Why Some Bad Arguments Are Hard To Refute

"It may be easier to obviate an objection which has some force in it than to overthrow another which has positively no force at all; in fact, the most difficult arguments to answer are [those] which are insane at the core, for you must be insane yourself before you can quite catch the thought which insanity has uttered, and as you do not wish to qualify for controversy with fools, by becoming a fool yourself, you may not be able to reply to your antagonist." (Charles Spurgeon)

Can God die?

My side of an exchange I had on Facebook with a unitarian pastor, regarding this video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IDgIk_N4IfI

These are pointless conversations because they're so repetitious. Debating unitarians is like debating atheists. It's always the same arguments. They always expect you to start from scratch, as if we haven't been over this ground many times before.

You're recycling hackneyed objections to Trinitarian theology as if there are no preexisting answers to these stale objections.

That such a disingenuous comment since the question at issue is not the ability to quote scripture but what the passages mean. I've already interacted with some of your quotes. The video quotes 1 Cor 15:28, but in the context of Paul's eschatological Adam typology, it refers to the economic role of Jesus as the Last Adam. The video quotes Jn 14:28, but in a father/son relationship there can be both equality and inequality at different times. For instance, a crown prince has less authority than the king until the crown prince assumes the throne after his father dies or abdicates.

Disingenuous comment from you. First of all, there's the interpretive question. Not just quoting a statement, but what it means. Contextual considerations. Words with more than one sense. In addition, you arbitrarily confine the relevant evidence to finding one passage that says it all.

Jesus is a composite being: the divine Son in union with a rational human soul in union with a human body. So the "contradiction" is equivocal and simplistic. God qua God cannot die. God qua Incarnate can die in with respect to the body he assumed.

If Scripture teaches the two-natures of Christ, then that makes him a composite being. Yes, Scripture refers to the Father as the one God. It also refers to Jesus as the one Yahweh. Jn 17:3 isn't setting up a contrast between the Father and the Son but between the true God and false gods. The "one true God" is a synonym for Yahweh. But the NT frequently identifies Jesus as Yahweh. It's a demonstrable fact that the NT frequently equates Jesus with Yahweh. Do I need to give you a list of verses?

The argument that Jesus isn't God because God can't die is hamhanded. The unitarian apologist fails to appreciate that if your objective is to show that Trinitarianism is inconsistent, you have to assume the Trinitarian viewpoint for the sake of argument. You must show that it's inconsistent on Trinitarian grounds. But to say God died in the person of the Son Incarnate is perfectly consistent with Trinitarian theology.

Once again, you're not following the argument. If the claim is that Jesus can't be God because Jesus died but God can't die, that is claiming that the Trinitarian position is inconsistent with those two propositions. But when you attempt to accuse the opposing position of inconsistency, then the onus is on you to show that it's inconsistent on its own ground. That means you have to adopt the viewpoint of the opposing position for the sake of argument, then show (in this case) that the two propositions are contradictory. This is just a point of logic. And as I've explained, the two propositions are perfectly consonant with Incarnational theology. What Jews allegedly believed is a non sequitur, since the point at issue is whether the opposing position is logically consistent, not whether it's true. That's a separate argument. So the unitarian argument in the video is philosophically inept in that regard.

As for the pre-Christian Jewish background, scholars have documented that 2nd Temple Judaism had a two Yahwehs doctrine. Another line of evidence is illeism. Finally, the fundamental question isn't whether OT Jews believed in the Trinity, but whether the Trinity is consistent with OT monotheism.

i) Sorry, but you're the one who missed the point of the video. The video is using two different kinds of arguments. One kind of argument is to quote stock unitarian prooftexts. 

The other kind of argument involves the implicit claim that Trinitarian theology is contradictory because Jesus died, but God can't die.  So there are two different types of argument in play. You need to distinguish them. I've commented on both.

ii) You then repeat a misattribution which I corrected in a previous comment. I for one never said only the "human nature" of Jesus died. My own statement was narrower. The human nature includes body and soul. It wasn't the human nature in toto that died, but the body. The soul survived (as well as the divine nature). 

iii) Christian theologians don't argue that the divine nature in isolation is necessary for the atonement, but the divine nature in a particular combination with the human nature.  The divine nature is necessary but insufficient condition for the atonement. So your objection is confused and uninformed. 

The Gospel According to Yoda

Orthodox Lutheran

Maybe the real unelect were the reason-worshipping Calvinists we met along the way. 

#muhDoublePredestination

#muhClayQuestioningThePotterVerseMeansWeCanGetAwayWithMakingGodOutToBeEvil

Hays 

To my knowledge, classical Lutheranism affirms unconditional election. That entails reprobation. Lutherans arbitrarily reject the logical of their own commitments.

Lutheran Memes 

Calvinists love to cry "strawman" then turn around and do the same thing. We have never and will never confess the deplorable, unbiblical, and utterly unchristian doctrine of election unto damnation.

Hays 

I didn't cry strawman and you didn't refute the implication.

Lutheran Memes 

We don't "reject the logic of our own commitments" we actually openly and publicly confess the paradox. Unlike those who try to compress God into a finite box they can comprehend, thereby requiring them to twist and distort Scripture so that its mysteries make sense to their puny human minds, we actually admit the God is a being beyond human comprehension and is allowed to work beyond the limits of our reason.

Scripture says that salvation is by unconditional election. We affirm that.

Scripture says that damnation is the result of our own sin, and God does not desire the death of the wicked but desires that all be saved and come to a knowledge of the truth.

How can both of these things be true? We have no idea. But we believe they are both true because God said so, and who are we to imagine we know better than God?

Hays 

In which case you forfeit the ability to argue for Lutheranism or argue against Calvinism.

Lutheran Memes 

Ah, yes. So, because we believe what the Bible teaches, we forfeit the ability to argue for sound doctrine or against heresy?

Hays 

If you ditch logic, then the Bible is consistent with anything.

Lutheran Memes 

The Bible is consistent with itself. Remember the warning of Chrysostom, a comprehended god is no god. Let God be true and every man a liar. So what if your pathetic human brain can't fathom the paradoxes of Scripture. Scripture is true whether or not we can understand how. Stop pitting Scripture against Scripture and believe all of it. Stop shoe-horning your man-made doctrines onto God's Word.

Hays 

By rejecting logic, you can't distinguish heresy from paradox.

Lutheran Memes 

Nobody is rejecting logic. We're refusing to subject Scripture (written by eastern minds) to modern western thought processes. Letting Scripture interpret Scripture is exactly how we distinguish heresy from orthodoxy. Shoe-horning Aristotelianism onto an eastern text is the surest way to screw it up.

