourself, and encourage every Protestant to read it.

Performance variants

Bart Erhman pretentiously instructs people to read the Gospels horizontally as well as vertically. Don't just read through one Gospel at a time, but compare them side-by-side.

Of course, that's hardly a novel approach. There are published Gospel harmonies that do just that. 

For Erhman, this exposes discrepancies between the Gospels. Some scholars explain these "discrepancies" by appeal to redaction criticism. 

In this interview, Andy Bannister discusses the oral nature of the Koran. Around the 30-36 min. mark he describes the nature of "performance variants," and then applies that to the Gospels. These are not redactional variants, but reflect the living voice of Christ:  

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HmRGhxnbDu0&feature=share

Piggybacking on his argument, I'd like to make an additional point. It's common for scholars to remark that since Jesus was an itinerate preacher, we'd expect him to repeat himself at different times and places. And by the same token, we'd expect performance variants. There'd be minor verbal changes as he adapted his message to a particular audience at a particular time and place. Different synonyms. Adding a word here, subtracting a word there. Even when talking about the same thing or retelling the same story, speakers naturally reword things. Spontaneous variations. 

Yet there's a related, but neglected consideration. We shouldn't expect performance variants to confined to the same speech at a different time and place, but to the same speech at the same time and place.

It's generally acknowledged that the speeches, sermons, and dialogues in the Gospels and Acts are condensed. One stereotypical difference between the spoken word and the written word is that speech is a redundant medium. 

That parallels the difference between readers and listeners. A reader can process the material at his own pace whereas a listener hears what is said at the speaker's pace. Likewise, if a reader doesn't follow a sentence the first time he sees it, he can stop, go back, and reread it. 

By contrast, a listener can't pause the speaker. If an idea is spoken only once, it may get past the listener too fast to register.  If a listener doesn't understand a statement, and he puzzles over what it means, he can't simultaneously pay attention to the rest of what the speaker says. For the speaker just keeps on talking. 

As a result, a skillful speaker will repeat himself in the same speech to make it easier for listeners to process the message. He may repeat some phrases verbatim as well as paraphrasing the same idea. 

It's likely that Jesus expressed the same idea in different words in the course of the same discourse. The original discourse probably had performance variations. Not just wording things differently when he spoke to a different audience at a different time and place, but to the same audience at the same time and place.

If two or more people jotted down in journals what they heard Jesus say, they could, in principle, quote him verbatim, yet there'd still be verbal variations in their respective excerpts because they're quoting different parts of the same discourse. Where Jesus uses similar words to express the same idea. So there's no presumption that synoptic variants are redactional variants rather than performance variants. 

That doesn't rule out redaction in some cases. But we shouldn't default to that. 

The netherworld

Commenting on the witch of Endor episode, Robin Parry says:

The direction from which the spirit comes is repeated five times–he arises up from out of the earth. That makes perfect sense because the dead dwell under the earth R. Parry, The Biblical Cosmos (Cascade Books 2014), 80. 

Parry cites this to show that Biblical writers subscribe to a three-story universe. The realm of the dead is literally a huge subterranean cavern. However, Parry's inference is fallacious on several grounds. Here's the text:

8 So Saul disguised himself and put on other garments and went, he and two men with him. And they came to the woman by night. And he said, “Divine for me by a spirit and bring up for me whomever I shall name to you.” 9 The woman said to him, “Surely you know what Saul has done, how he has cut off the mediums and the necromancers from the land. Why then are you laying a trap for my life to bring about my death?” 10 But Saul swore to her by the Lord, “As the Lord lives, no punishment shall come upon you for this thing.” 11 Then the woman said, “Whom shall I bring up for you?” He said, “Bring up Samuel for me.” 12 When the woman saw Samuel, she cried out with a loud voice. And the woman said to Saul, “Why have you deceived me? You are Saul.” 13 The king said to her, “Do not be afraid. What do you see?” And the woman said to Saul, “I see a god coming up out of the earth.” 14 He said to her, “What is his appearance?” And she said, “An old man is coming up, and he is wrapped in a robe.” And Saul knew that it was Samuel, and he bowed with his face to the ground and paid homage. 15 Then Samuel said to Saul, “Why have you disturbed me by bringing me up?” Saul answered,  (1 Sam 28:9-14, ESV). 

i) The narrator doesn't say that that Samuel's ghost "came up". Rather, the narrator quotes three characters who use that terminology. Narrators don't necessarily or even presumptively endorse what they quote other people saying.

ii) Underworld imagery is based on the fact that graves are literally underground. Graves lie under the surface of the earth. 

iii) It's possible that some percentage of people in the ancient Near East actually thought the dead lived on in a vast, gloomy, subterranean necropolis. It's hard from our distance to say whether this is just an extended metaphor.

iv) In this context, "bring up" seems to be a necromantic formula based on netherworld imagery. An idiomatic phrase or incantation for summoning the dead. 

v) Apropos (iv), the medium may well continue to use the "up" language in her description of Samuel's apparition because that's part of the idiom. A linguistic convention for contacting the dead. 

In other words, it may be a dead metaphor (pardon the pun). The account begins with a stock formula, used by both characters (Saul and the medium) for conjuring the dead. And Samuel uses the same idiom. 

