The Value Of A Human Psi Hypothesis

Since I appealed to human paranormal activity as the best explanation of UFOs in my last post, in the process of commenting on Lue Elizondo's recent book, I thought I'd reiterate and expand upon an important point in that context. One of the values of a human psi hypothesis is that it includes both living and deceased humans. That can be thought of in contrast to what people often refer to as a living agent psi hypothesis, one that involves the paranormal activity of living humans. I believe in postmortem survival, because of the evidence for Christianity and for other reasons. So, I don't limit human activity to this life. One of the things that follows from including deceased humans in a paranormal explanation is that it allows for more advanced forms of paranormal activity while retaining the human element. A deceased human may have developed his paranormal abilities with the passing of time (which can span a lengthy period in the context of the afterlife), some of the actual or potential contexts of the afterlife can provide humans with knowledge or motives they wouldn't have in this life, etc. It's important that we keep in mind that a human psi hypothesis doesn't have to limit itself to living humans. That's one of the strengths of the hypothesis.

Lue Elizondo's New Book On UFOs

Elizondo, a former high-ranking official in the United States government's efforts to research UFOs, recently published a book on the subject, Imminent (New York, New York: William Morrow, 2024). I've listened to the audio version of it, and I've listened to a couple of recent interviews with Elizondo, one by Joe Rogan and another by Ross Coulthart. It's a significant book with a lot of valuable information in it. It will be read by many people and influence even more.

One of the reasons why I want to discuss it here is that it addresses some religious issues, more than I expected, and I want to discuss the behavior of some of the Christians Elizondo refers to. The book is also worth discussing for other reasons, some of which I'll get into below.

The Value Of Less Dramatic Conversions

He's commenting on passages like Romans 16:19 and the value of avoiding evil rather than having a more dramatic conversion from sin:

"I remember David Michael used to stand up and give a testimony. He said, 'God delivered me from drugs and alcohol and sexual immorality when I was six years old.' It was a great testimony. Don't even be a beginner [in sin]." (John Piper, 13:00 here)

Does an audience's hatred of God justify an abandonment of apologetics?

People make a lot of excuses for neglecting apologetics, and one of the more popular excuses is that the audience involved can't be influenced by apologetics because of their hatred of God. Supposedly, we shouldn't even attempt to persuade them, because of that hatred, because they like their sin too much to be reasoned with, etc. There are a lot of problems with that line of thought.

An infallible church in 1 Timothy 3:15?

Gavin Ortlund recently produced a video on the subject that makes some good points. Another passage that's often brought up in this context is Acts 15. On that passage, see the relevant parts of my posts here and here.

Is there support for praying to angels in Origen's Homilies On Ezekiel?

You can access a recent English translation of the homilies here. In section 1:7:2 (pp. 39 and 41 of the e-book just linked), Origen writes as if he's addressing an angel:

Similarities Between UFOs And Other Paranormal Phenomena

Michael Nahm has published an article that discusses similarities between UFO-related events and other paranormal phenomena.

Examples Of First-Century Sources Passing On Information To Second-Century Sources About New Testament Origins

When skeptics put forward hypotheses in which second-century Christians speculated about New Testament origins without having received much information on those issues from their predecessors, those hypotheses aren't just highly unlikely in the abstract. They're also contrary to the testimony we have from multiple first- and early-second-century sources. So, one way you can respond to such skeptical claims is by citing such testimony. Here are a few examples.

Talk About Weird

Since there's been a lot of talk about alleged weirdness in politics lately:

"And we have to fight our way every day through this God-trivializing fog that we live in. We can hardly mention God in polite society. You don't need any reason to talk to a friend about the Atlanta Braves, but you actually have to have a reason to talk about God in a conversation. Think about how wrong that is. Almighty God, who sustains everything every moment of every day, is not front-page news. That's weird. Why? An idol has taken over." (Ray Ortlund, 4:12 in the audio of his April 20, 2003 sermon here)

Who are you going to offend?