Hays 

So Aristotelian logic is modern (2500 years old) while the letters of Paul, written in Greek to Greek churches, are eastern.

Are law and Gospel the same or different? Why not both/and? It's paradoxical, you know. Don't let that newfangled Aristotelian logic turn law and Gospel into opposites. That's binary modern western thinking. Away with the law/Gospel dichotomy. Embrace Buddhist both/and.

Lutheran Memes 

Yes, your modern application of Aristotelianism is modern. And yes, Paul's letters are eastern. He was a Hebrew. His epistles are littered with eastern style. Neither the Old nor New Testaments are works of western thought or literature.

As for your second comment, I don't even know where you're trying to go now. You're so wrapped up in your attempt to shoe-horn God into an Aristotelian box that you've stopped making sense.

Hays 

Aristotle antedates Paul by about 500 years. In addition, you're completely overlooking Hellenistic Judaism.

The Eucharist is both the True Body and Blood of Christ and not the True Body and Blood of Christ. It's a paradox. Don't try to shoehorn the antinomy into your finite puny-brained logic box.

Unitarian reductio ad absurdam

By Christian apologist Vladimir Šušić, contributor to http://adlucem.co/

In the long run we're all dead

This is generally good advice:

http://fakenous.net/?p=46

http://fakenous.net/?p=54

http://fakenous.net/?p=77

That said, I don't think the fundamental problem is lack of skill at the art of argumentation. Mind you, many people would benefit from a course in informal logic, standards of evidence, &c.

The main problem is that many people want certain results, want a particular outcome, and they don't care about the quality of the argumentation. They just want the results. The outcome is what's important, not the means. On that view, a persuasive bad argument is better than an unpersuasive good argument. It's not about true, reason, and evidence. Rather, argumentation in political discourse has a purely instrumental value, to further or secular the objective. The only value is the desired outcome. How you get there is secondary. 

Trained philosophers sometimes resort to atrocious arguments. It's not due to lack of skill. If they're sufficiently invested in an issue, a philosopher may reason just a badly as someone with no training in logic or probability theory. It's too idealistic to think this is just about honing one's skills in the art of argumentation.

If people think this life is all there is, then they are liable to be impatient about the finer points of argumentation. Time is running out to get things done. Lost opportunities can't be redeemed. There are no eschatological compensations. As John Maynard Keynes, put it, "In the long run we're all dead!" So it's now or never. 

If that's their perspective, then the priority is to achieve the goal by any means necessary, as expeditiously as possible. On that view, a convincing lie is more efficient than a complex argument. It comes down to the utility of political discourse to further the agenda. 

A Quick Note on the Kavanaugh Accusation

https://www.proginosko.com/2018/09/a-quick-note-on-the-kavanaugh-accusation/

Gored by the horns of a dilemma

In response to a post of mine, apostate Dale Tuggy said:

What folks like Steve here imagine to be obvious to the reader - that Jesus is claiming to be the one God, the god of Israel - was not obvious to Justin Martyr, Irenaeus, Tertullian, Origen, etc. - all of whom explicitly hold the one God to be the Father - not the Trinity, not Jesus, and not the Logos. What not obvious right away to careful, smart, informed readers, is just not obvious in a text! 

We know that the 'logos' theorists of the 100s and 200s held the logos to explicitly be 'another god,' 'a second god' (or: a second 'god' - see the difference?), and less than the one God in (for various authors) power, knowledge, authority, divinity, and even (for theorists before Origen) less old than him, having come into existence.

I've already responded to this at length, but I'd like to approach it from a different angle:

1. I didn't claim that the deity of Christ is "obvious" in every NT writing. And my position doesn't require that.

2. But if we're going to cast the issue in those terms, then Dale's argument is counterproductive. It isn't that they thought just one thing was obvious–rather, they thought two things were obvious, and they were struggling to harmonize them. On the one hand they thought Scripture obviously teaches monotheism, while on the other hand they thought Scripture obviously teaches the divinity of Christ. 

Even by Dale's own admission, they obviously didn't think Jesus was just a human male. That's not how you characterize "another god" or a "second god". So their position is far removed from Dale's humanitarian unitarianism. 

3. Let's put this is a larger context. In principle, there are several different strategies for dealing with dilemmas:

i) You can affirm the dilemma. You can say this is paradox that surpasses human reason. There's nothing we can do to mitigate the tension. That's the position of Christians like John Owen and James Anderson.

However, you can defend it by saying that if we have good reason to believe both horns of a dilemma, then we're warranted in affirming both horns even if that generates a dilemma. Moreover, you can say that high Christology is not exceptional in this regard. Paradox is commonplace in physics, mathematics, and logic. 

ii) You can affirm both horns of the dilemma, but deny that it's a dilemma. You can marshal arguments to relieve the tension. You demonstrate (to your own satisfaction) that it's not paradoxical.

iii) You can deny the dilemma by denying one horn of the dilemma. There are Christological heresies that say Jesus was apparently human but really divine, or–conversely–that Jesus was apparently divine but really human.

iv) You can relieve the tension by relativizing both horns of the dilemma. Take a chain-of-being ontology in which divinity is quantitative rather than qualitative. Trees have more divinity than rocks, animals have more divinity than trees, humans have more divinity than animals, angels have more divinity than humans, while the Son has more divinity than angels but less divinity than the Father. It's a matter of degree rather than kind. Gradations of divinity. That works in Neoplatonism. What makes God differ from creatures is that God has more God stuff than creatures. It's not an absolute categorical distinction. 

That's what the logos-theorists seem to be doing. On the one hand they affirm monotheism, but not in the absolute monadic sense (e.g. Maimonides, Al-Ghazali) . On the other hand they affirm the deity of Christ, but not in the absolute sense of co-equality, auto-theos (e.g. Helm, Warfield). It's a mediating position. A compromise position.

4. Finally, the NT is addressed to Jews and gentiles alike, but that presents a challenge. Gentiles had no objection to affirming the divinity of Christ, but the danger is to recast that in polytheistic terms. (The same problem persists today when evangelizing Hindus.) So the NT uses traditional monotheistic language, which reaffirms OT theism, yet it then extends that exclusive language to Jesus. NT writers have to strike a balance to avoid falling into either one of two opposing errors. Using traditional formulations that exclude polytheism while including Jesus within the same formulations. That generates a prima facie dilemma, yet the NT is not an exercise in philosophical theology, but a witness to history in the self-revelation of divine action. 

Windows into the Trinity

Indexical perspectives are a striking feature of human experience. For instance, the starting-point of science is the first-person perspective of an observer. But science attempts to translate that indexical perspective into an objective third-person description. 

If the Trinity is true, then the one God has three first-person viewpoints. Father and Son are objective to the Spirit, Son and Spirit are objective to the Father, Father and Spirit are objective to the Son. 