In addition, the repetition of the phrase makes it a leitwort. The whole account is suffused with the jargon of the trade to give it a particular cast. 

vi) Finally, if Samuel's ghost wanted to make a visible appearance, and speak to someone, where would that happen? Since Saul and the medium are earthlings, a face-to-face encounter requires a ghost to address the embodied human at eye-level. In other words, the ghost will appear, and assume a standing position, or create the illusion that he is standing, on terra firma. What other spatial frame of reference would work? Floating overhead? The encounter must take place at ground level because Saul and the medium are above ground. So we'd expect the surface of the earth to be the spatial frame of reference. What other spatial orientation would be feasible in that setting?

A Christian View Of The Afterlife And The Paranormal

I want to make several points that I hope will be helpful to people in thinking through issues pertaining to the afterlife and the paranormal. These subjects are important, and they often come up on television programs, in books, on the radio, on web sites, and in other contexts. It's important that we know how to address the issues.

This post isn't meant to be exhaustive. I'm just making several points among others that could be brought up.

- For most people, the afterlife has multiple phases. Think of Lazarus in Luke 16, for example. He was carried into Abraham's presence, in a sort of transitional phase between earth and heaven (Luke 16:22). Then he resided in Abraham's presence (Luke 16:23). Later, he'll be resurrected. So, Lazarus will have gone through at least a few different phases within the afterlife. The same can be said of unbelievers. For example, unbelievers haven't yet experienced resurrection, but will go through that phase of the afterlife in the future (John 5:28-29). The Bible also refers to different places in the afterlife that will exist in different contexts, like the new earth and the new Jerusalem. Genesis 35:18 refers to Rachel giving Benjamin a name as her soul departed. That's reminiscent of near-death experiences in which people report a somewhat lengthy process of leaving their bodies, sometimes going back and forth, in and out of the body. Sometimes the soul is even described as being attached to the body in some way, such as with a cord (The Handbook Of Near-Death Experiences [Santa Barbara, California: Praeger Publishers, 2009], 18). They didn't just instantaneously appear in heaven or hell. If there is such a process involved in the soul's departure from the body, with some people or with everybody, then that's another phase to take into account. The multiphased nature of the afterlife is important to keep in mind. People often take a simplistic approach toward the afterlife, or a Christian view of the subject in particular, as if those who have died are either in heaven or hell, and there's nothing more to it. Actually, there is more to it. We'll be able to better explain both the Biblical evidence and paranormal phenomena if we keep these distinctions in mind. For example, objecting that a person in hell wouldn't be able to come back to earth to make an appearance doesn't address whether the person could make an appearance during a phase when his soul is departing from his body, during a transitional phase between earth and hell, in a phase of hell that involves being a wandering spirit on earth, in a vision, etc.

Bulkheads

Lydia McGrew recently did a webinar, hosted by Jonathan McLatchie:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_9fUKdpPl6k&feature=youtu.be

I agree with most of what she said. And I commend the presentation to others. But I'd like to comment on some other things. 

During the Q/A session, she compared a courtroom witness who makes an innocent mistake (misremembering) to a witness who lies. Which witness would be more credible? That's a valid distinction.  

She mentioned someone who felt the McGrews emphasis on the human characteristics of Scripture was incompatible with divine inspiration. I'd just point out that according to the organic theory of inspiration, championed by Warfield, which is the standard paradigm in Baptist and Presbyterian inerrantist circles, human characteristics are not incompatible with the plenary inspiration of Scripture. 

She said she doesn't have worked out theory of inspiration. She approaches Scripture as a historian rather than theologian. Approaches Scripture as historical source material rather than a religious authority. Her methodology is inductive rather than a priori. The "nitty-gritty ground level". "What do we appear to have?"  

This raises a number of familiar issues. It goes back to old debates over the proper starting point when we formulate a theory of inspiration. Do we begin with the "phenomena" of Scripture?  It also goes to methodological differences between evidential and presuppositional apologetics. 

1. Let's put this in a larger context. Although some evidentialists affirm the inerrancy of Scripture, that's expendable to their theology because even if they discovered that Scripture was fallible, they have a safety net in the historical evidence and basic historical reliability of the Bible, especially the Gospels. 

A pragmatic objection to rejecting the inerrancy of Scripture is that once you deny it, there's nothing to prevent free fall. So the question is whether they have a containment principle. One way some of them defend their position is to say the Bible doesn't rise or fall as a unit. Rather, some books have better evidence than others. They're independent of each other in that respect. Skepticism about the Pentateuch doesn't spill over into skepticism about the Gospels because the Pentateuch and the Gospels are not on an evidential par. 

If we were using a metaphor to illustrate their orientation, we might use bulkheads. Sailors don't like to drown. As a result, they've designed vessels with bulkheads. The hull is subdivided into a series of watertight compartments so that even if the hull is punctured in one or more places, the entire hull doesn't fill with water. That contains the damage. If the hull is breached, the ship doesn't automatically sink. 

Some evidentialists think their position is actually more stable than doctrinaire inerrantists. They regard commitment to inerrancy as a "house of cards". By contrast, they think they have a fallback position even if the Bible is shown to be erroneous in some respects. 