"Let us rather offend those men who are foolish, and inconsiderate, and lifted up, and who glory in the pride of their speech, than offend God." (Clement of Rome, First Clement, 21)

The Apologetic Task

"Our Saviour and Lord Jesus Christ was silent when false witnesses spoke against him, and answered nothing when he was accused; he was convinced that all his life and actions among the Jews were better than any speech in refutation of the false witness and superior to any words that he might say in reply to the accusations.…Whereas it is our task, since we try to confirm men's faith by arguments and treatises, to do all in our power that we may be called 'workmen who need not to be ashamed, handling rightly the word of truth'. One of all these tasks seems to us to be that of demolishing Celsus' plausible arguments to the best of our ability, and to perform faithfully the work which you have enjoined upon us." (Origen, Against Celsus, Preface:1, 5:1, in Henry Chadwick, ed., Origen: Contra Celsum [New York, New York: Cambridge University Press, 2003], 3, 264)

What if Papias wasn't referring to the canonical gospels?

It's become popular to argue that when Papias attributed some documents to Mark and Matthew, he wasn't referring to the canonical gospels we have today. Here's a response I recently wrote to that objection in a YouTube thread:

Jesus' Use Of Mountains

Something the Synoptics, the fourth gospel, and Acts have in common is that they refer to Jesus' use of mountains. And we often see two or more of those sources referring to his using mountains in similar ways (to teach, to be with the Twelve, to be alone, to pray, etc.). For example:

Set Your Minds To Think About The Biggest Issues

"Oh how many times I heard my father say the ominous words of Ecclesiastes 12:1: 'Remember also your Creator in the days of your youth, before the evil days come, and the years draw nigh, when you will say, 'I have no pleasure in them.''…Do not presume that you will get serious about eternity when you are old. Do it now. And all you married couples and single people in the prime of your life, beware of being swept into the all-consuming demands of your careers only to find yourselves gasping for some fun and entertainment on the weekend, finding your relief from worldly work in worldly fun. And waking — perhaps — someday to realize you have no taste for things of God. You have become a connoisseur of restaurants, and videos, and movies, and sports, and stocks, and computers, and a hundred transient things. And all the while, your sense of heaven and of hell has died. Wake up before it is too late. And tremble at these things today. And set your minds to think about the biggest issues" (John Piper)

The Apostolic Tradition Of Praying Only To God

Gavin Ortlund recently made some good comments on Twitter about the evidence against praying to saints. What he said is also applicable to praying to angels.

As the comments section of his thread illustrates, though, we need to also be prepared to discuss a lot of other issues relevant to the subject. And Protestants seldom know much about the topic or make much of an effort to argue for their position.

Gavin's comments are primarily about the evidence from the Biblical era, but see here regarding extrabiblical sources. And we've addressed other extrabiblical and Biblical evidence in other posts, like this one on Psalm 103:20-21, this one on Matthew 27:47, here on Hebrews 12:1, and here on Revelation 5:8 and 8:4. Regarding the idea that attempting to contact the deceased is acceptable, since Jesus and Peter spoke to some individuals they raised from the dead, see here and here. And see my posts in the YouTube thread here for a discussion of some sources that are brought up less often, such as Eusebius of Caesarea and the Gospel Of Bartholomew. In that thread, I also interacted with some advocates of praying to saints and angels. See here for my interactions with the arguments of Joe Heschmeyer of Catholic Answers and here for a thread in which I interacted with some Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox opponents. If you search our archives, you can find a large number and variety of relevant topics addressed in a lot of posts.

I'm not going to repeat everything I've said before, but I'll reiterate some points about issues that keep coming up (such as in Gavin's Twitter thread). Our focus should be on the material most relevant to praying to saints and angels, such as narrative passages in which prayer can be and often is narrated and comments and documents about prayer. To go, instead, to contexts like poetry and catacomb inscriptions, all the while ignoring or underestimating the widespread absence and contradictions of prayer to saints and angels in more relevant contexts, is irresponsible. Yet, we see Catholics, Orthodox, and other advocates of prayer to saints and angels doing that over and over and over again. It's like trying to prove that Protestants believe in prayer to saints and angels by citing Psalm 103:20, the singing of "Angels From The Realms Of Glory" in a Protestant church service, or a Protestant gravestone with an inscription that's written as if it's addressed to a deceased person. In addition to ignoring the relevant genre issues, advocates of praying to saints and angels frequently do things like assume without argument the earliest date for a source whose dating is disputed if that source seems favorable to their position, appeal to forgeries, or cite anonymous sources, even though they so often dismiss anonymous sources and even significant named sources (e.g., Tertullian, Origen) in other contexts. You have to watch for that kind of behavior at every step along the way. If we judge the evidence as it would normally be judged in other contexts, it heavily favors the conclusion that we should pray only to God. But if you're going to argue for that conclusion, you have to be vigilant and diligent at every step, so that you and your audience aren't taken off course by all sorts of diversions. Protestants need to care enough about God and the people and issues involved to do that work.