Unitarians say that's contradictory. Christians say that's a revealed mystery or paradox. Unitarians say that's euphemistic language to camouflage special pleading. 

An analogous indexical perspective is the insider/outsider dichotomy.  For instance, an observer can stand inside a house, viewing the outside through a window. Or the same observer can stand outside a house, viewing the inside through a window. Or an observer can stand outside, viewing another outside object. Or an observer can stand inside, viewing another inside object. But we typically think of viewing something from the inside out as contrary to viewing something from the outside in. You can experience both at different times, but you can't experience both at the same time, because these represent opposing physical positions. You can't be in two different places at once, so you can't simultaneously experience an insider as well as outsider viewpoint. Or can you?

On one occasion I was sitting in church. The sanctuary had the traditional cruciform design. I was sitting in the back of the transept, next to a corner window. From my seat, I could look outside. 

In addition, there was a corner window in the nave, at right angles to the window beside me. Sitting in the transept, I could see the nave through that window. From the inside I was looking outside back into the inside. So I simultaneously enjoyed an insider and outsider viewpoint. 

If I made that bare claim without providing the context, it might seem paradoxical or contradictory. But with a bit of additional information, it relieves the apparent contradiction. My point is that something which seems to be hopelessly contradictory may in fact be consistent, even simply so, if we see it in relation to a larger context. Just because a proposition appears to be incoherent doesn't mean there's even a presumption of actual incoherence. 

Induction and universal generalizations

According to Gordon Clark, induction is a fallacy. To take a stock example, if I see a 1000 black crows, that fails to justify the inference that all crows are black, because the 1001st crow might be white.

But there are some problems with that objection:

i) To begin with, is a white crow a crow, or is it a related species? Two different, closely related species. 

ii) Let's take a different comparison. Suppose I've only seen white rabbits. But that's because I've only seen rabbits in winter. If I saw rabbits in summer, I'd see brown rabbits.

So it would be invalid to infer that all rabbits are white. That's an unrepresentative sample, based on seasonal variations.

Yet once we take seasonal variations into account, then the reason to believe rabbits must either be white or brown is deeper than observing a sample of rabbits. Rather, that involves the principle of camouflage. 

In that event, I wouldn't believe that rabbits are white in winter just because every rabbit I've seen in winter is white. Rather, their pigmentation would be grounded in a principle that's not dependent on counting instances of rabbits.

iii) Take another example: Suppose a 15C American Indian has noticed that solar eclipses only happen at a new moon whereas lunar eclipses only happen at a full moon. What is more, everyone in his tribe has made the same observation. His parents and grandparents have made the same observation. And according to Indian lore, handed down from one generation to the next, that's always been the case. Of course, that, in itself, is insufficient to justify a universal generalization. 

Suppose, by contrast, you ask an astronomer. His reason wouldn't be based on repeated observations. Rather, he'd provide an underlying explanation for that observation, based on the relative position of the sun, moon, and earth during solar and lunar eclipses. 

A similar example would be the observation that the sun always rises in the east and sets in the west. If all you have to go by is observation, then, in principle, the sun could reverse course. But an astronomer has a differ explanation, based on the earth's counterclockwise rotation. 

Scientists observe regularities in nature. But that's just a starting-point. Their belief in the "uniformity of nature" isn't merely based on sampling natural phenomena. Rather, they attempt to go behind the phenomena to discover a mechanism that causes that effect. Therefore, it's simplistic to say inductive logic is fallacious, as if "natural laws" are merely based on repeated observations. 

iv) In addition, exceptions wouldn't invalidate the principle, because natural laws have ceteris paribus clauses. An exception is due to the introduction or interference of an overriding cause. 

Normally, water can't travel uphill. That generalization isn't simply based on the common observation that water normally travels downhill. Rather, it's grounded in the absence of some additional factor to counteract the force of gravity. But sometimes there are natural factors (e.g. storm surge) or technological factors (e.g. water pumps) that exert a countervailing influence. 

In that respect, a white crow is not a real exception to the principle, inasmuch as the generalization is implicitly qualified. All things being equal, all panthers are black, all ravens are black, &c.

Albinism is a genetic condition that produces a different pigmentation. But the generalization allows for differential factors. 

In sum, if a Scripturalist is going to attack the principle of induction, he will need to attack the principle of causation that underlies many scientific explanations. 

Substitutivity

I'll comment on Tuggy's attempted reply to me:

http://trinities.org/blog/hayss-self-inflicted-dental-injury/

I'd like to single out this particular line of argument:

Generally, when Hays, in interacting with me, starts riffing on the metaphysics of time or personal identity, it is because he wants to deny this:Things which differ are two (i.e. are not numerically identical)
which is premise 2 in this argument, an argument to which McClatchie and Hays seem to lack any good reply. To put it differently, nothing can, either at one time or in eternity, be and not be some way. Ridiculously, Hays denies this. Why? Because his confused, pop-evangelical theology says that Jesus just is God and vice-versa. And yet all Christians think, on scriptural grounds, that God and Jesus have differed. So this self-evident truth, Hays reasons, has got to go!
Epistemically, this is indefensible. The above principle is just as evident to Hays as it is to me. It has the same epistemic status as countless other principles he’d insist on, like the validity of modus ponens. He employs it all the time without realizing it. It’s probably unfortunate for him that he heard it from me. If he’d heard it from someone on his theological team, his head would immediately nob. “Yes, that is obvious.”But coming from me, it just must be the product of some ungodly speculations. It must be, ’cause it helps to make a problem for my obviously-correct theology!
Well, no, it’s not. Basically every one of these worked out Trinity theories is designed to be consistent with the indiscernibility of identicals. That’s because these philosophers (with the exception of the logically idiosyncratic Geach) see that it is self-evident that if some x and some y actually differ (or have differed, or will differ, or even just could differ) that it is false that x = y. Understanding this is just part of understanding our concept of (numerical) identity. Many times, a philosopher will explain identity as that relation whichnecessarily: is reflexive, transitive, and symmetrical, and which forces absolute indiscernibility.

1. Let's compare that to a recent exchange that Tuggy and I had on my blog:

Tuggy

In the NT, 'the Son' and 'Jesus' are co-referring terms. That is to say, it is assumed that Jesus just is the Son, and vice-versa. In plain English, these are not two characters, but one. You just asserted that one existed before the other; but that requires them to be two."

Hays

Norma Jeane and Marilyn Monroe are coreferring terms. Does that mean Norma Jeane was always a movie star, Playboy centerfold, wife of Arthur Miller and Joe DiMagio? Things can be true of the same individual at one stage of life, but false at another stage of life. 