2. What are we to make of that position? There's a sense in which it's preferable to have an alternative that stops short of instant apostasy if the Bible is perceived to be fallible. And in theory, it might be possible to treat books of the Bible on a case-by-case basis, depending on the particular evidence for each particular book. Kinda like a passenger train where if one car catches fire, it can be uncoupled from the other cars and left to burn without setting the entire train on fire.  

3. There are, however, some serious problems with this kind of evidentialism. For one thing, many books of the Bible aren't that compartmentalized. Because the NT, including the Gospels, constantly appeals to OT validation, the veracity of the NT is inseparable from the veracity of the OT.

4. Although we can approach the Bible historically, we must also approach the Bible theologically because it claims to be a theological document as well as a historical record. The Bible doesn't simply make claims about historical events. It also makes claims about a revelatory God. A God of words as well as deeds. One of the defining features of the Judeo-Christian faith is the stress on God who speaks, in contrast to the dumb idol gods of paganism. 

Not only does the God of biblical theism act in history, but he acts in people. He speaks to and through chosen agents. Which goes to another fundamental distinction: the difference between true and false prophecy. A false prophet isn't merely a prophet to makes false predictions. In principle and practice, a false prophet may make true predictions. What makes him a false prophet is that he presumes to speak on God's behalf without divine inspiration. 

Even in the case of revelation that originates in dreams and visions, visionary revelation is converted into verbal revelation. That's why we have a record of visionary revelation. It had to be verbalized. Committed to writing. Adapted from a visual medium to a propositional medium. 

5. Put another way, the Bible doesn't simply make claims people and events from a detached, third-person perspective. It also assumes a first-person perspective by making claims about itself. Not just what was said, but the divine speaker. It makes self-referential claims about the process of inspiration and revelation. That's essential to the identity of the Judeo-Christian faith as a revealed religion. A religion of the word. Revelatory words. Bible writers don't simply report facts, but report their religious experience, as instruments of divine disclosure. Conduits of divine communication. Depending on the genre, that's sometimes explicit and sometimes implicit. Sometimes conscious and sometimes unconscious:

http://triablogue.blogspot.co.at/2014/06/plenary-verbal-inspiration.html

It's misleading to say commitment to inerrancy is a priori rather than inductive. For what we "appear to have"–the "nitty-gritty ground level"–includes the revelatory self-ascription. That lies on the face of many biblical texts. And it is, by precedent, the presupposition of other texts. 

Inerrancy is not an a priori posit, like philosophical stipulations and speculations about what is fitting or unfitting for God to say, do, or permit. Inerrancy is not, in the first instance, a deduction from a theological intuition about the nature of God and God's relation to the world. Rather, the doctrine of plenary verbal inspiration is as much a part of the testimonial evidence as the historical claims. Indeed, they are intertwined:

https://frame-poythress.org/scripture-speaks-for-itself/

6. Not only is presuppositionalism more theological than evidentialism, but it's more philosophical in the sense that it rejects the coherence of an atheistic alternative. That's a wall, not a door. Atheism is not an exit, but an optical illusion (as it were). That's a door jam painted on a way. But there's nothing outside the reality of God's world. There's nowhere else to go. 

7. Randal Rauser furnishes an instructive comparison. He rejects the inerrancy of Scripture. He has a face-saving position that he euphemistically dubs the "appropriation" model of inspiration. However, Rauser's primary frame of reference is philosophical theology rather than revelation. Yet there's nothing distinctively Christian about philosophical theology divorced from Biblical revelation. At best, a generic theism about truths of reason rather than truths of fact. Necessary universal truths rather than contingent historical particulars. That nicely illustrates the hazards of a religious orientation that's not grounded in biblical revelation. 

Pseudo-dilemmas

Thought-experiments are common in science and philosophy. Atheists and Christian apologists both employ thought-experiments. These are useful in different ways:

i) Sometimes we resort to a thought-experiment because an actual expedient isn't feasible.

ii) Apropos (i), an advantage of thought-experiments in ethics is that no one is really hurt, since the victims are hypothetical characters rather than sentient people. 

iii) Thought-experiments enable us to screen out extraneous variables. By contrast, real life is messy.

iv) Thought-experiments are used to test a generalization. If there are counterexamples, then that's a hasty generalization. If it allows for exceptions, than it's not true or false in principle. Rather, it may be true or false depending on the situation. 

v) By the same token, thought-experiments can be used to test someone's consistency or commitment. If their position has dire consequences when taken to a logical extreme, will they balk?

vi) Despite the value of thought-experiments, it's necessary to distinguish between real or realistic dilemmas, and highly artificial or pseudo-dilemmas. 

Suppose an atheist puts a Christian on the spot by asking, What would you do if you discovered that the Fall (Gen 3) was legendary, or the Flood (Gen 6-9) was legendary, or the call of Abraham (Gen 12) was legendary, or the binding of Isaac (Gen 22) was legendary, or the Exodus was legendary, or the nativity accounts (Matthew & Luke) were legendary?

These hypothetical scenarios are designed to generate a psychological dilemma for the Christian. What is he prepared to jettison to relieve the dilemma?

