Can He Possibly Grow More Incoherent? Part One

Charles and Bob L. Ross have read last Sunday's article. Let's see what Mr. Ross says.

>A LOT OF PALABBER BY "HYBRID CALVINIST">BLOGGER . . . GENE BRIDGES
[04/17--2005]>>I read Hybrid Calvinist Gene Bridges' comments, and he
seems seriously>deficient in his concept regarding the New Hampshire
Confession.
>>Gene tries desperately to prove that he was "born again" before he
ever>believed the Gospel and thereby believed on the Lord Jesus Christ. And
he >trys to>decipher this peculiar doctrine from even Baptist Confessions
of Faith, >such as>the NHC.

>>He starts out by trying to prove an idea which he evidently found
"hiding>between the lines," having to do with the "freedom of the
will.">>For example, he says --> >>>It is worth noting that at
that time Arminian Baptist confessions always>contained statements about the
freedom of the will. The New Hampshire >Confession>goes out of its way to
exclude this statement, which is the first clue as >to>the intent of the
author.

> >>>>The fact is, the New Hampshire Confession of Faith
plainly refers to the>"free agency of man" in Article 9, which in effect
comprehends the "free >will of>man.">>Also, it would be rather
unseemly for the NHC to "exclude" reference to the>freedom of the will since
the Philadelphia/London Confession has an entire>chapter on "Free Will"
(Chapter 9). Why would the NHC want to nullify the >1689>London & 1742
Philadephia Confessions on "free will"? It just doesn't add >up,>does
it?>>

Furthermore, the 1925, 1963, and 2000 Southern Baptist Convention
>statements>of faith all affirm the "free agency of man," and the Southern
Seminary's>Abstract of Principles affirms "the FREE WILL and responsibility
of >intelligent>creatures.">>If the NHC went out of its way to
exclude free will, evidently James P. >Boyce>of SouthernÂ
Seminary thought free will should be "restored"!

>>It seems that Gene has himself a first class puzzle to put together
if he>intends to "prove" that these statements of faith somehow substantiate
that >a>lost sinner is "born again before faith," if that is his
goal.

>>Gene appears to hold -- as I have noted elsewhere -- a
semi-Pelagian view,>apparently affirming that the "dead" sinner must be "born
again" in order >to>have the "ability" to believe.>>This corresponds
with the Pelagian view that the lost sinner has "ability" >to>believe in
response to the command to do so. Both these views conflict
with>Creedal Calvinism.

>>The Creedal pr Confessional Calvinist view -- as I have
demonstrated >several>times - is that the sinner is "DEAD in sins," and
faith is necessarily>produced by the power of the Spirit's using the means of
the Word of God to >produce>or create faith in the "passive" and "DEAD"
sinner, which constitutes the >New>Birth.


>>This work and gift of faith is a Divine "creation." Gene and the
Pelagians>have faith being something which is not a creation, but the
UNBELIEVING >sinner>has the "ability" to do for himself.>>We have
used the case of Ezekiel's Dry Bones in chapter 37 to illustrate >how>this
New Birth is accomplished in conjunction with the preaching of the
>Word>of God.>>Does Gene think the dead, dry bones were "alive" when
there was "a noise >and>a shaking, and the bones came together" -- BEFORE
there was "breath" in >them?

>>Does Gene have any evidence that the preliminary workings by the
Holy >Spirit>in the dead sinner is the New Birth -- BEFORE the sinner has
received the>Divinely created gift of faith by the Spirit's use of the means
of the Word >to>produce this faith in the sinner?

>>NEW HAMPSHIRE & PHILADELPHIA CONFESSIONS>Versu the "Born
Again Before Faith" Heresy>>

Gene Bridges comments on the New Hampshire Confessin of Faith as
follows:>>Thomas J. Nettles [Southern Seminary Professor] writes, "Many
have>interpreted the contents of the New Hampshire Confession of Faith as an
>attempt to>modify the strong Calvinism of earlier days into something
more palatable >to the>tastes of nineteenth-century churches. It is true
that it not as detailed >or as>lengthy as the Philadelphia Confession, but
it is also true that the >substance>of its doctrine remains
unchanged."> >>>>

If Nettles is correct, then the Philadelphia Confession is where we must
go>for the substance of doctrine on Free Will and the New Birth.>>And
in the Philadelphia Confession we find that it does not teach that>sinners
are (1) "born again before faith," nor (2) are they saved by the >efforts
of>free will -- so neither does the NHC teach these ideas.>>In the PCF,
Effectual Calling is "by His Word and Spirit," not by a "direct>operation" of
the Spirit apart from the Word or Gospel, such as taught by>Hardshell
Baptists and Hybrid Calvinists such as Gene Bridges, James White, >Dr.
Tom>Schreiner, etc. (Chapter 10).>>

According to the PCF, in the Effectual Call of lost, unsaved, "DEAD"
elect>sinners, the Spirit uses the Word for "enlightening their minds
spiritually >and>SAVINGLY to UNDERSTAND the things of God . . .
effectually drawing them to>Jesus Christ, yet so they come most freely, being
made willing by His >grace">(Chapter 10, paragraph 1).>>This is
neither "born again before faith,"' nor salvation by free will. It >is>the
true "monergism" of salvation by the grace of God thru the Spirit's use>of
the Word to create faith in the dead sinner and put him into Christ as a>"new
creation."
>>Also, on SAVING FAITH, Chapter 14 of the PCF, saving faith is said
to be>"ordinarily wrought by the ministry of the Word," and by this means of
the >Word>"the elect are enabled to BELIEVE TO THE SAVING OF THEIR SOULS,"
and this >is>described as being "the work of the Spirit of Christ in their
hearts.">>There is not a pinch of "born again before faith" teaching in
the>Philadelphia Confession of Faith, nor of salvation by free
will.>>If the PCF teaches that the elect "believe to the saving of their
souls," >it>clearly does not teach that the elect are "born again" before
they believe.

>>Thus, if TOM NETTLES is correct, the "doctrine remains unchanged"
from the>PCF to the New Hampshire Confession, and so neither Confession
teaches that >the>elect are "born again before faith" nor by free
will.>>

LANDMARKISM?>>GENE BRIDGES said . . .> >>You can take the
Arminian out of the Landmark Baptist, but you can’t >take>the Landmark
Baptist out of that particular Calvinist. He certainly argues
>like>one.>>>>I suppose Gene is either "behind the times"
considerably, or else he is >just>clowning around.>>I left
Landmarkism in 1964, and wrote a book, OLD LANDMARKISM AND THE>BAPTISTS,
refuting the Landmark theories of J. R. Graves. Note this >website:>
>>http://members.aol.com/pilgrimpub/writings.htm#_ROSS_10<<>>To
my knowledge, I am the only person who was once a Landmarker who wrote a>book
in refutation of it.>>Gene is not only deficient in his knowledge
regarding Confessions of Faith,>he is deficient in his knowledge about me --
if he thinks I am a >Landmarker. Is>"deficiency" a mark of those who were
"born again before faith," or what? >To>what can Gene attribute his
distorted ideas about me and Landmarkism?

>>SYNERGISM?>>Why Gene Bridges thinks he is dealing with
"synergism" -- if he has read my>writings -- is indeed a mystery.>>We
have expounded CREEDAL CALVINISTM, which is that DEAD sinners that
are>PASSIVE are born again solely by the efficient power of the Holy Spirit
in >His>use of the Gospel or Word of God to create faith in these DEAD
sinners, who>believe to the SAVING OF THEIR SOULS -- and that by no power
whatsoever >provided>by the sinner.>>How one gets "synergism" out of
that is as great a mystery as how one could>believe that a sinner could
conceivably be "born again before faith.">>"Does Mr. Ross agree with the
Second London Baptist Confession?" asks Gene>Bridges.>>

I wonder, has Mr. Bridges not read my extensive article on "The
Calvinist>Flyswatter" on "REGENERATION - CALVINISM," in which I show what the
Second >London>Confession teaches? -- the the New Birth is effected by the
Holy Spirit's >use>of the Word of God in bringing DEAD sinners to faith in
Christ?>>The Second London is the same as the Philadelphia, and Mr.
Bridges cannot>find a smattering of "born again before faith doctrine" in
that Confession.

>>THE ROOT OF THE MATTER>>GENE BRIDGES said . . .>>
>>I would recommend folks to remember that the BFM is an umbrella
document>whose heritage is not simply rooted in EY Mullins, Hershel Hobbs, or
Adrian>Rogers. Rather it is rooted in New Hampshire Confession. If folks want
to >discuss>"original intent" of the words, then both its history in the
SBC as the BFM>and the parent document, the NH Confession should be
considered.<<>>

BOB'S COMMENT:>>If Tom Nettles is correct, however, for the
"substance" or "root" of the >New>Hampshire Confession, we must go back to
the Philadelphia Confession.>>And the PROBLEM which Gene and all Hybrid
Calvinists have is this: NONE of>these Confessions teach that the elect are
"born again before faith.">>I have demonstrated that these Confessions are
not PELAGIAN, or>SEMI-PELAGIAN, but that the elect are viewed by these
Confessions as >"passive" and "DEAD in>trespasses" and in sins, and are
not born again until by the grace of God>they "believe to the saving of their
souls, as the Holy Spirit uses the >means of>the Word to enlighten their
minds, change their hearts, and thus give them >the>repentance and faith
by which to come to Christ to enjoy His salvation.>>There is not a grain
of "born again before faith" phantasmagoria in ANY of>the Baptist Confessions
we have mentioned.>>NO "REGENERATION BEFORE FAITH" IN THE BAPTIST
CONFESSION>>Gene Bridges said . . .>>This confession clearly states
that when a man is effectually called, he is>regenerated, raised to newness
of life, and that enables him to embrace the>grace offered and conveyed in
the call of the gospel. Just to make this >clear, it>is stating that
regeneration precedes faith!