Tuggy then admits that my example "is obviously true". But obviously true in reference to what? The reality of change, or the indiscernibility of identicals? 

Continuing the exchange:

Hays

That's why your invocation of is the indiscernibility of identicals is arbitrary. You yourself make that consistent with change. But in that event, you're not using the the indiscernibility of identicals as your standard of comparison. Rather, you are using your theory of personal identity as your standard of comparison, and then adapting the indiscernibility of identicals to accommodate the reality of change in reference to the same individual. So you're very flexible in how you apply the indiscernibility of identicals in that case, but very inflexible in how you apply to the Trinity or the Incarnation.

Tuggy

We know that things change.

Hays

True, but what this means is that you're not using the indiscernibility of identicals as your standard of comparison. Rather, you begin with the experience of time as your standard of comparison. You then reformulate the indiscernibility of identicals to accommodate the experience of time.

Time is change. Change is difference. How is that consistent with the the indiscernibility of identicals? Not consistent if you absolutize the indiscernibility of identicals.

You're not using a necessary truth (indiscernibility of identicals) as your criterion. Just the opposite: your using a contingent truth (the experience of change) as your criterion. So you prioritize truths of fact over truths of reason. 

2. Compare Dale's methodology to John McTaggart. McTaggart denied the reality of time, based on the very same principles that Tuggy invokes: the dissimilarity of the diverse (i.e. identity of indiscernible) and the diversity of the dissimilar (indiscernibility of identicals).

Unlike Tuggy, he actually begins with that "self-evident" truth of reason, which he applies with ruthless, fanatical consistency. By contrast,  Tuggy approaches the issue from the opposite end of the spectrum. Tuggy begins with the self-evident truth of time. 

So there's a choice of starting-points. Do we, like McTaggart, take a necessary truth like the law of identity as our standard of comparison, and then disallow change because that conflicts with the law of identity? Or do we take a contingent truth like the experience of time, and allow that to qualify the law of identity? 

The same issue crops up in the case of transworld identity. On the one hand, it seems natural for us to make counterfactual claims. For instance, if I had a brother, I'd be somewhat different than if I didn't have a brother, or vice versa. For one thing, some of my memories would be different, and memories are an element of personal identity. 

But how can I be the same individual if something about me is different, especially something as significant as personal memories? So what gives? Do we deny the truth-value of counterfactuals? Or do we qualify the law of identity?

One move is to distinguish between intrinsic and extrinsic properties. I don't object to that distinction, but that's drawn in spite of the indiscernibility of identicals. 

Tuggy's dilemma is that he careens between two divergent "self-evident" principles. He absolutizes the law of identity when attacking the Trinity and the Incarnation, but he makes exceptions when the topic is diachronic identity or transworld identity. He exempts them from his strictures. So Tuggy's appeal is selective and arbitrary. 

3. Finally, let's take a comparison. Do symmetries satisfy the principle of substitutivity (i.e. indiscernibility of identicals)? What makes them symmetrical is one-to-one correspondence. That's a rigorous criterion. 

But consider mirror symmetries. What makes them symmetrical is that you can place them in a relation of one-to-one correspondence.

Yet because they have the property of chirality, they are nonsuperimposable. Left-handedness is not interchangeable with right-handedness. 

So that's where Tuggy's false dichotomy between strict identity and strict alterity breaks down. Not everything is reducible to his binaries. 

When God the mighty Maker died

Apostate Dale Tuggy attempted to respond to my analysis of his presentation:

http://trinities.org/blog/wp-content/podcast/trinities179.mp3

Here's my original post:

http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2017/04/the-immortal-dies.html

Funny thing about Dale is that he imagines that he's really onto something. A few quick observations:

1. We need to be clear on the burden of proof. When someone posits an inconsistent triad, that's like the logical problem of evil. In disproving an inconsistent triad, it isn't necessary to defend the truth of your assumptions or definitions. The only question is whether the three propositions, as you define them, are logically mutually consistent.

2. Much of Tuggy's discussion revolves around the definition of death. 

i) There are roughly four or five different ways to define death: medical, theological, philosophical, or a popular and/or prescientific definition.

ii) When the Bible says Jesus died, or when the Bible says anyone dies, it's usually operating with a popular, prescientific definition. How people in the ancient world understood what it means for a human (or in many cases, an animal) to die. To some degree that would be a phenomenological assessment. The person stops breathing. Becomes unresponsive. You can't wake them up. 

That's a few minutes after death. With the passage of time, the body begins to decay. A stench is initial evidence. With additional passage of time the body undergoes visible decomposition. It may be infested with maggots. Eventually the body is reduced to skeletal remains.

A hot climate accelerates the process of decay, which is one reason Jews expedited burial. Another reason was ritual impurity. 

When the NT says Jesus died, it's uses the term that way.

iii) With advances in medical science, we have technical definitions of death. More methods to determine death, viz. EEG readings. 

iv) But that cuts both ways. Ironically, although medical science has more precise ways of defining death, it's complicated the concept of death. In some situations, medical science has extended the window between life and death. Some patients without "vital signs" can be resuscitated. Some patients who drown in a frozen lake can be resuscitated more than 30 minutes after they "expire". 

Some surgical techniques temporarily suspend the heart beat or brain waves. Although the patient has no "vital signs," they can be "brought back to life". That's because machinery keeps blood flowing and the body oxygenated. There's no necrosis. 

There's also the familiar phenomenon of reported near-death-experiences, including veridical examples. 

However, even with medical advances, death is often irreversible. And the corpse begins to undergo necrosis. There's a point beyond which the patient cannot be resuscitated, although it may take a while before that's evident.

v) There are theological definitions. The Bible sometimes uses "death" metaphorically for a dire moral or spiritual condition. The Apocalypse uses the "second death" as a synonym for damnation. But those are irrelevant to the issue at hand.

vi) Another theological definition uses "death" to denote the postmortem condition of the decedent. Not the process of death, or the effect on the body, but what happens to the decedent after they expire. The intermediate state. 

That involves a biblical anthropology. 

vii) Then you have philosophical definitions of death. These involve a philosophical anthropology, like physicalism or substance dualism. 

Tuggy attempted a more general definition which can be extended to immaterial beings (angels). He's at liberty to define death however he sees fit. But for purposes of an inconsistent triad, different people may define the key terms differently. His preferred definition won't be normative for them. 

And all they need is a definition that escapes logical inconsistency. They onus is not on them to show that it's true.

3. A related issue, and this is where Tuggy equivocates, is over the question of what dies. In popular usage, we typically employ identity terms. We simply say Ruth Graham died. She died. We may even say a person died. 