In the nature of the case, dilemmas eliminate all the good options. That's what makes them a dilemma. Within that framework, there is no good answer. Every answer will be costly. 

But that the same token, that makes them pseudo-dilemmas. We're not really confronted with that stark choice. And we have no obligation to submit to those arbitrarily restrictive alternatives. 

Unless and until we actually have to cross that bridge, there's no reason to take them seriously. They're just mind games. A conundrum that only exists in the imagination rather than reality. It's up to God, in his providence, whether we face genuine dilemmas. 

vii) And thought-experiments cut both ways. It's easy to pose dilemmas for an atheist. How much is he prepared to lose? And that's not even hypothetical. 

Cliques

A perennial issue regarding inerrancy, historicity, and the Resurrection, is whether the Resurrection accounts are discrepant. Can the differences be harmonized? 

One problem with answering the question is due to the ambiguity of the question. In addition, some people, like Bart Ehrman or Harold Lindsell have a very rigid definition of what it means for an account to be factually accurate. 

There's more than one sense in which the Resurrection accounts may be reconcilable or irreconcilable: 

i) It's possible to collate the original order of events 

ii) There are plausible ways to collate the original order of events

iii) The accounts are hopelessly contradictory

(i) is a more ambitious claim than (ii). According to (i), by comparing the different accounts, we can reconstruct the original sequence. We can thereby demonstrate that the accounts are harmonious.

According to (ii), given the available data, there's more than one way to sequence the events. Although we can't detail the original sequence with certainty, we can demonstrate that the accounts aren't necessarily (or even probably) contradictory. 

Let's take a comparison. Suppose you walk into a high school cafeteria for the first time. You see a bunch of students at tables talking and eating. At first glance, the distribution appears to be random. 

However, if you come back day after day, you notice a pattern. Usually the same students sit together. The crowd self-segregates into smaller groups or cliques. Some students are friends with other students, although no student may be friends with every student. There may also be unpopular students who don't belong to any clique. 

In addition, there may be overlapping cliques. Two different cliques can share at least one student in common. Suppose Ted and Ed belong to the same clique, while Fred and Ed belong to another clique, but Ted and Fred don't belong to the same clique. 

Suppose there's a high school reunion ten years later. Let's say four alumni who attend the reunion jot down who they saw in diaries when they return home after the reunion that evening.

What would these entries have in common? It wouldn't be surprising if they have almost nothing in common besides a generic reference to their high school reunion. They might not name their alma mater, because they are making a record for their own benefit, and they know what high school they attended. They don't need to remind themselves of that.

In addition, it wouldn't be surprising the four accounts fail to mention any of the same students. That's because, when they go to their high school reunion, they don't want to reconnect with all their former classmates. They didn't even like some of their classmates. 

Instead, they want to reconnect with members of their clique. When they attend the reunion, they will have their eye out for a subset of students they want to see again. 

However, it wouldn't be surprising if at least two of the four accounts mention one or more students in common, due to overlapping cliques. At the reunion, Ed spoke to Ted and Fred, even though Ted and Fred didn't converse with each other. 

But contrast, it would be extremely surprising if all four accounts mentioned all the same students. Indeed, that would scarcely be credible. If the accounts are accurate, you'd expect one account to omit names included in another account. That's because socializing at such an event is not a random aggregate, but discriminating. Some former classmates are looking for other former classmates in particular. They won't write about most of the people in attendance. It would be a telltale sign of artificiality if all four accounts mentioned all the same students. 

Now, if you attempted to correlate these four accounts, could you reconstruct the original order of events. I don't see how that's possible. For one thing, these accounts are highly selective. There's not enough information to say who saw who first, then who saw who second, then who saw who third.

Moreover, it's not reducible to a single linear sequence even in principle. For the way in which members of one clique reconnect at that event aren't synchronized with how members of another clique reconnect at that event. There's a different sequence for each witness, because each witness talks to one classmate, then another, then another. And that will be different from the people another classmates talks to. 

Put another way, at a high school reunion there are reunions within reunions. They will break up into their old cliques, and chatter away with members of their own cliques. There will be parallel conversations in different cliques.

Furthermore, some arrive at the event sooner and leave sooner, some arrive later and leave later, some arrive later and leave sooner, while some arrive sooner and leave later. There will be many different chronologies within the same event. 

Compare that to the first Easter. You have different groups going at different times. It's not coordinated, but spontaneous. Some people may go back more than once. Some go as individuals, others go in groups. It's like the high school reunion with different cliques. 

When different witnesses write that down, or share their testimony, there will naturally be omissions, and it will be hard to intercalate one account with another account, since each account is selective, and even if they overlap, it will be hard to say who did what first, then who did what second, then who did what third, in a uniform series of encounters. 

It's completely unreasonable to think a reader should be able to harmonize the four accounts in that sense. Did Ted talk to Ed before or after Ted spoke to Fred? 

But what we may be able to do, using our imagination to fill in the gaps, is to arrange the same information in different possible configurations. What a critic of the historicity or inerrancy of the accounts must demonstrate is that there is no way to arrange these accounts into a plausible sequence. But the same imponderables which prevent a harmonist from reconstructing the original sequence prevent the critic from demonstrating a contradiction. 