>>Sorry, Gene, the Confession does NOT say that "regeneration
precedes >faith.">>In fact, I will give you $500 if you find the word
"regeneration" or>"precedes" in that Article 10! In fact, I will give you
$1000 if you can >find>"regeneration precedes faith" in ANY of these
Confessions: 1644, 1689, 1742 >PCF, 1925,>1963, 2000, or the Abstract of
Principles of Southern Seminary!>>The Article plainly teaches that
Effecual Calling is "by His WORD AND >SPIRIT>. . . ENLIGHTENING their
minds SPRITUALLY AND SAVINGLY>to UNDERSTAND the things of God . . . and
effectually drawing them TO JESUS>CHRIST.">>Does that sound like "born
again before faith"? They are "enlightened>savingly" and are drawn to Jesus
Christ, but are WITHOUT FAITH? A >"regeneration">which is completed BEFORE
faith in Jesus Christ is experienced?>>In other words, A REGENERATED
UNBELIEVER! A "BORN AGAIN" UNBELIEVER . . .>like the Pedo-regenerationists,
Shedd, Berkhof, and Sproul, whose babies >are>"regenerated" before they
are even capable of understanding and believing?>>On SAVING FAITH, in
Article 14, the "work of the Spirit" in His use of the>WORD is such that "the
elect are enabled to BELIEVE TO THE SAVING OF THEIR>SOULS," and this is
"ordinarily wrought by the ministry of the WORD.">>Does that sound like
they were "born again before faith"?>>THE FIRST LONDON
CONFESSION>VERSUS GENE BRIDGES>>Gene Bridges said . . .>>The
First London Confession is also quite clear:>>Indeed it is, and it does
not teach "regeneration precedes faith," nor that>the sinner is "born again
before faith.">>I am going to use the materials you quoted on your website
to demonstrate >the>folly of this notion that one is "born again before
faith.">> >>>All mankind being thus fallen, and become altogether
DEAD IN SINS and>trespasses, . . . Faith is the gift of God wrought in the
hearts of the >elect by the>Spirit of God, whereby they come to SEE, KNOW,
and BELIEVE, . . . and>thereupon are enabled to cast the weight of their
souls upon this truth >THUS BELIEVED.>Those that have this precious FAITH
WROUGHT IN THE BY THE SPIRIT can never>finally nor totally fall away; . . .
.That FAITH is ordinarily BEGOT BY THE>PREACHING OF THE GOSPEL, OR WORD OF
CHRIST . . . without respect to any >POWER OR>CAPACITY in the creature,
but it is WHOLLY PASSIVE, BEING DEAD IN SINS AND>TRESPASSES, DOTH BELIEVE,
and is CONVERTED by no less power, than that >which>raised Christ from the
dead.>>Again, it affirms that regeneration precedes faith.>
>>>>Wrong, Gene, the word "regeneration" does not even occur in the
Confession,>and neither does "precedes faith.">>The Confession teaches
that DEAD sinners are brought to BELIEVE, and are>CONVERTED. There is no one
"born again before faith" in the foregoing >statement.>There is no
"regenerated unbeliever" that statement.>

>Gene RIGHTLY SAYS, "This, Charles; this, Mr. Ross, is what the
Particular>Baptists believed. This is not the Hardshell doctrine. . .
.">>Gene is correct -- it is what they believed and it is not Hardshell
>doctrine.>It rather teaches that one is not "converted" until FAITH has
been "wrought>in the hearts of the elect by the Spirit of God," which is
"ordinarily >begotten>by the preaching of the Gospel, or Word of God," and
the "passive" and >"dead">sinner "DOTH BELIEVE and is converted by no less
power than that which >raised>Christ from the dead.">>For once Gene
was right, but he was not right in thinking that this>Confession teaches
"regeneration before faith," or that one is "born again
>before>faith.">>Again, Gene is right when he says,"There is *no*
affirmation of Hardshell>doctrine in this at all," for the Hardshells share
Gene's view that >"regeneration>precedes faith," and it creates a
FAITHLESS, LOVELESS BORN AGAIN >monstrosity,>and that it takes place by a
"direct operation" of the Spirit WITHOUT the >use>of the Word as the means
of creating faith whereby the elect sinner "DOTH>BELIEVE" and is
"CONVERTED.">>DID SPURGEON BELIEVE "BORN AGAIN BEFORE FAITH"?

>>Gene Bridges said . . .>>Gene quotes from Spurgeon and tries
to enlist CHS in the ranks of those who>believe that one is "born again
before faith" -- a heresy which Spurgeon>denounced with every ounce of his
energies!>>Let me examine the quote, piece by piece, to see if there is a
grain of >that>heresy in Spurgeon's comment:>> >>Coming to
Christ is the very first effect of regeneration.<<>>BOB:>>Did
Spurgeon mean by this that "regeneration" had taken place before
>"coming>to Christ," and there was no faith created by the Word and Spirit
involved >in>the "coming"? Of course not! That is Gene's vain delusion! If
regeneration >is>"effected" by the Word and Spirit, what is the "effect"
but "coming to>Christ"? Regeneration never has the "effect" of a "born again
before faith">montrosity!>>Spurgeon: >>No sooner is the soul
quickened<<>>BOB:>>Did Spurgeon here say, "No sooner is the
soul regenerated or born again"?>Of course not! That is Gene's delusion! The
Word quickens in many ways >BEFORE>faith is experienced. Did you ever hear
of "conviction" by the quickening>Word, Gene?

>>Spurgeon: >>No sooner is the soul quickened than it at once
discovers its>lost estate, is horrified thereat, looks out for a
refuge,<<>>BOB:>>Did Spurgeon say this was "regeneration" or
that the sinner had already >been>"born again"? Of course not! That is
Gene's delusion! Spurgeon is simply>referring to the preliminary quickening
work bu the Spirit's using His >Sword, the>Word, in the lost, dead
sinner's heart and soul -- similar to the movement>among Ezekiel's dry bones
BEFORE they came to life, and like Saul of >Tarsus'>"kicking against the
prices" of the Word of God.>>Spurgeon: >>and believing Christ to be
a suitable one, flies to him and>reposes in
him.<<>>BOB:>>Did Spurgeon believe that the sinner is NOW born
again! OF COURSE! For he >has>been given faith by the Holy Spirit's using
the Word of God to bring him to>BELIEVING IN CHRIST!>>You see, Gene,
Spurgeon did not have a "BORN AGAIN UNBELIEVER"!>>Spurgeon: >>Where
there is not this coming to Christ, it is certain that>there is AS YET NO
QUICKENING; where there is no quickening, the soul is >dead in>trespasse
and sins, and being dead it cannot enter into the kingdom of
>heaven.<<>>>BOB:>>Therefore, Gene, Spurgeon's "born
again" sinner is the one who has>experienced the "COMING TO CHRIST," for with
Spurgeon, if the sinner has >not YET come to>Christ, he has NOT YET born
again.>>With Spurgeon, when the sinner came to Christ by the Spirit's use
of the >Word>in creating faith, THEN he was born again at the point of
that God-given>faith, NOT BEFORE.>>Spurgeon did not have a sinner "born
again before faith.">>In the following excerpt from Spurgeon, you will not
find one "born again>before faith." You will find that the Spirit's work of
regeneration is>simultaneous with the act of man in believing. Hence, the
creation of faith >is>regeneration, for faith would not exist without the
Lord's producing it by >His Word and>Spirit as the "means."

>>Open Heart for A Great Saviour, C. H. SPURGEON, #669 Metropolitan
>Tabernacle>Pulpit, Volume 12, 1866:>> >>>It is perfectly
true that the work of salvation lies first and mainly in>Jesus receiving
sinners to Himself to pardon, to cleanse, to sanctify, to>preserve, to make
perfect.>>But, at the same time the sinner also receives Christ. There is
an act on >the>sinner’s part by which, being constrained by Divine
Grace, he opens his >heart>to the admission of Jesus Christ and Jesus
enters in and dwells in the >heart,>and reigns and rules there. To a
gracious readiness of heart to entertain >the>Friend who knocks at the
door, we are brought by God the Holy Spirit, and>then He sups with us and we
with Him. . . .>>The act of TRUSTING Jesus Christ is the act which brings
a soul into a >state>of Grace and is the mark and evidence of our being
bought with the blood of>the Lord Jesus. Do you trust Him, dear Hearers?
Then, if so, you receive >Him.>....>>THE GREAT WORK, WHICH IS
NECESSARILY INVOLVED IN THIS ACT OF RECEIVING>CHRIST.>>Every man who
trusts the Lord Jesus has been born again. The question was>once argued in an
assembly of Divines as to whether a person first had >faith
or>regeneration, and it was suggested that it was a question which must
>forever be>unanswerable. The process, if such it is, must be
simultaneous—no sooner >does>the Divine life come into the soul than it
believes on Christ. You might as>well ask whether in the human body there is
first the circulation of the >blood>or the heaving of the lungs—both are
essential ingredients in life, and >must>come at the same time.>>If
I believe in Jesus Christ I need not ask any question as to whether I
am>regenerated, for no unregenerate person ever could believe in the Lord
>Jesus>Christ! And if regenerated I must BELIEVE in Jesus, for he who does
not do >so is>clearly dead in sin.>>See, then, the FOLLY of persons
talking about being regenerated who have no>faith! It cannot be! It is
IMPOSSIBLE! We can have no knowledge of such a >thing>as regeneration
which is not accompanied with some degree of mental motion>and
consciousness.>>Regeneration is not a thing which takes place upon
matter—it is a thing >of>spirit. The birth of the spirit must be the
subject of consciousness, and >though>a man may not be able to say that at
such and such a moment he was>regenerated, yet the act of faith is a
consciousness of regeneration.>>The moment I believe in Jesus Christ my
faith is an index to me of a work>that has gone on within. And the secret
work within, and the open act of >faith>which God has joined together let
no man put asunder.>>Those who believe not are unregenerate, though they
may have been sprinkled>by the best priest who ever had Episcopal hands laid
on his head!>>If a man believes NOT he is unregenerate, whether baptized
or not. But if >he>believes, he is regenerate, though he may never have
been baptized at all.>Baptism may outwardly express regeneration after it has
been received, and >then>the symbol becomes valuable—but WITHOUT FAITH
THERE CAN BE NO >REGENERATION,>even though Baptism is administered a
thousand times!. . . . .

>>Now faith is the “tell-tale” of the human soul! Where there is
faith >there>is new life. Where there is NO FAITH there is no life. . . .
. .>>SPURGEON'S IMMACULATE SYLLOGISM

>>We have seen Dr. B. H. Carroll's Impeccable Syllogism in another
email a >few>days ago.>>

Now, here is C. H. Spurgeon's Immaculate Syllogism, which is based on 1
>John>5:4. This is on page 142 of Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, Volume
17, >1971,>Sermon #979, "Faith and Regeneration."