The identity statement isn't meant to be philosophically or anthropologically precise. Rather, we use that language for ease of reference. Ordinary language is philosophically crude.  

Now, if you happen to be a physicalist, then the identity statement is precise, because that's all there is. There's nothing more to a human individual or person than their body. On that view, the identity statement univocal. No need for further qualification. 

However, I don't think the linguistic convention intends that degree of precision. It's just a way of referring to an object, and things that happen to an object. 

When a Christian substance dualist uses the convention of identity language to say someone died, they don't mean to imply there's nothing more to the person than their body. They don't think the individual or person is constituted by their body alone. To the contrary, they think there's something essential to the person, over and above their body, that survives. 

Although it's customary to say that when Ruth Graham's body expired, she died or Ruth Graham died, the usage doesn't imply strictly identity between Ruth Graham and her body, as if Ruth Graham just is her body, for better or worse. There is more to who or what she is than her body.

And in that qualified sense, the person or individual never died. The soul can't die. The soul is incapable of death. 

A person or individual didn't die in the sense that death is applicable to everything that constitutes a human individual or person. Rather, it only pertains to the physical component. 

4. Apropos (3), another way to define death is to say that a body is normally essential to be a part of the physical world and to interface with the physical world. To die is to be cut off from the physical world. To no longer have access to the physical world. To be unable to physically interact with other embodied agents. 

On this definition, at death, something happens to the individual or person. Something radical. In this respect, you could even say death happens to the entire individual or the whole person in the sense that death affects the condition in which they find themselves. Death has a direct impact on the body, and thereby an indirect impact on the body's possessor. 

The body is like a vehicle for the soul. Even if the engine is destroyed, the driver survives. The driver exits the nonfunctioning car. 

It's funny how often Tuggy trips over identity statements. He suffers from a persistent mental block on that issue. His inconsistent triad fails to make allowance for the elementary distinction that the same claim can both be true and false in reference to the same person, but in different respects. 

Even though Tuggy rejects the two-natures of Christ, a competent philosopher is able to acknowledge a conceptual distinction for the sake of argument. 

For instance, the same individual can both be a son and not be a son. That can even be simultaneously true. He is a son to his father, but he is not a son to his own son. It's easy to formulate specious inconsistent triads by using simplistic phrases that omit key qualifications or essential background information. 

5. Tuggy says my position contradicts how some church fathers define the human nature of Christ. But that's a red herring. 

Likewise, he brought up the tradition of an anhypostatic union in reference to the communication of attributes. But while that debate is interesting from the standpoint of historical theology and philosophical theology, it's another red herring inasmuch as I didn't frame the Incarnation in those terms. I didn't say the "one person" of God Incarnate "just is" the eternal Son or divine nature. Indeed, I reject that reductionism. 

6. Tuggy asks how I think the NT generally uses the word "God". Short answer: I think the extension of "God" is indefinite in reference to the Trinity or any particular person of the Godhead unless the context uses "God" with a more specific extension, to distinguish one divine referent from another divine referent. (I'm using "extension" in the sense of intensional logic, a la Frege and Quine, where "extension" is a synonym for reference, in contrast with meaning)

Tuggy seems to think that "God" has a default referent, synonymous with the Father, unless the context makes clear that it has a different referent. But that's circular. Our only clue that "God" denotes the Father is in passages where the context singles out the Father as the intended referent. 

There can be no evidence for a default referent, for unless the context supplies further specification, we have no additional information to justify a more definite or determinate referent. 

BTW, it's nonsensical for unitarians to refer to God as the Father. The paternal designation implies a filial designation, and vice versa. These are symmetrical, correlative designations. 

7. Tuggy recycles stock unitarian objections I've repeatedly addressed. 

Arminians can't love everybody

So why can't Arminians love everybody? I thought you'd never ask! Here's a simple syllogism:

i) In Johannine usage, kosmos means "everybody"

ii) 1 Jn 2:15 says "Love not the kosmos...If anyone loves the kosmos, the Father's love is not in him"

iii) Hence, Scripture forbids Christians to love everybody

Looks like a valid syllogism to me. The minor premise carries over the definition of kosmos from the major premise. And the conclusion seems to derive by logical implication from the major and minor premises.

What is more, it looks like a sound syllogism from an Arminian standpoint. Arminians routinely define kosmos in Johannine usage as "everybody" (or "everyone" or "all mankind"). 

So Arminians affirm the major premise. And everything follows from that. 

Hence, Arminians can only love everybody on pain for defying this Biblical prohibition. Worse that that: if they love everybody, the means the Father's love is not in them. Consistent Arminians can only love some people. 

Of course, I'm not Arminian, so I reject the major premise. Hence, I can be far more loving than Arminians, what with their heartless, exclusionary, narrow-minded interpretation of 1 Jn 2:15!

Gut reactions

I'm going take another swipe at Collin Hansen's recent article, but before I do so I'd like to put the issue in a larger context. Ethicists often use hypotheticals to illustrate or undercut certain moral intuitions. Since these thought-experiments are abstract and artificial, no one really gets hurt. By the same token, I see lots of Christians who have bad rules of thumb for making ethical evaluations. Now, in normal times, society has enough padding that you can get away with illogical reasoning. Society is so big and diffuse that it can absorb many mistakes. 

However, in more extreme times, due to the cumulative impact of codified falsehoods and detrimental social policies, we no longer have that buffer. At that juncture, additional illogical justifications become exponentially more costly. 

I'd add that even before we get to that point, having bad rules of thumb for making ethical evaluations can still be very harmful at an individual level. Take medical decisions involving an elderly relative–or a family member who was wheeled into the ER after a terrible traffic accident. 

Christians need to have the right tools in their ethical toolbox for personal ethics and social ethics. The cummulative consequences of poor reasoning can be calamitous. That's why I did a recent post on some popular terminological fallacies:

http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2016/10/glossary-of-terminological-fallacies.html

Keep in mind that voters using bad rules of thumb are what got Trump nominated in the first place. When enough people shirk reason and evidence, that's the dire result. 

Back to Hansen:

To the older evangelicals planning to vote for Trump: You can try to explain the difference in electing a president and hiring a 23-year-old college graduate to evangelize students. You can say we’re electing a commander in chief and not a Sunday school teacher. You can say that God often raises up pagan leaders to deliver his people from their enemies. But no one is fooled by your arguments. 

They can see you will apparently excuse anything in a Republican nominee so long as the alternative is a manifestly unqualified Clinton. And they will conclude that they don’t really need to listen to you when it comes to “traditional, biblical ethics.” 