I think the best we can expect at this distance from events is to mentally try out different combinations. And more than one hypothetical combination may be consistent with the available information. Go back to the illustration of four entries from different diaries about the same reunion. Your ability to correlate those accounts will be limited. That isn't special pleading. That's just the situation that confronts an outsider reading partial accounts of the same event. There's no presumption that the four accounts are inaccurate just because  we're unable correlate them with certainty, for reasons I've given. 

Hanky-panky roundup

https://energeticprocession.wordpress.com/2018/01/07/a-table-in-the-presence-of-my-enemies/

While Shepherd Watched Their Flocks By Night

In the Eastern church, Epiphany commemorates the baptism of Christ, but in the Western church it commemorates the visitation of the Magi. While it's good to commemorate both events, chronologically speaking, it makes more sense, on the heels of Christmas, to commemorate the visitation of the Magi. In popular piety, the nativity accounts of Matthew and Luke are combined, although the visitation of the Magi was about a year or so later:

Two fine performances of the same hymn:

I generally prefer the first although the second ends on a strong note (literally!) with a better descant and dramatic view of stained glass windows.

In the first performance it's nice to see the choristers instinctively rocking to the gentle rhythm of the hymn. And it's good to see men (as well as women!) singing Christian music in unison. Good for men to have that in common, directing and uniting their minds to the chief end of man.

(I'm struck by how many parishioners don't sing at all, even in traditional churches.)

What would Adam think if he could see (perhaps he can!) his posterity, thousands of years later, celebrating Christmas and Epiphany in this chapel? Although we are exiles, banished from Eden, we have made little Edens in the wilderness.

And a fine performance by another classic Epiphany hymn:

Christmas customs

I have been a Christian pastor for several years and I have a question that worries me. I would be very grateful if you could help me with your opinion on this subject. I am concerned about the usage of the Christmas tree in the celebration for the birth of Christ. There are some important facts: - The Christmas tree has a pagan origin, and was used in Celtic beliefs as part of pagan worship. - The Bible teaches us not to mix the pagan with the holy. This was the continuous struggle of the people of Israel from the time they left Egypt until they returned from the exile. Based on these two statements, should Christians use a Christmas tree as a decoration during the celebration of the birth of Christ? 

https://www.reasonablefaith.org/writings/question-answer/should-i-ditch-our-christmas-tree

Craig answered this question, but I have my own response:

i) Christmas customs are not obligatory. These are not religious duties, commanded in Scripture. But by the same token, they're not forbidden.

It's good for Christians to annually commemorate key events in the life of Christ. If anything, the church calendar would benefit from systematically tracking events in the Gospels.

ii) It's good for Christians to be discriminating about what Christmas customs they observe. For instance, I disapprove of most secular Christmas songs. They are trite. They trivialize the season.

By the same token, I wouldn't include Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, as a Christian parent, in my family tradition. That presents a complete counter narrative to the real Christmas story. A subversive alternative. In that regard it's not essentially different from Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials, even if the film is not intentionally anti-Christian. 

I remember watching Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, in elementary school. As I recall, I thought it was effective storytelling, although I didn't care for the music. 

iii) However, Christmas trees, Christmas wreaths, mistletoe, and so forth, are natural objects. They have no intrinsic pagan significance. Pagans make use of natural objects to symbolize pagan beliefs, but that's a case of projecting something artificial onto the object. That doesn't make a natural object pagan. A tree is a God-given object. 

When Christians make use of natural objects, they are reclaiming God's creation from heathen usurpation. Taking back what pagans stole. It was never theirs in the first place. Pagans have no claim on God's creation. They are not entitled to reinterpret the significance of natural objects. They have no right to turn natural objects into pagan emblems.

iv) Christmas trees are decorated with lights and reflective materials to create a festive, celebratory atmosphere. Light is an ancient, central biblical metaphor. In the Gospels, light is associated with Christ. The star of Bethlehem (Matthew)–as well as Christ: the primeval light, entering the world he made (John). 

v) On a related note, Christian readers are often disturbed by how account of the Magi exploits heathen astronomy and astrology. But once again, pagans have no claim on celestial objects. Matthew is divesting heathen astronomy and astrology of its impious misappropriation by restoring and redirecting attention to the Creator of the heavens, born as the Savior of the world. 

The lantern of the soul

Craig fields a question comparing ISIS to OT holy war:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mcuqAC1e1Ys

I though Craig did a fairly good job in 3 1/2 minutes. I'll add a few observations of my own. I've discussed this general issue before, but not in reference to ISIS. And I won't repeat everything I've said about OT holy war. 

i) Some people object that if it weren't in the Bible, Christians wouldn't defend OT holy war. That may well be true, although I don't think that's a damning admission. If I weren't a Christian, I'd have lots of shallow, unexamined, unjustified beliefs. And it's not as if an atheist has a superior position. 

ii) If I were making a case against Islam, I wouldn't begin with jihad. Both the Bible and the primary sources of Islam have religiously-sanctioned violence. That's not what distinguishes Christianity from Islam. 

iii) Mind you, that comparison only works at a very abstract level of generality. Violence can be identical in some respects, but morally different. Take a murderer who shoots someone to death and executing a murderer by firing squad. In one respect their identical, but that overlooks fundamental moral differences.