>>1. "Whatsoever is BORN OF GOD overcometh the world.">>2. But
FAITH overcomes the world.>>3. Therefore, the man who has FAITH is
REGENERATE.>>There is no way, Gene, to squeeze a "born again before faith"
situation >into>that syllogism!>>FAITH is that which is BORN OF GOD,
therefore the REGENERATED man is the >man>who has FAITH -- and NO
OTHER!>>That rules out the faithless infants of "regenerated"
pedobaptists, and it>rules out the imaginary "pre-faith regenerates" of James
White's "White>Lightnin' Distillery Co. Inc. Phoenix, Arizona.">>C. H.
SPURGEON:>>No faith, no life>"Where there is faith, there is new life;
where there is no faith there is >no>life." (Open Heart for the Great
Saviour, #669, page 22).>>**********>>On the Dry Bones and Dead
Sinners>>To tell dry bones to live, is a very unreasonable sort of thing
when tried >by>rules of logic; and for me to tell you, a dead sinner, to
believe in >Christ,>may seem perfectly unjustifiable by the same rule. But
I do not need to>justify it. If I find it in God’s Word, that is quite
enough for me; and >if the>preacher does not feel any difficulty in the
matter, why should you? . . . >Leave>the difficulties; there will be time
enough to settle them when we get to>heaven; meanwhile, if life comes through
Jesus Christ, let us have it, and >have>done with nursing our doubts"
(#2246, page 119).>>

**********>>Faith and Quickening>"It is depending upon the Lord
Jesus Christ alone which is the true vital >act>by which the soul is
quickened into spiritual life." (Eyes Opened, #681, >page>163). [Of
course, Spurgeon believed this was the creative work of the Holy>Spirit using
the Word to create this act of faith].

>>**********>>Faith's has Transforming Power>"If thou
believest in Jesus Christ and him crucified, in the moment that
>thou>believest, this great change of nature is effected in thee; for
faith has >in>itself a singularly transforming power" (Despised Light
Withdrawn, #2413, >page>235). [Of course, Spurgeon believed this faith was
created by the Holy>Spirit's using the Word].>>**********>>Holy
Spirit Uses the TRUTH for Quickening>"Threre is nothing in all our eloquence
unless we believe in the Holy >Spirit>making use of the TRUTH which we
preach for the quickening of the souls of>men. . . . The Spirit of God, that
is, the breath of God, goes with the >Word of>God, and with that alone"
(Come from the Four Winds, O Breath! #2246, page>117).

Yep, you read that correctly...I'm a Semi-Pelagian. Since it appears I will need to repeat myself frequently, I will post my response in Part 2. Unlike Mr. Ross, who does not bother to inform his readers what was said in full by his opponents, I wanted to inform you all exactly what he wrote. I apologize to you, as this came to me via an email from a friend at Reformed Baptist Seminary.

Naturalistic Light Bulbs

How many Darwinists does it take to screw in a light bulb?

"Triablogue: Flippant dismissals"

***QUOTE***

Triablogue: Flippant dismissals

I guess I better start moving on getting some content up on my blog. Apparently my inactivity has been construed as indicating that I am a fictitious character. Now I've been called many things before, but fictitious has not been one of them.


See: Triablogue: Flippant dismissals

"There is also a token female by the name of Andrea Weisberger. She never does any posting, and if you click on the link to her blog, there’s nothing posted over there either.So she is obviously another fictitious character, the function of which is to show how enlightened unbelievers are, with a ratio of three men to every one woman."

According to the above quoted post, Taner is really Thomas Edison (arisen from the grave?)

http://secularoutpost.blogspot.com/

***END-QUOTE***

Ah, I see that Frank Walton took the bait.

As everyone knows who’s in the know, Walton is the comic genius behind the hoax blog otherwise known as The Secular Outpost and its satellites.

N.B. I have a rigorous, modal-logical-cum-set-theoretical proof of this identification, but unfortunately it’s been classified by the Dept. of Homeland Security.

If you want to see it you have to make a sizable donation to the Scouter Libby defense fund, which operates out of Karl Rove's office.

To resume—clearly Walton got wind of my exposé (his spies are everywhere, you know!), and has chosen to keep up appearances by fabricating some fake posts for the fictitious character of Andrea Weisberger.

Next thing you know, there will be some doctored family photos as well.

Forsooth, his cunning knows no bounds!

Shifting the blame

Loftus: “But you have to resort to this reasoning way too often when it comes to so many questions, I believe, that it's more reasonable to deny the Bible--but that's me.”

i) Actually, I gave four different reasons, of which this was just one.

ii) Either the Bible is what it claims to be (the word of God), or else it is not.

If it is the word of God, then one can never resort to it too often. Divine revelation is the gold standard of truth.

If the Bible is not the word of God, then one should never turn to it.

So I reject your quantitative criticism on either count.

“And I have noticed that there is an exacting correspondence between the way Christians behave which is in keeping with my belief that there is no Holy Spirit guidance, power, or fruits. They act no different from those who do not believe.”

i) You need to spell out what you mean.

ii) There’s also an exacting correspondence between the way which Scripture describes or predicts Christian behavior of Christians, and the way they actually behave.

I said: “iii) There are some very intelligent unbelievers who go to desperate lengths to deny the obvious or silence dissent in order to justify their unbelief.”

He said: “And Christians don't? Kettle, meet black pot. Pot, meet black kettle. Call each other black all you want.....”

I said: “This evasiveness and irrationality is a telltale symptom of a guilty, haunted conscience.”

He said: “This evasiveness and irrationality of believers is a telltale symptom of a belief motivated by fear and ignorance.....”

Actually, there is only a partial parallel, and it is parallel where you’d expect it to be parallel.

Christians who are not very bright or astute may well resort to the same behavior.

However, I don’t find that pattern among Christian intellectuals, whereas I do find that pattern among secular intellectuals.

Astute Christians sometimes indulge in special pleading or blacklisting when they defend their particular theological tradition, but when it comes to defending Christianity in general, sophisticated believers do not, as a rule, resort to special pleading, whereas some of the most brilliant unbelievers are the very ones who, in their fanatical commitment to secularism, become quite irrational or evasive.

I’m thinking of things like eliminative materialism or the refusal to brook any dissent on the possibility that evolution might be mistaken, caricatures of the ID movement, and fact-free arguments for evolution (e.g. computer simulations).

Besides, you need more than moral equivalence to make your case for atheism.

I said: “iv) There are also unbelievers who are quite open about how their ethical or political agenda is driving their unbelief.”

He said: “Ethical and political agenda? Are you aware of the Christian Right in America?

Where's that black pot.....”

Notice how his reply is unresponsive to my statement.

It was not merely a matter of having an ethical or political agenda, but rather, having an ethical or political agenda which is “driving their unbelief.”

Intellectual Arts and Crafts

John W. Loftus said:

evanmay, it’s really interesting to me, on the one hand, how that you will never admit to an internal critique by an outsider. There’s always something wrong with it. In my opinion this is simply because your Christianity does not rest on one isolated belief, but instead rests on them all. Your beliefs all stand or fall together and I can never talk about the whole system but only about isolated belief at a time.

On the other hand, you think you can internally critique another’s belief system as an outsider, when you have the same intellectual problem that I do as an outsider to your faith. Just as I cannot cause you to doubt your brand of Christianity by isolating one of your beliefs for a critique, so also you cannot do so of another religious (or non-religious) belief system. And you claim that you can do this.

4/20/2006 6:44 AM

I believe my fears that John Loftus does not exactly understand the concept of an “internal critique” are now being realized.

No, Mr. Loftus, it isn’t that I’ll never admit to an internal critique performed by an outsider. Rather, and frankly, it is that you are terribly handicapped when it comes to internal critiques. You clench to your presuppositions so tightly that you are unable to prevent yourself from forcing them into the claims of Christ.

John Loftus doesn’t agree with me that worldviews can be critiqued internally alone. Fine. But when he does enter an internal critique, I will surely hold him accountable within the realms of the worldview he is critiquing. I mean, his last post even started with the question, “What if I’m wrong?”! In other words, he set himself up to adopt Biblical assumptions. But then he fails to adopt all of the Biblical assumptions. For instance, he’ll begin to talk about the doctrine of temptation, but then he fails to take into account the doctrine of depravity. He’ll set up arguments against one particular Biblical doctrine, but fail to recognize the other doctrines with which it is in harmony. The doctrine of temptation was not meant to be isolated from the doctrine of depravity. Loftus can’t embrace a “devil-made-me-do-it” mentality (a mentality that presupposes the Christian worldview’s doctrines of Satan) while ignoring his own deadness in sin (another mentality that presupposes the Christian worldview).

Likewise, Loftus fails to remain within the internal critique when he argues that God is unjust to punish sinners. The argument itself presupposes the Christian worldview and is therefore an obvious internal critique. Loftus wouldn’t be talking about the claims of Christianity if he didn’t intellectually agree to assume its principles. Why, then, is he willing to assume a couple of doctrines for the benefit of his arguments (such as the doctrines that God exists and that he punishes sinners), but unwilling to assume the totality of Biblical truth (such as the doctrines of depravity, sin, justice, and God’s intrinsic goodness)? You see, Loftus’ “internal critiques” (using the phrase loosely) are completely self-serving: he’ll pick and choose Biblical principles that he needs for his arguments, divorce them from the context of the Biblical worldview, marry them to his own presuppositions from his own worldview, and then say “Ahah! They don’t match!” Well, of course they don’t! Mr. Loftus, Biblical principles weren’t meant to be coupled with atheistic assumptions! You aren’t free to play “match-maker,” picking and choosing a couple of concepts from a few worldviews, combining them together, and creating your argument against Christianity from recycled dogmas. This isn’t arts and crafts.

Loftus states, “Your beliefs all stand or fall together and I can never talk about the whole system but only about isolated belief at a time.”. The problem here isn’t that you fail to recite a Systematic Theology work to me every time you argue against Christianity. Rather, the problem is that you isolate doctrines and divorce them from their Biblical contexts before you even position yourself to critique them. Just imagine if I would do this in everyday life. Imagine if I picketed outside of the local Wal-Mart, claiming that they were unfair to require money from their customers while I obstinately ignore the fact that they are exchanging goods and services for the customers money. Or imagine if I stopped by the local prison and accused the cell-guards of slavery because they were keeping men locked up in “cages” while I refuse to take into account both the crimes the men have committed and the law that states that they must be imprisoned. You see, that is exactly what you are doing every time you isolate a Biblical doctrine and rip it from the context of the Christian worldview.

Loftus’ problem is that Christianity, being a rational worldview, has covered itself well. It has left nothing open for Loftus to attack, and Loftus can’t stand this. So his only option is to pick-and-choose which doctrines he will take into account, throwing all of the rest into the trash, that he might declare himself triumphant because he defeated that one child that was removed from its parents.