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/acts-of-faith/wp/2016/10/08/this-is-the-last-spastic-breath-from-the-religious-right-before-its-overdue-death/

i) Notice how Hansen frames the issue. What he's done, no doubt unintentionally, is insidiously evil. He's cast the issue in a way that subverts rational persuasion. He preemptively discredits any explanation or justification in this case as "hypocritical". You'd be a "fool" to accept those arguments. Stop listening. 

That's a very dangerous tactic, because the liberal establishment will be only too happy to apply that to any Christian argument for Christian ethics. No one is fooled by arguments against abortion. That's just a cover to control women's bodies. No one is fooled by arguments for religious liberty. That's just a cover for homophobia, transphobia, bigotry, and intolerance. And so on and so forth.

How we frame a moral issue can be just as important as the issue itself, for if we get into the habit of miscasting issues, that sets a bad precedent. People build on that false premise to derive harmful conclusions. Notice how liberals routinely turn outrageous assumptions into unquestionable assumptions, then build on that rotten foundation. 

ii) Another problem with Hansen's contention is that he simply posits an analogy between voting for president and hiring criteria at a Christian organization. Notice that he doesn't provide an actual supporting argument to show how those are, in fact, relevantly analogous. He acts as if he should have the benefit of that analogy without having to argue for the analogy. But that begs the question. He seems to be really ticked off by the "religious right," and he's getting something off his chest. He has an inarticulate feeling that there's something deeply wrong. A gut reaction. 

iii) There is, however, nothing disreputable about taking the position that if you're confronted with only two viable candidates, both of whom are equally decadent, but one of whom is likely to promote and impose far more harmful social policies than the other, to vote for the less damaging candidate. That's a morally and intellectually respectable principle in voting. The way to attack the argument is not to attack the principle, but to attack the comparison. And that's a different objection. For instance, one objection to Trump is that, if elected, he will co-opt the conservative movement. He will corrupt the conservative moment from within. That's a legitimate consideration. And that involves a comparison between the overall consequences of each candidate–long-term and well a short-term. But as a matter of principle, there's nothing dishonorable about making choices that mitigate evil, if that's the best you can do. Both candidates have said and done things that ought to disqualify them from holding public office. What if both candidates fail minimal standards? 

iv) Finally, if I were arguing for Trump, I wouldn't say things like "we're electing a commander-in-chief, not a pastor-in-chief". The problem with that comparison is that it acts as if there should be no standards for president. An amoral Realpolitik philosophy. 

However, even that comparison does have a grain of truth. Gen. Patton would make a poor pastor. John Piper would make a poor president. (For one thing, Piper's a pacifist.) There are things that disqualify someone for pastoral ministry that don't disqualify someone from military command. What we want in a general is a guy with a good head for strategy and tactics. Adaptable intelligence. Situational awareness. If you're in a war for national survival, and your best general is a personal creep, you use your best general. 

Now, someone might object that my own analogy begs the question. Is Trump comparable to Patton? I agree. My analogy was deliberately weak at that point. I think it's a valid analogy to illustrate a point of principle. But whether the principle applies to Trump is a different question. I'm not making a case for Trump. But I am making a case for certain principles in decision-making. 

These are principles we need to keep in mind moving forward. This is important over and above the current race for president. Irrespective of who wins, and the consequences of that election, we need to frame ethical issues properly for the battles ahead.

Are tu quoque arguments fallacious?

Some pop internet sources classify the tu quoque argument as a fallacy, but that's erroneous:

I am using ad hominem in the way Peter Geach uses it on pp. 26-27 of his Reason and Argument (Basil Blackwell 1976):

This Latin term indicates that these are arguments addressed to a particular man -- in fact, the other fellow you are disputing with. You start from something he believes as a premise, and infer a conclusion he won't admit to be true. If you have not been cheating in your reasoning, you will have shown that your opponent's present body of beliefs is inconsistent and it's up to him to modify it somewhere.

As Geach points out, there is nothing fallacious about such an argumentative  procedure. If A succeeds in showing B that his doxastic system harbors a contradiction, then not everything that B believes can be true.  

http://maverickphilosopher.typepad.com/maverick_philosopher/2015/11/the-problem-of-evil-and-the-argument-from-evil.html

Was Van Til a voluntarist?

(Posted on behalf of Steve.)

Jeremy Pierce 1/17/2016 12:12 AM

I haven't read any Van Til directly, so I don't know where it is, but people I know who have studied him at length have said that he held to the Cartesian view that God created the laws of logic and mathematics and that even the truths we take to be necessary God could have made false. God could have made true contradictions and so on. Voluntarism about ethics follows from that, I think, although I don't know if he explicitly held that. I'm pretty sure Descartes' voluntarism about logic and mathematics is what influenced Locke to hold to voluntarism about ethics. So Van Til is my guess about where this is coming from, anyway, if it's legitimate at all.

Of course, there was that confusing and confused piece from Scot McKnight recently that simply confused Calvinism with voluntarism. It just occurred to me that it might have something to do with that mess.

A few observations:

1. A friend of mine said he only knows one sentence is Van Til's voluminous output which might possibly suggest the Cartesian position:

   The law of contradiction, therefore, as we know it, is but the expression on a created level of the internal coherence of God’s nature. An Introduction to Systematic Theology.

   Even in that case, he doesn't say the law of contradiction is created, but rather, the law of contradiction "as we know it" is created. Seems to me his qualifier is just a variation of the Clark controversy, where Van Til denied that man's knowledge is identical at any point with God's knowledge. So I take the qualifier to be in reference to the human understanding of logic, and not logic itself.

2. Even if Van Til were a Cartesian possibilist, I don't think that would entail ethical voluntarism unless it was combined with divine command theory. On natural law theory, there'd still be right and wrong because human social ethics and individual ethics are, in no small measure, grounded in God's design for human nature. To that extent, ethics is contingent, because human nature is contingent, but it's not relativistic.

   In theory, there could be different ethics for extraterrestrials if their nature (physiology and psychology) is sufficiently different. But it wouldn't be cultural relativism or moral relativism. Given the same nature, the same morality would always be in force. Universal in time and place for that kind of creature.

3. Finally, I ran this by John Frame, who replied:

   I’m quite sure that VT was not a voluntarist.

   There are three alternatives: (1) logic is above God, (2) logic is created by God, and (3) logic is an aspect of the divine nature.

   In his various polemics, VT often opposed (1).

   He was less clear on (2), but he was critical of the classic “voluntarist” philosophers like Duns Scotus. His basic picture was that (1) is rationalist, (2) is irrationalist, leaving (3) as the biblical alternative.

   Of course, he didn’t want to say with Clark that “logic is God,” so his witness to (3) was blunted somewhat.

   [JF: better to say that yes, logic is God; but mercy, justice, wisdom, eternity, are also God—i.e. God from various perspectives.]