Or compare a schoolyard sniper with a human shield situation. In both cases, innocent children may die, but those are not morally equivalent situations.

Likewise, in war, both sides may use the same weaponry, yet one side may be fighting for a just case while the other side is fighting for an unjust cause. It's not primarily a question of the kind of violence or the objects of violence, but the rationale. A Martian observer, just watching the battle, might think both sides are interchangeable, but that's undiscerning. 

iv) ISIS deliberately practices the most excruciating ways of killing that their fiendish imagination can devise. Exultant sadism. A religious pretext to be get in touch with their inner psychopath.

By contrast, the OT holy war doesn't torture the enemy to death. Although OT holy war is brutal, it doesn't practice cruelty for cruelty's sake.

v) In addition, OT holy war doesn't use violence to spread the faith. This goes to two radically divergent views of conversion.

In Islam, conversion is conformity. It's not a change of belief. When someone converts at gunpoint, they have the same beliefs and attitudes after conversion as they had before conversion. The only change is a different public facade. They feign reverence for the new faith. They say and do whatever is necessary to survive or thrive. 

It's very revealing that Islam values such a thin, perfunctory piety. Just say the right things and do the right things with no corresponding assent.

Compare that to OT piety, with its stress on circumcision of the heart. Or prophetic denunciations of mechanical ritualism. 

In biblical piety, faith is conviction first, and profession second. Not profession without conviction.

In biblical piety, conversion involves a transformation in the convert's entire outlook. A spiritual rebirth. A new heart. Loving God with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength.  

vi) That's why the Judeo-Christian faith can never endorse mass conversion, in that externalistic sense. That's why, even though Christianity is a missionary religion, a global religion by design, it is not a religion of world conquest, in the sense of using violence as an evangelistic tool. Coercion is an an instrument of submission, not persuasion. You can't force someone to believe against their will. At best, you can force them to pretend to agree with you. Like extracting a confession under torture. 

Biblical faith abhors mock piety. Abhors pious playacting. In biblical piety, faith proceeds from the inside out. God lights the lantern of the soul, which then radiates outward. 

vii) All these OT cultures were warrior cultures. They practiced military conquest. The Israelites weren't doing anything to the Canaanites that the Canaanites weren't doing to their neighbors, and vice versa. Indeed, the OT laws of warfare are quite restrictive. It's about securing a particular territory, with clearly-defined borders. That's it. 

Am I toxically paranoid, or are you naïvely inured?

https://bnonn.com/toxically-paranoid-naively-inured/

Are there ghosts?

Question: "What does the Bible say about ghosts / hauntings?"

Answer: Is there such a thing as ghosts? The answer to this question depends on what precisely is meant by the term “ghosts.” If the term means “spirit beings,” the answer is a qualified “yes.” If the term means “spirits of people who have died,” the answer is “no.” The Bible makes it abundantly clear that there are spirit beings, both good and evil. But the Bible negates the idea that the spirits of deceased human beings can remain on earth and “haunt” the living.

Hebrews 9:27 declares, “Man is destined to die once, and after that to face judgment.” That is what happens to a person’s soul-spirit after death—judgment. The result of this judgment is heaven for the believer (2 Corinthians 5:6-8; Philippians 1:23) and hell for the unbeliever (Matthew 25:46; Luke 16:22-24). There is no in-between. There is no possibility of remaining on earth in spirit form as a “ghost.” If there are such things as ghosts, according to the Bible, they absolutely cannot be the disembodied spirits of deceased human beings.

The Bible teaches very clearly that there are indeed spirit beings who can connect with and appear in our physical world. The Bible identifies these beings as angels and demons. Angels are spirit beings who are faithful in serving God. Angels are righteous, good, and holy. Demons are fallen angels, angels who rebelled against God. Demons are evil, deceptive, and destructive. According to 2 Corinthians 11:14-15, demons masquerade as “angels of light” and as “servants of righteousness.” Appearing as a “ghost” and impersonating a deceased human being definitely seem to be within the power and abilities that demons possess.

https://www.gotquestions.org/ghosts-hauntings.html

1. It's true that we need to take demonic activity into account. The question is whether that's an ad hoc explanation for all prima facie apparitions of the dead. 

2. The respondent's major prooftext is Heb 9:27. However, he doesn't exegete that text or explain how disproves the existence of ghosts. Let's examine the text:

And just as it is appointed for man to die once, and after that comes judgment (Heb 9:27, ESV).

i) Considered in isolation, this might be a universal statement: every human will die. Moreover, every human will die just one time. 

ii) In addition, both claims might be universal. Those who face judgment are coextensive with those who die. If death is universal, then judgment is universal. 

3. Let's consider the first clause. Is it universally true that everybody dies just once? For that matter, is it universally true that everyone dies? You can't die more than once unless you die at least one time. You can't die more than once unless you die a first time. But in Scripture, there are exceptions:

i) Elijah (1 Kgs 17) and Elisha (2 Kgs 4) raise the dead. But presumably, the children they restored to life were not immortal. So they died a second time. There's also the somewhat enigmatic statement about the revived corpse in 2 Kgs 13. But that might be another case of someone who's temporally revived, only to die a second time. 