Evan May.

Apostolic Succession

For anybody who's interested, below is something I recently wrote to somebody who sent me a letter asking some questions about apostolic succession. I begin with the appointing of Judas' replacement in Acts 1, since he mentioned that passage.

Judas is replaced as a unique fulfillment of prophecy (Acts 1:16), and his being replaced is seen as something negative (Acts 1:20), not something positive. He's replaced by one man (Acts 1:20, 1:22), not by multiple men all claiming to be his successors. The requirements that Judas' replacement had to meet cannot possibly be met by people alive today (Acts 1:21-22). And when people like James, Paul, and Peter are killed or are nearing death, the events of Acts 1 aren't repeated. People are told to remember what Jesus and the apostles had taught (Acts 20:28-35, 2 Peter 1:13-15, 3:1-2), not to expect all apostolic teaching to be infallibly maintained in unbroken succession throughout church history.

While it would be possible for the apostles to tell people to remember their teachings without an intention to deny church infallibility, we ought to ask why the alleged assurance of having an infallible church is never mentioned. People are often told to use their memory to bring to mind what Jesus and the apostles had taught, and they're told to consult the writings of the New Testament and Old Testament authors (2 Timothy 3:15-17, 2 Peter 1:14-15, 3:1-2), but no future infallible church seems to be in view. Every passage cited as alleged evidence of an infallible church (Matthew 28:20, John 16:13, 1 Timothy 3:15, etc.) can plausibly be interpreted otherwise and, in some cases, can be shown to be unlikely to refer to an infallible church. In the context surrounding John 16:13, for example, Jesus makes comments that couldn't possibly be applied to post-apostolic men. The context of 1 Timothy 3 is the local church, not a worldwide denomination, and the church can have a role involving supporting the truth without being infallible. Etc.

You refer to Irenaeus' listing of "Popes", but he doesn't describe the bishops of Rome as Popes. The concept of a papacy isn't found anywhere in Irenaeus. He refers to the bishops of Rome having been appointed by apostles (plural), and he gives non-papal reasons for his concept of Roman primacy. Rather than giving us evidence of an early papacy, Irenaeus gives us evidence of the concept's early absence. If Irenaeus had such a concept in mind, we would expect it to be mentioned explicitly and often in his writings. It isn't mentioned at all.

Different patristic sources defined apostolic succession in different ways. Irenaeus believed that the churches in Rome, Ephesus, and other cities had a lineage of bishops from the apostles that was significant as evidence against the claims of the Gnostics. However, the circumstances in which Irenaeus was living were radically different from ours.

The fact that the church of Ephesus, for example, was faithful to apostolic teaching in Irenaeus' day doesn't prove that the same Ephesian church would always exist and always be faithful to apostolic teaching. And Irenaeus was writing less than a century after the death of the apostles. The evidential significance of a lineage of bishops in Irenaeus' day is much higher than it is today. One of the reasons Irenaeus gave for the significance of the Roman church was that Christians from around the world often traveled to Rome, so that the traditions of the Roman church would tend to reflect the traditions of Christians around the world. Rome was the capital of the empire. But Rome isn't the capital of an ongoing Roman empire today. Christians don't travel to Rome today in the same manner in which they did in the past, and our technology today allows us to much more easily hear from Christians around the world without traveling. Irenaeus goes on to explain that we must separate from bishops who don't meet moral and doctrinal requirements, and that standard alone would in my view justify separating from the bishops of Roman Catholicism. But even aside from that standard, the reasons Irenaeus gives for holding a high view of the Roman church of his day are radically different from the reasons Roman Catholics are giving us today to hold a high view of their denomination.

While various forms of apostolic succession were popular in patristic times, we often find the patristic advocates of apostolic succession including qualifiers that modern advocates don't include. And some of the patristic authors don't say anything about any type of apostolic succession, even when discussing the most foundational elements of the Christian faith and when telling people how to discern what is and isn't true Christian teaching. We find the patristic sources referring to a variety of forms of church government, including election by the people of a congregation and the appointing of church leaders against the will of the clergy. Often, people will quote what a church father said about the general principles of church government without mentioning the qualifiers the same father added in other contexts.

Many issues of church government, including apostolic succession, became important in church history. But the lack of emphasis on such issues early on, accompanied by the variety of views expressed later, suggests that the authority systems we see in Roman Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy, for example, weren't founded by the apostles. They're later developments that are neither probably nor necessarily derived from anything Jesus and the apostles taught. Even worse, some of the teachings of groups like Roman Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy can be shown to contradict what Jesus and the apostles taught. They also contradict much of what the church fathers believed. The fact that they can produce lists of bishops going back to the apostles, all the while contradicting the apostles and the church fathers, doesn't have much significance.

Who's to blame?

John W. Loftus said:

“I ran through several different scenario's of why I doubt Christianity, this being just one hypothetical example. And my question was this: what if I am wrong....who's to blame?”

You are.

Next question.

“You say it's one's moral disposition which causes people like me to doubt. Does that answer apply to why you doubt the things you doubt? Does that answer explain why you doubt certain historical claims...or scientific claims...or anthropological claims...or psychological claims....

For instance, does your moral disposition cause you to think Chevy's are a better vehicle than Ford's (if you do), or that the Colts were a better football team (even though they didn't win)? Does your moral position cause you to believe that O.J. Simpson is a murderer?

What if I claimed that your moral disposition leads you to think we actually landed on the moon, and that's the whole reason why you believe this?”

An extended straw man argument. I never offered this as a multi-purpose explanation for all forms of doubt or disbelief.

But there are cases in which it’s applicable, such as holocaust-deniers.

“And have you ever seriously studied what makes us into the people we are today? What do you know about psychology, child raising, the effects of experiences upon ours beliefs, and the fact that much of what we believe is due to the accidents of birth (i.e., when and where we are born)?”

Every educated man or woman is conversant with the idea of social conditioning, and the putative mechanisms thereof. You’re not the first person who ever went to college, John.

“ I could just as well say that your moral disposition leads you to believe, such that YOU believe despite the evidence to the contrary. I could further argue that your moral disposition is barbaric and based upon a barbaric notion of a mythical God created in your own mind. Then I could conclude by arguing that whereas you base your beliefs on your own barbaric moral disposition, I believe basd upon evidence and reasons.”

Yes, you could “say” that. You could say anything.

The question is whether we have good reason to ascribe certain mental states to certain moral states.

In this instance, I attribute infidelity to a warped moral predisposition for several reasons:

i) I accept that attribution because it’s an attribution given in Scripture, and I have good reason to believe in Scripture.

ii) I also notice a very exacting correspondence between the way in which Scripture has analyzed the behavior of unbelievers, and the way I myself observe them to behave.

iii) There are some very intelligent unbelievers who go to desperate lengths to deny the obvious or silence dissent in order to justify their unbelief.

This evasiveness and irrationality is a telltale symptom of a guilty, haunted conscience.

iv) There are also unbelievers who are quite open about how their ethical or political agenda is driving their unbelief.

“ Like I said, I am not consciously rebelling against God at all, and I know the inner workings of my mind enough to know this is true--this is all have.”

I don’t have any opinion on the merits of this claim. It’s like a man accused of a crime. If he’s innocent, he will plead innocent—but if he’s guilty, he will also plead innocent.

I’m in no position to either confirm or deny your claim. It lies outside the sphere of public verification or falsification.

You could be lying. You could be telling the truth. Or you could be self-deceived.

There’s a trivial sense in which you’re not consciously rebelling against a God who, according to you, doesn’t even exist.

The question is whether your disbelief is a case of conscious or subconscious rebellion.

And it really matters not which is true.

Subliminal rebellion against the light is just as culpable as conscious rebellion.

Once again, I’m not imputing that to you. I can’t render an informed judgment on that matter, and it’s quite beside the point even if I could.

Van Til to the rescue

When the "Truly Reformed" took issue with Bishop Wright’s contention that you can be a Christian even if you deny the bodily resurrection of Christ, the monkeys over at BHT predictably came out swinging (pardon the pun) in defense of Wright.

For the most part, they didn’t defend what he said, but merely his right to say it. But to their consternation and acute embarrassment, one of their own team members actually took the side of Marcus Borg.

And the monkeys proved themselves to be wholly incompetent at refuting his arguments, which comes as no surprise.

BHT is all about attitude. The monkeys think they can wing it on attitude alone. Just bluff your way through an argument by acting hip and using colorful language.

But as soon as they found themselves up against a fairly sophisticated critic, the in-your-face posturing and rapper rhetoric was impotent to cope with intellectual challenge.

And this point it’s time to bring in a grown-up and talk to Christopher on his own level.

“Joel, my main problem with that line of reasoning is that it is too Greek. i don’t think Paul liked logic when it came to the Resurrection.”

This cuts against the grain of the text. In 1 Cor 15, Paul is quite explicitly mounting a logical argument for the resurrection of the just.

“i liked Badiou’s basic take (yes, i know that i’m going to hell for that one) on it in Saint Paul:”

Badiou is a French philosopher, not a Bible scholar.

“It doesn’t matter if the Resurrection was an actual historical event. What matters is the individual making that Event real by personally experiencing it. Paul seems vey clear that unless one experiences the Resurrection, one is not “saved.” That makes things less about historical fact (and we should know what Kierkegaard says about that!) and more about belief. i must “die with Christ” in order to live again. That isn’t talking about accepting something as a historical fact (such as accepting that Ceasar captured Vercingetorix to end the Gallic war), that is about experiencing something presently.”


i) Christopher fails to explain how a Christian can experience the Resurrection. A characteristic of historicity is its particularity: every event is strictly unrepeatable. So, if you weren’t on the scene, you cannot experience the event.

ii) However, it is possible to experience the effect of an event, even if you live long after the event.

But you cannot experience the effect of a nonevent. You cannot experience the effect of an event that never occurred.

“As to the Resurrection as a Jewish thing, i’m siding with Brevard Childs, Richard Hays, and Donald Juel (to name a few): the Resurrection is totally not Jewish. Jews at that time did not think of things lie the Resurrection…and they certainly did not equate it with the Messiah. Now, we can continue pulling out names and throwing them into the ring and have ourselves a game to see who has read more and believes it, but that doesn’t make the Resurrection any more real than Socrates’s existence or the Flying Spaghetti Monster. It will still come down to belief, and that is something that can neve be proven true through propositional logic.”

The Jews did believe in the resurrection. But what they anticipated was a collective, endtime resurrection (e.g. Job 19:25-27; Isa 26:19; Ezk 37:1-14; Dan 12:2), not the resurrection of an individual before the eschaton.