A Warning About Lee Brickley And His Enfield Book

I recently saw Nemo Mörck link a review by Melvyn Willin of a new book on the Enfield Poltergeist. I was surprised and interested, since there aren't many book-length treatments of the Enfield case. After reading Melvyn's review, I was less interested in the book, given what the review says about it. I decided to read it anyway, since it might have some valuable material in spite of its weaknesses. It was even worse than I expected, and it's bad enough, including unethical enough, that I think people should be warned about it.

Let Us Arise And Be Doing, And The Lord Will Be With Us

Don't use your dependence on God as an excuse for doing less than God has enabled you to do:

The Fountain Of Our Happiness

"Our heart when it rises to Him is His altar; the priest who intercedes for us is His Only-begotten; we sacrifice to Him bleeding victims when we contend for His truth even unto blood; to Him we offer the sweetest incense when we come before Him burning with holy and pious love; to Him we devote and surrender ourselves and His gifts in us; to Him, by solemn feasts and on appointed days, we consecrate the memory of His benefits, lest through the lapse of time ungrateful oblivion should steal upon us; to Him we offer on the altar of our heart the sacrifice of humility and praise, kindled by the fire of burning love. It is that we may see Him, so far as He can be seen; it is that we may cleave to Him, that we are cleansed from all stain of sins and evil passions, and are consecrated in His name. For He is the fountain of our happiness, He the end of all our desires." (Augustine, The City Of God, 10:3)

God Is No Fonder Of Intellectual Slackers Than Of Any Other Slackers

"[God] wants a child's heart, but a grown-up's head. He wants us to be simple, single-minded, affectionate, and teachable, as good children are; but He also wants every bit of intelligence we have to be alert at its job, and in first-class fighting trim. The fact that you are giving money to a charity does not mean that you need not try to find out whether that charity is a fraud or not. The fact that what you are thinking about is God Himself (for example, when you are praying) does not mean that you can be content with the same babyish ideas which you had when you were a five-year-old. It is, of course, quite true that God will not love you any the less, or have less use for you, if you happen to have been born with a very second-rate brain. He has room for people with very little sense, but He wants every one to use what sense they have. The proper motto is not 'Be good, sweet maid and let who can be clever,' but 'Be good, sweet maid, and don't forget that this involves being as clever as you can.' God is no fonder of intellectual slackers than of any other slackers. If you are thinking of becoming a Christian, I warn you, you are embarking on something which is going to take the whole of you, brains and all." (C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity [New York, New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 2021], approximate Kindle location 1057)

The Life Of A Soldier

Scripture likens believers to soldiers (Philippians 2:25, 2 Timothy 2:3-4, Philemon 2). And we're often told that we're pilgrims passing through a foreign land and that our citizenship is in heaven rather than on earth (Philippians 3:20, Hebrews 11:9-10, 11:16, 12:22, 13:14, 1 Peter 1:1, 2:11). Paul wrote, "No soldier in active service entangles himself in the affairs of everyday life, so that he may please the one who enlisted him as a soldier." (2 Timothy 2:4)

Read what Jesus said in the gospels, over and over again, about the sword of division, how he would divide families, how his followers must take up a cross, and so on. Jesus was crucified, and Paul was beheaded after spending a lot of time in prison, for doing highly controversial Christian work.

What if the Christians of past generations had behaved the way you do? Future generations are going to be affected by what you're doing today.