In addition, Jesus raised the dead, viz. Lazarus (Jn 11), the daughter of Jairus (Lk 8), and the widow's son (Lk 7). Likewise, Peter raised the dead (Acts 9). More ambiguous is the case of Eutychus (Acts 20). 

Presumably, although these people were revived, they were still mortal. So they died a second time. 

ii) In addition, Paul indicates that Christians who are alive at the time of the Parousia will become instantly immortal (1 Cor 15:51; 1 Thes 4:17). So they won't die at all. 

iii) Likewise, there's the translation of Enoch (Heb 11:5) and Elijah (2 Kgs 2), who escape death by that intervention. 

In addition, what happened to the saints in Mt 27:50-53?

iv) Assuming the inerrancy of Scripture, Heb 9:27a is a general claim rather than a universal claim. Not a statement about what happens to everyone, but what happens to humans in general. 

And that's confined to examples from Bible history. But the Bible is not an encyclopedia. It doesn't detail everything that exists or everything that happens. 

v) Put another way, Heb 9:27 is not an absolute claim, but a statement about what happens to humans, all other things being equal. Yet it makes allowance for exceptions, all things considered. Like many unqualified statements in Scripture, it has an implicit ceteris paribus clause. If other conditions hold constant, if other factors remain unchanged, then that's what will happen. But in some cases, a different outcome is possible if there's a countervailing factor. 

4. In addition, this 1C statement doesn't address situations in which someone who's clinically dead is resuscitated by medical technology. Take someone who falls through ice, drowning in a fridge pond. He dies, but the chilling effect temporarily prevents necrosis, so in some cases he can be revived. But he'd be dead by 1C criteria. 

5. Let's consider the second clause. Is that a universal claim? Does it mean every human will undergo divine judgment? That depends on what the author means by "judgment" in this context:

a) Sometimes "judgment" has is a synonym for condemnation, damnation, eschatological punishment (e.g. Heb 10:27-30). But the author doesn't mean everyone will face judgment in a punitive sense. To the contrary, he sets "judgment" in v27 in contrast to "salvation" in v28. Some experience judgment while others experience deliverance from judgment. So the claim isn't universal in that sense.

b) Sometimes "judgment" denotes a verdict of acquittal or conviction (e.g. Heb 4:13; 12:23; 13:4). So it might be universal in that discriminating sense. 

6. In addition, Scripture presents a two-stage afterlife: (i) the intermediate state, followed by (ii) the final state. In that sense, most humans will be "judged" twice:

i) There's what happens to you after you die. The period in-between death and the Day of Judgment. Postmortem judgment is repeatable and individual. It happens at different times throughout human history, because people die at different times. 

ii) Then there's eschatological judgment. The Final Judgment. That's a corporate, one-time event at the end of the church age (or thereabouts). 

7. According to Scripture, every human will experience one of two divergent eternal destinies. The concise statement in Heb 9:27 doesn't unpack all these subdivisions. 

8. Does Heb 9:27 preclude apparitions of the dead? In principle, there are three or four possible options:

i) There's no possible contact between the living and the dead

ii) It's possible for the saints to contact the living

iii) It's possible for the damned to contact the living

iv) Both (ii) & (iii)

9. Some Christians think "judgment" in Heb 9:27 means that damned are quarantined, so that contact between the damned and the living is impossible. Even if that's true, it doesn't address the very different case of sainted believers. 

We have apparitions of the dead (Moses) at the Transfiguration (Mt 17). 1 Sam 28 is a prima facie apparition of the dead, in the context of necromancy. (Some readers dispute that interpretation.) 

In addition, Jesus appears to Paul (Acts 9) and John (Rev 1). 

The "dead" is ambiguous terminology. Jesus is alive, yet he usually resides in the realm of the "dead" (e.g. with the saints in heaven).

So even if Scripture ruled out apparitions of the damned, it doesn't rule out apparitions of the saints. (I'm using "saints," not in the Roman Catholic sense, but in reference to dead Christians.)

And, once again, it's important to keep in mind that the Bible is not an encyclopedia. We need to draw a distinction:

i) Scripture doesn't say if X happens

ii) Scripture says X doesn't happen

But (i) is not equivalent to (ii). The silence of Scripture is not a denial. 

10. Are the damned quarantined? Maybe so, maybe not. That depends on the nature of postmortem punishment and the intermediate state of the damned. Suppose, until the "great separation" at the Day of Judgment, some of the damned are "wandering spirits" or "restless spirits". That in itself is a punitive condition.

11. Consider the alternative explanation: demons impersonating the dead. But if demons aren't quarantined, why insist that the souls of damned humans are quarantined? After all, doesn't Scripture depict fallen angels as imprisoned spirits (e.g. 2 Pet 2:4; Jude 6; Rev 9:1-3)? But if that picturesque language makes allowance for demonic activity on earth, why not ghosts? 

12. Yes, believers go to heaven when they die. Does that mean they're confined to heaven? Was Moses confined to heaven? Or Elijah? Or Jesus. Or celestial angels? 