“The problem with making the Resurrection a historical necessity is that it could be proven false.”

Two problems with this objection:

i) You can’t reasonably reject a position just because you don’t care for the consequences.

ii) The Resurrection could only be proven false if the Resurrection were false.

“Because we are saved from life under death and not simply death, we are given a new life. Being saved from death wouldn’t require a new life, as the first isn’t lost. The gaining of that new life is one’s poersonal experience of the Resurrection. That’s why baptism is important as it is a symbolic (to some, to others it is the real) experience of the Resurrection. Hmm, now we see why some say baptism is required for the remission of sins, as it is participation in the Event and not just a piece of paper. The reusrrection of the dead is primarily a Christian thing, not Jewish and not Greek.”

The salient issue is not one of what is required, but merely what is true. Something can be true regardless of its necessity, or lack thereof.

“Kent, that passage in Matthew makes it apparent that the Sadducees did not believe in the resurrection of the dead and that Jesus did believe it. i don’t believe we have any evidence that most Jews believed in the resurrection of the dead prior to Christianity (my sources only mention Pinhas ben Yair in the 2nd century CE).”

The views of the Sadducees stand in contrast to the views of the Pharisees, who did affirm the Resurrection. And the Pharisees represented the mainstream view.

“i’m not so sure we can claim that Paul argued for the historicity of the Res. He certainly argued for its factuality, but as an Event, it needn’t coincide with historical ‘facts.’”

Christopher has gone into business for himself. He acts like a novelist rather than a historian, where a creative writer can toy with alternative endings.

“As Kierkegaard said in his Postscript: Basing one’s eternal happiness on an approximation (i.e. historical “fact”) is insufficient. There must be subjectivity, or else we’re not having faith.”

Faith in what? What is the object of faith? Faith in the truth, or faith in some approximation of the truth?

“Here’s an anecdote: my grandfather dies two years ago. His body is in one of the mausoleums just off I-10 in New Orleans by the City Park Ave exit. Yet he is still alive in our memories of him and the historical fact that his body has died plays no role in his living.”

“Alive in our memories.” That’s exact;u how an atheist consoles himself over the death of his loved ones.

But memories are a sorry substitute for the real thing. And this anecdote has nothing to do with the record of the Resurrection.

“Maybe it is a misnomer to speak of him at all. Maybe it’s a misnomer to say that Jesus died: sure, the body died, but even in the creeds, we admit that he descended into hell and on the third day rose again. It’s kinda hard to do anything if one’s truly dead, eh? Maybe death is just a nice convention used to denote a particular set of experiences (by George, he’s right!). A resurrection of the dead requires a total death, else it’s just reincarnation. Or maybe language can’t really explain things unexperienced (hey Blanchot!). Or maybe i’m just speculating too much and the meaning is plain-as-day common sense hitting us all in the face.”

Once again, Christopher has gone into business for himself.

i) The NT is operating with a common sense notion of death. 1C Jews and Gentiles had a very intimate and very frequent experience with death.

ii) The Bible is admittedly dualistic. There is such a thing as the immortal soul.

iii) To say that unless we deny survival, a resurrection is just reincarnation is to impose an unscriptural condition on how the Bible is allowed to define the resurrection.

iv) I deny that Christ descended into hell.

“Maybe we have to get away from the Greek dualism that is taken for granted before we can discuss death and resurrection.”

This assumes, without benefit of argument, that dualism is a Greek concept rather than a Jewish concept.

“Yet, it is clear that resurrection isn’t a strictly Jewish idea, nor even a Greek idea. It comes from some mixture of them, which wasn’t possible until after the Maccabeean Revolt. This, i suggest, because during the revolt, Jews were asserting their identity, which emphasised a “return to the golden days” (or at least their interpretation of it) and a rejection of anything Greco-Roman. After the defeat of the Jews, Hellenism came in full force–even more so than before the revolt began.”

Christopher seems to be alluding to the late dating of Daniel. This makes sense if you share the worldview of Porphyry, which is incompatible with Christian faith.

Christopher also ignores all the scholarship in defense of the 6C dating (e.g. Archer, Baldwin, Hasel, Kitchen, Millard, Waltke, Wiseman, Yamauchi, & Young).

“Oh, and with regards to resurrection in the OT:
(1) It seems accepted that interpreted Ezekiel 37 came through Maimonides.”

Christopher should consult the standard commentary on Ezekiel by Daniel Block.

“(2) It appears that Job was asking a rhetorical question.”

i) Even if that were true, doesn’t his rhetorical question anticipate an affirmative answer?

ii) In context, the resurrection of the just is central to Job’s hope of acquittal. If he cannot be acquitted in the life, then an eschatological acquittal on the day of judgment is his only hope.

“YAW, how is claiming that a resurrection first requires the object in question to be absolutely dead an acceptance of German existentialism? i’m saying that either Jesus was totally dead and was resurrected or Jesus only lost his physical body and his “resurrection” was more of a reincarnation than a ‘resurrection.’”

Once again, this is a made-up criterion of what a genuine resurrection requires. It has no basis in the Biblical account of Easter—or the Bible generally.

“With statements in the Gospels such as people thinking certain figures (John the Baptist and Jesus specifically) as being other figures (Elijah, etc) would give more creedence to the Jews believing the latter. i am asking about the common definition of “resurrection” and its required “death.” No “good Christian” will say that Jesus just “swooned,” but will assert that Jesus died. Taking that one step further, i suggested that by asserting that Jesus descended into hell implies that Jesus didn’t die but rather lost his physical body. In other words, i’m questioning what is meant by “death” by taking things as literally and seriously as possible.”

The salient question is what death would have meant to the original audience.

“If reality is real, regardless, then how come i can place one hand under cold water and another under hot water, then place them both in a vat of water that is of a uniform temperature, i can experience both “hot” and “cold.” So, there i am experiencing two extremes. According to the view that “reality is real regardless of experience,” at least one of my simultaneous experiences must be true. But, which is it? You see, “hot” and “cold” are arbitrary definitions based on an arbitrary scale that measures the motion of atoms. So, to be “real” about it, the water wasn’t “cold” or “hot.” Likewise, i suggested previously that “dead” and “alive” are also arbitrary distinctions that may not be as “real” as we believe them to be. If “death” is nothing more than physical absence from this “life” after the temporary presence in it, then isn’t even God “dead” in that sense? Again, we’re making arbitrary distinctions. When it comes to “death” and “resurrection”, though, we like to equivocate and make up a “second death” in which one “really dies that time” even though one is already “dead.” And even your assertions such as “The fact is that the Earth was hurtling around the Sun in a rather elliptical fashion, and the other planets were doing the same” are all firmly planted in experience. None of that could have been proven without usage of the senses. So, we’re still in experience. The only problem i have with that is that some people like to think that their arbitrary configuration of their experience is the only right one.”

i) The fact that our metrical systems are arbitrary doesn’t mean that our experience is arbitrary. And the fact that sensations of hot and cold are context-dependent doesn’t render the experience unreal.

ii) Moreover, this is an argument from analogy minus the argument. Where is the supporting argument to show that life and death are actually parallel to hot and cold?

“teh010gy rulez1!, “Event” is capitalized because it is a specific term used in Badiou and Zizek, but with other (such as Deleuze’s “Singularity”) similar phrases in other philosophers. For Badiou, it is the moment in which there is a violent rupture in meaning through which some kind of new perspective previously unknown emerges. With Paul, Badiou claims the Event to be the Resurrection because it is the moment in which one no longer lives under death and begins to live under the Spirit that was previously unknown and totally foreign to the self.”

This sounds like existentialism instead of exegesis.

“Recently, i noticed a simpler parallel: getting glasses. i’m near-sighted and didn’t know it. For me, my perception was normal because it wasn’t too different from 20/20 but enough so that when i looked at a brick wall, it appeared as a single mass. When i got glasses, the world was opened up to me in a totally different, alien way in which i saw the individual bricks.”

To say that perception is observer-relative is no argument for the claim that life and death or resurrection are observer-relative in the same sense. Once again, where’s the supporting argument connecting the two? Christopher likes to use illustrations as a substitute for argument. It begs the question of whether the illustration does, in fact, successfully illustrate the point at issue.

“i never suggested Kierkegaard should be the arbiter of hermeneutics. In fact, i don’t believe anybody should be the final arbiter. We’re all human and we’re all prone to error.”

Christopher has done a fine job of illustrating that liability in his own case.

“With that said though, my acceptance of Kierkegaard’s subjectivity (which is in some ways a misnomer) or your rejection of it doesn’t make either one of us true. But, that does give others hints as to what framework from which one is trying to understand the experienced world.”

How is this the least bit relevant to the exegesis of Lk 24 or Jn 20-21 or 1 Cor 15?

“Lastly, my only distinction between factuality and historicity is that of experience. While someone can disprove the historical Resurrection of Jesus, nobody can disprove my experience of it.”

Effects without causes? So he can experience a nonevent. Hmm.

“That would be on the same lines as discounting a blind man’s description of a book because the man does not speak of the book’s color.”

Would it be along the same lines? A color-blind man cannot experience the color of a coloring book, but if there were no coloring book, there’d be nothing at all to experience. A blind man cannot see a coloring book, but he can sense a coloring book. A color-blind man cannot see the colors in a coloring book, but he can still see the book.

“Secondly, i am not promoting gnosticism. i do believe that Jesus’ Resurrection was a bodily one, but i am not basing my belief upon any historical account. i am basing it upon my own experience of it.”

What is his port of entry to this experience? Unlike the disciples, we know the Resurrection by description rather than acquaintance. We were not eyewitnesses to the event.

“YAW, i have given you my definitions. When we speak of “dead,” what do we mean by it? After all, “physical death” is really just one’s absence from this existence if we talk about some other existence coming immediately after it (i.e. “heaven” and “hell”). So, what is meant when the Gospels say that Jesus died? Is it simply leaving this existence? If so, how can that be dead in the more common sense of ‘cease to exist’?”

The common sense according to whom? A modern materialist? Or the original author and his target audience?

“Secondly, as i have stated, temperature is an arbitrary measurement created by us humans. There is nothing a priori about it as it is based on common experiences. And, as to the question i ask, that originated in George Berkeley (which, i assume is what you mean by your ad hom “the typical bunk that Philo 101 students engage in to sound smart”*).”

i) No, a metrical system is not given in experience. But a metrical system is applied to something which is given in experience.

ii) Anyway, how is this germane to the Resurrection?