   He should have been more careful in his thinking on this matter which was, unfortunately, distorted by intra-Reformed polemics.

Is the moon made of green cheese?

Reposting some comments I left on Facebook:

Steve Hays Olson says:

"I argue that belief in double predestination is simply logically incompatible with the claim that God is good—unless “good” is emptied of all meaning so that it is a useless cipher for something we don’t know."

Problem is, he doesn't argue that. He asserts that. 

"But belief that God “designs, foreordains, and governs” hell for the reprobate who are unconditionally chosen by God for hell for his glory without regard to any truly free choices they make undermines belief in God’s goodness."

Where's the the supporting argument?

"So does belief that God “passes over” some he could easily save (because election to salvation is unconditional and saving grace is irresistible), damning them to hell, for his glory."

Where's the supporting argument?

"There is no conceivable analogous human behavior that we would call “good.” The very concept of “good” rules out such behavior."

I keep waiting for Olson to back that up with a supporting argument. 

His entire case hinges on a key premise which he never defends. He assumes the very thing he needs to prove.

"To say nothing of Jesus’ own goodness and the New Testament’s commands for us to love our enemies and do good to them."

Hmm. Isn't Jesus the eschatological judge who consigns the wicked to hell? Is that doing them good? 

"My point is, of course, that there exists a contradiction between two Calvinist beliefs…"

Except for one persistent little omission: he never gets around to giving the reader a reason to grant his key premise.

Jez Bayes Ok.

Point 1.

The argument, rather than assertion, is that it is incompatible with conventional notions of 'good' to propose that any character who would willingly select humans from birth to be consciously tormented forever, could be seen as good.

Annihilationist views may get off this hook.

Point 2:

Any character able to save others from certain ultimate pain, whether passing or eternal, but who chooses not to, while choosing other equally undeserving characters to be rescued, cannot be seen as good by normal criteria.

It is the behaviour of a psychotic untrustworthy despot and torturer.

Given that he is so repetitive that he should say less according to the OP, read further to find the supporting arguments.

Steve Hays Jez Bayes: 

"Point 1. The argument, rather than assertion, is that it is incompatible with conventional notions of 'good' to propose that any character who would willingly select humans from birth to be consciously tormented forever, could be seen as good."

That's just another assertion in lieu of an argument. 

"Annihilationist views may get off this hook."

Even if that's the case, Olson didn't invoke that escape clause.

"Point 2: Any character able to save others from certain ultimate pain, whether passing or eternal, but who chooses not to, while choosing other equally undeserving characters to be rescued, cannot be seen as good by normal criteria."

Once again, that's an assertion in search of an argument. With all due respect, don't you know the difference?

You need to state what constitutes "normal criteria." You need to explain why we should regard your criteria as normal–much less normative. 

You need to give reasons for why it's wrong to treat equally undeserving people unequally. 

"It is the behaviour of a psychotic untrustworthy despot and torturer."

Which begs the question.

In addition, Olson's contention backfires. The Arminian God refuses to intervene in situations where a virtuous human would step in. If a human refused to intervene in such situations, even though he was able to do so, we'd regard his inaction as culpable.

Therefore, the character of the Arminian God is disanalogous to human behavior we'd call good. The very concept of "good" rules out such inaction. To claim that the Arminian God is good empties "good" of all meaning so that it is a useless cipher for something we don't know.

Jez Bayes Meanwhile, this is a good piece on sovereignty:

Holley-Hull Lecture “A Relational View of God’s Sovereignty”

Steve Hays In that lecture, Olson indicates that he prefers a risky or open view of providence. A God who takes risks.

Problem is, we typically regard it as culpable for an agent to endanger other people. As a rule, if I risk your life to protect myself, that's blameworthy; if I risk my life to protect you, that's praiseworthy. It's one thing for me to assume a personal risk for the benefit of others, quite another to put others at risk. 

Olson's God is taking chances with the lives of human beings. How is that commendable?

According to Olson's criterion, God's behavior would not be analogous to human standards of good.

Jez Bayes Steve Hays, if on the other hand you think double predestination is not incompatible with God's goodness, what's the supporting argument for that assertion?

Steve Hays These aren't symmetrical positions. It's not incumbent on me to argue that double predestination is compatible with God's goodness. It's not as if there's a standing presumption to the contrary which I must overcome. I'm not the one who's raising the objection. If you think double predestination is incompatible with divine goodness, the onus is on you to demonstrate your claim.

Jez Bayes That's a neat get out.

I'm interested, I'm asking the question, so now in this conversation the onus is on you....See More

Steve Hays It's not my job to make your argument for you. Unless there's a reason to think double predestination is incompatible with God's goodness, there's nothing for me to disprove. I have nothing to work with.

Too many Arminian critics are intellectual freeloaders.

Jez Bayes I think double predestination is incompatible with God's goodness.

If combined with a concept of Hell that includes eternal conscious torment, then that makes God out to be a sadistic tyrant....See More

Steve Hays Groundless assertion #1:

"I think double predestination is incompatible with God's goodness."

Groundless assertion #2:

"If combined with a concept of Hell that includes eternal conscious torment, then that makes God out to be a sadistic tyrant."

Groundless assertion #3:

"Biblically, God is Love, so you need to show how you can hold to d p and a God of love."

Groundless assertion #4:

"For me, they are incompatible."

Which circles right back to #1.

You haven't provided a single argument to support your claims. All you've done is to posit that they are incompatible. You haven't even attempted to show how they are incompatible. 

"If every one refused to justify their position because their own views made perfect sense to themselves, we would never exchange views and learn from each other."

I can't refute a nonexistent argument. Unless and until you put an actual argument on the table, there's nothing for me to evaluate. 

All you've done is to treat me to your question-begging opinions. You don't begin to show how one thing follows from another by logical implication. It's assertions and gaps. 

Thus far, all you've succeeded in demonstrating is that your position is indefensible.

Jez: The moon is made of green cheese.

Steve: That's an assertion. Where's the supporting argument?

Jez: The moon is made of green cheese because the moon is composed of green curdled milk.

Steve: That's circular. 

Jez: If you deny that the moon is made of green cheese, where's your argument to the contrary?

Steve: Since you've given me no reason to believe the moon is made of green cheese, it's hardly incumbent on me to disprove a contention for which you offer no argument or evidence.

Jez: That's a neat get out. I'm asking the question, so the onus is now on you to show that the moon isn't made of green cheese.

Steve: There's no presumption that the moon is made of green cheese. The burden of proof is not on me to justify my disbelief in a groundless assertion. It's not my job to first make your own argument for you, then refute it.

Jez Bayes Steve: "Because I believe something and it appears true to me, it must be self evidently true, and to state the opposite is a groundless assertion which allows you to play rhetorical games rather than engage in actual dialogue with someone who is genuinely interested in reviewing aspects of faith and belief.