13. What about the parable of Lazarus and Dives (Lk 16)? 

i) That's tricky because it's a fictional illustration, so the question is how much it is meant to illustrate. For instance, if you press the details, this would mean the damned can contact the saints. But do Christians who deny the existence of ghosts think that's generally the case? Can the denizens of hell initiate contact with the denizens of heaven whenever they feel like it? Is that realistic? Or is this an imaginary conversation between someone in "heaven" (Abraham) and someone in "hell" (the rich man) to illustrate whatever lesson(s) the parable is meant to teach?

ii) In addition, the barrier in that scene isn't between heaven and earth, but heaven and hell. There's no traffic between heaven and hell (v26), but that doesn't rule out the possibility of traffic between heaven and earth. When the rich man asks Abraham to send Lazarus back to warn the rich man's living relatives, Abraham doesn't say there's another barrier which prevents that. Rather, he says it would be futile since they wouldn't listen. 

Moreover, v31 is an allusion to the Resurrection, not the intermediate state. That verse doesn't speak directly to the status of ghosts. Rather, it foreshadows the incredulous reaction of the Jewish establishment to the resurrection of Christ.

14. BTW, I don't subscribe to universalism, annihilationism, postmortem salvation, or Purgatory. My analysis takes for granted a traditional evangelical view of the afterlife–which I've defended on other occasions. 

Why become Roman Catholic

Olson is far more charitable towards Catholicism than I am. That said, he does a nice job of skewering a Catholic selling-point:

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/rogereolson/2018/01/4992/

God has a wonderful plan for your afterlife

"God has a wonderful plan for your life". That's a popular theological trope. When I Google it I get nearly 27 million hits!

God's wonderful plan for your life represents his "perfect will". However, you may squander that opportunity. God's "wonderful plan" stands in contrast to his "permissive will," in case you fail to take advantage of his "wonderful plan" for your life.

From the standpoint of Calvinism, how should we evaluate this paradigm? 

i) God has a plan for everyone's life. There's no distinction between a perfect will and a permissive will in that regard. Everything happens according to his master plan.

ii) Does God have a "wonderful" plan for everyone's life? Depends on how you define "wonderful". Did Jeremiah have a wonderful life? It wasn't wonderful for him. It was wretched. 

I suppose you could say it was wonderful in terms of the contribution it has made to world history.

iii) Conversely, there are evil people whose lives are a hedonistic paradise. They have a "wonderful" life–in that hedonistic sense–while many devout believers suffer.

iv) It would be more accurate to say that God has a wonderful plan for your afterlife. Of course, I don't mean for everyone. I'm not a universalist. But Scripture stresses a reversal of fortunes. The parable of Lazarus and the Rich Man is a classic example. 

Why Jesus Wouldn't Appear To Every Individual Or Christian Today

I want to add some comments of my own to Steve Hays' recent post on the subject. I don't want to repeat every point he's made, but there will be some overlap.

In my experience, skeptics don't give much consideration to the disadvantages of these alternatives to Christianity they propose, in this case an alternative version of Christianity that would have Jesus making an appearance to every individual or every Christian. They're so focused on the supposed advantages of their scenario that they give little attention to the downside.

There's no reason to think an appearance of Jesus would be necessary. Lesser evidence would be adequate. Why should we think the work of the Holy Spirit in an individual's heart, historical evidence for Jesus' life that's comparable to the evidence we commonly accept in other contexts involving historical matters, and other such means of leading a person to faith aren't enough?

God is simultaneously accomplishing multiple purposes in the world. Often, there are tradeoffs that require one thing to be gained at the expense of another.

Part of what God is doing is revealing and developing our character. For example, when an atheist doesn't have an adequate explanation for the evidence he has, yet he demands more evidence, that tells us something about his character. Similarly, there's a building of character when somebody who will eventually become a Christian has to value God enough to seek him, improves his character as he thinks through evidential issues and applies his conclusions to his life, and so on.

There are implications for God's character and how we relate to him. There's dignity in a king offering a pardon on his own terms rather than the criminal's. What if the criminal demands that the king come to him and give him the pardon in person? Whether the king accommodates that demand has implications for his character, how he's perceived, how other people looking on will behave, and so forth.

As Steve mentioned in his post, we have many extrabiblical examples of God providing people with an unusually large amount of evidence if he sees fit, and there are many Biblical examples of God doing so as well. God has sometimes answered my prayers, given me highly evidential supernatural confirmation of something in a context in which that confirmation was important to me, and acted supernaturally in my life in other ways. He doesn't always do it, and when he does it, the evidence he provides isn't maximal or even close to maximal. It doesn't have to be. (Similarly, when I'm interacting with other people, I often give them less evidence than I could, since that lesser evidence is adequate. Providing more would be inefficient, take too much time, give a false impression about what's needed in the situation, encourage false expectations in future contexts, etc.) And asking for more evidence wouldn't explain the evidence I have.

For some examples of the evidence we have, which critics are claiming we need to have supplemented, see here, here, and here. The presence of that evidence is far more difficult for a skeptic to explain than the absence of further evidence is for a Christian to explain. What Christianity affirms about matters like God's sovereignty and the work of the Holy Spirit make an appearance of Jesus to everybody unnecessary. God is already addressing everybody adequately. If that adequate work is supplemented by lines of evidence like the ones addressed in my three links above, there's no reason to think that more is needed.