“You’re right that i’m “playing an artful language game” (i.e. sophistry) because that’s all this is. Language is important because it is the only way to communicate concepts. Furthermore, language is an arbitrary collection of conventional concepts that are actually quite liquid. The problem, though, is that everyone assumes that what someone implies when saying “Colorless green ideas sleep furiously” (yes, i just quoted Chomsky) or “Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo” (quoting Steve Pinker there) is also what others will understand when hearing those sound patterns.
The reason why you believe i have an “inability to use language intelligibly” is because of the gap between transmission and reception. There is no guarantee that what i just said will be understood by anybody else the way it is within me. We assume that an artful use of language will get the job done, but that’s not always the case. We see this all the time with jokes when someone “doesn’t get it”: there was some sort of community being defined by the understanding of the joke and those in that community “got it” and laughed. Those that did not enter into that community (either by ignorance or by choice), didn’t ‘get it.’”

i) The fact that communication may break down does nothing to subtract from the incidents of successful communication. Indeed, unless there were such a thing as successful communication, there would be no way of detecting unsuccessful communication. Successful communication supplies the frame of reference.

ii) Christopher is dependent on the transmission process to make his own point.

iii) If the message is garbled in transmission, we will know that because the output will be gibberish.

But if the output is intelligible, then there is no gap, or at least no serious corruption, between the input and the output.

“Also, if we’re to believe that the entire dogma of Christianity rests on the Resurrection, then what about the whole life of Jesus as well?”

The Christian faith rises or falls on many events Scripture.

“It is commonly believed that Jesus must have been born of a virgin and sinless (in the very least).”

He had to be sinless. It isn’t clear that he had to be virgin-born.

He was virgin-born because, in Scripture, some sort of miraculous conception is a divine sign of a major figure in redemptive history (Isaac, Samson, Samuel, John the Baptist).

“Yet, Paul completely ignores all of that stuff which later became Christian dogma. It’s not that Paul was against it (or even for it), but Paul seems to have been ambivalent to it.”

Classic argument from silence. Unlike the gospel writers, Paul is not writing as a biographer or historian.

“My point with the Resurrection was that its past factuality is unimportant compared to its present factuality found in my experience of it.”

How is a cause unimportant to the effect?

“Whoah, Nelly! First off, i never said that “resurrection” doesn’t mean “resurrection.” As i said in that post, as well as the two before it, i want to know what is meant when the Gospels say that Jesus died. What does that imply? With that in mind, then, what is resurrection? We’re tossing these words out and assuming that everyone knows exactly what we mean by them…and i have a suspicion that not only is that wrong, but that even with both “meanings” in place, they’re contradictory. When it comes to the Eastern religions, their concept of reincarnation is not the same as the Western resurrection. Let’s talk Hindu for a moment: everything we experience is maya (that is, illusion). The reality of everything including the pantheon of gods) is that of Brahma the ineffible. What is termed “death” is just what i asked: absence from this world of experience (which is an illusion, btw). It isn’t the implication of “ceases to exist absolutely” which does seem implied in the Western notion of the word ‘death.’”

“Ceases to exist absolutely” is not the “Western” notion of death. It is merely the view espoused by a physicalist.

And it’s not the Jewish conception of death, either in the OT or the NT or Second Temple Judaism. The mortalism of the Sadducees was exceptional, which is why it stands out.

“Phillip, when i was saying that Jesus “only lost his physical body,” i was referring to the notion that death involves the death of the body and not of the self (or as you put it, “his core of existence”). But, given that, then “reality” isn’t what we typically experience, is it? If our existence is something beyond this bodily world of experience, then reality is something removed from the possibility of our perception. In which case, we still have to ascertain what is “reality” then. It’s nice to say that God sees “reality” in which we grasp at whatever without ever “getting it,” but that doesn’t mean that we have any access to that “reality.” For us, as mankind, reality is largely our perception. The sky is blue (or the equivalent of that color in whatever language) because the majority of people experience the sky as the hue we call “blue.” There’s nothing in “reality” that makes the sky blue, it’s just an arbitrary measurement to make life more convenient and communtable to other humans.”

Two more problems:

i) Color perception is not purely subjective, like a dream. There is something in the external stimulus which, in conjunction with our sensory processing system, registers a particular color.

If the stimulus were different, the color would differ.

ii) More to the point, if God “sees” reality, then we can have access to God’s take on reality via divine revelation.

It’s fascinating how Christopher can totally overlook the role of revelation.

“Reality, at least for us humans, is all about perception and inter-subjective agreement. There’s nothing (that we can tell) that makes things as they are. That’s just how we perceive them. For instance, if everything were only one color, we wouldn’t be able to distinguish distance because that is based on the observation of variations in color and contrast between different colors. There’s nothing inherent to a fly that makes it 5 centimeters (or however long) long. That’s just how we perceive it and measure it according to our made-up measurements. We believe a mile to be 1280 yards because we have agreed on those measurements (either by “force” in schooling or by “choice”). There’s nothing in “reality” that states ‘1 mile must equal exactly 1280 yards, or else God will smite it down.’”

i) Reality is “all about perception” only if you’re a radical empiricist or an idealist.

ii) For theological purposes, it is perfectly adequate to define the death of Christ according to the phenomenology of death in human experience. We enjoy a direct experience of an embodied existence, while we also observe the phenomenon of death.

And we experience a mental life as well.

iii) The Bible also distinguishes between body and soul. In teaches the survival of the soul.

iv) The Bible was written to be understood. It means whatever the writers meant it to mean, according to how they expected the average reader of their own day and place would take it to mean.

That is how you fix the meaning of the “death” of Christ.

From this one can derive an abstract concept which does not depend on an incidental resemblance or correspondence between appearance and reality.

To take his own example, whether the sky is really green even if it seems to be blue is irrelevant to the existence of the sky itself. We can still make truth-valued statements about the sky regardless of its true color.

“Jim, those were two separate arguments. Sorry that they were taken as one big conglomeration. i’m asking these things because we throw about the word “dead” as if it has only one connotation and it has been used since the dawn of time in the language we currently speak from the culture in which we live.”

The semantic standard is not our own culture, but the cultural preunderstanding of the original author and audience.

“Phillip, it seems you accept Scottish Common Sense (or maybe good ole American Pragmatism), but i don’t. For me “reality” isn’t that obvious without assuming a crapload of things i’m not sure of (nor can i be).

“Back to experience, though. How do you know we experience Reality? Is there a way to sneak outside of human existence, check it out, then return and report back, especially if we “don’t perceive it well.” How do we know that we don’t perceive it well? Who exited experience and gave us some significant discourse on Reality? We have no idea what we are perceiving: the only thing we do know is that we are perceiving. Nobody can prove that the sensations i am currently getting imply any kind of corporeal body. It is simply a convention we use and assume as true so that we can live in “common sense.” Yet, as Berkeley indicates, there is very little reason to believe that reality is anything more than series of sensations on a noncorporeal brain without assuming something prior.”

Christopher overstates his case.

i) It is not simply a social convention that we believe in the external world.

One reason we believe in the external world is because that is how we experience the world. There appears to be an extramental world with which we interact.

Of course, that could be an illusion, but the appearance is given in experience itself. It is not a social convention, like a metrical system.

ii) Moreover, it is quite reasonable to assume that I seem to perceive an extramental object because there is an extramental object causing my sensation. The object is the source of the sensory stimulus.

Sure, it’s easy to come up with counterexamples like dreams and hallucinations and phantom limbs.

However, these would only count as counterexamples under the assumption that it is possible to distinguish between a dream or hallucination and the real thing.

iii) But even though Christopher overplays his hand, he still has a point. You and I cannot slip out of our skin in order to compare appearance and reality.

Evidentialism is defenseless against this objection.

And that's where it takes a transcendental argument to do the job.

Despite the discrepancy between appearance and reality, we are able to function in the world.

Despite the fact that we frequently misunderstand one another, successful communication occurs on a regular basis.

So what we should ask is, how is this possible? What must be true, what must be in place, for us to communicate and to manipulate the world around us?

Can a secular worldview bridge the gap? Or does this correlation, short of correspondence, depend on some sort of preestablished harmony?

Can an intellectual be saved?

Here’s a phony dilemma from John Loftus:

“If I tried to figure it out and I wasn’t supposed to try, then maybe educated people don’t have a chance to be saved. If, however, I’m just not smart enough to figure it out, then only intelligent people who study it out have a chance to be saved. Maybe the only people who have a chance to be saved are those who aren’t educated or who aren’t very intelligent? But who gave us our mental equipment in the first place? Didn’t God create us? Does this mean that when we’re born some of us are condemned from the start because of our mental equipment leading us to believe, or not? And if God gave it to us, and if only unintelligent people can be saved, then it’s set in stone the day we’re born what the possibilities for each one of us are.”

This is a really obvious straw man argument. Both believers and unbelievers range along an I.Q. continuum from utter simpletons to men of genius. You can find equally dumb and equally bright guys on both sides of the ledger.

The problem is not with one’s mental equipment, but with one’s moral predisposition.

For example, an evil genius will use his brilliant mind to devise evil schemes.

I Blame the Zombies

Yes, story-time abounds in apostate land. John Loftus quotes for us an excerpt from his book. I very much hope that this is not meant to be representative of the rest of the content in his work. I’m very curious why he hasn’t given us a preview of the rigorous argumentation that he supplies for us in his new book Why I Rejected Christianity. Or perhaps, the rest of the work is indeed like this, where we read page after page of the precious opinion of Mr. John Loftus. Hopefully, Mr. Loftus has not spent so much time and hard work to merely broadcast atheistic presuppositions that can be found anywhere on the internet. Surely, Mr. Loftus has given us something new, something exclusive, something a little more than that which can be found at any rest-stop on the secular web. Or perhaps he hasn’t.

On a tangential thought, the guys at Debunking Christianity are indeed an interesting group of folks. They combine the art of “tag-team” and the opposing art of “every-man-for-himself” quite skillfully. On the one hand, they have no problem with defending one of their buds against opposition. But on the other hand, they are terribly unwilling to pick of the scraps of their leader’s refuted arguments and defend them for themselves. And they disquise this tactic quite skillfully. They’ll come over here and reply to one of Steve’s responses to one of Loftus’ pieces, but rather than defend Loftus’ statements that have already been so clearly destroyed, they’ll come at Steve from a completely different angle and question him concerning why he hasn’t answered questions that have not been raised. When this happens, I just take this as their realization that their leader’s arguments remain in the can.