Calvinism is self evidently true and requires no explanation.

Arminianism is a groundless belief based on circular argumentation, akin to believing the moon is made of cheese.

Anyone drawn to see this the other way round is a lesser being more worthy of mild ridicule than serious dialogue."

Jez Bayes 1: "Double predestination is incompatible with God's goodness."

2: "Double predestination is compatible with God's goodness."

As stated, both are groundless assertions.

You may not be impressed with my arguments in favour of 1, and I don't claim to be a highly skilled theologian, philosopher or logician, so I don't doubt that your conclusions about my statements are correct.

Meanwhile rather than actually attempt to support statement 2 you would rather come across as evasive and ridiculing.

Steve Hays 

"Steve: 'Because I believe something and it appears true to me, it must be self evidently true…'"

I never said that or implied that. I'm simply responding to you own your own terms. 

"…and to state the opposite is a groundless assertion."

As a matter of fact, all you've done thus far is to repeatedly assert the truth of your opinions. What makes it "groundless" is the lack of supporting argumentation.

"…which allows you to play rhetorical games rather than engage in actual dialogue with someone who is genuinely interested in reviewing aspects of faith and belief."

Pointing out that you still don't know the difference between an assertion and an argument is not a rhetorical game. Pointing out that I'm under no obligation to refute unjustified claims is not a rhetorical game. Rather, I insist on minimal standards of rational discourse. Too many Arminians, you included, take crucial intellectual shortcuts. I don't let you get away with that any more than I'd let an atheist get away with that. 

"Calvinism is self evidently true and requires no explanation."

Which I didn't say or imply.

"Arminianism is a groundless belief based on circular argumentation, akin to believing the moon is made of cheese."

In my replies to you I didn't take any position on the groundlessness of Arminianism in general, but with reference to your own statements.

"Anyone drawn to see this the other way round is a lesser being more worthy of mild ridicule than serious dialogue."

Serious dialogue begins with serious arguments. I'm still waiting for you to give me reasons to justify your opinions about double predestination.

Steve Hays 

"You may not be impressed with my arguments in favour of 1"

It's not that I'm unimpressed with your arguments in favor of 1. Rather, you have't presented any arguments in favor of 1. Instead, you've expressed your disapproval of double predestination. You've paraphrased your assertions. And you've used pejorative adjectives to characterize double predestination.

None of that amounts to a reasoned argument. There's no argument for me to be unimpressed with. 

Likewise, there's nothing for me to "evade." You've expressed your personal disapproval of double predestination. That's an autobiographical statement of your feelings. There's nothing for me to respond to at that level. It's like telling me you find spinach icky.

Jez Bayes Meaning that if you see it one way, you tend to think the other perspective is groundless, and ultimately it's impossible to prove one way or the other?

Steve Hays Meaning "groundless" because you have yet to present a bona fide argument for your perspective. You just give me repackaged assertions. 

This isn't a trick. Arminian critics (of Calvinism) need to master the difference between assertions and arguments. Arminians need to become aware of their unexamined assumptions. Arminians need to learn that just because something *seems* to be wrong to them, that creates no presumption that their perception is correct. Arminians need to become cognizant of how often they beg the question. 

Roger Olson and Jerry Walls are serial offenders in that regard. They usually shield themselves from scrutiny by playing to a sympathetic audience or airing their views in a controlled setting (which they themselves moderate). They don't usually risk direct engagement with opponents in their own weight class. And for good reason.

Jonathan Parsons 

1. A necessary condition for love is desiring the well-being of others with no ulterior motive 

2. If damnation is eternal conscious torment, then damnation does not promote the well-being of anyone who is damned 

3. If damnation does not promote the well-being of those who are damned, then any being who knowingly damns others does not desire their well-being with no ulterior motive 

4. If damnation is eternal conscious torment, then any being who knowingly damns others does not desire their well-being with no ulterior motive (2,3) 

5. Any being who knowingly damns others does not love those who are damned (1,4) 

6. Assume: God loves all beings 

7. God does not knowingly damn any beings (5,6) 

8. If God loves all beings, then God knowingly damns no one (CP) 

There you are, Steve.

Steve Hays 

i) That's not an argument against double predestination. At best, that's an argument against everlasting punishment. 

ii) You suggest that God knowingly damns no one. Does that mean God damns no one, or that God unknowingly damns some people? Does God damn people without knowing it? Does God accidentally damn some people? 

iii) You say God loves all "beings," rather than all "human beings." What does that mean? God loves all bacteria? 

iv) You need to provide a supporting argument for #1. If you mean to suggest that, by definition, love is disinterested, then husbands and wives never love each other, since men and woman are motivated to seek a mate to satisfy a natural need.

v) Why do you begin with divine love rather than divine justice? Justice is no less an essential attribute of God than love.

Moreover, justice can take precedence over love. If my son murders a coed, it's my duty to turn him into the authorities. All things being equal, loving my son is primary. If, however, he commits a heinous crime, then he forfeits preferential treatment. In that event, the murder victim and her family deserve justice. That becomes the new priority.

Gareth McNab This was hard to read. I'd like to know where in the scriptures the rule about the onus being on the dissenter from prevailing opinion etc. Our Father invited Isaiah to come and reason together - really disappointed that despite jez's best efforts to ask questions and listen to answers, he was provided with none and worse, was ridiculed for not playing by the made up rules. Bullies at school do that to my five year old daughter.

Steve Hays Gareth, you are infantilizing Jez.

Jez Bayes Steve, re-read what Gareth wrote and work out whose behaviour he was describing and critiquing. 

Just to reassure you, I didn't feel infantilized.

Gareth McNab Steve - that is an assertion and not an argument. Stop being an argumentative sonuvawotsit and please engage in actual discussion so we can all be enlightened.

Steve Hays Gareth, I'm responding to you on your own terms. You used the "bully/5-year-old" comparison, not me. By definition, that's infantilizing.

Jez Bayes Ok, you're correct, but he's not describing me, he's describing you as like someone who would bully a 5 year old. 

If you want to use a term like infantilizing, then he's infantilizing you rather than me.

Personally, I think you're insulting Gareth and being deliberately evasive of a direct question.

Steve Hays He's casting you in the role of a 5-year-old schoolgirl who's bullied by me. So, yes, that infantilizes you. 

It's funny that you think I'm the one who insulted Gareth when he compared me to a schoolyard bully. But I've come to expect that kind of cliqish partisanship from Arminians. 

Unable to furnish even prima facie reasons for your objection to double predestination, you fall back on verbal abuse. Always nice to see Arminian love and ethics in action.