But their skill does not end here. Then there’s the approach of repeating an already-refuted argument in a different context to a new audience. If a professional magician never repeats his tricks, should we not expect Bozo-the-clown to do the same? These guys are smart enough to know that the lighting and mirrors are not always precise enough to pull off the same trick twice to the same audience. So, on their way out of the door they collect the left-over pieces of their argument, get out some tape and super glue, only to put the baby back together for another audience to enjoy debunking.

Anyway, what Johh Loftus tells us is insightful:

What if I’m wrong about Christianity?

What if I’m wrong about Christianity? What then? Well, then I will go to hell, however conceived, when I die. And what did I do to deserve to go to hell? I sinned and I didn’t believe in Jesus’ atonement, however conceived, and in his bodily resurrection from the grave.

Notice that from the beginning, Loftus is placing the blame for his unbelief on somebody else. He uses twice the phrase “however conceived,” acknowledging different views on this subject. In other words, the underlying, unstated assumption is “Why can God hold me accountable for truth if some people can’t put their finger on truth?” But the question lies in faulty, unbiblical assumptions (we necessarily note that they are “unbiblical” because Loftus has entered somewhat of an internal critique with the statement, “What if I am wrong?” yet he is always ready to fluctuate in and out of the internal critique). The Bible states clearly that creation itself leaves Loftus without excuse to suppress the truth. And, as far as I know, Loftus doesn’t subscribe to any atonement theory. So, you can’t remain sitting on the sidelines blaiming the football game that you never entered because it was overly rough. Loftus has made no attempt to jump in. Rather, he’s made an active attempt in the opposite direction, and he can only blame himself for that.

Whose fault would this be? Mine?

Yes, it would be your fault for living in sin with no desire of righting yourself before God. Mr. Loftus, you remain in Adam, and you are clenching your hands to the walls of his federal headship. You seek no mediator.

I have honest doubts.

And thus Loftus fluctuates out of the internal critique.

Am I to be blamed because I couldn’t understand Christianity?

1. You are to be blamed for your sin. The fact that you live in an atmosphere that has been affected by sin–the fact that you, as a result of sin, have a mind that is unable to accept the things of the Spirit–is your own fault.

2. Loftus forgets to differentiate between simplicity and ease. The claims of Christianity, especially the central components of the gospel, are quite simple. They are not at all hard to understand. They are simple, but they are not very easy to accept. I could give you precise instructions concerning a 747 jet that I wanted you to fly. The instructions would be plain and simple, but the task would not be easy. Therefore, Loftus can only blame himself that his sinful pallette cannot easily accept the simple claims of Christianity.

I tried with everything in me. I even spent several years earning three master’s degrees and studies in a Ph.D. program to figure my faith out.

Giving up? Is that your fault or God’s? How often, Mr. Loftus, do you ask the Holy Spirit for illumination? And when a truth of Scripture is made clear, are you ready to accept it, or reject it on the basis of atheistic assumptions?

If I tried to figure it out and I wasn’t supposed to try, then maybe educated people don’t have a chance to be saved. If, however, I’m just not smart enough to figure it out, then only intelligent people who study it out have a chance to be saved. Maybe the only people who have a chance to be saved are those who aren’t educated or who aren’t very intelligent? But who gave us our mental equipment in the first place? Didn’t God create us? Does this mean that when we’re born some of us are condemned from the start because of our mental equipment leading us to believe, or not? And if God gave it to us, and if only unintelligent people can be saved, then it’s set in stone the day we’re born what the possibilities for each one of us are.

All of this can be answered by stating two facts:

1. No one deserves to be saved, and if apostates like Loftus continue to reject the faith that has been clearly demonstrated, they can only blaim themselves.

2. God will save his elect unfailingly, and he will do so through monergistic regeneration.

What if I’m simply deceiving myself? What if my doubts about Christianity and my atheism aren’t honest at all, and my claim that they are is disingenuous?

Indeed, this is the case. So, Mr. Loftus, let me tell you, “This is the case.” Now, someone has revealed this to you. What excuse, now, do you have?

Perhaps unconsciously I’m rebelling against God.

Actually, you rebel against God actively and naturally, and this has both conscious and unconscious manifestations. Why are you asking questions that Scripture has already answered? What, specifically, have you found unsatisfactory about the Bible’s answers to these questions?

Well, I’m simply not consciously aware of any attempt to rebel against God, nor am I consciously aware of any attempt to deceive myself at all.

Yes, I guess the zombies overtook Loftus and forced him to create a blog called “Debunking Christianity.”

But what if I’m being deceived by the traditional devil to have these doubts? Maybe he is playing tricks on me, making me think my doubts are honest ones, when they are not? Well, if that’s so, then I have no chance to win a debate with him.

That is, apart from regeneration. Loftus is quick to take one Scriptural principle into account, but then ignore all of the rest.

According to the traditional faith he’s much too intelligent and powerful for me to overcome. If he deceives me, then I am deceived. The question is why an all-powerful God didn’t help me. The devil wouldn’t have a chance against God, but why does God do nothing to help me overcome my doubts?

If you are one of God’s elect, he will not fail to save you. He will bring you to saving faith. He provides for his people, and salvation is wholly and completely his work. God saves all whom he wills.

And yet, on the other side of the coin, we cannot forget about human responsibility: Mr. Loftus actively rejects the faith.

Evan May.

Greg Bahnsen's Self-Appointed Internet Interlocuter (thick-headedness instantiated): Part IV

Amature atheologian, Dawson Bethrick, constantly brags about how he understand Greg Bahnsen and Van Tillian presuppositionalism. His method has been to misrepresent the position horrendously, and then when people (rightly!) dismiss him for being a hack, albeit a witty hack, he then engages in the game "out-wordsmith the wordsmith." Most people do not have the time nor desire to play with someone who not only misinterprets the words of his primary source, but then engages in misrepresenting what a defender of said source says in defense of the source. Basically, Bethrick is big on rhetoric, little on logic (and reading comprehension).

I decided to take one sample of Bethrick's drivel and show how he completely misunderstands and misrepresents his interlocutor. This will serve as a one stop shop for those who, when Bethrick asks, "show how I misrepresent presuppositionalism, Greg Bahnsen, Van Til, etc.," need to provide the evidence he requests for without having to spend the maddening hours showing not only how Bethrick misrepresents their defense but also who they're defending. This is an ongoing series and this post is part IV. Parts 1-3 will be listed directly below:

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

In this post I'll be looking at the first charge of prejudice on Bethrick's post
Bahnsen's Three Charges of Prejudice. Part 3 (above) dealt with Bethricks introductionary comments and has already done enough damage to Bethrick's reputation that I hardly need to continue. But, sometimes, in war, it is not enough to just beat a country, you sometimes will have to totally cripple them by dropping an a-bomb. So, we can all climb aboard this Enola Gay as we proceed to decimate what's left of Bethrick-land (inhabited by thick-headed people who seem unable to "get" anything).

Bethrick begins by quoting Bahnsen's book, Always Ready:

"The first [indication of] prejudice is the assumption that the Biblical text is no different from any other written document which we find in our natural experience throughout history - which of course begs the fundamental question over which the believer and unbeliever are arguing!" (p. 136)

Now in Part III above I decisively showed how Bethrick did not stick to the context and, indeed, seemed totally unaware of the context. This was especially embarrassing since Bethrick made it a point to say that his (mis)interpretation of Bahnsen was based on "the context." This is important because Bahnsen's "three charges of prejudice" follow on the heels of a doubter basing his objections on "what seems likely" to him. In part III I explain Bahnsen's context and argue against Bethrick that Bahnsen was justified in making the claim that "what seems likely" to someone is not a firm foundation from which someone should launch critiques. I pointed out that Dr. Bahnsen tells us that, "In the place of research and honest assessment of available evidence concerning some aspect of the Bible, many unbelievers have substituted personal conjecture about what 'seems likely' to them" (p. 135, emphasis mine). So we can see that "what seems likely" is juxtaposed with "research and honest assessment of available evidence concerning some aspect of the Bible." That is to say, "what seems likely" is to ignore, neglect, overlook, pass over, pay no heed to the available evidence; and, if one is familiar with some of our claims, they will handle assess those claims in a deceitful, devious, dishonest, evasive, shady, sneaky, under-the-table-ish, and underhanded way.

So, now we know the type of person who Bahnsen is talking about. To this person, "what seems likely" is based on prejudice, not on honest assessment of the evidence. So, this person has made the claim that we cannot trust our Bible. During the apologetic dialogue we find that this person has not done his homework. Instead of giving us reasons for why we should not trust the Bible, he just says that it "seems likely to him" that it just "must have" been corrupted. Bahnsen addresses "unbelievers who reason this way" (p.136). What way? Well, their reasoning is:

P1. Some messages get "garbled or distorted" in transmission (Always Raedy, p.135-36).

P2. The Bible is a message.

C1. Therefore the Bible was garbled or distorted.

This is the correct translation of Bahnsen's enthymematic statement. One can easily note that this argument is fallacious (the conclusion goes beyind the premise). Furthermore, Bahnsen then points out that this type of argument is prejudiced. It assumes that since books by mere humans have had transmission problems, therefore the Bible, in all likehood, has as well. But, this assumes that the Bible is a mere human book. Therefore, the argument assumes that the Bible is not divine in order to prove that it is not divine. Having laid this foundation, let's continue on with Bethrick's post.

In response to the above Bethrick writes,

If it is the case that "the assumption that the Biblical text is no different from any other written document...begs the fundamental question over which the believer and unbeliever are arguing," wouldn't the opposite assumption - namely the assumption that the biblical text is significantly "different from any other document which we find in our natural experience throughout history" - also "beg the fundamental question over which the believer and unbeliever are arguing"?

Here Bethrick takes it that he's scored a point. What is interesting, though, is that Bethrick takes himself to be an expert on Bahnsen and Van Til. Indeed, he arrogantly told me that if I wanted to learn about what Bahnsen and Van Til meant then I should "come over to his blog." But if he was the expert he claims then why does he not know that Bahnsen would commend Bethrick's point. Bethrick has Bahnsen's book on Van Til (VT: Readings & Analysis) but seems unaware of pages, 482-83, 518-20, 523-26, and 650-52. But this is odd for someone who claims to have studied this "tome in depth." More evidence can be found in Van Til. Van Til and Bahnsen all admitted that everyone reasons in a circle, or begs the question, when ultimate authorities are debated. Van Til writes,

[T]his brings up the point of circular reasoning. The charge is constantly made that if matters stand thus with Christianity, it has written its own death warrant as far as intelligent men are concerned. Who wishes to make such a simple blunder in elementary logic, as to say that we believe something to be true because it is in the Bible? Our answer to this is briefly that we prefer to reason in a circle to not reasoning at all. We hold it to be true that circular reasoning is the only reasoning that is possible to finite man. [...] Unless we are larger than God we cannot reason about him any other way, than by a transcendental or circular argument. The refusal to admit the necessity of circular reasoning is itself an evident token of opposition to Christianity. (A Survey of Christian Epistemology, p. 12)

So, the point of Bahnsen's charge of begging the question is not that begging the question on ultimate authorities is bad, but rather Bahnsen's point is to point out that the person also begs the question. Bahnsen intends to point out that the supposedly "neutral" objector is really prejudiced. He's not coming to the debate as a blank-slate, as it were. So, far from Bahnsen being worried that he's "begging the question," what we have here is Bahnsen showing the one who pretends to be neutral is not. For anyone with even a modicum of understanding of presuppositionalism this should have been clear. For those who do not understand presuppositionalism (as in our friend Bethrick) the elementary blunder is understandable. This entry is not for defending this idea, but rather to point out that Bethrick misunderstands presuppositionalism, on a basic point.

Bethrick continues to show his ignorance regarding presuppositionalism, and Bahnsen's works. He writes,

Bahnsen's rebuttal to reasonable impartiality regarding texts presented for review to non-believers requires him to take for granted the premise that the bible is singularly different from other texts without the need to first establish this premise. In other words, he takes the bible's utter uniqueness as a self-sufficient primary which does not need to be validated.

Yes, Bahnsen does take the Bible thusly. This is not new to Bahnsen, though. The idea of the self-attestation of God's word his a long held position, with a fine pedigree behind it. So, we can add Bethrick's general ignorance of Christian scholarship to his list of comprehension problems and scholarly ineptitude. It's simple, really:

How would we establish the authority of the Bible? Jesus taught with self-attesting authority. His words did not need the authority of another person or some "evidence" to back it up (Matt. 7:29). The standard by which we are to judge all teaching is the word of God (1 John 4:11). The Bible says, "let God be true, though all men are liars! (Romans 3:4). No man is in the position to talk back to God (Romans 9:20). Those who do, speak to soon and must contend with Jehovah (Job 40:1-5). There is no authority, evidence, or argument that is more authoritative than God's. The Westminster Confession of Faith summarizes this biblical doctrine: Section I: IV. The authority of the Holy Scripture, for which it ought to be believed, and obeyed, depends not upon the testimony of any man, or Church; but wholly upon God (who is truth itself) the author thereof: and therefore it is to be received, because it is the Word of God. Therefore, if one needed some authority higher than the Bible, to prove that the Bible was the highest authority, then one would be engaging on a mission determined to end in frustration. That is because if someone did prove that the Bible was the ultimate authority, by some authority which was higher than the Bible, then one would, simultaneously, disprove the Bible.

Therefore, for Bethrick to ask Bahnsen to establish the Bible's unique and ultimate authority is for Bethrick to assume that the Bible is not the highest authority that one could appeal to, and thus beg the fundamental question. How ironic! This is yet another basic plank in presuppositional apologetics. This is also covered in chapter 6 of the book Bethrick is using for his ammunition. Therefore we see that Bethrick fails to understand the rich, broad, and varied arguments which form the cohesiveness of presuppositionalism. He's anything but a "Bahnsen expert." Therefore, Bethrick's missile fails to find its target. All it is, is an autobiographical remark. That is, all Bethrick succeeded in doing was showing everyone how much he does not know about presuppositionalism. If Bethrick did know how Bahnsen would answer, then he fallaciously and underhandedly sets up an opponent as not being able to answer a question that he has already dealt with. Bottom line: either way Bethrick loses.

Bethrick asks, "But is it really so inappropriate to view the books of the bible as 'no different from any other written document'?" But that's what we're debating. So, you can beg the question, if you want. As long as you know you're doing this, then fine. Once I note this, you'll get nowhere.

Bethrick stumbles, "Bahnsen gives no reason against this other than that it allegedly 'begs the fundamental question over which the believer and unbeliever are arguing.'" As if that were not reason enough. So, if Bethrick wants to assume that Christianity is false to prove that it is false, be my quest. Note that all he'd be offering is an external criticism, highly unpersuasive.

Bethrick insightfully notes, "The Muslim could deploy the same tactic with respect to the Koran." You're right, he could! Bahnsen has pointed this out over and over, if he was consulted than Bethrick might not appear so ignorant of those who he critiques. Indeed, if the Muslim were consistent with the Koran, he would do so. Furthermore, Bethrick assumes reason in order to argue for reason. Bethrick assumes that he's autonomous, in order to prove he's autonomous.

Bethrick states the obvious,

In actuality, there are overriding general features of the bible that it shares with all other written documents which put the bible on the same level. For example, like other written documents, the bible itself is a written document. Like other written documents, the bible consists of words written on pages which can be read by readers who can read the language in which those words are written. Also, like other written documents, the bible consists of written statements which readers can examine and relate to the broader sum of knowledge which they have acquired throughout their lives, and thus form judgments about the quality of its content, whether it is true or false, useful or useless, meaningful or meaningless, etc. This is the case with the bible just as it is with a play by Shakespeare, a poem by Pushkin, a play by Molliere, an essay by Jefferson, or a book by Greg Bahnsen.

But these facts are not what makes the Bible different. It is the propositional content, along with who authored the book that make it different. If these simple facts make a book "on the same level" then why are there genres of literature? Why is poetry distinguished from history? Bethrick's argument looks like this: since humans have two arms and legs, and since ape's have two arms and legs, therefore apes and humans are "on the same level." Indeed, what does "on the same level" mean here? Bethrick does not elaborate. Is "Dick and Jane" on "the same level" as Shakespeare? In one sense yes (a trivial one). In a more important sense, no. I'm afraid this is not only ignorant, but extremely sloppy.

Bethrick lamments,

In the case of Shakespeare's play, Pushkin's poem, Molliere's play, Jefferson's essay and Bahnsen's book, each can be judged by its content. Is Bahnsen saying that we should do this in the case of every written document except the biblical text?

To stand as judge over the Bible, assuming God's word as guilty before proven innocent, is "to beg the fundamental question." Furthermore, to "judge" something is to assume certain standards by which that something can be judged. In the Christian worldview, the standard by which we judge the content of the Bible is the Bible itself. All of this is basic stuff. Christianity 101. Why is it that almost all "ex-Christians" have less of an understanding of the Bible than my 6 yr. old has?

Bethrick asks, " Is Bahnsen worried about what outcome may transpire if someone does judge the bible by its content?" Yep, that's it! Bahnsen sat around, before his death, "worried" about people judging the Bible by autonomous reasoning. This is like what I heard on my kids playground. Some kid told another kid to jump off the top of the slide, about 20 ft off the ground. When a kid wouldn’t do it the other kids said, "what? you afraaaiiid?" Thus we see Bethrick's playground tactic. Moreover, we're fine if you judge the Bible by "it's content." That requires, obviously, judging it by it's content, all of it. The problem, as Bahnsen is illustrating in his book, is that people refuse to really judge the Bible, by its content. For example, they will "judge" that God is immoral for wiping people out. But if one were to take all the "content" of the Bible then one would find that this is an unfair charge. Since all life is God's. And since He is just and holy, and since men are criminal in his universe, God may punish criminals in a just way. This objection, then, takes part of the content of the Christian worldview. If the objector took all of the content then his objection reads thus: "God is a big meanie for giving criminals their just reward." The unstated assumption is that criminals should not be punished.

Bethrick then quotes the rest of Bahnsen's "first charge of prejudice:"

If the Bible is, as it claims, the inspired word of Almighty God, then the history of its textual transmission may very well be quite different than other human documents since God would have ordained that its text be preserved with greater integrity than that of ordinary books. (p. 136)

Bethrick then comments,

"This is a common refrain coming from apologists, but the special pleading and appeal to unseen magical forces are simply embarrassing."

Embarrassing for Bethrick! The fallacy of Special Pleading occurs when someone argues that a case is an exception to a rule based upon an irrelevant characteristic that does not define an exception. I'd say that if a book was inspired from an Almighty God, who governs all details in history, and makes sure that men have His word, is not an "irrelevant detail." Indeed, Bethrick assumes that the book is like all other books, thus he continues to "beg the fundamental question." Furthermore, note the emotive language employed by Bethrick. Of course its always nice when preaching to the choir to use language like the above. But if Behtrick thinks that he's going to have any one other than "the party line" give his arguments the time of day then he should stop with the throw-away arguments.

Bahnsen then, just to write, goes into a wholly irrelevant tirade. He writes,

"Today one can go into any bookstore and pull a Mario Puzo novel off the shelf, and the same title sitting right next to it is precisely the same, right down to a typo on page 172, since they were replicated from the same print master by the same automated technology. Modern technology has at the very least significantly reduced the enormous potential for error that plagues copying texts by hand. No doubt the bible's copyists would have been green with envy had they known about the ease with which their precious bibles could be mass produced today. So ironically, Bahnsen is correct, in a way he did not intend, when he supposes that "the history of [the bible's] textual transmission" is "different than other human documents," since there is no shortage of "other human documents" whose textual reproduction is far more faithful to their respective originals than one could ever hope for in the case of the biblical text, since the automated print technology in use today was not used in the preservation of the biblical text."

But what does this have to do with the objection? The objector has said that the book probably was not transmitted properly because people did not have copy machines. The response by Bahnsen is that they would not need copy machines if an all-powerful God controlled the process. The objection assumes that this premise is false. Therefore it "begs the fundamental question" as well as not "judging the book by all its content." Why would Bethrick not want to judge the book by its content? Isn't that what he lamented about above?

This sums up part IV. Bethrick has been shown, again, to be completely ignorant and uncharitable with those who he critiques. Bethrick constantly blunders through his post and also fails to live up to the criteria even he proposes (i.e, judging by content). The last paragraph of Bethrick party 1 is a bunch of ignorant conjecture. Basically Bethrick states that since God is all powerful then why did he need to give a written revelation? Bethrick pontificates that God could have "zapped" knowledge about Him into everyone. Despite the fact that God has done this, so-to-speak (cf Rom. 1), Bethrick's argument look like this: "God could have done X, therefore he should have." Upon analysis, this is simply ridiculous. I "could have" had Lucky Charms for breakfast, therefore I should have!